Calm down progressives calm down

[grantcart]

There is quite a wide spectrum of progressives here and after a lifetime of being called a pacifist and communist I find myself being called a warmonger and corportist here. So I find it somewhat ironic that on an issue that is not very radical - Public Option Now - Single Payer Tomorrow, that this has become an extreme position and intelligent progressives leaders are telling us basically that our limp little Public Option is too radical and that we should just calm down and be reasonable.

Really?


We are going to have an incrementally better plan and, as Nate Silver points out, huge $ 800 billion in subsidies. He asks the question where is that money going?

That money is going to private health insurance companies that's where. Exactly how much of that will be returned in care we don't know.

Don't know because they haven't fixed the "medical loss ratio" and they have done nothing to fix rising costs and more competition.

This is the time for every progressive of every stripe to rise up and say no fucking way.

They want us to compromise. We did. Single payer is our position and we compromised to a robust public option to a weak public option to medicare buy in to "medical loss ratiio".

Let's start with the basics. None of this is very progressive really.

Every conservative party in the world outside the US supports Single Payer. Single Payer Canadian is hardly a radical notion. Complete socialization like England is a bit more radical but it is completely supported by Britains' conservative party.

This is not a Health Reform Bill this is a marriage pact and we are expecting the groom to stop drinking after 20 years of benders.


Three months ago I ran this OP titled Without the Public Option the Democratic Party will be walking into a trap of its own making

Nothing has changed except they want us to accept idiocy with calmness. I believe it illustrates the problem that the Democratic Party will be facing a few years down the line.

Without the Public Option the Democratic Party will be walking into a trap of its own making

Posted by grantcart in General Discussion: Presidential (Through Nov 2009)
Fri Sep 11th 2009, 10:17 AM

Imagine yourself as a part of a hard working family that is making $ 60,000.

In a couple of years from now you get a notice.

Even though you don't have enough money to make it through the end of the month the government is sending you a notice that next month you must sign up for health care. Because you are not technically "poor", you receive no or a small subsidy.

So somehow you scrap together the $ 800 a month that and you buy the cheapest option from the health exchange.

In a few months you use your ACME insurance. You have questions but they keep you on the line for hours. They are not going to pay half of your bills and you have no recourse. You read in the newspaper that the CEO of ACME is paid a $50,000,000 bonus. The doctors office tells you that they still haven't been reimbursed by ACME and that from now on you will have to pay by cash and file for reimbursement from the insurance company.



People who are saying that we should just take what we can get and accept the health care package without the public option fail to see the huge problem that will happen in a few years.

Some people will find improvement in the plan but the mandate will be a blow to tens of millions of people who are not poor enough to get a subsidy.

And, and this point is what people are not seeing, is that we will have married ourselves to these corrupt private companies. Every fuck up they make will be projected back to the Democratic Party and this administration. Every huge profit announcement will be met with increasing cynicism. Every single bonus for a health care executive will be linked to the President.

The Public Option is the only repeat only hope for making this plan work. When people complain about the service they are getting from their private company we can say "Well we wanted to expand the Public Option. People who have the Public Option don't have this problem, work with us to expand the public option."

Without the public option we are walking into a trap.

That is why the insurance companies are running ads for the plan but to drop the public option.

Pass the bill with the public option or defeat it. No trigger, no excuses, no compromise."

[tekisui]

Hear! Hear! But the trap is still being set.

[roguevalley]

54. I want it defeated.

[fasttense]

60. Removing the Mandate is a win-win for everyone.

The mandate is what is making this bill worse than nothing after the removal of the public option. Without the mandate, no one is forced into buying from a bunch of thieves, Americans are no longer locked into health care through insurance corporations and the Democratic party wont be blamed for every death dealing lousy con the health insurance corporations play.

They could put the mandate on a trigger. If Americans start abusing the health insurance corporations, and the corporations can prove 30% of their customers are waiting until the last minute and causing undue loss in profits, then the trigger would kick in. Or just add the mandate later if problems come up.

