Michael Moore: Democrats' Healthcare Bill is "Giveaway to Insurance Industry" ...

[defendandprotect]

Michael Moore says Democrats’ healthcare bill is giveaway to insurance industry

By Raw Story
Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 -- 9:17 am


In a speech broadcast on Canadian television Tuesday, Michael Moore savaged the Democrats' healthcare bill, calling it a gift to the health insurance industry, which he argues will make $70 billion more as a result of mandated health insurance.

"The health insurance companies are going to make an extra $70 billion dollars as a result of Americans being forced to buy their health insurance," Moore quipped. "What company wouldn't love this bill?"

Moore argues that the health insurance industry isn't really upset about healthcare reform. His assertions -- which mirror those of some on the left -- highlight the challenge that Democrats in Congress face on healthcare reform. On the left, critics say that the bill doesn't go far enough in ensuring universal care; on the right, critics say the proposal will lead to a government takeover of healthcare.

"So all of the wailing that they're doing about this bill -- believe me, the health insurance companies are not that upset about it," Moore said. "In fact, they helped write this bill."

"It's not universal health care," he continued. "Thirteen million people will still not have health insurance in the United States.

"And the drug companies signed a deal with Obama to keep them out of it, because they agreed to reduce their prices by $8 billion in the first year of the healthcare bill," he asserted.

But he noted that because these companies allegedly raised prices in the last year by $10 billion, they still come out $2 billion ahead.

"When you create a society that essentially is in that state, it's very easy to run an ad on the nightly news about what a third world country Canada is, and about how people are dying on the sidewalk here because they can't get in to see the doctor," he added. "You actually believe that stuff. Because of the education you've been given, because education is such a low priority. Our schools are in such disarray. And our media doesn't do anything to help educate people in the way they need to be educated."

"It's not that you need to become more like America," Moore said. "America needs to become more like you. We need to become more Canadian-like."

"A hospital will hire a foreclosure company to go after someone's home and have them thrown out on the curb because they haven't paid the hospital bill," he added. "Something is seriously wrong with this."

This video is from The Canadian Press, broadcast Nov. 17, 2009.

http://rawstory.com/2009/11/michael-moore-democrats-healthcare-bill-giveaway-insurance-industry/

[closeupready]

1. Michael nails it again.

K&R

[Nikki Stone1]

2. Well, fucking duh!

....

[SammyWinstonJack]

6. +1

:evilgrin:

[Moondog]

3. K&R

[RKP5637]

4. EXACTLY!!! "We need to become more Canadian-like." n/t

[Luminous Animal]

5. Moore has the video of the speech on his site.

http://michaelmoore.com/

[SpartanDem]

7. A giveway that hurts their stock performance

and they;re only spending millions of dollars to defeat it becuase they're not that upset. If Moore or anyone else isn't trying to get this passed the then they're doing the bidding of the insurance industry.





A Goldman Sachs analysis of health care legislation has concluded that, as far as the bottom line for insurance companies is concerned, the best thing to do is nothing. A close second would be passing a watered-down version of the Senate Finance Committee's bill.

A study put together by Goldman in mid-October looks at the estimated stock performance of the private insurance industry under four variations of reform legislation. The study focused on the five biggest insurers whose shares are traded on Wall Street: Aetna, UnitedHealth, WellPoint, CIGNA and Humana.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/12/goldman-to-private-insure_n_355998.htmlhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/12/goldman-to-private-insure_n_355998.html

[dionysus]

70. don't bother, it won't stop the howling.

[sendero]

120. They fight it because....

.. of the uncertainty it entails, not the reality of the current legislation. The spend millions because millions are a drop in the bucket of what they skim off of the system for no good reason.

[AllentownJake]

8. Michael Moore under the bus by the corporocrats in 3--2---1

[JoeyT]

9. And

Accused of being a pharma/insurance shill or a Republican in...Never mind. Already happened.

[geek tragedy]

14. No, it's only those people who disagree with Kucinich and Moore

who are the evil selloutVichyCorporatistDLCDINO shills.

[AllentownJake]

16. I don't think I've seen you once disagree with the company line

OBAMA OBAMA

:rofl:

[geek tragedy]

18. True, I did agree with the Democrats against your McCain-style rightwing talking

points about the stimulus bill being a bunch of pork because someone from the CATO institute said so.

[AllentownJake]

21. How is that bill working out?

October not been such a great month now has it?

[geek tragedy]

22. The problem was that DINOs reduced the spending in the stimulus

bill, thus lessening its ability to help the economy.

Of course, you and John McCain thought the problem was all of that spending. Apparently Obama should have enacted a magical stimulus plan that didn't have any spending on infrastructure or stuff like that without consulting Congress.

[AllentownJake]

24. Actually I went on TV to defend the original bill

before the "Dinos" got their paws into it. That being said, another case of the President's awful negotiation skills. Asking for what you want than settling for shit.

[geek tragedy]

27. But, you said it's mostly pork.

So, how is cutting pork from a bill a bad thing?

