A Black Man Can Never Become President!

Let alone beat the Clinton Political Machine!

How many times did we hear that?

Barack Obama is the greatest orator in decades. He used his amazing persuasive skills to overcome all kinds of odds and become our president - he did the impossible - he persuaded tens of millions of Americans to do the right thing.

Now I keep hearing that Medicare for All is impossible, people don't want it, will never do it, no political will, blah, blah, blah...

Well, bullshit. Medicare for all is the right thing. If a man can get himself elected President of the US overcoming all of the odds that Barack Obama has overcome, then that same man can win Medicare for All if he really wants to.

....and before his 8 years are up, you might just get medicare-for-all.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/1122691,CST-NWS-hosp23.article

August 23, 2008

BY TIM NOVAK AND CHRIS FUSCO Staff Reporters
Sen. Barack Obama's wife and three close advisers have been involved with a program at the University of Chicago Medical Center that steers patients who don't have private insurance -- primarily poor, black people -- to other health care facilities.

Michelle Obama -- currently on unpaid leave from her $317,000-a-year job as a vice president of the prestigious hospital -- helped create the program, which aims to find neighborhood doctors for low-income people who were flooding the emergency room for basic treatment. Hospital officials say such patients hinder their ability to focus on more critically ill patients in need of specialized care, such as cancer treatment and organ transplants.

Obama's top political strategist, David Axelrod, co-owns the firm, ASK Public Strategies, that was hired by the hospital last year to sell the program -- called the Urban Health Initiative -- to the community as a better alternative for poor patients. Obama's wife and Valerie Jarrett, an Obama friend and adviser who chairs the medical center's board, backed the Axelrod firm's hiring, hospital officials said.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/21/AR2008082103646.html?sid=ST2008082103653

Obama Camp
By Joe Stephens
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 22, 2008; Page A01

snip;

Axelrod's firm warned hospital executives in its May 2007 presentation that, although many people welcomed the initiative, primary-care doctors opposed it as a break with the center's commitment to the community. Opinion research showed that a small but passionate group of people already considered the hospital to be elitist, arrogant and lacking in "cultural empathy" for the surrounding economically depressed South Side neighborhood, according to a draft report obtained by The Washington Post. Some doctors in focus groups dismissed local health clinics as "wholly inadequate."

One of the suggestions from Axelrod's firm: Change the name of the initiative.

snip;

As a nonprofit, the University of Chicago Medical Center receives annual tax breaks worth nearly five times as much as it spends on charity care, the analysis found.

snip;

Still, Quentin Young, the South Side physician, described the medical center's level of charity spending as "ludicrous." Young, known in Chicago for having been the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s personal physician, is chairman of the Health and Medicine Policy Research Group, a Chicago-based nonprofit that advocates health-care reform. Young considered himself an ally of Barack Obama while he was a state legislator.

"That's shameful," Young said of the percentages. "They are arguably, if not defrauding, then at least taking advantage of a public subsidy. We would like to see them give more than the minimum. The need is there."

Throwing out articles that parrot right-wing talking points about Michelle and Axelrod doesn't help you in this argument.

who's who ..in the zoo!

neither publications would be considered right wing..but propagating bullshit about healthcare reform while someone's wife was advocating patient dumping..is ludicrous on it's face!

Ambinder: White House “Won’t Buckle” To Liberal Demands For Public Plan
By: Jane Hamsher Wednesday August 19, 2009 2:33 pm

http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2009/08/19/ambinder ... /


I know people are reluctant to believe that the President has no plans to include a public option in his health care bill, but according to Marc Ambinder, that is indeed the truth:

The White House and Senate Democrats won't buckle to demands from liberals that they revise their health care strategy, officials said today.

Liberals are demanding the inclusion of a public plan. The White House won't "revise" their strategy to accommodate them.

Glenzilla:

The attempt to attract GOP support was the pretext which Democrats used to compromise continuously and water down the bill. But -- given the impossibility of achieving that goal -- isn't it fairly obvious that a desire for GOP support wasn't really the reason the Democrats were constantly watering down their own bill? Given the White House's central role in negotiating a secret deal with the pharmaceutical industry, its betrayal of Obama's clear promise to conduct negotiations out in the open (on C-SPAN no less), Rahm's protection of Blue Dogs and accompanying attacks on progressives, and the complete lack of any pressure exerted on allegedly obstructionists "centrists," it seems rather clear that the bill has been watered down, and the "public option" jettisoned, because that's the bill they want -- this was the plan all along.

