Folks from other parts of the country may not know that the Poconos in Pennsylvania are a favorite vacation getaway for people living in the NYC area. The Poconos also is the site of a major battle between an evil for profit hospital corporation and its workers. From Labor Notes 3/18/11:

Members of Service Employees Healthcare Pennsylvania, the workers walked out March 15 to show unity against management attempts to impose an “open shop” in contract negotiations. The strike follows an earlier one-day strike February 9.

Unionized nurses in the hospital (members of the Operating Engineers) have been speaking out in support of their co-workers, joining rallies and holding a picnic for the strikers. Other SEIU locals from Pittsburgh, Ohio, and California have sent donations.

The 550 PMC workers voted in a union four years ago and have been negotiating their second contract, which expired in October. Management has been trying to push the “open shop” poison pill into the contract, in which workers could get the benefits of the union without paying dues.

These hospital workers had to fight hard to even get a union representation election in the first place, one that they won by a 2-1 margin. Now, an evil corporation is trying to divide the workplace and weaken the union by pushing a blatantly unethical "open shop" provision in contract talks.

It takes a lot to organize a union in the face of employer opposition. Working conditions and patient care conditions at the hospital forced the employees to fight against the odds and unionize.

Let's say that the fascist corporation wins the battle. Let's say that the workers get totally screwed. What will be the impact on healthcare?

- Nurses and other employees will go to work understandably angry and resentful.

- Many of the best nurses and other caregivers will find work elsewhere.

- The employees making up the slow exodus will be replaced by people who are incredibly desperate for jobs in the high demand nursing field. Most of the new people will be incompetent and dangerous.

- All the employees will be working under highly distracting, stressful conditions.

Now, what happens if you get sick or injured on vacation to the Poconos? Do you really want your ambulance to take you to that hospital if management gets to flush quality healthcare down the toilet in favor of corporate greed?

I'll vacation elsewhere. Yes, it will be partly out of solidarity, but it will mostly be out of self preservation.

 

This is downright scary. (NY Pop Culture and Politics 2/11/11)

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has found enough state grant money to save Long Island College Hospital, NY1 reported. Because of the deal, 2,500 employees, who work at the Brooklyn hospital, will be able to keep their jobs.

In the time that Christine Quinn has been Speaker of the New York City Council, at least eight city hospitals have closed :

- North General Hospital in Harlem declared bankruptcy in 2010 ;
- St. Vincent's Hospital in the West Village was shut down in 2010 after shady backroom meetings ;
- St. John's Queens Hospital in Elmhurst went bankrupt in 2009 ;
- Mary Immaculate Hospital in Jamaica went bankrupt in 2009 ;
- Parkway Hospital in Forest Hills decided to close in 2008 ;
- Cabrini Medical Center in Manhattan closed in 2008 ;
- Victory Memorial Hospital in Bay Ridge closed in 2008 ; and
- St. Vincent's Midtown in Manhattan closed in 2007.

Three things struck me right away on this one.

1) Bloomberg has been mayor during this period and hasn't lifted a finger to save any hospital.

2) Before they were cash poor from the child molestation lawsuits, the Roman Catholic clergy were buying up hospitals so they could deny women patients access to birth control and abortion. As you can see, they have an execrable record in terms of managing hospitals.

3) "Policy experts" here and in other parts of the country have been babbling on about "excess hospital beds" for at least a couple of decades. If they had IQs over 60, they would realize that it is necessary to have extra hospital capacity in case of disasters. This includes terrorist attacks in NYC. These "efficiency experts" have no clue about the role that hospitals are supposed to play in the security of their cities, towns, and neighborhoods. You would think that NYC would learn from 911, but Bloomberg obviously has not.

Penny pinching HMOs and health insurers along with cutbacks in government funding for healthcare over the years have had devastating effects on hospitals and the people who need them. We need Medicare for All ASAP. What we don't need is what we have: a government that makes big money campaign contributions, reprehensible wars, other subsidies for corporations, and tax cuts for the rich higher priorities than human needs.

