Yes We Can Have Health Care!

We have talked about it.

We have fought about it.

We have gotten upset about it.

But now it's over, and I called this shot from months back.

Some said I was counting my chickens before they hatched, others believed in my crystal ball.

But here we have it! Health Care Reform in the U.S. has passed!

And not a moment too soon.

11th Hour of U.S. Health Care Reform

WASHINGTON — After a frenzied push to nail down final commitments and resolve lingering disputes in their ranks, House Democrats today are poised to pass the most sweeping change to the nation's health care system since the creation of Medicare nearly half a century ago.

President Obama has at long last starting stumping for health care reform and started speaking the truth to the power of the health insurance companies strangling American families worse and worse every year. Whatever strategic issues I have with Democratic Health Care Reform, the bottom line is the party and the president have stepped up to do the right thing and put forward the agenda of the American people instead of the agenda of corporate America being placed in the highest priority. Whatever enhancements I myself would add to this bill (Public Option) it is nonetheless a step in the right direction and beyond that point, if we failed to complete at the bare minimum of this reform in the system there will be dire consequences on the overall national economic stability in years to come.

This is the eleventh-hour of health care reform in the U.S., and this political blogger is predicting we will see these reforms pass.

Good news, to be sure.

After more than forty years of inaction and failures to address this most important issue we shall at long last see moral standards in our health care system and some limit placed on the corrupt practices of the insurance companies.

Senate Reconciliation Now!

The Republican obstructionism on the health care reform agenda is not "principled objections" as Senate minority leader Eric Cantor suggests. It is non-principled, pure nihilistic policy of poisoning the well and deception on behalf of conservatives.

The liberal majority that elected Democrats to office in 2008 has spoken.

The Public Option must survive in a final health care bill, and the process of reconciliation between House and Senate bills is the only avenue by which Democratic representatives can claim to have made any "meaningful reform" come reelection time.

Make it clear that this will not go away, and we the liberal progressives will not be silent.

This push did not come from the White House, or the Progressive Caucus, or from the desk of Sen. Harry Reid. This push for a strong public option through reconciliation came from the people who understand that health care is a moral issue, not merely a budgetary issue.

Both President Obama and Senator Reid remain open to the pursuit of Senate reconciliation, but I believe it important to state that this in itself is the "failure to sell health care reform to the American people" I spoke of before.

Instead, we will have to make perfectly clear that the public option must go forward and does not continue to be the "public optional."

Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) announced on Friday afternoon that he would work with other Democrats and the White House to pass a public option through reconciliation if that's the legislative path the party chooses.

The party has spoken. The ball is their court now in congress, but we must not allow this to fade into the night.

Just as Paul Krugman recently closed an op-ed with, "Health Care Reform Now!" I would say the as he except in different words given the changing of the situation but holding the same meaning:

Senate Reconciliation Now!

U.S. History in the Making (Health Care)

(Big3News)

My political predictions have once again proven true.

I predicted at the onset of the national and Congressional debate over health care coverage in the US that we would see a bill pass both House and Senate but that it would a "watered-down" bill that addressed preexisting conditions and state-to-state plan probability more than it addressed the larger problem of controlling costs.

This Senate bill hardly resembles what I would call "sweeping reform."

In the course of the debate over the past few months I was in the "incrementalism-reform camp" that was frustrating my fellow Democrats advocating for single-payer, but in the end this bill will fall into indeed too small a step. I was only saying along with others that we have studied government and nothing this big is done all at once. However, like I have heard many say, I would have liked to get a lot more out this process.

The last time I spoke of this I was urging Harry Reid for "reconciliation" in the Senate; without the civics lesson needed here it is quicker to say that once the public option was removed from the table, the process of reconciliation was removed as well.

To encapsulate what is going on this country: we are a constipated nation when it comes to social programs.

There is the very real ideological constipation against positive social reforms dating back to the days of FDR and further still. Then there is the constipation specific to this issue of the monopolistic health insurance companies spreading public disinformation like the stuff is on sale. This, and other factors like Sara "Death Panels" Palin and Glenn "Fearmonger-in-Chief" Beck, make this one of the most hostile environments one could possibly hope to create against pro-reform activities.

The entire experience feels like we pro-reformists have fallen flat on our face and bloodied our nose, which would be correct. But I remind everyone sharing with me in this feeling that we did just run head-first into a brick wall of highly funded anti-reformism.

We have made history in the US Congress in that we have finally cracked the brick wall against fixing a system that every informed person agrees desperately needs reform. To shatter this brick wall is a much larger task and the true importance of these recent national debates over health care coverage has been the value of flushing the wolves out into the open more than it was about the larger picture.

Ayn Rand is Running the TEA Party

(Boston Globe)

There have been many valid questions raised as to just exactly who is running the much talked-about “TEA Party.” Is it Rush Limbaugh? Sara Palin? Glenn Beck? Joe Wilson? Rupert Murdoch?

Nope. It’s a dead author. An egomaniac novelist-philosopher that makes up some of the founding principals of libertarianism, but certainly was not directly involved with the conservatism movement in the least.

From beyond the grave, she now rules over the ever-pandering Republican Party and this so-called “tea party.”

--

Ayn Rand claimed to “individualism,” but had no interest in allowing for individual disagreement over her logic within her “inner circle,” and preached “objectivism,” but refused to be objective in terms of literary-criticism of her novel “Atlas Shrugged.”



Here is this new “ethic” born of Ayn Rand that we see dominating the political right:

1. If you are poor, it is always your fault.
2. Asking for and receiving help is always wrong and a weakness.
3. Drive all compassion out of yourself.
4. You and your view are perfect, and cannot be wrong about anything.
5. Greed is holy.

--


Before anyone thinks I’m making all this up, let’s take a look at Ayn Rand in the news:

Gentlemen’s Quarterly (GQ) has named Ayn Rand “Writer of the Year of 2009” and Andrew Corsello spoke in his article of the "youth appeal" to Rand and as to his own experiences with her writing that greatly mirror my own.

2,000 pages of you’re-either-a-lion-or-a-leech ideology, loathing over Shakespeare, Beethoven, Marx, government, “subnormal” children, “simpering” social workers, homosexuals, and all of it with no grace, no subtly.

Philandering Republican Governor Mark Sanford was hiking the Appalachian Trail with Ayn Rand in the November 2nd issue of Newsweek.

While Rand's philosophy was based on individual's absolute freedom, Rand herself exercised a dictatorial control over her followers. Her chief acolyte (and lover), Nathaniel Branden, once circulated a list of rules for Rand's inner circle to follow; one of them read, "Atlas Shrugged is the greatest human achievement in the history of the world"; another said, "Ayn Rand, by virtue of her philosophical genius, is the supreme arbiter in any issue pertaining to what is rational, moral, or appropriate to man's life on earth."

Ayn Rand has shifted in and out of favor, but she may be more relevant today than ever.

Lastly, do not forget that the anti-reformist TEA Party have long since adopted this mantra of “Who is John Galt?”

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I feel I have the answer these people seek, as to the identity of John Galt. It is rather simple:

“John Galt” is nothing but what you read now, something that came from the mind of another.

I created “Little Suzy” for the sake of a online discussion in regards to the health care debate in the U.S.

“Little Suzy” and “John Galt” are one in the same, yet different sides of the same coin. Pure fictions created solely for the purpose of enforcing a point of view. In the case of “John Galt,” he is a construct for the protagonist to encounter and in the case of Ayn Rand's writing to promote the concept of the "individual capitalist." In the case of "Little Suzy," she is a collaboration of non-fictional individuals in the real world who have suffered at the hands of the for-profit medical insurance agencies and she exists as both the protagonist and the antagonist in a story where she dies from treatable cancer after being exempted from insurance coverage.

Who is Little Suzy?

She is the little girl who died because any time someone speaks of "health care reform" in the U.S. the hounds of arrogance and venom are unleashed by the nearly completely partisan right-wing, thereby serving no purpose except to prevent all rational debate and civil discourse.

Ayn Rand and her TEA Party enjoy saying statements such as: "Some opinions are just wrong."

Completely false and obviously founded in high levels of hubris. Nobody can ever be "wrong" about their own opinion. You can, however, be "wrong" about the facts.

The rejection of all facts is not "objective." nor is it representative of "individualism" so much as it is a practice of willful ignorance.

I am perfectly willing to debate differences in opinions about the role of government and the role of the private sector, but often those heavily influenced by Rand feel that they are justified in their self-critiques of themselves as "geniuses" and "gifted." One Randite, who goes by the name Malice (oddly enough), spoke in the GQ article of how Ayn Rand appeals to adolescents who are feeling dejected and find that the words of Rand are a reminder that, "you were right and everyone against you is wrong." I believe he phrased it quite well as to what the true motives and core beliefs behind this movement truly are: self-superior logic. If someone disagrees with you, they obviously are not as smart as you. Or some other perverted form of backwards-logic that truly only serves to allow for people to behave like fools and be smug rather than civil and then call that "sound logic" and "spreading the truth."

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I feel I must disclose that part of my distate of Ayn Rand is more complex than simply that I believe she is over-rated and outright immoral; it how she very much resembles myself in certain ways.

I am a writer, but like Ayn I do not simply "write." From one writer to another reaching out across time I must admit I feel some connection to this woman. In my more jocular moments I speak of how the real problem with the world today is that nobody is listening to me as how to get things done. In a strange way, I suppose I could explain her appeal to someone who was completely flabbergasted by all of it. But I laugh good and hard about how silly and arrogant I sound, she was actually serious about similiar statements. There is a big difference, in the end.

I am composing a piece of societal-commentary right next to the creation of my own philosophical foundations along with simply writing fiction and short essays.

I am prone to start coining "-isms" and start throwing them around as if there is a movement going on. I am a "populist" for peace, a "realist" for media-integrity.

Perhaps most profoundly is that in haste and enflamed passion I might lean toward alignment with this notion that I am vindicated by some gift of intellect over any misdeeds I commit, that I can treat my opponents in a way that I would never wish to be treated and they are the ones at fault not I, that my bitter rage and frustration make up the whole of the picture.

When one takes a hard step outside of the ideological boxes that people like Ayn Rand and myself tend to create around ourselves it becomes clear that the two of us did share some common bonds beyond simply both being fiction writers.

In the name of compassion and mutual understanding I have to come to know this piece of what I call "wisdom" as to Ayn Rand's similarity to any person who strives to take their writing and use it as a tool to display what they see.

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Alan Greenspan was one of many Randites who have come to see the failing in their former logic.

Greenspan, to his credit, came forward in the height of the global economic meltdown to speak out against the exact same kind of “free-capitalistic” business practices that caused the crash. He clearly stated that he found: “[a] flaw in the model that I perceived as the critical functioning structure that defines how the world works.”

Conservatives and libertarians greatly ignored and widely dismissed Greenspan and his unsubtle rejection of these “Ayn Rand Economics” or “Free-Market Capitalism” styled politics that he had once been a strong advocate of. I contend that these people do not care to explore flaws in their ideological stances and instead (in greater and greater numbers it seems) only seek to create an atmosphere of me-versus-you if any person is in anything but outright agreement if not an atmosphere of outright violence.

Ideals like "selfishness is a virtue" and "greed is good" above all else drove us into a lasting national recession while the GOP and the TEA Party continue to advance the abandoned ideologies of Greenspan that ultimately serve only to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. The disgusting and shameful element being that was the stated goal of these ungracious self-serving monsters to begin with: a war on the poor and the middle class.

Dishonesty and willful ignorance dominates the TEA Party, right along with the radical GOP, leaving me to assume that no less than Ayn Rand coming from beyond the grave is the one who is truly running the party.

Open Letter to Harry Reid (Public Option)

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid

Firedoglake has a section entitled "FDL Action" in which I found an easy way to send Senator Harry Reid a little bit of my mind on the health care debate & the matter of the need for a government-run public option intact:

I doubt this message will reach you Senator Reid but it is important to impress that I support reconciliation not as a matter of due course but as pertaining to the current circumstances. The Republican filibuster must not be allowed to further mire the process and they surely intend to continue to pander to anti-government fears using misinformation tactics.

Reconciliation is needed, we cannot proceed without a public option.

Join in the cause to fight for reconciliation!

Also please join with me & Public Option Please (POP) in getting out the word that we need comprehensive health care reform in the U.S.

==========================================================

reconciliation: a legislative process of the United States Senate intended to allow a contentious budget bill to be considered without being subject to filibuster.

filibuster: a form of obstruction in a legislature or other decision-making body whereby one attempts to delay or entirely prevent a vote on a proposal by extending a debate on that proposal.

A Liberal’s Survival Guide

I recommend picking up a copy of Newsweek for yourself. The cover story for the issue of the week of November 2nd 2009 is an excellent piece on President Barack Obama. Anna Quindlen has put to words what I felt to be true since early in the 2008 Presidential Campaign:

Barack Obama campaigned as a populist firebrand but governs like a cerebral consensus builder. The Founding Fathers wouldn’t have it any other way.

…

Campaigns are bad crucibles in which to forge the future. They speak to great aspirations; government amounts to the dripping of water on stone.

…

The president is a person of nuance. But on both ends of the political number line, nuance is seen as wishy-washy. There’s no nuance in partisan attacks, soundbites, slogans, which is why Barack Obama didn’t run with the lines “Some change you might like if you’re willing to settle for” or “Yes, we can, but it will take awhile.”

…

If the American people want the president to be more like the Barack Obama they elected, perhaps they should start acting more like the voters who elected him.

In my personal estimation the liberal-left mainstream view of Barack Obama was overly optimistic as to his clearly stated positions. This situation has altered since the campaign but still seems to maintain elements of previous misconceptions.

This president is entirely unique.

I was adamant about this in the first few months of The Obama Presidency when the media-punditry were attempting to compare Obama to another American President of the recent past. The only comparisons to draw are poor ones.

Many attempt to call The Obama Presidency a “centrist” presidency. I believe this is only in part true and better descriptions would be “staunchly bipartisan” or “consensus builder” as to what we see of The White House of 2009.

Ultimately, I myself am far too left-wing to support every Obama Policy. I am certainly left-wing enough to vote for him, but in the instance of national health care reform I would seek to isolate the insurance giants in the face of the bipartisan concept of bringing them to the table.

I would seek to remind readers that The Founders had many ideological differences between them and while they surely would approve of the goal of consensus building, I believe some would argue that party loyalty or campaign kick-backs mean nothing in the face of protecting the general welfare of the people of The United States.

Allow me to put forth my view on The Founding Fathers as it applies to the proposed health care reform in the U.S.:

A single-payer bill, like H.R. 676, might be scientifically approved but does not incorporate the spirit of incrementalism that is key to sound reform. If one was to augment the “single-payer” model of this bill into a national health care insurance option for citizens ages zero to sixty-five, included the Dennis Kucinich Amendment in which states can opt-in to a single-payer system, and included the Harry Reid Proposal in which the states can opt-out of the national option within a single piece of legislation; this unwritten bill would be within the true desires of the framers of The U.S. Constitution.

--

I can only see two clear flaws in Barack Obama as president, thus far.

Handing health care to the Congress was a bad move.

Isolating the giant of media-misinformation when there are other offenders within the spheres of foe-news.

Both of these are purely strategic flaws and amount to simple criticism and nothing more on my behalf.

On the matter of his appointments I believe what I was speaking on before comes around once again. It’s not a fair assessment to call it a “liberal” cabinet but rather a “bipartisan” cabinet, or “centrist” if you must.

We didn’t elect the liberal-firebrand that came to destroy the GOP and tear down the corporate empire.

We elected Barack Obama.

Mad as Hell about Health Care!

Mad as Hell Doctors

"This Fall, the rubber gloves meet the road."

Find the MAHD on:

(Facebook)+(Twitter)+(YouTube)

_________________________________________________

Dr. Paul Hochfeld on Ed Schultz.

Quoting from MadAsHellDoctors.com:

You CAN handle the Truth

There's no nice way to say it. The financial cost of health care is killing our citizens, hobbling our economy, crushing small business, and threatening the solvency of our government.

In the meantime, the Health Care Industry is spending almost two million dollars a day lobbying Congress and manipulating public opinion to accept “reform” legislation that leaves a vicious, for-profit system intact. The "public option" is a trap. We need real reform that finds immediate savings, controls costs, and accomplishes the moral imperative of true Universal Access.

A Single Payer plan is the only real path to a Health Care System that is socially, ethically and fiscally responsible. And yet, our elected officials refuse to even discuss the possibility of a Single Payer plan!

If that doesn't make you mad, we recommend checking your pulse.

The "public option" is doomed.

First: we will still have a dysfunctional health care system designed around insurance companies.

Second: it will be impossible to cover everyone without raising taxes.

The Obama administration is already saying it is acceptable to leave out 15 million people. Which 15 million? Will you be one of them? Who gets to decide?

Third: in a "post-option" environment you can bet that the health insurance industry will manipulate the rules so that the sickest, most expensive patients will gravitate toward the public plan, which will cause it to fail. When it does, the opponents of real reform will point to the "public option" and scream: "See! Single Payer won't work!"

There is a time for compromise - this isn't one of them.

We believe there is only one way to control costs.

________________________________________________________

This issue and it's seriousness is severely under-reported or completely propagandized in some media outlets.

This is a map of the uninsured Americans and the percentage of those in your state who are uninsured.

Quoting Dr. Hochfeld from a radio-interview with Alan Colmes of FOX News:

"60% of doctors are in favor of government health insurance. The vast majority of primary care providers are in favor of it."

"We are down to about 30% primary care providers in this country, we should be at about 50%. The more primary care providers you have, and the more resources you put into primary care, the better your health care outcomes and at a lower cost."

"We are wasting 20% of our dollars on health care costs. It's a threat to our security. We can't afford to throw money at health care."

"Once we get rid of the insurance companies we can have a health care system run by health care professionals."

"The way 'single-payer' works is we take the money we are now spending on health care .. 60% of this 2.4 trillion dollars is already going through the government .. instead of calling it 'insurance premiums' it's just called 'health tax'. It's not more money, it's the same money. Because we cut out the insurance companies, we actually get more for our health care dollars."

"I'm mad as hell about the political process."

"I think he [Obama] learned that the industry is far more powerful than he could ever imagine and our political process is far more corrupt than he could ever have predicted."

____________________________________

This last quote is vital for me to point out.

I find it distrubing those on the left would find it easy to throw the man we elected to change things for the better down the stairs just because the system is broken.

That's why we elected him.

Let the man work!

This is called 'incrementalism' and in my view President Obama should have just gone for the whole-nine-yards of single-payer but it's looking like that's not going to happen. Mostly because they are all corrupt in Congress and hyper-corrupt in the GOP so it's just plain outside of the list of options before Obama.

Or at least that's my take.

I support Mad as Hell Doctors and all those fighting for Universal Health Care.

My heart is with you. Let's keep making this case until the establishment will finally listen.

Obama Health Care Speech

Rep. Wilson calls The President of The United States a "liar" at this point in regards to the legislation effecting illegal immigrants; if you failed to hear the audio that caused the interruption.







This was an excellent Address on Health Care by President Obama. All significant issues were cogently addressed, but I found the president should have expounded further upon the specifics of the budget and the concept of "deficit neutrality." Perhaps it is my own failure in understanding but I do not fully understand this notion as it pertains to health care.

I also think this clear explanation was needed much closer to the onset of the national debate instead of at this point in time and also hopefully prior to the town hall debate setting, but I see the issue of Health Care Reform as being underlined and placed in the foreground.

Those who chose not to listen and refute every word Obama speaks will most likely continue to do so.

The issue of a 'failure to sell' Health Care Reform and explain the proposal is put to rest, in my view.

Obama is Not Perfect

Well everyone has to make mistakes, right?

So this is what we got going on that nobody cares enough about you to tell you in the newsmedia:

Obama has dropped the ball on this round of health care reform.

This is not the say he is now failing as president, or anything else the hate-mongers on the rightwing are sure to say.

But this is the first major misstep of The 44th US President.

There are a whole multitude of reasons, most of which very technical and are not coming to mind right now, (and very boring to cover) but as I prefer to 'cut to the chase' I'll just say it like this:

Obama and The Democrats have failed, and failed utterly, to properly sell good health care reform to be proposed in the Congress.

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I'm going to give you all a brief lesson in sales ... pay attention:

The first thing you do is explain the value. Is this highly valuable or moderately valuable or barely valuable? Are we talking about a gold-plated coffee maker, or a plastic one? Is this car made for the long haul, or just for going to the store and back?

The second thing you do is explain the benefits. Are these the greatest benefits you could possibly have or just fine benefits or perhaps no benefit exists at all? Will you be better off in a few seconds after owning this or will you be better off in two months or will you never be better for owning this?

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All the Democrats and President Obama have succeeded in doing at this stage is explaining what this bill won't do.

Not one of them has succeeded in properly conveying the value and benefit of public health care options, nor have they properly conveyed the value and benefit of saving money in a exasperated system.

Call me vastly arrogant, but I feel they need to put my over-the-top with conviction self on this issue. I am a Progressive Reformist to the bone, and I think perhaps that is exactly what is lacking in the Democratic Party these days.

It seems to me the political will to get this done is floating away from the Democrats now that we are faced with actually doing it. After years of campaigning on health care reform, specifically what we are talking about as to medical insurance reform, these same people seem to lost their thunder as the moment in upon them to roar.

I chalk this up to the nature of people and nature of the real world.

President Obama has done an excellent job in terms of foreign affairs and the national security agenda, but seems to have some trouble working toward this particular domestic policy agenda at this time.

In the end, we the people cannot rely on any one political figure or any one group to get what we need from our government.

The fight goes on, and if they fail to achieve meaningful reform then we will pick up this battle once more in days yet to come.

And perhaps in those days yet to be before us, someone can explain clearly and passionately why we need health care reform in the US.

One can only hope....

Republican Obstructionism in Health Care Reform

I see these God-forsaken ads running on my blog about how people are supposed to “Stop Obama-care Now!” and I would like to metaphorically spit on this nonsense once and for all. Anyone attaching the misnomer of “socialized medicine” or using the phrase “Obama-care” has already labeled themselves as part of the partisan agenda weakening this country from within everyday.

I contend that if we witnessed these same bills moving through Congress proposed my Republicans instead of Democrats that many of the same harsh opponents of reform would flip-flop their stance entirely. Almost anyone questioned on their position in the media or otherwise states that they think there should be “some kind” of reform.

I am left to think that a vast majority of the resistance to the passage of these measures is simply playing politics on behalf of Republicans, in that if President Obama signs a successful humanitarian bill that enhances the lives of so many American families the political consequences to their party will be too severe to manage.

At least the televised and media punditry are motivated by this end, if noting else.

This ’Party of No’ mentality is dangerous to us all. If anyone has a valid objection or concern by all means they should make themselves known. But when a person simply stands on the legs of right wing talking points and shaky numbers I tend to think they would be a strong advocate for “McCain-care” if the universe where all flipped upside down.

Marble-Cake Federalism And Health Care Reform

In the midst of civil and uncivil protests against any type of reformist action on the medical insurance corporations and their stranglehold over health care options in the United States there has been a proposed amendment to the bill that I feel best represents the embodiment of liberty and American Values.

The Kucinich Amendment proposes that the federal option remains intact but each state would be allowed to elect into a single-payer system if they chose to do so.

We live in a system of government called Marble-cake Federalism where the federal government and state governments share powers over specific matters.

The best example being the issue of Gay-Marriage and the nature of how each state can decide for itself at this point if it is a legal practice or not, but if a federal law were to pass that either granted or denied the right to all citizens of the nation that would be nationwide legal practice from that point forward.

By granting a public option and in the same motion granting the state’s powers to establish a single-payer model is the best representation of Progressive Reformist action.

I would grant a lot more credit to the protestors of recent days to their commit to their cause and their willingness to do what it takes to heard, except for the facts that the values of non-violent protest seems to lost on far too many of their numbers and that the outright falsehoods coming from their mouths.

If there is a complete absence of logic and desired direction in any movement then ultimately there is one course in it’s direction: violence.

I understand a person if they speak about their fears about over reaching government powers into our lives. But I’m more interested to talk about The Patriot Act and The Homeland Security Department than I am to talk about a bill moving through Congress.

When the same group of people remained mute or even in support of expanding federalism when George W. Bush did it and then shout down their own representatives when they come to speak it becomes clear that some certain number of these people are just the most perverse of political partisans.

We the people do indeed need to find a way to take back the massive expanses in federal and executive powers but lacking a clear message beyond obstructionism of any government action regarding health care reform I am left to question the very motives of these protestors at their very core.

I also believe it to be true that a certain number of these people are paid-provocateurs working for the for-profit insurance agencies in order to make it appear that a vast majority of people support monopolies over the availability of health care in America.