[AllentownJake]

31. The DINOs didn't cut pork

they added it, or are you buying this conservatives don't spend other people's money.

:rofl:

[geek tragedy]

32. It was spending that was cut. You were citing CATO institute

propaganda about how infrastructure spending is pork. I was waiting for a Michael Steele quote.


The truth is that you just want to complain, and then form your ideology and political stance in order to best support your complaining.

[AllentownJake]

36. The truth is

You built up an argument and than can't defend it. I was a huge supporter of this guy, till he showed how inept he is at something and how corrupt he was on others.

[geek tragedy]

37. Yes, because you didn't get your magic pony that made all of the problems

go away after a whole 10 months in office. The stimulus didn't have enough spending. Oh wait, rather it had too much spending because spending on infrastructure doesn't make all of our problems go away.


Very typical of people with a profoundly unsophisticated understanding of politics, public policy, and economics--people who think that the true key to achieving progress on policy comes from people who bang away at keyboards.

[AllentownJake]

39. LOL

I don't want a pony. I'd like to see some progress, this guy gives away the store and than proclaims victory. He is one of the poorest negotiaters I have ever seen and that is when he had universal approval, terrified to see how bad he gets when the approval slips.

He was taken out of the oven way too soon, and regretfully there weren't that many other options as far as competence goes.

[geek tragedy]

41. As I said, your understanding of how things work is

unsophisticated.

#1: When economies enter into recessions, they don't just turn around on a dime. Even if a perfect, incredibly massive program had passed Congress in February, the economy was still going to spend the better part of a year in decline. The economy runs in cycles, and there is no way once it hits a down cycle to do anything but mitigate it and make the recovery faster--even though the recovery under no circumstances will be fast.

#2: Lots of people assume that if Obama had just asked for $2 Trillion, he could have gotten $900 Billion instead of $787 Billion. That's a fallacy.

#3: Pelosi and the House leadership wrote the bill, not the White House. And, of course, they had to negotiate with the deficit-obsessed Blue Dogs.

#4: The stimulus HAS created jobs and prevented things from being worse. It could have been better, but it certainly has helped.

[AllentownJake]

42. Jobs in the 15 congressional district in Arizona?

The estimated job creation of this bill is dubious. It has done some work to prevent massive lay-offs at the state and municipal level, but unless there is significant approval in 2010, those are going to happen anyway.

I know how a recession works, I'm not arguing over whether or not the economy will turn on a dime, the administrations policies aren't helpful that is all, in fact we will be in a worse condition when we get out of this because they took on debt to finance things that aren't investive in nature.

[geek tragedy]

43. Do you have any idea what would have happened without

the stimlus bill passing--both short termm and long-term?

[AllentownJake]

45. We'd probably be in the same place we are now

Except with cuts to state services. Without improvement in 2010, the states are going to make the same cuts anyway, you've delayed a process for a year that is going to occur anyway. It hasn't prevented anything. There is no recovery in the private sector, all growth has been government spending.

Same as TARP, TARP simply delayed the same thing that has happened anyway. Best bet is to let those things happen and than rebuild.

[geek tragedy]

54. Well, Paul Krugman says you're full of shit. But, he's just an Obamabot cheerleader

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/10/opinion/10krugman.html?_r=3&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

In addition to having this “automatic” stabilizing effect, the government has stepped in to rescue the financial sector. You can argue (and I would) that the bailouts of financial firms could and should have been handled better, that taxpayers have paid too much and received too little. Yet it’s possible to be dissatisfied, even angry, about the way the financial bailouts have worked while acknowledging that without these bailouts things would have been much worse.

The point is that this time, unlike in the 1930s, the government didn’t take a hands-off attitude while much of the banking system collapsed. And that’s another reason we’re not living through Great Depression II.

Last and probably least, but by no means trivial, have been the deliberate efforts of the government to pump up the economy. From the beginning, I argued that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a k a the Obama stimulus plan, was too small. Nonetheless, reasonable estimates suggest that around a million more Americans are working now than would have been employed without that plan — a number that will grow over time — and that the stimulus has played a significant role in pulling the economy out of its free fall.

All in all, then, the government has played a crucial stabilizing role in this economic crisis. Ronald Reagan was wrong: sometimes the private sector is the problem, and government is the solution.

[AllentownJake]

56. Krugman is an intelligent man

I disagree with him from time to time. He is a little extreme on his Keynsian theory. I agree with Keynes on some issues, however until the bad debt is flushed from the system you are throwing good money into a black hole.

[geek tragedy]

57. Krugman was smart enough to learn from the mistakes of Herbert Hoover. nt

[AllentownJake]

58. Evidently Barack Obama hasn't

Depends what mistakes you are talking about. They call Hoover Damn, Hoover Damn for a reason. I think you really don't understand what Herbert Hoover advocated. You might want to pick up a history book, if you take out the obscene racism, Herbert Hoover is closer to a moderate democrat than a conservative republican economically speaking these days.