Photo: Edwin Martinez1

 

Ayn Rand, the far rightist who started the bizarre cult of Objectivism, was one of the most fanatical opponents of government programs like Medicare and Social Security which serve the needs of the middle class and the poor. On the other hand, she loved this nation's wildly bloated military industrial complex, which subsidizes the rich.

Yet, guess what the idol of the Randroids actually did. (Alternet 1/29/11)

Ayn Rand was not only a schlock novelist, she was also the progenitor of a sweeping “moral philosophy” that justifies the privilege of the wealthy and demonizes not only the slothful, undeserving poor but the lackluster middle-classes as well.

Her books provided wide-ranging parables of "parasites," "looters" and "moochers" using the levers of government to steal the fruits of her heroes' labor. In the real world, however, Rand herself received Social Security payments and Medicare benefits under the name of Ann O'Connor (her husband was Frank O'Connor).

Take that Randroids!

You may recall that corrupt and incompetent former Federal Reserve Board stooge Alan Greenspan was a disciple of the Randroid cult. This is one of the reasons he fought against reinstituting regulations that would have prevented the Crash of 2008. He also refused to intervene to gradually cool off the housing bubble on the same "free market" grounds. However, he had no problem with manipulating interest rates to benefit the wealthy and powerful.

Here are some anti Ayn Rand/Objectivism Websites and Articles:

What's Wrong with Ayn Rand? (About.com)

Atlas Wanked: From Fiction to Fraud in 52 Years (Crooks and Liars)

Definition of "Randroid" (Urban Dictionary)

The Anti Ayn Rand Society (Facebook)

Ayn Rand Sucks (Facebook)

Why Randroids Will Always Fail (in mala fide)

Why Ayn Rand Sucks... (newspoodle's posterous)

Objectivism Criticism (blog)

Ayn Rand isn't just renowned for being a narcisist. She is infamous for being an absolutely terrible writer. Here are some bad reviews of her notoriously terribleFountainhead.

James Higgs

Ryan (Goodreads)

Brendan (Goodreads)

Foodpie (Goodreads)

This is a national disgrace.

Community Health Systems (CHS) is an incredibly evil corporation that runs for profit hospitals, including Wilkes-Barre General Hospital in Pennsylvania.

(From Labor Notes: 1/12/11)

CHS offers a health care plan that under-insures the individual or family, offering limited coverage and substantial co-pays, deductibles, and coinsurance. This unaffordable plan has already been forced on the non-union employees at the hospital, some of whom have acquired thousands of dollars in health care debt already, even when they are treated in the same hospital in which they work.

Even hospital employees are getting shitty healthcare. This is obviously corrupt and immoral. It also raises the question, would you trust healthcare from workers who don't have halfway decent healthcare themselves.

This is an example of healthcare cruelty and corruption that permeates our society. We need Medicare for All, not Obama's wealthcare plan for HMOs, health insurers, and Big Pharma. We also need to nationalize all for profit hospitals.

The employees in the nurses union went on a one day strike to fight for healthcare and to end other hateful and abusive practices by CHS. It's great to see people fighting back. This kind of fightback by unionized workers is why the corporate media lie like crazy to demonize unions. The owners and advertisers in the corporate media want everyone but the ultrarich to live in abject poverty and serfdom.

Learn more about the strike.

Photo: elisfanclub

 

Photo: Muffett

A lot of liberals and progressives were outraged by the Democrats' wealthcare bill that takes care and money from poor, middle class, and elderly Americans and gives a ton of money to HMOs, health insurers, and the rich people who speculate in their stocks. The vast majority of liberals and progressives were outraged by the US Supreme Court's Citizens United decision which absurdly claims that corporations have constitutional rights and that campaign contributions are "speech."

Yet, very few people have made the connection between the two.

The US Supreme Court's attack on democracy took place on January 21, 2010 and the wealthcare bill passed that March. This is really important. Efforts to include a public option and to roll back some of the wealthcare bill's many attacks on the non rich were being fought up to the end. Nearly all of those efforts collapsed at the end, in a political landscape reshaped by the Court's decision to disenfranchise ordinary Americans.

