Welll looks like our next chance at getting REAL health care reform will be...

[samrock]

In 2025 ... sigh.. 1993, 2009, 2025... we get 1 shot every 16 years I guess. Hope I can love that long with the mess we got now..

[tekisui]

1. Don't be so fatalistic. It isn't dead yet.

[dhpgetsit]

2. Dammit

March on your state capitol in August, or better yet Washington DC.

[daa]

9. Yes it is

If you look at all that is being talked about, Dr. Dean has it right, it is called INSURANCE REFORM, not HEALTH REFORM. Nothing changes. If you live in say, Pennsylvania, you will continue to have the same choice of TWO with double digit increases. And by cutting Medicare the old folks are lost and by taxing "super" health plans the middle is lost because who knows if they have the super plan. By going on month long vacation democrats have surrendered.

The saddest part for me is that Obama has Hillary to call upon and yet he failed the same way Bill Clinton failed, by not focusing. Bill Clinton said he failed because he did not lead the effort and can you really say Obama has lead? Or will he just sign insurance reform and declare victory?

[dysfunctional press]

3. hopefully, we'll get another fully repug government in 2012...

and with a little luck- the people will be inspired to revolution well before 2025.

[babylonsister]

4. Your true colors just appeared. What a shock. nt

[dysfunctional press]

7. ????

i'm tired of putting my faith in democratic corporate whores- but unfortunately there are plenty of voters who are completely happy to be led down the primrose of path of pipe-dream promises to NOTHING by do-nothing democrats.

we're going to have to fight to get it, and 4-8 more years of republican shit will inspire more people to action than 20 more years of democratic mollycoddling.

[Aragorn]

13. fed up

reading these posts it sounds like people are already fed up. Who's actually doing anything?

[Aragorn]

11. ??? too

You think that was a pro-republican answer?

[warren pease]

10. Those would be the same people who tilt their jaws to the heavens...

... eat any amount of shit the feds can dish out and then beg for seconds? Those revolutionaries? There's going to be no such thing as a peoples' revolt in 2025 or any damn other time. Too busy wiping the excrement off their lips to bother.

The only kind of revolution that's at all possible would be a ground-up infiltration, starting with electing progressives to school boards, city councils, land use commissions and so forth. Same way the fundie loons managed to insert their nitwit of a gawd into public school systems around the country.

And if a progressive has to run as a "stealth candidate" the way fundies hid their biblical allegiances back in the '80s, too bad. The idea is to get rid of these neanderthals, not play fair.

But that's the only rebellion imaginable in this country of pacified, super-sized Bud Lite swilling slobs who are easily bought and paid for with a job that pays the mortgage, a car that starts, 500 cable channels (all but a handful broadcasting swill unfit for human consumption) and a despised group to look down on and define their own status by the lack of it conferred on the negative reference group.

As in, "I may be a worthless Dorito chomping beer drunk watching programming fit only for the tiny brained, but at least I'm not some border-invading wetback sucking up all those good American goods and resources."

Asked to name even one perk associated with being a US citizen, the best they can come up with is "... well shit, our military can kick your military's ass any day of the week."

Yup. Tell me I'm wrong. Really. I'd love to be wrong on this one but I just don't see it.


sf

[dysfunctional press]

17. "The only kind of revolution that's at all possible would be a ground-up infiltration..."

the repugs have already beat you to it- that's how they've destroyed the democratic party.

the only way that the people are going to be able to take back power is by FORCE.

[samrock]

5. sigh

If we can NOT even get a bill to the house floor.. when we have a HUGE majority before the August break.. it is DEAD!!! These things live and die on momentum.. We have NONE!!! They knew if they could just slow it down they could kill it.. and they have done it!!.. I have watched the American political system at work since the 60's... I know the signs and what to watch for.. It would take a political miracle to pass MEANINGFUL health care reform this year... I stopped believing in the Tooth Fairy a loooooooong time ago.. I hoped to be surprised, but at this point expect the status quo..

[warren pease]

6. Don't forget 1948 when Truman first introduced the single-payer concept to...

...the public who, at the height of the Red Scare(tm), promptly shot themselves in the foot yet again by rejecting anything so enlightened because they didn't want the evils of "socialized medicine" polluting our pristine free-market medical paradise.

Dumb fuckers; conned gullible idiots complicit in their own screwing. And then, as now, the GOPpiggies know exactly how to sow fear, uncertainty and doubt concerning changing "the greatest health care system on earth" in any way whatsoever.

So instead of real universal access, single-payer health care, we're looking at -- best case mind you -- some idiotic hybrid creature called "the public option," which primarily serves to make certain our precious insurers and for-profit medical establishment don't have to lose a single penny going forward.

You don't really think this lame-assed package is designed to help the American people, do you? Nothing could be farther from the truth. It's just a sop to industry to keep those bribes (um... campaign contributions) rolling in.

And so what if they get voted out because of their stance on this issue. They can just join Daschle's wife and thousands more scumbag lobbyists on K Street, glad-handing their former colleagues and getting 20 times richer than they ever would have by remaining in congress.

Disgusting pigs.


sf

[samrock]

8. We are so screwed...

We can not reform lobbying rules/campaign financing rules because the Supreme Court has ruled THAT would be an abridgment of free speech!! We would have to pass a constitutional amendment to get around that.. and we would get REAL health care reform LOONG before THAT ever happened.. hehe can you ACTUALLY image some kind of powerful amendment getting 2/3rds of EITHER house??