[geek tragedy]

59. Evidently, your opinion is an uninformed fringe one borne of emotion not understanding.

Guess who said this (no googling!)

“I have to give them credit that, less than a month after they came to power, they had achieved three major policy successes,” he said. These were passing the $800 billion stimulus plan, the mortgage-relief plan to reduce foreclosures, and the “toxic asset” plan to help banks clear bad loans from their books. He said that the initial version of the bank-rescue plan was “botched, because it was rushed,” but that the later version was better. “On each of these things, you can criticize specific elements,” he said. “But they did the big things, and those are the main parameters of what is a constructive policy response. For now, you have to deal with the problem you are facing. All in all I think the policy is going in the right direction.”

[AllentownJake]

60. Herbet Hoover is dead

:rofl:

Point by point. Stimulus bill, not working for the private sector, but when you borrow money and spend it, it will have a boost to GDP simply a quirk on how GDP is calculated Biden himself has said there would be no growth in the 3rd quarter without government spending.

The banks are doing less lending right now and jacking up interest rates. Those programs are working great.

The mortgage relief plan is largely being panned as not working.

:rofl:

[geek tragedy]

61. You somehow seem unable to comprehend the very real possiblity

that things could have been much worse than they are.

But, no, the economy is in a rough period, so you sit there and throw eggs and generally make yourself part of the problem.

[AllentownJake]

63. That is a shit argument

Let me see,

When you drill down the GDP report, the only growth you see is in government spending or programs that pushed demand forward. People can only buy so many capital assets over a period of time. Overall there is still a decline.

When you look at what is going on in the banking sector, they are still in a lot of trouble, aren't lending, and when they do lend, they are charging higher interest rates when there is a federal funds rate of 0. I guess we could pay the banks to take money and lend it to get them to lower people's rates.

Lastly, on the mortgage relief, despite banks suspending their foreclosures in some areas over the summer and despite the fact that this program is out there, the foreclosure rate decreased 3% last month. Also late payments over 60 days increased for the 12th consecutive month.

Other than Apes ruling the planet, how could these programs have produced a worse result.

[Name removed]

64. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[freddie mertz]

46. I want a REAL pony! Not a toy one like that little girl gets on TV...

Apparently you have to ASK to get the real pony.

(OR you can be a knee-jerk excuse-making apologizer and try to convince me that the little plastic pony is the SAME or BETTER than the real one.)

"Besides, he never promised you a REAL pony during the campaign.

You needed to ask."

[geek tragedy]

55. Eh. Paul Krugman gives the Democrats credit for preventing

a depression.

And he supported Hillary, so of course he has absolute moral authority.

[freddie mertz]

92. What does that pony ad have to do with Hillary or Krugman?

Ya lost me...

[sabrina 1]

90. Bring out the violins ~ here come the talking points!

Let's see, you've already covered anyone who wants to save American lives by having a proper, humane, not-for-profit healthcare system ~ the talking point for those terrible people is 'you are like spoiled children, you want everything right away' or any variation of it.

And the 'he's only been in office for 2 weeks, okay, now it's two months, wait, so it's six months, well, okay so ten months' and you spoiled brats want him to wave a magic wand blah, blah.

Why don't you offer something worth reading for a change, and stop with the talking points, every one recognizes them as the excuses they are.

[QC]

99. +10000000000000000000

[msongs]

40. aim low and settle for even less - how's that strategy working so far? lol nt

[pundaint]

108. Real progress starts with a step back for a running start!

mmmmmm kool-aid

[spiritual_gunfighter]

23. You again?

Defending the corporate party line. Your agenda is quite clear.

[geek tragedy]

30. I side with the AFL-CIO and the CPC. You side with AHIP and the RNC

on this legislation.

And you have the lack of shame to accuse me of shilling for corporations?

Purists are the useful idiots of the oligarchs. Always have been, always will be.

[Le Taz Hot]

114. Congratulations for finally getting a clue.

Welcome to the light side. :evilgrin:

[pampango]

19. Don't agree? You're a shill. Just like almost the entire progressive caucus that voted for it.

Maybe Michael can convince the republicans that this is a "giveaway to the insurance industry". Then maybe less than 99% of them will vote against it.

[geek tragedy]

35. Amazing how people who agreed with the AHIP/RNC "no" votes

against the AFL-CIO, SEIU, Congressional Progressive Caucus "yes" votes accuse those who disagree with them of being corporatist shills.

[court jester]

25. Quote Seen: "If you don't buy Health Insurance You're denying civil rights to others!"

A direct quote from a post on some Democratic board somewhere

I guess calling someone Anti American would be too obvious but I'm betting that
before it's over it'll be common.

It's so good i have to type it again:
"If you don't buy Health Insurance You're denying civil rights to others!"

If Baucus was republican would the Democrats have complained about him
arresting 13 nurses and doctors for speaking out about Single Payer?

If bush proposed a "health plan" that mandated purchase of insurance from
private companies it would be ok. No doubt.

