Smart Californians Drop Health Insurance
Face it, y’all. California always lead the nation in everything.
We’re not only cool. We’re also really smart. We’re SO smart that we’ve now gotten way ahead of the political curve. A new UCLA study reveals that one out of four fellows Californians have already canned their cruddy health insurance!
We may like to surf and bask in the March sunlight and sip Margaritas in Malibu but we’re no fools. We’re not gonna buy into that phony Obama health care plan that does nothing but feed greedy private insurers. Fuggeddabboutit, pal.
We stand firmly with Dennis Kucinich and other keyboard progressives and we say NO to private health insurance.
With a little bit of luck, the whole sham bill is going to go down in flames in the dramatic House vote this week and, hopefully, by the end of the year we might even get that uninsured stat up to 35-40% statewide. Eat your heart out, Massachusetts. Not only do you have to live with those nasty Northeasters and that horrible Big Dig, but you’ve got a full 97.4% of your population snookered into buying private insurance. Out here on the Left Coast we are coughing our asses off at you. If things continue like this, we will drive the private insurers into bankruptcy. Such is the power of collective boycotts.
And, by the way, let’s make this point very, very clear. What I describe above is, in fact, the only two choices currently in front of us: Either the crappy health care bill will be enacted in the next week or two, or for the foreseeable future we will have absolutely nothing but more uninsured. Every other scenario is but a fantasy — and a fantasy spun at the cost of real people’s lives. Do I wish there were better alternatives? Um, yes. Do I think that a more responsive political class might be more independent of the special interests who will profit from this? Yes. Do I think that a greater push from below or more leadership from the top could have potentially produced a better outcome? Most probably.
But none of this is on the table. None of it.
Oh, wait, I forgot one more thing. You may or may not like this other reality or you might not care. But a reality it is. Things have worked out in such a way that the Obama presidency itself is on the line with this vote. If the bill goes down, it effectively turns Obama into a lame duck for the next 3-7 years, Anyone who thinks otherwise should immediately move to Cleveland and volunteer to work the phones for Kucinich’s next re-election campaign.
Tomorrow, I have a routine check-up with my cardiologist. Due to all the crappy tests I have to take each time I see him — blood tests, EKG’s, and a tune up on the $40,000 implant in my chest– the tab runs well over $500. That little Mercedes-priced implant cost me zero dollars and the procedure itself ran about $300 in co-pays. The private hospital where the procedure was conducted 3 years ago claimed the total tab should have ran about $115,000. Who knows what kind of deal was cut between them and Blue Cross and who made how much off me. Meanwhile, my visit tomorrow to the doc will cost me maybe $25.
Do I light candles to my insurance company for this great gift they give me? Hell no. They are bandits and thieves and do everything in their power to deny every claim and to jack up the premium as high as they can go (fortunately I work for the largest private employer in Southern California and we receive platinum-level benefits). In the end, my health insurance costs me something like $150 a month with very low deductibles etc. etc. As I said, I hate the bastards. But I am very happy to have the insurance instead of not having it.
If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be bankrupt. More likely, I would be dead.
With my ability to see the doctor tomorrow and to maintain my health and my treatment through the rip-off insurance I have, I feel it would be IMMORAL for me to argue that others should not have the same access to the same very unfair system. And so should you.
March 16th, 2010 at 1:09 am
Well said! Obama is crapping on our heads with this bill, and he’s waiting on a thank you for the hat. I volunteered and voted for Obama because I so hoped he was a leader with convictions akin to Kucinich–I was sadly mistaken. I support the public option because quite frankly, I’m very sick, and in desperate need of surgery. I’d rather not share my affliction here, but it regularly interferes with my ability to even go to school (to get the job with the good insurance from said bandits). One wonders why to even bother voting any
longer. You’re damned if you do…
We, the people, could use some emergency surgery to remove the knife from our collective backs. Too bad a lot of us don’t have insurance…
March 16th, 2010 at 5:27 am
Yes, excellent post. The far left and the far right have been in a de facto alliance to kill off any chance of health care reform for the forseeable future, and the coming days will decide whether they get away with it or not.