Remove the mandate, pass the legislation, and President Obama and the Democratic party can do a happy dance and claim they have health care reform.

Then through reconciliation expand Medicare for all.

It's a win-win for everyone. The health insurance corporations still get some of the subsidies and some new customers. The Democratic party can pretend to have done health care reform. The Republicons can claim they stopped socialized medicine. And Americans aren't getting a worse system and are getting a few tidbits of improvement.

Then using reconciliation pass Medicare for all.

[mike_c]

1. single payer now or defeat the bill....

I'm tired of calling a shit sandwich sweet, or even acceptable. It's not acceptable. Period.

[grantcart]

25. agreed

[midnight]

34. I agree too.

[RoccoR5955]

70. I'll go along with that! n/t

[cliffordu]

2. K&R.

Great to see you back and throwing heat, my friend...

[grantcart]

24. Check in mail

[cliffordu]

28. Your last one bounced, Bevis.

[flyarm]

3. This bill is nothing but shit on a shingle! Don't even try to sell this bullshit,,

because anyone with one ounce of sense knows it is shit!

it was all planned and Lieberman is the scapegoat..it is a dog and pony show at best!

Kill this piece of shit bill!
and don't forget..........

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Remember Joe Lieberman was Obama’s Mentor in the Senate

By: fflambeau Monday December 14, 2009 10:05 pm

Those who are up in arms over Sen. Joe Lieberman’s "veto" of the extension of Medicare should remember this. When Sen. Barack Obama arrived in Washington, D.C. in 2005, he selected as his mentor none other than: Joe Lieberman.

Here’s David Sirota writing about this, after discussing Obama’s stab in the back of the progressive Lamont in Connecticut and his stab in the back of the progressive Christine Cegelis (Obama backed Duckworth) way back in 2006:

snip:

Other sources, including the Hartford Courant, reported that Obama chose Lieberman as his mentor.]

http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/18929

[grantcart]

6. I am curious

Is your reply against the deceptive and sardonic OP title

or

Supporting the basic premise of the OP?

[flyarm]

17. here is my answer>>>>>>

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/15/rep-capuano-te...

[grantcart]

18. page not found

Well atleast your consistently confusing

[flyarm]

21. try this..

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/15/rep-capuano-tells-fellow_n_392685.html

Rep. Capuano Tells Fellow Dems: 'You're Screwed'

[pattmarty]

35. That's some answer. Now, why don't you try the "normal" fucking way.

[Chulanowa]

59. No, it's "OMG OBAMA = LIEBERMAN OMG!!!!!!!1!1!`1`!@~2!~11!"

Betcha Lieberman's from Kenya, too.

[dionysus]

20. he didn't. knee jerk much?

:rofl:

[grantcart]

23. I wonder how many unrecs the sardonic title caused?

[Ignis]

29. Too late to edit? If not, try putting the title in quotes. (nt)

[Armstead]

4. KR

[OneGrassRoot]

5. K&R n/t

[Goldstein1984]

7. Agreed--Drop this bill

We can try again for something worthwhile next year.

In the condition it's in, it's going to be worthless to the people and a huge political liability.

By dropping it, and making a clear statement about why it is being dropped, "defeat" is averted.

[grantcart]

26. yep paint the Republicans into obstructionists

work on other priorities.

[DMNinFL]

31. That would assume.........

that the Dems are good at PR. They are NOT. The Republicans have outplayed us in this one, and everyone who believes in single payer knows it. Dr/Gov Dean just came out and said KILL THE BILL. He is correct. But, get your ducks in a row, know how the Republicans are going to come at you, and make this whole issue work for us down the road. GET GOOD AT THE MESSAGE !!!!

[chimpymustgo]

8. So are you saying kill the bill or settle for the shit sandwich?

[grantcart]

9. No Public Option no bill

Even a limited public option with subusidies and other reforms will be a second class bill but IMHO it starts us down the road to single payer. Once a public option has been established it is much easier to exapand it.