Hey it's FUnny at this point!-Jester

[geek tragedy]

11. Amazing how anyone who disagrees with Michael Moore is a 'corporocrat'

Or a cheerleader, or a cultist, whatever.

Very small world you live in

[AllentownJake]

15. Michael Moore says somthing the Cheerleaders like

They celebrate, he tells a truth you don't like he is the devil.

The cult of personality marches on.

[geek tragedy]

20. He's not the devil. He's a good person who's incorrect here. nt

[dionysus]

44. i knew you had a "cult" in you jake. tell me, how does daily whining about the economy fix anything?

it's clear your agenda here is to demoralize people. either that or you are the most "henny-penny the sky is falling" person i have ever seen.

[AllentownJake]

47. Since when did talking about what is happening in the real world

become an effort to demoralize people. I guess I could lie and say things look good and the policies are going to work, but that would be intellectually dishonest.

I'm not one of the people in this world that believes positive thinking solves problems, in fact, in my 30 years I've seen more problems caused by positive thinking than negative.

[dionysus]

49. first off, not everyone has the same circumstances as you

second, what do you expect trumpeting, over and over and over, multiple times a day, doomsday posts about how the economy is doomed will ever accomplish? seriously. with all due respect, at this point, you're shouting failure from the rooftops over and over and over...

[AllentownJake]

50. I post links to actual news stories

I'm sorry you don't like the news. When a government report comes out, I give my analysis on it. I'm generally pretty fair. When another poster attacked the administration for not going after the tax cuts I pointed out, the cuts will expire in 2010 and no action is better than bringing the cuts up for debate in congress again.

I'm pretty sure not everyone is in my particular circumstance, honestly this has nothing to do with me personally. I'm against the war but have no chance of ever going because of a medical condition, doesn't make me less against it.

This administration has been doing the wrong things economically for 10 months, sorry I don't fall in line because I happened to vote for the guy who is implementing the policies or that I know that his opponent would have had worse policies.

[geek tragedy]

66. You claim Obama produced the worst possible result.

So, you really are saying that McCain would have been better.

Never mind the fact that NO ONE who knows what they're talking about agrees with you.

[AllentownJake]

73. It is really all or nothing with you

I guess I should be happy he is doing a bad job because the person who might have been in power would have done even more horrible things.

Typical shill posts, I guess you are going to now compare me to Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh because you have nothing intelligent or rational to say.

[geek tragedy]

75. I don't want to make sense to the "Obama is a fascist" crowd.

Because they only understand hatred, anger, and irrationality.

[AllentownJake]

88. Like I said, comparing someone you have never met to a mass murderer

shows more hate anger and irrationality than anything I've posted here.

[Prana69]

104. Since when was the measure of success.....

...that Obama's not as bad as McCain would have been?

And please, stop this silly approach of putting words and interpretations in people's mouths and shouting it out to the world. It's really very childish.

Please, move on.

[geek tragedy]

65. Jake thinks McCain-Palin would have been better.

He thinks the stimulus was a bunch of pork.

He thinks it would have been better to let the banks fail and let state governments collapse and schools shut down and have another 1 million unemployed people.

[dionysus]

69. by gum, now that's the ticket!!11

:P

[geek tragedy]

71. Jake also thinks the Obama admin is 'fascism lite.'

He's been spending way too much time listening to Glenn Beck.

[AllentownJake]

76. You are such a fool and a tool

You put words in people's mouth. You use straw men as your sole debating tactic and when that fails, You make things up, when they don't respond to your reality.

You have adopted the debating tactic of the right wing. Instead of responding to someone's assertions with a debate you decide it is easier to attack the person.

[geek tragedy]

77. I didn't put the word 'fascist' in your mouth, did I?

How long before you start talking about the growing the tree of liberty?

[AllentownJake]

79. You know you are failing

When the only way you can respond to people critical of policies, is to lump them in with people on the opposite side they have nothing in common with.

I actually now take this line of attack as further evidence that you are becoming increasingly and increasingly unable to defend the economic policies of the past 10 months with rational debate or tangible results.

[geek tragedy]

80. You called the stimulus bill 'pork' and you refer to Obama as a fascist.

Very clear where you're coming from now.

Pure hatred in search of a policy justification.

[AllentownJake]

82. You just compared me to a mass murderer

People disagreeing with your world view really upsets you doesn't it. You call me an extremist but you use the biggest straw men you can find, not to support your argument but to attack personally.

It is actually kind of funny that you call someone irrational than compare them to a mass murderer 3 lines down.

[geek tragedy]

83. The point is that people can turn violently hateful of causes they once supported.

You've already turned into a full-blown fringe hater who considers Obama a fascist. Which is exactly what the LaRouchies and militia types say about him.



You certainly don't seem to be taking any further steps towards the light.

[AllentownJake]

84. Wow you are sick

That is some cultist language you just used there. Not like teasing, like real cultist language.

[geek tragedy]

85. Yep, I don't think he's a fascist so I'm a cultist.

Keep on spouting the Glenn Beck talking points.

