The Baucus Plan is bogus as is most of the "reform" being foisted on us by our Congress, Part II

[JDPriestly]

When Max Baucus circulated his draft plan earlier this week, the PDF documentation page (image) indicates that the "author" was ex-Wellpoint VP Liz Fowler. Fowler was hired in February as Senior Counsel to the Chair of the Senate Finance Committee, and famously boasted that "the reason that I have a lot of friends is ’cause I got to give away money.”

If Fowler did indeed write the draft plan, then how did the same framework and language find its way into an amendment submitted by Blue Dog Mike Ross in July?

Jon Walker finds that "the two documents are almost identical and and sometimes use the exact same wording":

Ross' amendment:

The governing documents of the cooperatives incorporate ethical and conflict of interest standards designed to protect against insurance industry involvement and interference in the governance of the cooperative.

Baucus' framework:

Its governing documents must incorporate ethics and conflict of interest standards protecting against insurance industry involvement and interference.

Be sure to read the rest. It gets better.

http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2009/09/09/baucus-co-op-plan-authored-by-ex-wellpoint-vp-matches-july-31-mike-ross-blue-dog-amendm/

Obama sat down with the "other side" and got talked into switching sides. Sometimes I feel like a fatherless child. Obama has abandoned us.

My rant: Obama won because we turned out voters in larger numbers than ever. It took a lot of work. It took a lot of sacrifice. Obama inspired us then. His speeches always do. But I find his conduct in office to be uninspiring and uninspired. He did not bring the insurance companies along with him. They grabbed him and took him to their side.

I self-censored the really mean, nasty part of this post. I see a very grim future ahead. Obama is letting us down. I'm sure his speech tonight will be wonderful -- and then comes the deal-making.

I believe that Randi Rhodes called it "pragmatism" today. I call it corruption.