March 16th, 2010 at 6:33 am
Marc, forgive me, but I’m a little bit confused. Are you saying: I’ve got mine, and on political principle, screw the rest of you? Or, in other words—Hey, I and about 25% of my fellow Californians have awesome health coverage so kill the bill until something truly wonderful comes out of Congress some decade. As a member of the Screenwriters Guild when I lived in Malibu, I had just about the best coverage heaven or hell can grant—plus a side plan that picked up the little bit of slack left over—and I needed all of it, and benefited from all of it. While I am as left of “liberal” as it gets and still be ‘legal,’ and totally believe in the one-payer public option, isn’t half a loaf for some 30 million Americans without any health insurance better for the moment than nothing? If this watered-down bill passes, aren’t we a much closer step towards another bill in the not-so-distant future that will go the rest of the way? I have been living and writing in China since I left Malibu 8 years ago, and though it’s pay-as-I-go here, the fees are so much less that I can get by fairly well. And that includes catastrophic, experimental spinal column surgery I chose to have here, successfully I might add, which in U.S. Dollars was less than $10,000. The same surgery in the States would have cost upwards of $250,000. But eventually, I wish to return to my country and while I will again have fine coverage, I wish not to feel privileged and guilty in regard to my fellow citizens. I say pass the best bill we can now, and improve it as soon as possible with the Democratic Party still in possession of the White House, and maybe even still a majority in at least one house of Congress. Please correct my thinking on this, whereas I greatly respect your thinking, reportage and wordsmithing.
Sincerely,
Joseph Bosco
March 16th, 2010 at 6:50 am
Joseph Bosco needs to read Marc’s post more carefully and also distinguish the ironic tone of the first part from the serious points made in the rest of the text.
March 16th, 2010 at 7:05 am
Robert also misseed the irony.
Kucinich stand on principles makes him the sort who believes in urinating while wearing a blue serge suit: it leaves him with a warm feeling, but no one notices.
Kucinich might as well be a Republican.
March 16th, 2010 at 7:06 am
Here’s why.
March 16th, 2010 at 7:25 am
I predict that November – if this bill is passed and the GOP sticks to their strategy of attacking the reforms or, better yet from my POV, pushing for repeal – will turn out to be a tough month not for Democrats (there will be some losses, but they will be minor and in predictable enclaves) but for Republicans, who will have been exposed as political nihilists. There are quite a few months between now and November and watching President Obama out on the stump the last few days reminded me of just how he plays the game. Not reactive but strategic, and IF the Dems aren’t as brain-dead as folks like Marc often assume and they run strong campaigns pointing to this achievement along with more action on jobs and a financial reform bill that isn’t a sell-out (Volcker rule and consumer protection are key) they have a great case. The only possible case the GOP can make is Democratic weakness and incompetence. If Dems choke, that becomes a self-fulfilliing prophecy. If they can hold up a record of significant reform – even if its relatively modest by the standards of Nation subscribers – the increasingly fringe-influenced GOP will be the party in the deeper shit. I tend to be cynical about the Dems, but I’m counting on the White House to leverage even the cheapest pols’ survival instincts in the direction of showing some fight. Of course, an essential background to this is some movement of job numbers in a better direction. Bad as it is, the number 8, even if followed by a large decimal, would do the trick. That’s the wild card.
March 16th, 2010 at 7:41 am
Ezra Klein on the politics:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/03/you_dont_win_elections_by_fail.html#comments
March 16th, 2010 at 9:05 am
If this HCR bill is so popular with the people, why is San Fran Nan now trying to hide out in a smoked filled backroom with the Rules Committee to find a way to pass it without House members have to risk their careers by voting for it at all.
The problem for the Democrats, and now their once popular President, from the very beginning, and for eternity it seems, is miss-reading the popularity of their positions on issues. In their righteous minds they always think their way is the ‘high’ way and the ‘people’ cannot be so dumb as to not understand and accept their noble intent to give them stuff.
They started right out on HCR assuming the people would welcome their big hearted plan to make Uncle Sam pay. They started right out trying to force ‘single-payer’(anybody but me), onto the people, drastically changing the way people got health care. So right-off they got a serious smack-down and it has gone all down hill from there.
The people were apparently just too stupid to see free stuff when it was put in front of them. But not to be deterred, the Democrats, knowing they were righteous of course, used Washington’s tried and true method of giving free stuff to politicians instead. This worked.
Now here we are with the Democrats being so desperate, and righteous they will be proven popular once the people have swallowed, they are forced to use really sleazy political moves, just the kind the people hate about their government, and hide behind Rules they are making up so their members will not have to vote period.
I agree with Marc. They have no choice at this point.
They have put their new and once very popular President up against a wall to the point they have threatened his very survival. Now it is time to try to protect theirs by preventing a ‘Slaughter’ of them all.
March 16th, 2010 at 9:08 am
Randy writes in part:
“Kucinich stand on principles makes him the sort who believes in urinating while wearing a blue serge suit: it leaves him with a warm feeling, but no one notices.
Kucinich might as well be a Republican”
—————————————-
But what about those Republicans? I sense some 2000 election logic here: It’s Nadars fault that Bush was appointed President.
IMHO the President, not DK, is the villian here.
He campaigned on the promise that healthcare is a fundamental right
and not a privilege. Day One of the Healthcare summit he announces that single-payer is “off the table”.
Also IMHO is the hypocracy of the DEM PARTY appartchicks here, claiming left bona-fides and then spreading their collective cheeks for Max Bachus. If there is the frantic finger pointing (a la 2000) by party syncophants they only need turn the fingers inward. From Day One they were so willing to surrender ALL of their negotiating points; first single-payer followed quiclky by the public option precisely because the Democratic Party interests are aligned with the Republicans and need only feign a populist veneer.
But take heart, the yankee PRI’istas- the DEMs-, within the next two weeks will be hailing the great victory of “sweeping healthcare reform”. It will be a great political triumph which will do little to address the twin issues of runaway costs and the growing cadre of uninsured. But they will have slayed their opponents in Congress which for them and the loyal is what is was all about all along.
And substance?
Well, just look at the bill, y’all.
March 16th, 2010 at 10:46 am
Marc’s right. Given the amount of energy, time, and attention spent on this, it must pass. This is Newt territory again. If it doesn’t pass, there is a very high likelihood that Obama is essentially done, and can only work the sidelines, as we lose one or both houses, or weak-kneed Dems abandon him on anything of consequence.
Unlike Jim R, who is absolutely obsessed with the deficit, most Americans, I think, are concerned about basic elements of fairness in the economy, and about their economic lives which have become increasingly fragile over the last few decades. That’s why most people want something done on this.
The part of the bill that scares the shit out of me, for backlash potential, is the mandate to have health insurance. Although there are provisions to subsidize this requirement for the less well-off, if people find this requirement to be an economic strain, and there is no corresponding public option to take the edge off, then watch out. It could be very, very ugly.
Of course, rather than create a Dem backlash, it might create a strong incentive to move to expanded Medicare or some other public option to reduce the individual burden.
March 16th, 2010 at 10:57 am
IMHO the President, not DK, is the villian here.
Only if you believe that no HCR is better than this HCR. I might point out that those who have made that argument have yet to articulate a way forward.
March 16th, 2010 at 10:59 am
And Pablo, if you’re a leftist who is unwilling to compromise, and you want single payer, what do you suggest be done? I have yet to hear a coherent, workable answer from anyone on this.
I want single payer, but in the current climate, I think this is the best thing we’re going to get. We can Monday morning this all we want (Obama should have sued his bully pulpit, we should have held firm on single payer, we should never have tried to compromise with the relentlessly dishonest Republicans, and my personal favorite, we should KICK ASS), but that’s simply not where we’re at.
So if I grant you that we need systemic campaign finance reform, and lobbying restrictions of some kind, and a limitation on corporate personhood/citizenship, and so on, if I grant all of that, andall of it would all lead to a better Congress in the future, I still want you to tell me what we should do right now with the Congress we have, and the bill we have, and the we’ve spent. What would you have us do now? Not in “imaginary fiat land where the government enacts everything I want the way I want,” but with the situation we currently have.
March 16th, 2010 at 11:32 am
Healthy people in California see that they are being forced to pay premium increases for health care of high risk people because of state law, so they’e bailing. This results in a higher percentage of people with health problems being covered by insurance, which makes rates go even higher. It’s working according to Obama’s plan. Drive private insurers out of business with govenment rules so that the government can take over on-fifth of our economy.
March 16th, 2010 at 11:37 am
Talk about something that could backfire.
Barack Obama has said he will not campaign for any Democratic congressmen who fails to support health care reform.
March 16th, 2010 at 11:55 am
Marc, exceptionally important post.
As for Woody’s plan, he seems to be proposing death panels to determine who is too unhealthy to deserve insurance. There is an idea the right can get behind.
March 16th, 2010 at 12:37 pm
Woody’s crowd really have dropped off into the Ozone:
Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) urged a smaller-than-expected crowd of Tea Party protesters on Tuesday to launch a Velvet Revolution-style uprising against the federal government, saying the parallels are striking between America’s current government and Eastern European communist rule.
Speaking to the Huffington Post shortly after his speech, King declared that a peaceful uprising, a la the successful overthrowing of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia on the streets of Prague in 1989 “would be fine with me.”
“Fill this city up, fill this city, jam this place full so that they can’t get in, they can’t get out and they will have to capitulate to the will of the American people,” he said.
“So this is just like Prague under communist rule?” the Huffington Post asked.
“Oh yeah, it is very, very close,” King replied. “It is the nationalization of our liberty and the federal government taking our liberty over. So there are a lot of similarities there.”
March 16th, 2010 at 1:05 pm
Woody, that is why we need a single payer system; so everyone is in the same huge risk pool, lowering average cost per person.
And it is not the government taking over, just organizing a logical way to pay for care.
March 16th, 2010 at 2:24 pm
“Drive private insurers out of business with govenment rules so that the government can take over on-fifth of our economy.”
*******************
Why does Woody hate our country.
March 16th, 2010 at 3:27 pm
I’m increasingly skeptical that Woody resides in “our country” unless those rubber rooms count.
March 16th, 2010 at 3:53 pm
The really good news is that I got total thumbs up from Doc. All systems normal: heart rate and rhthym, BP, glucose. trigs etc. I told him to cut Blue Cross some slack this time and send the bill directly to Dennis Kucinich.
March 16th, 2010 at 4:21 pm
That’s good news, Marc.
Get checked out before Obama takes over and makes you wait six months for an appointment. Then, under liberal policies, everyone is equal – equally bad off.
It’s a good thing that you don’t live in Canada, or you would be still waiting and would have to come to the U.S. for timely care.
March 16th, 2010 at 4:25 pm
Woody. I quite agree. I think the best thing we can do to improve health care is to raise premiums by 200% making it impossible to obtain unless one was really rich or worked for an elite employer as I do. That way we could get a good 65% of these loafers off the dole and make wait times and service for the few of us left with coverage that much quicker and better. Maybe we could build a few municipal Poor Hospitals for the uncovered and keep them out of our ER’s as well. Good idea?
March 16th, 2010 at 4:39 pm
Democrats are pushing for government paid abortions, saying that it would reduce future health care costs. Think how much we could save if unhealthy people were allowed to die. Isn’t it all about saving money?
March 16th, 2010 at 4:45 pm
It is amazaing how much Woody’s facetious suggestions resemble his serious ones.
March 16th, 2010 at 4:47 pm
This is more or less what I am proposing. Indeed, I would suggest that age 10 there be a mandatory review of all by authorized death panels. Anyone infirm by that age should be euthanized, saving us money not only health care but also government-monopoly public schools. It would not only free up the ER’s, but would relieve class-room crowding, freeway congestion and would reduce global warming. Hitler had it right. He just made a few mistakes.
March 16th, 2010 at 4:55 pm
Stupak: Dems Told Me Funding Abortion Is Good, Because Kids Are Costly
March 16th, 2010 at 5:00 pm
Stupak’s plan= more abortions
March 16th, 2010 at 5:30 pm
More, for the those challenged on economics and government interference of free markets:
The WellPoint Mugging
The brawl over rate increases is a preview of ObamaCare.
March 16th, 2010 at 5:30 pm
“At the White House on Tuesday, Obama met with health care executives, including Sister Carol Keehan, head of the Catholic Health Association. In a break with other abortion opponents, the Catholic hospitals are advocating for the bill.
“We think the bill as written now meets the test of no federal funding for abortion,” Keehan said in an interview. She’s letting anti-abortion Democrats know her position announced over the weekend.”
March 16th, 2010 at 5:34 pm
Dan:
I do want single payer… and I thought the Prez did too. he campaigned on HCR with HC being a fundemental right.
Day One of the HC SUMMIT in DC the Single payer crowd was left outside while the Public Option was eaten by “Blue Dogs”.
My conclusion is that the DEMs are no different than the PRI in Mexico… all about protecting the corporate interest with little more than populist rhetoric.
This blog serves to make you a chump by getting you to support corporate interests too with rhetoric which includes ‘fait-accompli’ and ‘real-politique’. Wattaya gonna do, says the host re- the Blue Dogs while the progressive wing of the Dems (an oxymoron in my book) are villified as moonbats.
Here victory will be defined by trumping the opposition and not meaningful reform… unless you are in the insurance biz… in which case things cannot be better.
Perhaps wou have not had to spend time on the phone fighting with you HCP over a denial or a limitation… or had to file bankruptcy on an illness while BEING insured.
Talk to you company plan administrator. Premiums are increasing avg 18%/annum while inflation is running below 4%.
Healthcare like gas is a monopoly and the DEMs will be high-fiving their historic victory minutes after being ENRONed.
(BTW the DEM legislature in California got snookered into deregulation which allowed ENRON to move $50B from California to Texas)
If the bill does anything, it entrenches the insurance middlemen with the downtown skyscrapers and the $6k suits as a for profit entity which does ZERO to improve american health. Passage will insure that single-payer will never be raised again. Healthcare will continue to be a privilege and not the right promised.
But hey, you beat the Republicans.. so savor the victory and stay healthy.
March 16th, 2010 at 7:59 pm
Looks like Kucinich votes for the bill.
March 16th, 2010 at 10:48 pm
Dan O
I LOVE how Dennis plastered his mug all over TV for a week saying he was a NO and then calls a press conference to announce how he will REALLY vote tomorrow. He might as well don a sandwich board saying “Look at Me!” Though that is sort of what he did during 8 Democratic debates in 2008. Anyway, if he comes around to a Yes as it appears he is going to I’m gonna love how his supporters will rationalize the flip. It will bring back the good old days of the twists and turns the old CP had to go thru when Hitler Stalin pact became the Hitler Stalin war. It’s always easy to have others set the line for you.
March 16th, 2010 at 11:01 pm
Marc,
Nice pic on the post.
March 17th, 2010 at 12:31 am
MT: Endless Summer and all that. I’m quite a sucker for the whole mythology as I was born 25 feet from the beach at Venice.
March 17th, 2010 at 9:23 am
“Looks like Kucinich votes for the bill.”
Toldya’. The sad part is Dennis would have done this anyway, without the cost of Air Force One and a very busy President’s valuable time and energy.
Think of how many insurance premiums could have been paid for ‘his people’ instead of these useless costs instead. Not to mention how much more toward his image of being the selfless warrior for the people.
He got his ride on Air Force One. He got his photo op with the President. He got his stroking. He got his moment and speech before the press, bulbs flashing, afterward.
He also got his phony man-of-the-people image smeared all-to-hell in the process. Notice how quickly the President separated himself from the Menace, the moment Air Force One returned from Ohio? LOL.
March 17th, 2010 at 9:40 am
Another point of view:
The Green They Steal, The Greed They Wear …a St. Patrick’s Day lament by Michael Moore
Wednesday, March 17th, 2010
Friends,
It was amazing. Every story on the front page of Tuesday’s New York Times told the story of the Age of Greed during which a system known as capitalism is slowly, but surely, killing us:
Insurance company greed: “Millions Spent to Sway Democrats on Health Care”
War profiteers: “Contractors Tied to Effort to Track and Kill Militants”
There’s no profit in repairing our infrastructure: “Repair Costs Daunting as Water Lines Crumble”
China, the bank: “China Uses Rules on Global Trade to Its Advantage”
You mean NAFTA didn’t improve life in Mexico: “Two Drug Slayings in Mexico Rock US Consulate”
What happens when Big Food profits from hurting kids: “Forget Goofing Around: Recess Has New Boss”
There’s now a daily parade of news like this — well, not really “news,” more like the media division of large corporations shoving your face into the dirt that is your life. You already know the schools are a disaster and the war is a boon for the Halliburtons and a bust for you. You don’t need a newspaper to tell you the roads and electrical lines and the local sewage plant is in miserable disrepair.
And by now you’ve figured out that you don’t really have any say in this, that what we call the “democratic process” is mostly a sham, pretty words that get repeated in the hopes we will all still fall for it. But the fix is in and we don’t fall for it anymore. Admit it: Wall Street owns “our” Congress lock, stock and big barrel o’ campaign cash. You want a say in this? Well, I don’t see you on the Forbes 400, so shut the f@*& up and go fetch me another bottle of bubbly.
Within days, the House of Representatives will vote to pass the Senate health care “reform” bill. This bill is a joke. It has NOTHING to do with “health care reform.” It has EVERYTHING to do with lining the pockets of the health insurance industry. It forces, by law, every American who isn’t old or destitute to buy health insurance if their boss doesn’t provide it. What company wouldn’t love the government forcing the public to buy that company’s product?! Imagine a bill that ordered every citizen to buy the extended warranty on all their appliances? Imagine a law that made it illegal not to own an iPhone? Or how ’bout I get a law passed that makes it compulsory for every American to go see my next movie? Woo-hoo! Who wouldn’t love a sweet set-up like this windfall?
Well, the insurance companies — get this — don’t like the Democrats’ bill! That alone should be reason enough to vote for it.
Now, you would think these thieves would love this bill — but they are actually fighting it. Why? Because it doesn’t give them ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of the what they want. It only gives them… 90%! YOU SEE, pure greed demands all or nothing.
The insurance industry hates this bill because it puts a few minor restrictions on them. Six months after its passage they won’t be able to deny children coverage if they have a pre-existing condition. How awful! Government interference! SOCIALISM!
But, hey, they’ll still be able to deny these children’s parents coverage until 2014! So if a parent gets sick and dies in the next four years, I’m sure someone will step in and raise these already-insured orphans.
And how big will the fines be if the insurance companies do deny someone coverage for having a pre-existing condition? Are you sitting down? A hundred dollars a day! That’s it! So if you’re the insurance company, and Judy is a customer of yours, and Judy needs an operation that will cost $100,000, what do you do? You take the fine! Let’s say Judy lives another year after you’ve sentenced her to death, your $100-a-day fine will only cost you $36,500! That’s a savings of $63,500! And trust me, my friends, that’s EXACTLY what’s going to happen.
There are some good things in this bill. Parents will be able to keep their children on their policy until the kids turn 26. A few things like that. So, yes, pass that.
But don’t insult me and 300 million Americans by calling this “health care reform.” At least you’ve stopped calling it “universal health care.” We will not have universal health care or anything close to it. I wish the president and the Democratic leadership would just stand up and say, “We’re sorry, America. We didn’t get the job done you sent us here to do. We’re weak and scared and unable to communicate the simplest of messages to the American people. Therefore, our bill will guarantee that 12 million of you will still have NO health insurance. And that’s because we have decided to leave the greedy, private insurance industry in charge of our system. Forgive us for this and for continuing to allow profit to be the determining factor as to whether a patient gets the help she or he needs.”
Please, Democrats — just say that — then pass this poor excuse of a bill. Pass it because, if President Obama takes a fall on this one, I don’t know if he’ll be able to get back up. And then NOTHING will get done. We can’t have that. (And thank you Dennis Kucinich for hanging in there right up to the end and being the only one out of the 435 members to speak the awful truth.)
On the front page of yesterday’s New York Times, the dateline was, sadly, once again, “Flint, Michigan.” The story was about how doctors are no longer accepting Medicaid patients. Which means tens of thousands of poor can no longer go to the doctor. Last year, the State of Michigan also prohibited doctors from accepting Medicaid patients who had anything wrong with their vision, their hearing, their feet or their teeth. In a 16-county area northwest of Flint, there will soon be not one single hospital that will allow you to give birth there if you’re on Medicaid. The official unemployment rate in Flint is 27% (unofficially, closer to 40%).
This is an American tragedy. And, as I’ve warned you for years, this tsunami is heading your way — if it’s not there already.
I’ve just turned on my new iPhone and it informs me that it has “apps” it would like to suggest I buy. One is called “Scanner.” It will allow me to listen in on police scanners anywhere across the country. I buy the app. I see that the Flint police scanner is part of this. I turn it on out of curiosity. And this is what I hear, at one in the morning: A woman is being beaten by her husband… A home invasion is taking place (“16-year-old black male, wearing a white skull cap”)… A child has been missing since noon today… Another woman is being beaten by her boyfriend… A diabetic, obese man is having trouble breathing and needs to be rushed to the hospital (there will be three more of these obese diabetics in the hours to come; the entire town is ill)… One more woman calling, screaming for help, “officers urged to use caution…”
…And on and on and on. This is what I have listened to before going to bed. I am filled with despair and helplessness as I hear my former neighbors crying out for help. I hate it. I have to turn it off. I start to cry. Thank you, iPhone. Thank you, Democrats. I’ll sleep better knowing that you’re looking out for all of us.
Bastards.
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com
P.S. I’ll continue my jihad today on Dylan Ratigan (MSNBC, 4pm ET) and, for the first time together in the same studio since our, um, 2007 debate, I’ll join Wolf Blitzer live in his CNN Studio (5-8pm, ET). I’ll also be on live for the entire 11am hour this morning on the wonderful Diane Rehm Show on NPR. You can listen live online here.
The rest of the day I’ll spend wandering the halls of Congress with my shillelagh and shamrocks, doing my best impersonation of St. Patrick as I try to drive the snakes out of Capitol Hill. Wish me luck…
March 17th, 2010 at 9:43 am
Lets deal with the issue of the bill ‘forcing’ people to buy insurance they can’t afford?????
March 17th, 2010 at 9:50 am
Uh huh: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62G2DO20100317
Of course the bill will reform health insurance companies the way the financial industry has been reformed.
March 17th, 2010 at 10:59 am
What it actually LOOKS like, is that Kucinich made it absolutely
clear that the Crap Bill (which is the result of a slew of unkept
Obama Campaign promises) is only being supported under extreme duress, which is the only way a decent Dem should vote for it. In other words, he leveraged maximum attention (for his
correct point of view) in making his needed concession
It’s called politics. What a different world we
would live in today had Ralph Nader, Marc Cooper,
and other twisted Clinton haters on the left been as
savvy in 1999. It’s likely a better Health Care Program
would already be in place, and the napalm laced
cotton candy in Woody’s head would have long since
exploded.
March 17th, 2010 at 1:44 pm
Let me be clear, TC. I would NOT have have voted for Gore-Lieberman if they had given me Air Force One. Anyway I live in California. I thnk your beef is with the voters of Gore’s home state of Tenessee which he failed to carry. And it wasnt because of Gore voters. Wipe ur nose and grow up.
March 17th, 2010 at 8:03 pm
“Things have worked out in such a way that the Obama presidency itself is on the line with this vote. If the bill goes down, it effectively turns Obama into a lame duck for the next 3-7 years”
Right, Gitmo closed in one year, ending military commision trials, ending rendition, leaving Iraq, reasserting civilian control over Afgan policy….. If he isn’t a lame duck already, this “reform”bill and the way it is being handled will insure that he will be.
I have no insurance, been bankrupt once and am heading for another because of hospital stays. I have NO use for Republi-facists and their brain-dead tea-baggers assholes, hoping that Obama and the Dems would understand that they had at most a year to pass and begin implementing the change we voted for. They didn’t and i fear for America’s future.
March 18th, 2010 at 12:05 am
In a free country you are free to succeed or fail. With freedom comes responsibility for yourself and your decisions, good or bad.
When it comes to your health, not hospital can deny you need treatment, regardless of cost. In addition, creditors, including for medical services, are limited to what they can do to you. If push comes to shove, you can declare bankruptcy and keep your home.
But society cannot allow free loaders to use others labor and services without paying for them, to the extent they are able to do so. You cannot drive around in your Cadillac, when not parked at your beach house, and get free stuff in a free society without that society eventually collapsing under the weight of those who won’t carry their own.
Our 34 Trillion dollar national debt, due to Medicare alone, is testament to this fact. By allowing rich old farts to keep their Cadillac(s) and second and third homes, while giving them health care simply because of a trigger age, young by today’s life span standards, and paid for by struggling young folks forced to do it by law, but just cannot do it, the country is collapsing from its mothering party’s misguided quivering heart.
The mothering party’s solution is to cut some of these benefits to the old farts. But what does their quivering hearts do with proposed 500 Billion saving, well, plow it right back into Medicare to plug up that donut hole left over from the last transfer of wealth to the wealthy just a few years back.
In other words, our hearts are bleeding so badly our heads can no longer get enough blood to fucking think straight. What better time time to add another 30 million to the public trough. And for those who aren’t dizzy enough to go for it yet, lets bleed borrowed cash all over them too, while telling them it is not borrowed.
“Never let a crisis go to waste” is the new administrations infamous line, and they’re sticking to it.
March 18th, 2010 at 12:09 am
We gave them the donut, but it didn’t have jelly in the fucking hole. That’s gotta be fixed first.
Pathetic.
March 18th, 2010 at 6:32 am
When it comes to your health, not hospital can deny you need treatment, regardless of cost.
Shorter Jim: Fuck anyone who needs anything other than emergencycare and doesn’t have insurance.
March 18th, 2010 at 9:13 am
Maybe you are willing, and able, to let government fuck you and yours, in order to cover the minimum due on your credit card they used, now billed directly from China, with customer service provided by India.
But most logical responsible and seriously worried people are not.
It not a case of fucking people seriously in need, it is a case of a centralized government with no clue to the actual need of particular cases, throwing billion dollar bundles out the windows of their limousines, or Air Force One depending on your political position, in the hopes of catching those actually in need. It is a case of a total lack of responsibility and respect for those who have earned it, over a period of 50 years, that now has put us and those actually in need, it a serious bind.
It is a case of way too much over emotional and illogical mothering over too many years with one fucking father with the balls to stand-up and say NO. We can’t afford your FUCKING UNREALISTIC ILLOGICAL FUCKING WASHINGTON WETDREAM!
March 18th, 2010 at 10:14 am
But most logical responsible and seriously worried people are not.
Horseshit. Your side said nothing about funding while ginning up an utterly unnecessary war on demonstrably false premises, then funding it by not in the budget, but in a series of emergency funding measures.
Who should I believe on the $$ aspects of this legislation? Jim R or the CBO?
The question is purely rhetorical.
March 19th, 2010 at 8:56 am
“Your side said nothing about funding while ginning up an utterly unnecessary war on demonstrably false premises, then funding it by not in the budget, but in a series of emergency funding measures.”
I don’t have a ‘side’ Randy, while you clearly do. If you read my comments on this blog, you will have notice how I have railed on the others ‘side’ for not raising taxes to fund a war, being largely responsible for failing to do regulate Wall Street and creating the disaster that brought your ‘side’ into power, and for the current Republican leader ship’s failure to work with our new President in do something about another disaster that make the Wall Street one look amateurish in comparison.
The problem we have is the hard-headed righteous on both side failing to work together to deal with ‘real’ and ‘present’ disasters. Universal health care at a time when we are facing 75 Trillion dollar responsibilities we cannot pay for, is not high on the list for realistic common-sensed and responsible people.
When you can show me one comment where you have ever railed on the failures of your ‘side’, other than to push harder for more spending and national debt, then I will continue to see you as part of the problem we have in Washington.
March 19th, 2010 at 9:17 am
Oh please. Jim you ignore the CBO findings.
I don’t have a ’side’ Randy, while you clearly do.
Horseshit. You’re the one who’s been trumpeting Dubya as “liberating” Iraq.
March 19th, 2010 at 9:24 am
With regard to your last comment, I have said before and I will say again that I would gladly pay higher taxes to have a national health care plan.
Indeed, one of the reasons for my support for the current plan is precisely because it will save money as determined by the Congressional Budget Office. Your willful ignoring of this fact speaks volumes and renders hollow you self-proclaimed fiscal responsibility.
In other words, put up or shut up.
March 20th, 2010 at 7:10 pm
Obviously you couldn’t put up so thanks for shutting up.
March 25th, 2010 at 3:20 pm
I normally bounce all over the web because I have the tendancy to read often (which isn’t always a great idea because many sites just copy from each other) but I want to say that yours contains some real substance! Thanks for stopping the trend of just being another copycat site!