[AllentownJake]

87. "Come back into the light"

Pray tell, what do I need to do to experience this light. Please tell me how my soul can be cleansed and I can be clear thinking and rational like you. Please heal me brother :rofl:

[sabrina 1]

117. Geek Tragedy wants Obama to hand over trillions of dollars

to the Wall St. Criminals who caused the collapse of the world economy. Geek Tragedy wants Obama to reward the criminally negligent Private Insurance Industry for letting Americans die by refusing to provide them with coverage and for allowing their death panels to virtually sentence people to death by refusing them life-saving treatment.

Geek Tragedy has no problem with letting people die so long as we save the failed, criminal and corrupt Private Insurance Industry.

Jake, there really is no point in arguing with someone like this, unless you use their tactics. Of course, when YOU do it to THEM, they scream like rightwingnuts do about how 'unfair' you are being to them.

[dgibby]

116. Well, at least, Jake thinks,

which is more than I can say for some people posting here.

I don't always agree with Jake (or anyone else, for that matter), but I do agree with him more often than not, because he has the courage to criticize when he disagrees, and he bases his opinion on facts, not feelings.

I have to say, I generally discount the posters here who march in lock step with the Admin. and chastise anyone who questions or disagrees with the WH.
I find that to be most disconcerting. It reminds me too much of the mindless lemmings on the right. I'd like to think progressives are more advanced than that, so it's always disturbing to realize some of us aren't.

[paulk]

121. what an absurd post

you damage your credibility (if that's even something you care about) when you say things like this...

more and more I'm wondering if posters like you really aren't paid shills. You're clearly not here to discuss anything, and the tactic of personally trashing other DUers who don't agree with you is getting really old.

[karynnj]

67. Self delete to avoid the misigosh for attacking a DU hero - even if I think he is always

counterproductive.

[Romulox]

38. You're confused. "Cultist" is the favorite epithet of one of the shill-o-crats. nt

[geek tragedy]

12. Dupe delete

[QC]

52. THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP

[Starry Messenger]

86. Well, just the one mostly.

Busy little sucker though, ain't he?

[branders seine]

10. it most definitely sucks,

and it constitutes "reform" only in the most perverse possible sense of the word. It is actively regressive, not progressive.

[geek tragedy]

13. I admire his passion, but he is incorrect here.

The new regulations, plus the removal of the anti-trust exemption, plus the seeds of a meaningful public option, make this something AHIP desperately wants to defeat.

[blindpig]

62. ...and piss is rain.

Must be, you keep saying every day.

Your education is lacking, never heard of B'rer Rabbit and the briar patch?

[geek tragedy]

68. Well, if one also buys that the entire US labor movement is

a tool of the insurance industry, then I guess your conspiracy theory makes sense.

[blindpig]

72. Ain't no conspiracy

it just the way business is done.

Unfortunately the leadership of most major unions is fatally compromised. That's business too.

[geek tragedy]

81. Yes, I understand the theory.

It's only a few brave keyboard revolutionaries who are interested in protecting workers.

[maryf]

103. business sucks nt.

[fascisthunter]

17. indeed (nt)

[Vidar]

26. K&R

[leftstreet]

28. K&R

[Bluenorthwest]

29. As usual Michael is correct, specific and clear

Something IS seriously wrong indeed.

[DU GrovelBot]

33. ## PLEASE DONATE TO DEMOCRATIC UNDERGROUND! ##

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[Echo In Light]

34. K&R for MM!

[Libertas1776]

48. Good,

maybe now he'll restrain his cockeyed optimism over Obama.

[Cleita]

51. Yes, what all of us have been predicting would happen all along if

only the lobbyists and insurance companies were allowed to write this bill through the committees. They got any discussion of Medicare for all off the table immediately even before it went to committee and for all the talk of a robust public option, we have found out that if the PO isn't another gift to the insurance companies it will be eliminated altogether.

[Better Believe It]

53. Oh oh! I didn't see your post until now. Just reposted the article. I'll make a link.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

74. The lipstick on that pig of a bill is wearing thin. The apologists need to apply more.

[kerrywins]

78. You Must Destroy The Little Bit of Free Market Healthcare Before You Take It Over

They must destroy the little bit of free market health care we have before they can fully take it over.

Gov. forced HMOs on us, and we see how well that worked out....
now they will finish it off and completely destroy...then they can fully take it over...

[Richardo]

89. Michael Moore: "Everything's shitty. I made a movie about it!"

:boring:

[Geek_Girl]

91. I wish I emigrated to Canada

a few years back. But I decided to ride in the bus that is going off the cliff.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

93. Boy, this sure brought out the DLCers and the elephants in donkey jackets

:eyes:

[earth mom]

94. Love Moore and totally agree with him, but he needs to lie the blame at Obama's feet.

I truly believe that if Obama had the desire to make Universal Health care a reality in this country he would do it.