It's become obvious to me that the Democrats decided that corporations now have absolute power in our country and that Democratic voters and grassroots activists don't matter anymore. They made a calculate decision to side with the corporations against us.

This follows a pattern of refusing to take actions (if necessary by budget reconciliation) that would improve the lives of middle class and poor Americans such jobs bills and the Employee Free Choice act. In fact, the Democrats were so leery of even allowing for the possibility of using budget reconciliation that they didn't even pass a budget this year.

The problem with the Democrats' gambit is that midterms are decided by turnout, and the GOP style policies of the Democratic Party leadership has given liberals and progressives little reason to vote at all, unless it is to vote Green.

The saddest irony is that none of the "justices" that voted for corporate meddling in elections has any legitimate right to be serving on the court at this time. Scalia, Thomas, and Kennedy were involved in the theft of the 2000 election, and they should have been impeached and removed from office for it. The nominations of Roberts and Alito to the Supreme Court were invalid because George W. Bush never was legally the President of the US and therefore had no legal right to make any appointments to any government body.

Corruption leads to more corruption, which leads, in turn, to more corruption. It's no wonder our country is in so much trouble.

 

A lot of liberals are pissed off at Barack Bush's flunky Robert Gibbs for comments he recently made in an interview in The Hill. I'm pissed off, but at a different part than most liberals seem to be. (part that pissed me off bolded)

“I hear these people saying he’s like George Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested,” Gibbs said. “I mean, it’s crazy.”

The press secretary dismissed the “professional left” in terms very similar to those used by their opponents on the ideological right, saying, “They will be satisfied when we have Canadian healthcare and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon. That’s not reality.”

If the almighty Gibbs doesn't like liberals like me comparing President Obama to George W. Bush, then he should tell his boss to stop governing with the Bush policies the overwhelming majority of the time. The "professional left" thing sounds cool. It would be great to make a living doing this, but that's about as likely to happen as Gibbs showing any humility. Whatever.

The thing that is so disgusting to me is that Gibbs treats getting single payer healthcare as being as unreasonable as abolishing the entire military. Let's talk about why Canadian style healthcare is not a fact of life in this country.

It certainly isn't because of a lack of popularity for single payer. Medicare for all consistently polls at 65-70 % popularity in the polls. A plan with a public option generally falls in the low 60s, while Obama's Wealthcare Plan for the HMOs and health insurers doesn't even have majority support in this country. Why should a GOP style money grab for the rich at the expense of the economic wellbeing and health of the middle class, the poor, and the elderly be popular?

The failure to pass real healthcare reform (i.e. single payer or a national health system like the one in Britain) certainly isn't due to a lack of effort on the part of doctors, nurses, and activists who don't work in the industry. The effort definitely has been there.

The reasons why we don't have Medicare for all is that there are too many bought politicians like Barack Bush in DC and the corporate media propagandize too overwhelmingly on behalf of HMO/health insurer interests.

Government health insurance is the will of the people, yet Robert Gibbs and Barack Bush act like the vast majority people of this country are annoying gnats to be swatted away on behalf of wealthy donors. Robert Gibbs also recently made a splash by saying that the Democrats could lose the House. Well, failure to pass healthcare reform is one of the main reasons why.

Photo: Robert Huffstutter

 

If it really were a legitimate "deficit commission," it wouldn't be meeting in secret.



This video was put up on YouTube by Strengthen Social Security, Don't Cut it. I'm particularly pleased that the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force is a member organization, which demonstrates their commitment to queer seniors issues. This disproportionately effects queers who are much less likely to have children to help us when we get older.

I has previously blogged about Nancy Pelosi's sneak attack against Social Security. In that post, I describe the Catfood Commission.

You may have been reading about Obama's "deficit commission" in DC. The name is misleading. Some people call it the "catfood commission" because its real goals are raising the Social Security retirement age to 70, cutting benefits in that program, slashing Medicare, and putting 20% of the Social Security trust fund in the stock market. Healthcare Now has been fighting hard to resist this attack on the livelihoods of the elderly and the futures of the young.