If the Democrats pass the bill hoping that the insurance reforms and the medical loss ratio is going to lead somewhere they will be bitterly disappointed.

Our only hope is that the Progressive Caucus walks away and that they get them on board with a Public Option.

[chimpymustgo]

19. I agree. But I'm not calming down. I posted this a couple of hours ago:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7230874

chimpymustgo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Tue Dec-15-09 10:24 AM
Original message


Progressives should come out AGAINST the HCR bill. Obama can court US with the public option.

Hell, Medicare for ALL.

Why have Progressives been asked to take a back seat from Day One??

Who died and made the likes of Olympia Snowe and Joe Lieberman and lynchpins of a democratic agenda?

Obama has got so much invested in a win, he'll sign anything now. He will sign any shit-sandwich served up - and that's exactly what's being proposed. But WE don't have to settle. I know lots of pundits are saying this is now or never, progressives have got to go along.

But why don't we call their BLUFF? At least RE-SET the negotiations FROM A POSITION OF STRENGTH. Progressives have got some clout - and public option - behind them.

I was ready to give up, but no - let's keep FIGHTING. FOR HEALTH CARE WE CAN BELIEVE IN.

[grantcart]

22. The "calm down" was parroting the bad advice that some progressive

leaders are telling us to do.

The OP describes why this would be a bad move.

[nxylas]

10. "completely supported by Britain's Conservative Party"

Actually, no. The Tories would love to privatise the NHS, but they know it would be electoral suicide. The Republicans would be in the same position if Medicare for all got passed, and they damn well know it, too.

[grantcart]

13. Since 2006 the Conservative Party has officially supported the NHS in its current form.

Labour Party (Center Left 350 Seats) Labour considers NHS "their greatest achievement'.

Conservative Party (Center Right 193 Seats) Now supports the NHS without reservation. In 2006, for example, David Cameron unveiled changes to his party's stance on healthcare which effectively undid Thatcher's efforts to try and subsidize patients going to private medical insurance. In his first speech becoming leader he said that he wanted the NHS to be free for all.

Liberal Party (Centrist 63 Seats) Supports NHS and would like to decentralize it and expand its drug coverage.

[nxylas]

61. The Tories SAY they support the NHS

I still don't trust them any further than I could throw them. It's like the Republicans suddenly declaring at the tea parties that they actually really love Medicare. If you believe that, you'll believe anything.

[peacetalksforall]

11. I think Leiberman could be a willing part of the trap - all arranged. Why should

we stop thinking and analyzing the way we HAD to do during the Cheney admin? We, so far, are not in a better position.

There are way too many debatable parts and every thing in it is fodder for a Republican feast of propaganda and the rich will be getting richer and the poor will die off. As planned?

Speak up. Speak out. We are not going to approve rising statistics of uncared for and dying citizens.

What the hell is so great about this country? Where are all the supremacists right now? Appluading and hugging Leiberman, Reid, Lincoln, and all the others, including the surprises.

Thanks for your post, grantcart. Truth throughout.

[Blasphemer]

12. K&R! nt

[laughingliberal]

14. k & r n/t

[rucky]

15. WHERE'S THE PART WHERE I GET TO CALM DOWN?!

[grantcart]

16. lol

[Kajsa]

68. LOL-

especially with Lieberman still calling
ANY shots--

No calming down here, either!

[cliffordu]

27. kicketty

[democrank]

30. K & R

"Pass the bill with the public option or defeat it. No trigger, no excuses, no compromise."

[Jakes Progress]

32. I keep getting told I am not smart.

I keep getting told that the administration has this under control, that they are looking out for me.

Bullshit.

Why, oh why do we keep trying to get the support of congress people who have no morals, who are completely purchased by corporations, who will never (never, never, never) do anything to help Obama win anything, who will always work against us? Why should we care?

Veto the crap they have crafted. Paint them as the slimy curs they are. Signing this bill will do nothing but assure Obama one term and a seat on several insurance and pharma boards. I would rather believe that he would act for us rather than for some future fortune.

