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-baucus-caucus-phrma-insurance-hospitals-and-rahm/



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-baucus-caucus-phrma-insurance-hospitals-and-rahm/

.

Especially who take corporate $$$ and aren't currently fighting for "Medicare 4 All".

Enough is enough.

Glad she's out there getting our people on board, facing roving mics, but strength of our cause and positions alone will not get relief for many who need it.

public option is a sham, was always a sham, and that good public policy comes second to making sure Dems get bribes from the health care industrial complex and that Repos don't get those bribes.

You misconstrue Dems getting the bribes with relief for people who need it. They are not the same thing.

In fact, it's obvious to me that they are polar opposites.

Single payer is off the table because the Dems won't take on the powerful entrenched interests who make sure they get fabulously wealthy and people get shit.

people can have health care.

Same goes for the public option. They won't give up the cash. So no public option.

We agree. No votes for the people, because they won't give up the cash.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/1122691,CST...

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/20...

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."

Both have been "removed". Hmmmmmm??? Wonder who would want to deep-six those articles?

The sole goal of the political game is to help our team (the ones in the blue jerseys) win. It's not about doing anything good for the American people. You can hear this sentiment all the time, even on DU.

"You must be a freeper who hates Obama if you don't support what he's doing"

"DK is a whiner. He should be supporting the President."

"If we don't pass health insurance reform, we will lose in 2010."

It goes on and on. They just want to win. They would rather pass a horrible bill that hurts more Americans than it helps just so they can say "Obama won."

Their only core belief is that their team should win. I suppose they have some values (if we can pick up 20 more Senate seats and 50 more House seats then we can pass solid, liberal legislation!), but they always believe that "winning" must come before working toward the actualization of those values. In the end, their values are completely overwhelmed by their desire to "win" at all costs, and to hell with the people.

:dem:

-Laelth

:dem:

-Laelth

I'm sure you would get some flames from the lock-step folks, but this is the heart of the problem.
It's happening everywhere, from the President down to the local elections for dog catcher - and it's only going to get worse.

I saw a thread earlier in which Rahm was screaming at the leaders of liberal organizations saying, "We are 13-0 going into health care." Rahm was mad about ads being run by liberal organizations against conservative Democrats, but you can see his mind-set. 13-0? Like a football team that's having a killer season.

It's a game to him.

:dem:

-Laelth

or integrity..or ever cared about our nation ..

some are paid to sell us a bunch of bullshit propaganda..for the "TEAM"..

and they would sell their souls for a pocketful of pennies!

But Values??..no they never had any..just like the bushbots that got paid to go online and sell propaganda to sell an illegal war of lies..same type of valueless souls!

We all saw them then, as many of us can see them now!!

nothing will change.

When BIG MONEY does not determine who the candidate for district #whatever is, we will always have "connected-pols" running the show...for their own eventual gain.

Look at how few ever leave DC, once their term is done.. they recycle themselves into 6-figure commentators/analysts or lobbyists...until their next appointment upon reinstatement of their party.

or President for that matter to be for "no price controls".

They have all abrogated their fiduciary responsibilities to the taxpayers of this country and if I could I would impeach ALL of them

We are USA Corp. It is open, blatant corruption and anyone who can't see it is just a complete ostrich.

It's not even business as usual. At least in the olden days it was behind closed doors and in secret that they ripped us off. Now they are so bold as to do their highway robberies in broad daylight.

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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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?????)



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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

All I have to say is I've been saving for 6 years to pay for the 20% co-pays on a back surgery I need to alleviate chronic pain that is honestly killing me. I'll never be able to save 35%.

town hall appearances started coming in. In the last few days it looks like the Dems are starting to realize they are in trouble if they fuck us over.

It makes sense of the catering to big pharma--that despite Democrats having lambasted the Bushies for having done something similar re. Medicare part D.

Sadly the people generally don't want to see it or fall for the shit they're being shoveled. Politicians are politicians and the people come a distant second to their own self interest which is usually who's giving them money and if they can get re-elected to keep getting that money. If they inadvertently help someone while serving their own self interest even better, it looks good when their term is almost up.