But instead, all Obama has done is whatever Big Pharma and the Insurance industry tell him to do. :grr:

[DonCoquixote]

96. Truly had the desire

Sorry to say, what Obama desires has nothing to do with it, it is what the people desire, and we have known to be so ready to argue with each other that we are half fortunate to get anything. I can believe in Single player, but I wonder how anyone can say "he could have done it" when frankly the man is hated by both the left and right factions of the party. The left is mad that he is not St. Dennis, and the right is mad that he is not Hillary (though sadly, his policies and advisors are very eeerily like Hillary who supported MANDATED care, who campaigned on it.)

Yes, Bush did a lot, but that was not because of any power W. had, W. was a figurehead, an idiot, who was a perfect puppet for the REAL jerk in charge Cheney, just like Sarah Palin will be.

[AlbertCat]

105. the blame at Obama's feet.

Um...the president doesn't make laws. Congress does.

After 8 years of the Cheney Presidency, people think the Prez just waves his hand and the rubber stamp Congress does as they are told.

[dotymed]

110. Obama should have written the health care bill

Then he should have taken it to congress and the American
people and argued and twisted arms to make it a reality. HR676
would have been best but at least a strong PO and a wealth tax
to pay for it, with everyone covered. The insurance,pharma or
medical devices industries, should not have had any part in
writing this legislation. That is like when Cheney had the
energy companies write our energy legislation. Having congress
write it was a cowardly and corruptive thing to do, especially
since these corporations pay the congress. I worked to get him
elected, but that does not blind me to the truth. I wanted
Kucinich. He and Bernie Sanders would be the best thing that
could happen to America. Yes, we do live in a Fascist country
and it is not getting better.Glass-Steagal has to be
reinstated just like the FAIRNESS DOCTRINE does. Healthcare
and education for all does not mean a socialist society. Look
at our neighbors. Publicly financed elections is a great
starting point. We were promised no lobbyists in government,
hell,that promise is broken daily. Transparency? Not even
close... I want Obama to succeed, but I also want him to do
what he promised. Of course, he is better than the reich-wing,
but that isn't saying a lot. Where is the change we can
believe in? We  deserve so much better and the world depends
on our lead. We need to get some real choices in candidates,
not bad or worse. We have become a single party system;
corporate. That is Fascism.
excuse my fonts, I can't figure it out yet...

[dana_b]

95. good! I'm glad he's speaking out on this

and I'll bet he sees the Stupak amendment as unacceptable too.

[neuvocat]

101. That's why there will never be health care reform.

Wedge issues do a lot to get someone elected and a lot more to make sure nothing gets done.

[dana_b]

102. +1

I wish they wouldn't allow amendments to get tacked on to bills like this. It's b.s. and almost seems cowardly to me.

If someone wants something passed through congress, they should make their own damn bill!

[BlueJac]

97. Was it intended to be anything but this??

I seriously doubt it. The plan all the way. What do you expect from bought and paid for politicians!! Everything in this country has been sold out, from prisons to health care. How fucked up can this country get?

[NikolaC]

98. Big K&R n/t

[SandWalker1984]

100. Michael Moore is correct - Congress is sickos!

Some of these people on here, if they are not paid hacks for the insurance corporations, they are acting like anxious mistresses in that they say the bill needs to be passed first and fixed later. They believe, like mistresses, that even though they are the 3rd affair of the adulterer for the year, they are somehow special and the adulterer will treat them better and end up marrying them. Yeah, right.

Remember that when we were sold NAFTA by Clinton, Gore & corporate media, we were told it could be renegotiated and fixed in 6 months if it wasn't working out. It's now 15 years later and NAFTA wasn't fixed or renegotiated and it has devastated Detroit. In just the past few weeks Whirlpool and Electrolux have moved almost 2000 jobs to Mexico. Never mind that NAFTA has destroyed the value of our dollar.

Let's talk about Bill Clinton's capital gains tax cut to 15% that rewarded the rich for moving those jobs out of the US. That hasn't been fixed either, in fact, they now want to eliminate the capital gains tax altogether for their rich friends.

Then there's the Telecommunications bill from 1996. Newt told us all after passing the bill with Clinton, that our cable bills would drop to $15 a month. I don't know about yours, but my cable bill is $60 a month for BASIC cable. Another lie.


You can't fix legislation later that is being controlled by monopolies like the health care industry. Obama ran as an anti-current establishment, reform progressive but apparently, behind the scenes, he acts like a sleazy Chicago politician making deals in secret with the criminal corporations. He promised us open debate and transparency.

What Obama has given us in the past 10 months is a new level of corruption and secrecy. He is going behind our backs and cutting bad deals with the industry he is supposed to be protecting us from in the health care debate, the industry that he ran against during the campaign.

We are being sold out for "whatever." Whatever is more important than REAL health care reform - it's all about their self-serving agendas and the rich they represent. The rest is just lies and rhetoric.


Please read the following insightful post.

Welcome Back to Pottersville: Congress pulls the Trigger
http://welcomebacktopottersville.blogspot.com/2009/11/congress-pulls-trigger.html

Three years ago, You were Time's Man of the Year. By next year, you could be Public Enemy #1.