[warren pease]

12. Or congress could pass legislation -- which would go straight to the high court as a test case...

...stipulating that henceforth, only public financing of campaigns would be allowed in the US. And of course the very people now benefiting from this hideous, overt bribocracy are perhaps the least likely group on earth to pass such legislation.

I get pretty goddamn tired of watching this dog-chasing-tail illogic that permeates everything our swinish pseudo representatives say and do. For every Bernie Sanders and Dennis Kucinich, there's a hundred assholes on the corporate payroll interested solely in rewarding their sugar daddies for their campaign largesse.

Makes my skin crawl.

sf

[clear eye]

15. That one's always rankled me, too.

Glad to see someone else remembers, too. It really is a major reason the folks in Congress won't represent us.

[Laelth]

14. I think our chances will be better in 2011.

We should expect to pick up 3 seats in the Senate and between 3 and 5 seats in the House.

That ought to be enough to get us single-payer (or public option health care like they have in the U.K., as opposed to public option insurance, which is a joke).

For now, I think we should stand pat and accept no weak substitute. The current system will fail in time. It is not sustainable.

:dem:

-Laelth

[warren pease]

16. The current system has already failed -- monumentally, epically and...

... in the most public and obvious manner possible.

http://www.urban.org/publications/411588.html">According to this study, 22,000 Americans die every year for the crime of lacking medical insurance -- an average of 60 per day and approx. 137,000 between 2000 and 2006.

Not huge numbers admittedly, unless we're talking about your death, or mine, or a family member or friend. No matter... we don't have the time to be screwing around playing politics.

Note this amazingly honest statement from one of the World Health Organization's (WHO) heads of research, issued in a news release announcing the first-time availability of a landmark 2000 study (since updated with the US posting similarly abysmal stats) comparing the health care systems of 190 countries:

"The position of the United States is one of the major surprises of the new rating system," said Christopher Murray, M.D., Ph.D., Director of WHO's Global Programme on Evidence for Health Policy. "Basically, you die earlier and spend more time disabled if you're an American rather than a member of most other advanced countries."


Just so...

sf

[Monk06]

18. The only way to get single payer, universal health care is to kick private insurance companies

out of the health care business. That's how
we got universal health care in Canada and
we wouldn't have succeeded if the insurance
companies were allowed to stay in business.

Health is not a commodity or consumer good
like a car or a boat. It's a necessity for
sustaining life

Three things corporations should not control

Food

Water

Healthcare

[warren pease]

19. "Three things corporations should not control: Food Water Healthcare..."

And as fate would have it in this faux free market paradise, they already control all three.

Do you happen to have room on the couch or an outbuilding I could convert into living space? I've been an expat at heart for decades but I've always been a little short on the immigration point system. And I don't have the US$400K required to buy my way in.

Send details, please... :D


sf

[Monk06]

21. If you're single marry a Canadian girl or a Canadian guy if you so wish.

or you could apply for fast track landed immigrant
status under the skilled foreign workers and
professionals program

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/skilled/index.asp

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/skilled/apply-who.asp


Come on up

[Echo In Light]

20. Average Americans will NEVER take a serious stand against corporate power. NEVER

They know they live in the 'home of the brave, and land of the free,' so from there all that matters is making $, beer, sports and TV.

[Monk06]

22. The only reason we got it in Canada is that the insurance companies and medical associations

Gambled on a general strike in Saskatchewan and
and lost. It was a hard and bitter fight and
the tactics of the medical associations and
insurers have not changed at all since 1962


http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0007155

[Echo In Light]

25. See, Americans rely on macho bluster as a substitute for actual courage/strength

Just how our system of governance relies on illusion and propaganda instead of genuine action. See a cohesive pattern forming? This is why Americans can dutifully be counted upon to NEVER intervene w/what corporate power wants, no matter the circumstance, no matter how outrageous the atrocity. When backed into a corner, expect a deluge of hostile sounding excuses and justifications as to why the blatantly obvious just isn't so.

[BOG PERSON]

23. It's not going to happen

Americans place too high a value on having choices, including effectively meaningless ones.

[DailyGrind51]

24. Probably after I'm dead and buried!

[bvar22]

26. The good news?

....more Americans will be willing to face the truth that Nader was right in 2000, at least as far as Economic Issues....

"not a dimes worth of difference"


The more people willing to face the TRUTH, the closer we are to real change, but we should accept the fact that we are in for a long fight. The MONEY interests are deeply entrenched.

This most recent betrayal of the American People by Obama and the "Centrist" Democrats has also revealed that there is still a nucleus of REAL Democrats within the Democratic Party.
"Thinking" Americans can find ways of withdrawing funding & support from the phony Democrats, and diverting it directly to the Democrats who still work for the American People.
(Kucinich, Conyers, Waters...The Progressive Caucus)
There are 85 Co-Sponsors of HR 676 in The House.
These are Democrats worthy our support.

Maybe Howard Dean will finally be disgusted enough to lead a 3rd Party revolt?


The only other option (besides leaving) is to just QUIT.

Sell everything, buy inexpensive (no mortgage) property in The South (low energy overhead, fertile land, abundant clean water, low property taxes, long Growing Season), plant a big garden, raise chickens, buy nothing "new", only 2nd Hand or Salvage or "do without", barter or trade labor for stuff you can't make yourself, blow up your TV, and learn to live well on a low "Taxable Income".

Let them eat their gold.
We are going to grow food.

[bvar22]

27. K&R....back to +5

Ruh-Roh.
The anonymous Party "Image Control" Commissars have found your thread.