Max Baucus (who is negotiating the White House's bill) today reaffirmed his commitment to have a "bipartisan" bill. Since Republicans will never sign off on a public plan, that's not-so-subtle code for "no public plan." And any time anyone says that, including President Obama, that is in fact what they're saying.

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http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/08/17/key-feature-of-obama-health-plan-may-be-out-washingtonpost-com/
Matt Taibbi
Taibblog

snip:

Now, obviously (and this is will be explored in more detail in the forthcoming piece, which will be out this week), the public option was not a cure-all. In fact, the Democrats had in reality already managed to kill the public option by watering it down to the point of near-meaninglessness. But the notion that our president not only does not have any use anymore for a public option, but in fact “will be satisfied” if there is merely “choice and competition” in the market is, well, disgusting.

I’ll say this for George Bush: you’d never have caught him frantically negotiating against himself to take the meat out of a signature legislative initiative just because his approval ratings had a bad summer. Can you imagine Bush and Karl Rove allowing themselves to be paraded through Washington on a leash by some dimwit Republican Senator of a state with six people in it the way the Obama White House this summer is allowing Max Baucus (favorite son of the mighty state of Montana) to frog-march them to a one-term presidency?


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thanks to kpete:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6352983

Jane Hamsher investigates the deals Rahm made to secure 2010 for Democrats..

(The Timeline Jane has put together explains what a sham is going on. Worth going over there to read it. Glenn Greenwald also has some excellent reporting on this)

http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2009/08/19/the-bauc... /



The Baucus Caucus: PhRMA, Insurance, Hospitals and Rahm

By: Jane Hamsher Wednesday August 19, 2009 12:01 pm

The GOP needs the money of PhRMA and other disgruntled businesses to fund its 2010 war chest. Just as it was during the bank bailout, the goal of the White House was clear: more important than saving the financial system was keeping the financial institutions happy and stop them from financing Republicans.

Who would think that way? Whose primary objective would be to keep anyone from funding a GOP ascendancy, to sell out health care reform worth billions for a hundred fifty million in pro-reform advertising? Who would think to ask PhRMA to run ads in the districts of vulnerable freshmen, as well as Blue Dog Mike Ross, who is anything BUT vulnerable? Certainly not some policy wonk.

But ask yourself -- would consider it a victory to use the "public plan" as little more than a political pawn with which to threaten stakeholders and force them to stay at the table, with no thought as to the emotional and moral consequences suffered by the people who had pinned their hope on having one?

Someone who had worked as the head of the DCCC. Who remembered the 54 seat swing to the GOP in 1994 after the failure to pass health care reform. Someone whose sole goal was a "political victory," so the White House could be 14-0 not "13-1."

Someone like Rahm Emanuel, who works through the Blue Dogs in the House to make the House bill conform to the deals he sets up in the Senate. Rahm wanted a public plan with "triggers" and had been pushing for it since January. Lo and behold, who is insisting that any public plan in the House have triggers -- Mike Ross and the Blue Dogs.

The PhRMA deal on July 8 says that there won't be any drug price controls, and the next day, Blue Dogs Heath Shuler and Debbie Halvorson author a letter demanding -- no drug price controls:

Instead, they are asking Waxman, Rangel and Education and Labor Chairman George Miller (D-Calif.) to support the drug industry’s offer to spend30 billion help cover those costs – a deal that is backed by the White House and the Senate Finance Committee.

The American Hospitals Association deal was signed on July 8. The hosptals want higher medicare reimbursement rates for rural providers. On July 15, the Blue Dogs threaten to block health care reform -- if it doesn't increase reimbursement rates to rural providers.

And suddenly, the hospitals are spending $12 million running positive ads about health care reform with PhRMA and the AMA.

Mike Allen said earlier this week that "this weekend’s comments by White House officials simply acknowledged the long-obvious reality that the idea of a government-run insurance plan was partly a bargaining chip."

If you look at the cat-and-mouse game played between the Democrats and the Republicans, support expressed by the President for a "public plan" meant "don't you dare." A commitment that the bill will be "bipartisan" (since the GOP would never agree to one) was a signal that there would be no public plan.