Thanks for posting this.

I was just wondering what the piece fits nicely together.

I haven't liked Rahm since I saw him and Nancy doing 'The Rahm Dance' on Election night. :+

Anyway, thanks now I can put this dilemma to rest.
:evilgrin:

But wait. Rahm and the Blue Dogs are putting it to us, Obama gives it a wink and a nod,
they distract using Health care as the talking point, and citizens with Guns are now getting within the
parameters of The President of The United States of America. For Town. Hall. Meetings.

:shrug:

I think the guns are just as big a surprise as the progressives being upset about the no public option possibility. Guess they didn't plan for everything while they were screwing both sides.

We could hope. BTW...Ed Schult'z show tonight hit all the Progressive Buttons. But, then I remember back to Clinton. They will listen when we have POWER...we gotta' work HARDER!

I hate that smug prick almost as much as I hate Bush and Rove. The evil that surrounds him is palpable.

If Progressive Members of the House Think We’ll Accept Co-Ops As Public Plan, Think Again
By: Jane Hamsher Thursday August 20, 2009 8:27 am http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2009/08/20/if-progressive-members-of-the-house-think-well-accept-co-ops-as-public-plan-think-again/



Matt Taibbi says that Rahm Emanuel's health care debacle could be to the Obama administration what the Iraq war was to George Bush.

He's right.

Matt says that progressives in the House might not vote for a bill that does not have a public option. If that's true, it's because of external pressure, not internal resolve. They were dragged kicking and screaming to that position. They knew -- as we did -- in late June that co-ops were going to be fobbed off as a "public plan." They did not want to publicly commit to draw a line in the sand.



Please do go read the entire timeline ..it is must reading!! see the video of Matt as well!

http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2009/08/20/if-progressive-members-of-the-house-think-well-accept-co-ops-as-public-plan-think-again/

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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-white-house-wont-buckle-to-liberal-demands-for-public-plan/
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.


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


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


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Aug. 17 2009 - 12:58 am | 16,058 views | 11 recommendations | 79 comments
Obama’s Pre-emptive Health Care Surrender

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?

She did great! Really got the points across.

angry and had Maxine Waters and Joan Walsh/Salon Mag. on praising Obama for understanding that "Public Option" is Most Important.

Millions uninsured. Millions bankrupt. Way too late to capitulate just to keep the funding.

Does Rahm have similar plans to stall energy reform to get the Old Energy Corporate funding?

He is a train wreck that will sink the Democrats in 2010. If Obama panders to the corporations, he will find that there are no volunteers in 2010. All those feet on the street and voices on the phones count for a lot more than Emanuel is willing to acknowledge!

The Emmanuel Family is GOLDEN...Charlie Rose on PBS annointed them...

Google, "Emmanuel Brothers, Charlie Rose Interview" and watch the damned thing. They are at the Top of America... the rest of us are just "serfs."

what a sleaze bag

Maneuvering votes against our interests, even to the point of causing more "death by spreadsheet" fatalities to "we the pawns", is the reason these purchased politicians must be opposed at all costs.

They are worse than republicans because they come at us sideways, smile, put an arm around us, TELL US THEY WANT TO HELP US but need our support - only to slip a dagger into a kidney and twist it just when we are hurting the most.

Real people will die from their treachery. How much money is a life worth? how much suffering will finance a hunger for power?

We are not pawns!
This is not a fucking chess or football game!
This is real human suffering and death for profit!
This can not be forgiven.

If even only one more person dies for profits shared with these criminal co-conspirators due to these political treacheries against the public - then Rahm, his blue dog puppets and the administrator that agrees with these unethical practices will be guilty of murder.

Politicians are now above the law, so there will be no justice available to us other than to push them out of office with the full force of all of our networks.

This would be a poor punishment for murder, but can we not at least seek this small portion of justice that they can be held to?