Olbermann showing video of this weekend's free clinic in New Orleans. The video could have been ....

[Stinky The Clown]

..... shot in any third world (or lower) country in the world. We all recall those scenes of UN doctors out in the bush tending to some group of indigenous peoples. Smiling faces overjoyed that someone, from someplace, came to tend to them.

But this was different. This was in the land of the self described exceptional people.

This was in the United States.

How can some right wing demagogic motherfucker remain unmoved?




(Catch the rerun if you missed this. The statistics are incredibly depressing.)

[polichick]

1. Republicans believe people deserve to be poor and without insurance...

...they've done something wrong - like they haven't worked hard enough.

None of them will feel a thing.

[PHIMG]

13. And democrats think handing more money to the insurers is "reform"

Stupidity in healthcare reform is a bipartisan effort.

[polichick]

15. Dems against reforms are whores for the industry - Republicans are not only whores...

...they truly don't care if the poor and uninsured suffer.

Whores aside, the most crucial difference between Dems and Repukes (both politicians and voters) is that Dems empathize with those unlike themselves and Repukes don't.

[PHIMG]

18. In opposite world maybe.

Like only Nixon could go to China, only a Democrat regime could get away with passing off a larded up piece of corporate wealthfare as real reform - that is reform for the people and that is worth it's cost.

This bill is extremely expensive, loaded to the gills with subsidies to the private insurance industry.

But it helps very few people. It barely raises insurance coverage, does little for medical bankruptsy.

To justify it as anything else can only be explained by sociopathetic level of partisanship.

If the price of being a "good Democrat" is lying about bad bills. Count me out.

I am a Single Payer Democrat because everyone should have access to what Grandma has - Medicare as a guaranteed universal automatic minimum level of health care. Private plans can remain, built upon the foundation of the Medicare minimum entitlement.

Dealing with a life and death issue such as healthcare in a piecemeal incrementalist fashion as the Democrat pursue is a crime against our country, and I will not abide by it. 27,000 die every year. This is moral outrage and a national security matter.

Single Payer Democrats are going to work that that the 2012 party platform is single payer and that there are more Democrats running on single payer in the 2012 primary.

The right wing attacks on Medicare for All are fact-free braindead fear mongering. Sadly conservative democrats have been too chickenshit to fight the right wing to win.

Medicare is a hybrid public-private partnership combining the affordability and reliability of public financing with the innovative world class medicine afforded by privately-delivered health care.

Grandma loves Medicare and her doctor has come around to the fact that Medicare is a lot better to deal with than the sharks in the private insurance racket.

Medicare For All enjoys broad and deep support in the American public.

The bill in Congress is full of ammunition for Republicans but little of value for the American people nor the members of the Democratic coalition.

Single Payer is affordable and the right thing to do. It's overdue but it's just around the corner.

[Ken Burch]

2. "How can some right wing demagogic motherfucker remain unmoved?"

I'm gonna go with "they have no souls" for 50$.

[gleaner]

10. I'll join you in ....

they have no souls and add that they have no brains, compassion and little intelligence. To them we are all lesser beings. The faster we disappear for whatever reason, the happier they will be.

[babylonsister]

3. And Landrieu was far too busy to even pay attention. She's a disgrace. nt

[tblue]

4. It's heartbreaking. Many of them would have died.

And the woman with 4th stage breast cancer, OMG......

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. And to be honest

I would have made the same choice...

But she should not have ended in that situation.

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. Yeah it was the Red Cross hospital in insert town here in Mexico

you are correct.

And how can they remain unmoved? Pulling yourself by your bootstraps and Spencerian Social Darwinism... it is alive and well.

[INdemo]

7. It was sad to hear about some of the patients ...One story about a lady

whose blood pressure was sky high..like 200 over 190 or something like that...she was taken to hospital as were other patients with various critical symptoms...Anyway I was shocked to hear that several politicians were invited to attend and observe and none of them accepted invitations..
The wealthiest country in the world with the worst healthcare system..And to think that we have a Democratic Majority with a Democrat in the White House and this is the best we can do..A healthcare reform bill that is so watered down that we might be better off if the issue was dropped..move on to something like vote on another bail out bill or something ..that kind of legislation moves through Congress pretty fast with little debate...

[Blue State Blues]

9. to be fair, we don't have the worst healthcare system ...

just the most dysfunctional.

We have the most expensive heath care system in the world, undeniably. Our system is very good at certain specialized tasks. But in terms of affordability of care and of access to care, we're closer to a third-world country ... a third-world country with some first-rate facilities that are only available to a small number of wealthy people.

Our accidental system is a disgrace.

[MountainLaurel]

8. Email this video to Mary Landrieu

And ask her why her corporate johns are more important to her than the constituents who put her into office.

[Hissyspit]

11. TRANSCRIPT of the column Keith read:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7030036

[MountainLaurel]

12. My letter to Landrieu

Dear Sen. Landrieu,

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/ns/msnbc_tv-countdown_with_keith_olbermann#33978589

From what I understand, you were unable to attend Saturday's free clinic at the Morial Convention Center due to a prior engagement. Thus, I send the attached link, which provides a very good summary of what you would have seen had you attended. Also, I would like to to tell you about some other individuals who had scheduling conflicts and were unable to attend the event.

B is a nurse who works with the homeless. She has no health insurance. M is a stay-at-home mother who was uninsurable the day she turned 18 due to a chronic disorder diagnosed when she was a teenager. She is able to receive health only at a clinic downtown, where she must wait upwards of 5 hours to receive a prescription, something she can't do with an active 1-year-old while her husband is at work. M is in her late 50s: too young for Medicare but apparently not ill enough with a disabling disease to qualify for disability. She was hospitalized last fall after passing out in a Wal-Mart. She couldn't afford her insulin. The irony: She spent decades working with the disabled in an assisted living facility.

I know scores of others from New Orleans community groups, religious circles, and my neighborhood. They all have two things in common: They have no access to health care, and they are all your constituents.

When you prioritize your corporate clients above the human beings who elected you to represent them, you are doing them a grave injustice and shaming the state of Louisiana. For their sakes, and those of the 700,000 other Louisianans who do not have access to health care, I implore you to support the public option in the upcoming legislation.

Sincerely,
MountainLaurel
New Orleans, LA

[Stinky The Clown]

14. Dear MountainLaurel .....

..... please post this as its own OP.

[Hannah Bell]

16. far too polite for my taste, at least don't "implore" her, you're her boss, not vice versa.

it's too supplicatory. just "ask" her.

otherwise, good letter.

[Skidmore]

17. Our problem right now is not the Rs, but the Ds.

ANd if that isn't a good argument for cleaning house, I don't know what is. Start with Stupak.