[defendandprotect]

33. MEDICARE FOR ALL -- we'd be idiots to settle for anything less. . .!!!

We need to fight for it --


But putting in place legislation which will enrich our corporate enemies is

insane -- $600 billion/$800 billion to insurance companies!!!??? Whaaat????

[Chan790]

66. See, a big part of the reason that I support a universal single-payer system...

is so we can get rid of the badly-run, ineffective, overpriced (and yet, pound-foolish when it comes to paying service providers.) bureaucracy that is Medicare.

No one can count on my support until they propose a solution that ends Medicare, ends private health insurance and brings both costs (for services) and payments(to actual medical providers) into line with some sort of reasonable guidelines. There is a reason doctors do not want to accept Medicare...it's unwieldy for service providers and frankly it sucks big fat donkey dicks for everybody involved. I've had people who work in billing tell me flat-out that dealing with Medicare is like crossing the "fuck-it-to-you" attitude of the private insurers with the bureaucratic ineptitude of the DMV. That's precisely what we don't need a national health service run like.

Step 1.) give everybody great healthcare. (no triggers, no buy-ins, no sunset provisions, no private supplementals. Just send everybody a plastic card on it with a billing code on it so the healthcare-provider can bill the Dept. of the Treasury and so HHS can track expenditure and health trends.)

Step 2.) Kill the now-completely-redundant Medicare system that does not work anyways.

[pundaint]

78. I reject your premise.

You can support what you choose, but Medicare is well-run and more effective than any other payment scheme running. Medicare is doing an excellent job at cost containment in a marketplace dominated by for profit insurers, who provide the real impetus for inflated costs as they just add on their 30% of whatever and pass it on to rate payers.

[defendandprotect]

79. You want to end MEDICARE . . . ?????? ????? ????

The pre-bribed and pre-owned members of Congress brought privatization of Medicare

with Bush's drug plan giving pharmaceutical companies hundreds of billions of dollars

-- without even giving us the right to negotiate drug prices with them -- and you say

it's the fault of Medicare and we should have more of the same?

What's wrong with MEDICARE is this corporate influence over our Congress --


This new legislation is equally corrupted --

$600 Billion/$800 billion to insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies --

and you want more of that???

[Chan790]

81. Let me put it this way...

I think Medicare's been so fucked up that it's beyond repair, that we should scrap it and replace it from the foundations up and under no conditions should it be used as the base or foundations for a national healthcare policy. So no, I'm agreeing with you on the very causes and citing them as the very proof of the opposite conclusions.

I love when people don't read a single word of what you've actually said and attack a strawman of their own making though, it's super-keen. Yes, I want to kill Medicare. I want to kill Medicare (as soon as we have a better functioning option already in place, which is what I said in the first place) because Medicare is fucked in exactly the same ways that this current healthcare bill is. At no point did I advocate for "the new legislation" in any way shape or form because I think it's a shit pill being shoved down our gullets that is designed to protect the very elements of the system that are the causes of it being broken: the continued existence of the private insurance industry being chief among them.

I advocated for a universal single payer healthcare service that throttles the life out of the insurance industry, covers everybody, pays doctors fairly and keeps cost under control (note that both can be achieved by cutting out the large do-nothing profit chunk taken by the for-profit insurance industry right smack in the middle, its' payment currently for playing gatekeeper and making sure the system does not work.), hands decision-making authority to the patient and service-provider (i.e. the doctor) and streamlines the process by giving Uncle Sam a simple role...paying the bill and shutting up. (Congress gets no say in how the system runs, in my proposed plan. Treasury pays the bill that comes to it whatever it may be. HHS tracks health trends and figures out how the system can better serve people.) What's more, I'm pretty sure you can do all that in a one-page bill.

And when all that is done, I suggest we take the inferior Medicare system out behind the woodshed...with the axe and the spade.

[defendandprotect]

83. We all want a single payer plan -- corporations out --

Meanwhile, glad to hear you won't kill Medicare until we get it!!!