The last thing we need as a nation is to have future generations of elderly people reduced to eating catfood when meager incomes fail most of us. Alternet isn't going along with this. They have put up a petition on Change.Org against the Catfood Commission. The background information follows.

Right-Wing "Deficit Hawks" and their enablers are on a march to destroy the social safety net we built for our seniors and retirees. Shockingly, some of the most notorious advocates are actually in charge of the presidential commission that will soon determine the future of Social Security and Medicare. We need to stop them in their tracks! Join us in calling on Congress to Stop the Catfood Commission.

The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform has been dubbed by progressives the "Catfood Commission" because its goal appears to be cutting benefits so drastically that retirees will only be able to afford to eat pet food. It's hard to tell exactly what the commission is planning because its meetings are closed to the public and the press. Based on past statements and the background of its members the proposals are likely to include raising the retirement age to 70, turning large portions of Social Security over to Wall Street, and cutting Medicare benefits.

The commission's co-chairman Alan Simpson, a former Republican senator from Wyoming, has stated he believes the founders of the Social Security program never expected anyone to actually live to 65 and collect. "People just died," he has said. "Social Security was never [for] retirement." Erskine Bowles, the other co-chairman, negotiated a secret but ultimately unsuccessful deal between Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich to cut Social Security benefits. Any chances that the commission would make cuts to the US defense budget in its pursuit of fiscal responsibility seem slim owing to the fact that the CEO of Honeywell, a major defense contractor, is a member of the panel.

We can't sit back and count on a Democratic-controlled Congress to protect our social safety net. Just a day before the July 4th holiday weekend, the House of Representatives passed a measure that would guarantee an up-or-down vote on the Catfood Commission's recommendations in the current session of Congress if they pass the Senate. With this measure House Speaker Nancy Pelosi relinquished her power to prevent the vote from coming to the floor.

Your representatives need to hear from you NOW. Let's stop the Catfood Commission from raiding the Social Security trust fund and slashing medical benefits for current and future retirees.

Please Take Action to Stop This Attack on Social Security and Medicare!

Also:

Please Contact the President and Tell Him to Disband the Catfood Commission!

Photo: Sunfox

 

Ted Rall's syndicated column on Obama out Republicaning the Goppers is one of the best summaries of what has been wrong with this administration to date. The entire column is worth a read, but the comments on the wealthcare bill are of special interest.

Obama's revamp of healthcare, on the other hand, goes too far, perverting the liberal desire to provide healthcare for all Americans into a transfer of wealth from poor to rich that the hard right never dreamed of.

Buying into the classic, flawed, American assumption that a bad system can't get worse (ask the Iraqis and Afghans), ObamaCare entrusts 30 million new customers, to the tune of roughly ten grand a year each, to the tender mercies of private insurance companies.

ObamaCare pours hundreds of billions of dollars, some from taxpayers, the rest from poor people, into the gaping coffers of giant corporations. Once people find themselves paying even more for visits to the same crappy doctors and hospitals they can't afford now, they'll hold the Dems responsible at the polls. If Republicans stopped to think, they'd love it.

And if Democrats stopped to think, they'd hate it.

Some of us have stopped to think, and we do hate it.

The rightist policies of the Obama administration are going to cause some Democrats to vote Green at least some of the time for years. However, that won't be the biggest impact on the party. Obama, Pelosi, Reid, and their minions are doing a really effective job in persuading Democratic core constituencies that it doesn't matter much who you vote for. This means lower Democratic turnout and less volunteer time. The couch is a more effective rival than third parties, at least so far, and the DINOs in power are giving the couch a huge electoral advantage.

The Democrats are digging themselves in deeper and deeper, and they are too foolish and too bought to see it.

 

She did this commercial during her 2008 Green Party presidential campaign. Sadly, she was correct.



 

Everybody's playing this game. So, I thought I would join in. The numbers are meant to be a general, relative weighing of how much the major variables will play in the outcome.

Teabaggers:

They will help GOP voter turnout, but they also will mobilize Democratic voters who find them frightening and reprehensible. Their behavior is excellent fodder for campaign ads that will legitimately frighten independent voters. In the primaries, the teabaggers are also pushing for even more extreme GOP candidates than usual, who will be less electable in the November.

Democrats +2

---

Wealthcare:

The wealthcare legislation will hurt the Democrats in a variety of ways. The secretive way such an important piece of legislation was passed was one of many reasons why the legislation was unpopular. Most Democratic voters wanted single payer, yet the Democratic politicians were too corrupt to even include a public option. Even worse, the more you know about what's actually in the legislation, the more clear it is that it is a rightist, de facto Republican piece of legislation whose overall effect is to take care and money away from the middle class, the poor, and the elderly and give money to the HMOs, the health insurers, and the rich speculators who own stock in them. This will be a bigger problem for the Democrats in 2014 and 2016 when some of the more draconian aspects of the legislation take effect, but it will be a major problem for the Democrats this year. Many Democratic voters will stay home, and some will vote Green. Democrats who are partisan enough to rationalize the wealthcare bill show a lack of enthusiasm for it. Independent voters got the same old shit from the Democrats in terms of process and outcome instead of some actual change. The Goppers get to see legislation they love passed and get to blame the Democrats for it.

+3 GOP

---

Legislative Inaction:

Both parties will try to blame the other. Both parties deserve to be blamed, but the Democrats deserve to be blamed for different reasons than the ones commonly cited by the corporate media. Obama, Reid, and Pelosi did a long, dragged out push for the wealthcare bill to wear down liberal insistence on the public option. They were so obsessed with giving out a huge financial payoff to their contributors in Big Pharma, the HMOs, and the health insurers that they held legislative action on other issues hostage to a pathetically bad piece of GOP style legislation. A lot of otherwise liberal groups in DC went along with this because the Democrats made it clear that they would get nothing on the single issues they were working on until wealthcare passed. Gopper obstructionism was loud, boisterous, and showed a lack of subtlety. Their inability to quietly obstruct while publicly looking like they were trying to work with the Democrats will reduce the mileage they will get out of this issue. The GOP has really squandered much of its advantage here by behaving in such a childish manner. However, when things go wrong in Washington, voters blame incumbents.

+1 GOP

---

The Economy:

This is the big question mark for 2012. The economy is rotten now. If the election were held today, this would put the Democrats in serious trouble. Many voters would still blame Bush for causing the problem, but they would still be dissatisfied with Democratic efforts to fix the problem. However, the overall trends in job losses vs. job growth are very positive. If employment trends continue (admittedly a big if), the voters will see an economy that is getting better with Democrats in charge while it was in a downward spiral under the GOP. The only question then will be how much a positive direction in a still weak economy will be enough to sway voters.

Unknown

---

Overall:

Midterm elections generally are bad for the party in power. Aside from the economy, things look really, really bad for the Democrats. However, the economy probably will change in the next seven months. It looks like the GOP will pick up quite a few seats, but they will have squandered an opportunity to get a 1994 style win by their own obnoxiousness and extremism. To gauge the outcome, look at the unemployment numbers. That's the only major variable in play.

 

One mistake that advocates of healthcare reform made was not to discuss the corruption of HMOs and health insurers and the deadly consequences. We need to educate people on why these corporations need to go.

 

In case you wondered why the wealthcare bill didn't make it legal for people to buy cheaper drugs from Canada and why it didn't include medical marijuana provisions...

From National Journal 3/17/10:

Under his tenure, PhRMA has spent well over $100 million on ad drives backing health care reform legislation, a strategy that grew out of a deal Tauzin struck with the White House and key Democrats in the Senate that's provoked some criticism from parts of the drug industry. Early this year, Tauzin announced he would be departing PhRMA after five years at its helm and a search is underway for a replacement. Tauzin earned $4.5 million in 2008, according to IRS documents.

PhRMA is the trade association that lobbies for the drug companies.

If you have seen an ad promoting the wealthcare bill, chances are better than 50/50 that they paid for it. We need public financing of campaigns as much as we need single payer.