For years, journalist Michael Collins has been calling them “the Money Party.” It’s a mere paraphrase of Gore Vidal’s very correct assertion that there are no Democratic or Republican parties- There’s only the Corporate Party and the only difference between the two is how fast their knees hit the carpet when a lobbyist walks into their office.

In order to see just how evil and hostile our Congress is to their constituents, one need look no further back than the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act in the spring of 2005. The bill, written by self-dealing lenders seven and a half years before it passed, was essentially a veiled piece of sarcasm that preemptively sought to paint Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Public as criminals or potential criminals for “abusing” the bankruptcy protection laws while these self-same, self-dealing corporations as the poor victims whose Plan B was always the bankruptcy courts, corrupt, irresponsible entities that were given the same protections that are rightfully ours.

The “consumer protection” part of the bill only protected those consumers of shrinking private incomes, namely the credit card companies who largely wrote the bill. They were still able to hike APRs up to 36% and even the subsequent credit card reform bill of this year does little to alleviate these crushing Tony Soprano-like interest rates. It only forces the credit card companies to give you a little more notice before capriciously jacking up your APR whether or not you’re a good customer.

Regarding election reform, it’s long been noted that lawmakers (especially, audaciously, Republicans) and the corporate mainstream media are more prone to believe or to have you believe that the real issue isn’t election fraud perpetrated every other year by multi billion dollar, Republican-connected vote tabulation companies and an army of shadowy, partisan operatives, it’s voter fraud. Forget the fact that only a handful of voter fraud cases were ever prosecuted by the Justice Department between 2002-5. Diebold, ES&S and Sequioa Systems aren't the bad guys. It's ACORN.

We’re also the Dillingers, Bonnie and Clydes and the James Gang. We’re the ones who abuse the bankruptcy system. We’re the ones who bully poor credit card and banking giants. We’re the ones who abuse the election laws. Yet we’re also the ones who have to bail out Wall Street to the tune of trillions and finance two losing wars thousands of miles away for trillions more whether we want to or not.

It can be said that the only truly criminal act perpetrated by the national electorate is when we keep voting into office actual criminals and corporate stooges (from now on referred to as “members of Congress”) and it’s that brief, shining moment when, ironically, we’re appealed to by these earnest, hopeful candidates and incumbents who never think beyond the next election cycle. It’s the one time that we can be trusted to “do the right thing” when we walk into the polls.

How many times in the movies have we seen henchmen and accomplices spring the bad guy from prison or do him some other favor only to see the bad guy turn around and shoot his naïve benefactor in the back? Last Saturday night, the people that we elected to Congress, did it again and this time we can’t blame the Republican Party.

In the dead of Saturday night, the House passed their version of a health reform bill that, frankly, makes Max Baucus’ first health care proposal look like a bleeding heart liberal/socialist piece of legislation by conspicuous relief. One of the most alarming aspects of HR 3962, that passed 220-215 (219 Democrats and one Republican voted for it) are the purely evil sections 7203 and 7201. The less evil of these sections, 7203, calls for $25,000 in fines and up to a year imprisonment for “defying” the federal mandate for getting insurance. That's the misdemeanor. The felony? A quarter of a million dollars in fines and up to five years in prison.

You read that right. A quarter of a million dollars in fines and 60 months in prison for being put in the position of choosing food or your mortgage over health care that are hardly any cheaper than the bloated rates we’re already paying. Add to that the nonpartisan CBO’s projection that any government-run public option would wind up being even more expensive than those offered in the private sector. Add to that the fact that Blue Dog Democrats and Republicans had shoehorned language into the bill that allows individual states to opt out of the public option, a tack favored by the President. It’s called “the trigger option”, so-called because it would trigger the implementation of said so-called option if the private sector doesn’t meet certain conditions.

And those of you who are actually found guilty of the crime of not buying over $100 of health insurance every week will lose their jobs and earning potential. For up to five years, we will not be contributing to anything other than a prison economy. We will not be paying taxes. We will not be paying child support if we already are. And when we get thrown into the prison system, who gets to foot the bill for the health care that we'd defiantly refused to get?

You guessed it: Joe Sixpack and John Q. Public, aka the already burdened US taxpayer.

The Draconian 7203 and 7201 are supposed to be mere threats, deterrents to prevent us from cruelly withholding and willfully denying poor HMOs who are just trying to get by like the rest of us.

But what difference does that make to the rest of us who are held at gunpoint and told, "Don't worry. We won't really shoot you unless you refuse to jump ten feet into the air"?

According to the latest projections, this $1.3 trillion health care bill (HR 3962) passed in the House would force you to buy insurance if you don’t have it already, raise premiums and allow states, including those that have near-monopolies in the health care industry (such as Maine, for instance) to drop out of the program. Essentially, it’s a massive individual mandate without anything resembling a public option and co-ops would essentially be shouldered and jostled out of contention. It would be very easy to imagine health insurance giants leaning on state-level lawmakers to opt out of the federal program.

Perhaps the Republican Party had the right idea about this, all along: Perhaps the last thing we need is health care “reform.” At least under the status quo, 48,000,000 of us can’t afford health insurance but no one’s proposing putting us in jail for the crime of being indigent or fining those that can’t afford even $5300 in annual premiums or $15,000 for family plans (the cheapest single and family plans under the ratified House bill) to the tune of $250,000.

The last such early Christmas present to the health care field, the $800,000,000 gift-wrapped present to Big Pharma from Congress and George W. Bush was just a precursor, a warmup. It was obvious from the gitgo that any health care “reform” would be a massive corporate giveaway seeking to create a captive customer base of hundreds of millions for a part of the private sector that is already richer and more powerful than most national GDPs. And the pre-emptive supposition that any working or unemployed man who chooses to feed his family or pays his mortgage to stave off foreclosure for another month is a potential criminal is plainly the most despicable legislation to come down the Beltway in years. Specifically, four and a half years.

I mentioned the bankruptcy bill of 2005 for another reason. A 2004 Health Affairs study discovered that out of 1,660,245 people who filed for bankruptcy the year before, around half of them did so because medical bills made them default on credit card or mortgage payments. And almost 73% of those people already had health insurance. At the very black heart of the bankruptcy bill was the need for health care reform, something that took four more years to seriously address.

But We the People are under siege by our own Congress. They have met the enemy and do so during every election cycle and it is us.

The House passed a bill last Saturday that forces you to buy health insurance at rates higher than what we’re already paying, without a real public option and credit card companies can still charge you up to 30% interest even if you’re a good customer. It’s impossible to see how this miraculous “jobless recovery” will pan out when unemployed, underemployed and struggling working families are saddled with crushing home lending rates, rising credit card payments and an unwanted mandate that seeks to burden these same families with at least $15,000 in corporately/Congressionally-mandated health care costs that at least now are optional and with little to no real chance of successfully filing for bankruptcy protection. And to somehow be able to do all this with the unemployment now officially at 10.2%.

What I’m proposing here isn’t Monday morning quarterbacking. This is real. The Democratic Congress did this to us last Saturday after the C-SPAN cameras were turned off for the night. It was as if they shot us in the back of the head Soviet-style so as to leave behind no witnesses or to take a bigger cut of the heist. While I’m not lauding the GOP’s motive for opposing it, it can be said that this time, unlike 2005, they didn’t have a hand in this Satanic bill that seeks to enslave and imprison American consumers both literally and figuratively. And why we’re not marching on Capitol Hill right now by the tens of millions, torches, ropes, buckets of hot tar, bags of feathers and pitchforks in hand is anybody’s guess.

And why is it that the only people whom we’d seen come out in full force and in full-throated, well-organized opposition to health care reform was the clearly insane, criminally stupid and willfully ignorant radical factions known as astroturfers and teabaggers?



Obama-Orwell, more corporate chains you can believe in.

[placton]

106. if only the PRESIDENT

knew about this, I am sure he would do something.

[prestonPjr21]

107. Check this out!

I owe a hospital money for giving me stitches. I was attacked and bitten by a pit-bull. I needed 18 stitches, and the doctor at the hospital gave them to me. My bill came to $1,600, for 15 minutes of work. Anyway I was responsible to pay, because the dog was a stray and no one could be held accountable. I just received a phone call the other day, get this, the lady who was calling on behalf of the collections agency hired by the hospital. She actually was to the point of threatening me. Her last question to me was, don't you have any friends who would lend you the money. I can`t afford to pay that right now, and it is also really hurting my credit score.

[saracat]

109. I am respecting Moore, more and more. He is right on on this. Below is proof

Health insurers will continue being exempt from anti-trust laws.


http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/11/with_...

"And, to address one of (Senator) Ben Nelson's concerns, (Senator Harry) Reid stripped out a provision that would have overturned the insurance industry's anti-trust exemptions."

[DesertRat]

111. K&R

[RedCloud]

112. left in form, right in essence once again.

Chump change we can believe in?

[N_E_1 for Tennis]

113. Where is the Downside? Please give us mandated insurance

Mandated insurance helps everyone. I, for one, am in total favor of the plan.

1. I will not insure myself.
2. Get imprisoned for not paying my medical bills and not having mandated insurance,
3. Voila!! Free health care, a place to live, meals, and a job!!

If enough of us follow this plan (and I think there will be millions) we will also put America
"Back To Work". We will create thousands of new jobs to build the prisons needed to house us.

America is a great place with great ideas, what's the problem?

Where's the downside?

[N_E_1 for Tennis]

115. SUPPORT H.R. 676

WHAT PART OF "CAN'T AFFORD" DON'T THEY UNDERSTAND?

[area51]

118. kick.

Every day, 273 people die due to lack of healthcare in the U.S.

Get the facts on single-payer

[Dinger]

119. Mike Is Right

That is all.

[gulliver]

122. Moore is helping the bill, but intentionally?

If Moore were enthusiastic about the bill, it would be dead.