[RainDog]

36. Your posts are among the finest here

consistently well done. thank you.

I hope your voice is heard far and wide.

[grantcart]

44. you had me at "Your"

thanks RainDog

[RainDog]

82. smooches n/t

[varelse]

37. You are pure class

The living definition of

(highly) recommended.

[Sunnyshine]

38. "Every fuck up they make will be projected back to the Democratic Party and this administration."

K&R- kill the bill, get fired up, and then gather the Democratic fortitude to side with the majority demanding universal health care.

After that, we will find ourselves in calmer waters that favor Democrats because we firmly stand and support the people of America.

[bertman]

39. "Nothing has changed except they want us to accept idiocy with calmness."

That about sums it up for me.

Excellent post for a warmongering corporatist. Rec.

:applause:

[grantcart]

43. lol thks

[BlueIdaho]

40. The marching orders have been sent

All good Senate Democrats must now appear on political talk shows, smile into the lens, and convince American's that "Joe Care" is really a brilliant piece of legislation made spectacularly better by scrubbing it of any trace of compassion and humanity. They will use their highly polished rhetorical skills to assure us that the pesky old public option and extended availability of Medicare and Medicaid are part of what's wrong with America and the trusty old private insurance industry can do the job better for less money because they are part of the magic of capitalism that makes America such a wonderful place to live.

I just wish lying caused cancer.

[peace frog]

62. Sell! Sell! Sell!

Like I want to buy anything from that gang of elegant thieves.

[Chan790]

67. Actually there is some evidence that constantly lying causes stress and heart disease.

Those will kill you just as fast as cancer, faster sometimes.

Then again, some people think that being a criminal miscreant who causes the deaths of others might be hazardous to one's health too.

(The image is from Death Note. An anime about a 17 year old student who finds a notebook that writing the names of individuals within causes those people to die. He decides to use it to kill evildoers and attempt to install himself as king/god of a new utopian world.)

[me b zola]

41. K&R

[Odin2005]

42. Without the PO this bill is a POS.

[joeunderdog]

45. "Every single bonus for a health care executive will be linked to the President."

Good. So shouldn't all the other bullshit aspects of this watered down excuse for healthcare.

[puebloknot]

46. "Faith-based" health reform. "Trust us, we know what we're doing."

Our Congresspersons have their own asses covered by the insurance plans they get through their elevation to positions of importance when they win elections.

But I just keep thinking, these people have sons and daughters and brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and friends who don't enjoy such a privilete. Is there nothing and no one who can stir them to a moral,ethical,intelligent fiscal stance on the issue of national healthcare?

In my dreams, I see a wholesale revolt and a refusal to buy into this absurdity on the part of the uninsured citizenry. It may develop that they will not stage such a revolt out of a moral position; they may do it out of a fiscal impossibility to meet the demands of our beloved leaders. Bring it on!

[grantcart]

48. That is the huge difference between our health care reform and Canada's

Theirs started with a moral premise.

[puebloknot]

53. Right! Not to mention a fiscal premise. If we aren't going to do the right thing ...

... for moral reasons, at least we could cynically do it because the treasury is being drained with our current paradigm.

A close friend was an insurance agent, as was I, when we were raising our children as single mothers. She once said to me, years ago (and I've never forgotten it): "It is absurd that a country as wealthy as the U.S. cannot organize itself to take care of the basic healthcare of its citizens."

All this "half a loaf" crap is just another indicator that we have slipped out of our assumed position as the world's moral (and fiscal) leader into Third World Status. Coming soon, if not already here.

We could use the power of the pocketbook (by just not paying certain items) if we could get a consensus and the will to act. In that, I agree with Nance Greggs' idea of us all rowing in the same boat toward a goal (refusing to fund "The Beast"). But it would be from a decision to face up to the fact of the naked emperor and stop being good little party loyalists. We have free will, but we have fear, and we keep marching toward our own doom as a country.