 

Last week, President Obama went to Iowa, which always has been friendly territory to him, to market his wealthcare plan. If you look at the text of the speech, it's amusing to see just how much bullshit he included with it. Let's look at some of the lies.

Lie:
"If people like their plan, they will keep their plan."

Facts:
The wealthcare bill will seriously damage the plans of at least two groups of people with coverage now. The plans won't be even close to the same.

1) People on "Medicare Advantage" (the HMO version of Medicare) will face dramatic reductions in services because of funding cuts. Even worse, the HMO version of Medicare is a trap. Once people are in that version, they can never go back to regular Medicare. The tradeoff of a lack of premiums and lower quality care already existing in "Medicare Advantage" mean that the population of seniors most likely to be hurt by these cuts are the elderly poor.

2) People With Mediocre Plans, which the corporate media call "Cadillac Care" (they must really, really hate Cadillacs) will face cutbacks in care, higher premiums, and higher copays when the excise taxes on those plans go into effect in 2018.

---

Lie:
"The days of the insurance industry running roughshod over the American people are over."

Facts:
1) The insurance companies and HMOs wrote this bill. They already have started discussing the loopholes they put into place which will keep them from having to cover sick children.

2) The regulations in this bill require sick people and their families to enforce them. If they are relatively lucky, they can go to court. The HMOs and insurance companies have all the best lawyers in the field. However, if the contract for the HMO or insurance company requires arbitration, then people are forced to go to an arbitration system that is completely rigged in favor of the corporations.

---

Lie:
"And so if you already have insurance, this reform will make it more secure and more affordable."

Fact:
Every time insurance companies have managed to get laws passed making any kind of coverage mandatory, they have shot premiums through the roof.

---

Lie: (worded differently in different parts of the speech)
"And costs will come down for families, businesses, and the federal government, reducing our deficit by more than $1 trillion over the next two decades."

"But we have built into the law all sorts of measures to assure that in years to come, health care inflation, which has been rising about three times as fast as people's wages, will start slowing."

Fact:
This cynically ignores the fact that instituting heavy fines for not buying defective insurance will cause premiums to go up dramatically.

---

Deception:
"And I want seniors to know: despite what some have said, these reforms will not cut your guaranteed benefits."

Fact:
This bill will result in cutbacks for many in benefits not guaranteed by law. (This is a trick more than a direct lie, though the intent to deceive is the same.)

---

Two Lies in One Sentence:
"Once this reform is implemented, health insurance exchanges will be created, a competitive marketplace where uninsured people and small businesses will finally be able to purchase affordable, quality insurance."

Facts:
The new lie contradicts the fact that HMOs and health insurers don't provide quality insurance. They provide something which is universally known to be a defective product. Even with the subsidies, the insurance won't be affordable for the overwhelming majority of the uninsured. Insurance will become more expensive for people who already have it.

(I should note that, in this sentence, Obama reminds me of one of the hucksters who sell crap products on cable TV as "affordable, quality" products. They leave out that the junk they are selling is "not available in stores" because the stores don't want to deal with the returns.)

---

I'm not going to pretend that I'm surprised by a politician lying. But, what really is surprising is that so many liberal blogs aren't calling President Obama on it. This is the same wealthcare proposal Bush and the Republicans would have pushed through if they were in power, and the sales pitches would be only modestly different.

Politics isn't team sports. Policies have very real impacts on peoples' lives, and that has to be taken a lot more seriously than many blogs on the left are doing so far. We need to stop cheering on the donkeys vs. the elephants and pay attention to what's actually going on.

 

March 28 - April 3 is National LGBT Health Awareness Week. This is an issue that really hits home for me. In addition to all the problems straight people have to deal with during situations they need healthcare, I have a whole other set of issues. I try to find queer or queer friendly practitioners, but that isn't always an option. I have to figure out whether or when to come out to them and how to deal with any possible adverse reactions. When you add that to a healthcare system that keeps getting more and more devastated by the greed and corruption of the HMOs and health insurers, it's a lot.

I know that far from makes me unique. Those are issues that all queers have to deal with. That's why I think it's especially important for us to focus on it at least once a year with particular intensity.

Thanks to Queers United for publicizing this!

Learn More About the National Coalition for LGBT Health and Queer Health Issues in General!

Apologists for Obama's wealthcare plan for the HMOs and health insurance companies have been citing Mitt Romney's Republican wealthcare plan in Massachusetts as a "success." They just don't say who it is a success for.

Thanks to Romney's wealthcare system, Massachusetts has the highest premiums in the country. Last fall those greedy corporations raised premiums 7-12%.

Corporate greed has gotten so insatiable that the state of Massachusetts is considering loosening up on the fines imposed on people who can't afford insurance. (Boston Globe 3/12/10)

State regulators said yesterday that they will probably change the complex formula they use to determine how many Massachusetts residents face a tax penalty for not having health insurance, because spiraling costs are making coverage unaffordable for too many people.

Each year, the Massachusetts Health Insurance Connector Authority board updates the formula it uses to determine whether health insurance is affordable for individuals, couples, and families and whether people in each group should face a tax penalty for not having coverage.

The state’s landmark 2006 health law requires nearly everyone to have health insurance or to pay a stiff tax penalty.

The "spiraling costs" are for insurance premiums. The costs of care haven't changed much at all. Romney's wealthcare plan has been such a disaster that even he is starting to disown it.

Keep in mind that fact that HMO and health insurance premiums have very little to do with actual costs. The costs of care provided are only a fraction of the money collected by these larcenous corporations. The only restraint on premiums is what these evil corporations think they can get away with.

As I have pointed out before, if Obama's fines for people who can't afford the defective products of the HMO/health insurance industry are allowed to go into effect as scheduled in 2014, the result will by dramatic increases in insurance premiums. Sadly, the only restraint on outlandishly high premium prices is the ability for some people to opt out. Without that, the sky is the limit for these corporate thieves.

Obviously, Medicare for All or some other single payer plan is the only real solution to the lack of care and wildly exaggerated prices people are facing in our country. The only obstacles are bought politicians like Barack Obama, Dennis Kucinich, John "Keating Five" McCain, and the rest of the crooks in DC.

Photo: madhavaji

 

Cindy Sheehan at last weekend's protest. She tells the truth about Obama, the Democrats, and the Republicans, the truth that is extremely unpleasant.



I think the main reason why Sheehan is attacked so viciously is that people are shooting the messenger. It's not like anyone can rationally or factually dispute what she is saying. However, pleasant fantasies often get more traction than harsh truths.

 

...this is a big part of why.

(Huffington Post 3/20/10 - Hat Tip: Mark Crispin Miller)

The insurance giant Cigna last year gave compensation packages worth more than $120 million to two executives who left the company, according to a filing with the SEC on Friday.

The vast majority of that total went to former chairman and CEO H. Edward Hanway who left his post with a retirement package worth $110.9 million -- which included $18.8 million in executive compensation for 2009, as well as a healthy pension plan, deferred compensation and stock options.

This problem is hardly limited to Cigna or health insurers. 37 HMO executives grabbed $277 Million for themselves in 2007.

We need single payer so we can put these fuckers out of business for good.


Photo: Muffett


 

As regular readers of this blog know, I've had a lot of fun with former WWE CEO/Diva Linda McMahon's efforts to buy the Connecticut Senate seat up for election this year. However, I admit that her background in WWE fakery will do her well if she is able to complete that purchase in November.

An extreme example of this GOP faking is in its mock opposition to the wealthcare bill for the HMOs and health insurers. Let's look at why the Goppers love, love, love the legislation.

The Wealthcare Bill Is Epitome GOP Policy Goals
Think about what this legislation does. It takes medical care and money away from the poor and much of the middle class in order to give a ton of money to big corporations, their executives, and their shareholders. Reverse Robin Hood economics has been the main policy priority of the Republican Party for generations.

The Legislation Screws Over Core Democratic Constituencies
Think of who this legislation screws over: the poor, the middle class, the elderly, union members, liberals, moderates, progressives, and women. The GOP hates all those groups of people, and usually has to rip those people off itself. Even better from the perspective of the rogue elephants, passage of this legislation will lower turnout of all those constituencies, producing an electorate that is skewed in their favor.

This Will Hurt the Democrats Repeatedly
Passage of this legislation won't be a one time hit against the Democrats. It will bite them in the butt so often. The series of betrayals during the legislative process has hurt the party of the corrupt jackass by alienating liberals and grassroots activists. The next step will be when Democratic voters find out the predicted levels of premiums they will have to pay in order to avoid heavy fines, not that they will be able to afford the fines either. That will be a huge hit.

When union members' contracts expire, they will be zapped next with much higher premiums and copays and much less care. That will alienate people who belong to unions but who have not followed the issue very closely.

Then, there is the big hit that happens when the mandates actually go into effect. Using government coercion to force people to subsidize the HMOs and health insurers will make it possible for them to jack already astronomical premiums much higher. If the government tries to enforce the weak restrictions on increases in the wealthcare bill, the corporations will concoct a phony "insurance crisis," and those restrictions will be repealed. (This is precisely what happened when auto insurance was made mandatory in California.) It will be corporate profits galore and much more suffering for most people in our country. This is electoral and policy bliss for the Goppers.

The Charade Goes On
This is why the Goppers are making the weakest and weirdest arguments against the bill instead of focusing on the mandates. If they made the mandates the issue, they would have created so much public rage that this bill would have died its well deserved death months ago.

Instead, it's fake punches and a lot of noise from the Goppers. This is the strategy of a party that wants legislation to pass, but wants its opponents to pay for it politically.

But, if you really so partisan that you refuse to engage your critical thinking skills, go ahead and buy the metaphorical bodies going through pre sawed tables routine. If you buy the GOP's antics, you are just as naive and silly as somebody who says that the WWE isn't fake.

Photo: LINXBAS

 

For the longest time, I thought the following three things were true about Dennis Kucinich.

1) Kucinich was liberal.

2) Kucinich had the highest degree of integrity.

3) Kucinich cared about the middle class and the poor.

I admit that I was completely and absolutely wrong. None of that ever had a shread of truth to it. He made that completely clear when he announced today that he would vote for the HMO/health insurer wealthcare bill. In a previous posting, I specified what this bill would actually do, which is what Kucinich is actually voting for.

1) Fines people for not being able to afford health insurance.

2) Makes it possible for the HMOs and health insurance companies to add astronomical premium hikes to already sky high rates.

3) Cuts life saving care for people on Medicare.

4) Puts into place unconscionable restrictions on abortion. (Yes, I know the Stupak restrictions are even worse, but that's still no excuse.)

5) Creates tax penalties for employers that provide mediocre health plans instead of terrible ones. (The mediocre plans are what the corporate media refer to as "Cadillac Care.")

6) Shovels a lot more of our nation's wealth in the direction of the HMOs and health insurers and away from the middle class and the poor.

I've taken the link to the Kucinich campaign off of my blog. I've unsubscribed from Kucinich's email list. Obviously, I won't be making any more campaign contributions, though Kucinich won't care. The enormous amount of HMO/health insurer money we all know Obama promised Kucinich on Air Force One will completely overshaddow the modest contributions a middle class person like myself can afford to give.

The sad reality is that Kucinich is just as much of a bought politician as Obama, Kantor, Pelosi, Reid, the Clintons, Scott Brown, or any of a number of sleazebags in Washington. He only pretends he is different in order to manipulate liberals and progressives.

Some of Kucinich's progressive critics have accused him of being a gatekeeper who blocks access to real dissent by the left against the Demopublican Party. Of course, Kucinich is acting just as much as a gatekeeper blocking dissent from centrists. The Public Option, which Kucinich betrayed is not a liberal position. It is a wishy washy moderate compromise. But, even that had to be sacrificed to grab the HMO/health insurer big bucks.

Fuck you Dennis Kucinich and the HMO powered, mechanical jackass you rode in on. Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

I never will be fooled by you again.