The White House never cared about getting Republican votes -- it cared about keeping the Republicans from peeling off the dollars of stakeholders like PhRMA. Giving in to "Republican" demands was cover for writing shitty things into the bill that would keep the stakeholders happy. They didn't need Republican votes, they never did, and they never truly cared. As long as the money stayed out of their campaign coffers, it was all good.
If a public plan gets into a final health care bill, it's going to be because of public pressure, because people who put Obama in office demand one. Because in the grand scheme of White House priorities, it was something that could acceptably be dealt away in pursuit of a higher political objective by the guy who was calling the plays: Rahm Emanuel.



http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2009/08/19/the-bauc... /


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Countdown: Wendell Potter, Whistleblower
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A39IpJF5Q0&eurl=http%3A...

"35% contribution by consumers - more in line with what the Big Insurer wants.The final figures are being debated."
Business Week Aug 7th

( mine is now 20%..so that means i would go up 15%..wow I guess i should be thrilled .. what a freaking deal this will be ..right?????)

thanks to Vinnie From Indy

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6352125


Glen Greenwald NAILS It! Key DEMOCRATS ALWAYS INTENDED To Negotiate Away Public Option
Glen Greenwald writes a brilliant piece about the realities of our modern political system and how key Democrats NEVER intended to pass a public option much less a single payer system. It cannot be stated strongly enough that the battle over healthcare is not with Republicans, but among Democrats!!!!

Here is a snippet of his article:

Why the health care debate is so important regardless of one's view of the "public option"
(updated below)

The New York Times today has a discussion from several contributors, including me, of the politics of the health care debate. My contribution, which focuses on the role the White House has played and the ample evidence that they have been quite active in shaping the course of events, can be read here. I want to elaborate on a couple of points I referenced in passing.

Over the past decade, the Democratic Party has specialized in offering up one excuse after the next for its collective failures. During the early Bush years, the excuse was that they endorsed Bush policies because his popularity and post-9/11 hysteria made it politically unwise to oppose him. In later Bush years when his popularity plummeted, the excuse was that Democrats were in the minority and could do nothing. After 2006 when they won a Congressional majority, the excuse was that Bush still controlled the White House and had veto power. After 2008 when a Democrat won the White House, the excuse was that Republicans could filibuster.

Now that they have a filibuster-proof majority, a huge margin in the House and the White House, the excuses continue unabated, as Democrats are now on the verge of jettisoning one of the most significant attractions for progressives to the Obama campaign -- active government involvement in the health insurance market. The excuses for "compromising" are cascading more rapidly than ever: We need Republican support to ensure it's bipartisan. The Blue Dogs won't go along with what we want. Centrist Senators will filibuster. There are similar excuses being made to defend Obama from accusations that he deserves some of the blame for the failure of the "public option." Matt Yglesias makes the typical case for shielding Obama from any responsibility:

I think there’s something perverse in the very strong desire I see among liberals to make problems in congress be about anything other than congress. It’s just not in the power of Barack Obama to make the senate anything other than what it is.

I'm really surprised that there's anyone, especially Matt, who actually believes this -- that the Obama White House is merely an impotent, passive observer of what the Democrats in Congress do and can't be expected to do anything to secure votes for approval of the health care bill it favors. As the leader of his party, the President commands a vast infrastructure on which incumbent members of Congress rely for re-election. His popularity among Democrats vests him numerous options to punish non-compliant Democrats. And Rahm Emanuel built his career on controlling the machinations within Congress. The very idea that Obama, Emanuel and company are just sitting back, helplessly watching as Max Baucus, Kent Conrad and the Blue Dogs (Rahm's creation) destroy their health care legislation, is absurd on its face.

More at:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/08/19/obama...

companies, hired shills and big Pharma...WOW!!! We have a lot of work to do.

can help make it happen

of a successful Bill for universal health care? I have fear that many of us are ignoring the negative effects of such change.

What do they know that you don't?

how it could possibly be worse than what we have, so no, no fear at all.

Damn, and I want to know what all the "negative effects of such a change" are! As a Canadian with universal health care, I am unaware of all those damn "negative effects" only the positive ones like choosing my own doctor without a bean counter choosing him/her for me, the right to go to the doctor/emergency/hospital when needed and not having to worry I will lose my home/go bankrupt if I do go.

fit for this country. And I agree with him. Switching to that now would collapse our economy because healthcare (in its current form) is such a large part of it.

Extra money for cops, lawyers, prison complexes, hospital bills, the funeral home industry. I'm sorry folks, but we just cant afford drunk driving laws anymore because causing wrecks and loss of life is really good business.

now an asian lesbian atheist on the other hand ....

:shrug:

:dem:

-Laelth