My daughter is beckoning with a glass of wine. I'm going to indulge. But before the wine, I have to say that we are being had, and assuming that giving another inch, another foot, another yard, and making it all right in the future is a crock!

[BrklynLiberal]

47. K n R. For later perusal.

[LibDemAlways]

49. Yep.If a POS bill is signed that mandates people spend their

hard-earned dollars on expensive, worthless private insurance, the Dems will pay for it in 2010 and beyond. The repukes will pass up no opportunity to remind the public who screwed them. Never mind that the repukes had no plan. It won't matter. The Dems will shoulder the blame.

[cliffordu]

50. kicked. Excellent points and I'd rec it if it wan't too late.

[grantcart]

51. very funny

[cliffordu]

52. I wrecked it a while ago, that was just a cut and paste kick, ya hoser.

[theFrankFactor]

55. This is Playing Out Exactly as the "Dems" Want it To.

Our party is corrupt and responsible for this mess and it will only get worse.

[cliffordu]

56. Kicked again

ka-ching.

[Indenturedebtor]

57. Nice post only I'm not worried about the Democratic party

There are Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and the corporate overlords who pretend to represent them.

The sooner we face up to the fact that we no longer live in a Democracy, the sooner we might actually be able to change it.

This Insurance Care bill isn't even a vague attempt at actually helping Americans get the care they pay for and deserve. The small "improvements" are far outweighed by the handouts and entitlements set up for the insurance companies, and are only there for the sake of sloganeering and deflecting the current public will to actually REFORM healthcare.

[Kalun D]

58. K & R

We need to do like they do in France

take to the streets and riot until they give in.

Just shut down the country

Start with the truckers

March to wall street and surround the place.

Siege those corporate POS's.

[NikolaC]

63. K&R n/t

[TankLV]

64. NO I WON'T "calm down"!!! GET EVEN MORE OUTRAGED!!!

THIS BILL STINKS, AND IF ANYBODY THINKS IT'S A GOOD BILL, THEY'RE A FUCKING MORON!!!

[CanonRay]

65. I'm calm. I'm just incredibly pissed off.

[harmonicon]

69. how am I supposed to take anything seriously...

that suggested that anyone should be content with something that is sorta like being given a basic human right, maybe. Once I read that, I couldn't go on.

Calm down, Jim Crow, calm down.

[grantcart]

74. and if you read the OP you would have seen that was my point.

[harmonicon]

75. you should have started it differently then

because once I saw that stuff, I bailed - and only a little ways in.

[grantcart]

76. If you check the replies on the thread you will find only a few "bailed"

As one replier advised it would have been better with quotation marks.

The fact that it received so many recs might have given you a signal that the title was provocative in nature, that it was unlikely that actually telling progressives to "calm down" would be well received here.

[harmonicon]

77. the word "progressive" as applied to Democrats has become meaningless

I knew that as soon as Hillary Clinton labeled herself as one during an early primary debate. I don't like that the word is still used.

As far as rec count goes, the fact that it's on the front page with a lot of recs usually leads me to the conclusion that it's some load of crap spawned by the echo chamber that exists somewhere in these realms making some broad already-agreed-to statement, or some kind of simple statement of disappointment or desire likely to inspire no interesting discussion.

[dpbrown]

71. Spike this crappy bill now!

No public option, no bill. Period.

[debbierlus]

72. Excuse me? Get this off the front page of DU, I am going to puke.

So, we should pass this bill why?

Because it doesn't contain any good legislation?

I agree with the trap of the public option, but that is NOT a reason to support this bill.

[grantcart]

73. the OP is against passing the bill and clearly states that without a Public Option no bill

should be passed.

[Egnever]

80. I am not convinced a public option is necessary

However there do need to be serious cost controlling measures in place if there is no public option. There need to be mandates on percentages of premiums spent on actual care. The public option in and of itself is not a guaranteed price controlling mechanism in my eyes.

Having said that I agree with your sentiments. you make a great case as always Grant.

:toast: