Month: August 2009

Surprise
by digby
Mark Karlin writes:

In two telling interviews yesterday, White House staffers acted is if Republicans never acted like brown shirts and propagandists without scruples before. A threesome of WH anonymous WH aides — who might be identified as Curly, Larry and Moe — told the Huffington Post:
In a sit down with online reporters on Monday, the three Obama aides, who spoke only on condition that they not be identified by name, stressed that they were still committed to crafting health care with Republican input and would continue to work with conservative media outlets despite the harsh reception they have received. While some angst was directed toward the opposition of Republican lawmakers who, the administration claims, have distorted the president’s position — particularly on end of life consultations — the majority of their ire was directed at the conservative commentariat. “The so-called Obama health care logo? What is the Obama health care logo?” one aide asked, with some incredulity. “We don’t have [one] but Rush Limbaugh thinks it looks like a Swastika… These are the sort of things we are dealing with.” “I don’t know where they are making this stuff up,” the aide added. “The bill, I was just looking at the House bill… [T]he part of this that covers insurance market reforms and the things to extend coverage and the exchange and public plan is actually pretty spare. And yet they have managed to make that into a vast government bureaucracy and really tried to scare people about the whole thing, which is disappointing.” And a story in the NYT notes: And Democratic Party officials enlisted in the fight by the White House acknowledged in interviews that the growing intensity of the opposition to the president’s health care plans — within the last week likened on talk radio to something out of Hitler’s Germany, lampooned by protesters at Congressional town-hall-style meetings and vilified in television commercials — had caught them off guard and forced them to begin an August counteroffensive. Fire the lot of them.

As Karlin goes on to point out, most observers from afar are not surpised at this at all. In fact, I was surprised it took the right this long to find their footing.
But most of the Democratic establishment internalized all the demagogic bullshit and character assassination that was hurled at Clinton, Gore and others and believed that it was probably deserved. It was the Democrats who kept making the fatal mistake of giving the other side an opening and these people believed they were smarter and more disciplined than that. They always do.
I actually suspect that many in the Obama White House believed the hype about changing Washington, which was always patent nonsense. Perhaps the more cynical among them felt that his race actually protected him from the kind of low level character attacks that the right usually employs. But they didn’t get it. The right doesn’t need to resort to low level character attacks on Obama because he’s black. It’s baked in.
So they can just call him Hitler, even though it makes no sense, and gin up the most outlandish conspiracy theories and their crazies are on board without anything having to be said. The conservative base, and a good number of people whose committment to progress of any kind is pretty thin on a good day, can easily be prodded into providing the kind of entertaining sideshow the media just love. Et voila — teabagging.
If these Democrats had spent less time gossiping about what Clinton really did with Monica or handwringing about Gore’s “lies” and more time analyzing how those spectacles unfolded, they wouldn’t be caught flat footed today. But they didn’t because they blamed Clinton for being “weak” and Gore for being “inauthentic” as if those were the real problems. I’m sure it made them feel very confident that it couldn’t happen to them.But, of course, it can, because it’s not a function of the individual Democrats who are the targets of these juhads but rather the nature of the opposition. Until they finally grok that — and after impeachment, stolen elections and Cheney it’s mind-boggling that they still haven’t done that — this will keep happening.

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What’s So Good About It?

by digby

Here’s an excellent op-ed called “Like Your Insurance? Maybe You Shouldn’t,” about why people who have insurance shouldn’t be so goddamned complacent about what they’ve got

First, what does it mean to say that you are satisfied with your health insurance? Consider homeowner’s insurance. Until you need it — your house burns down — you have no way of judging its quality. The same goes for health coverage; until you have a serious illness, the kind where your plan’s limits and exclusions may kick in, how do you know if your health coverage is any good?

That’s a good point. But people who choose to be tribal clones over their own self-interest or are so deeply uninformed that they should probably not be allowed to drive cars are plentiful in this country so I don’t think they’ve thought of that. But they should. Plainly, those who have insurance are on thin ice too, every last one of them.

If you have Medicare or the VA, bully for you. But you have no business arguing against health care reform or protecting the insurance companies because you are accepting the horrible “government run insurance” which you insist must be denied to the general population. You know in your heart that insurance backed by the US Government is going to keep covering you, don’t you? You just don’t want other people to have what you have.

If you are in the individual market, as I am (especially if you are over 50, as I am) you are just plain screwed.

The individual market is completely broken; according to a recent Commonwealth Fund study, 73 percent of people who tried to buy individual coverage in the last three years did not end up buying a plan.

And that’s because if you can even get it in the first place it’s so expensive and terrible that it’s hardly worth having. If you get really sick and you aren’t a millionaire, expect to lose everything because that’s probably what will happen. And don’t plan on keeping the policy you have now at the price you have. You’re living in a dream world:

Among this year’s large rate increases on the individual market: • Anthem Blue Cross in California has notified about 80% of its 800,000 individual policyholders of double-digit increases, many above 30%. Spokesman Ben Singer says rising medical costs are prompting the increases. • Blue Cross of Michigan is seeking state approval for a 56% increase in individual premiums. Spokesman Andy Hetzel says the company needs to offset losses stemming from state rules making it the sole insurer required to take all applicants. • Regence Blue Cross Blue Shield of Oregon will raise rates for approximately 10,000 Washington state customers by 27.1% on March 1. Another Washington insurer, LifeWise, raised rates 17.6% on Jan. 1, according to the Office of the Insurance Commissioner in Washington state. By comparison, group health insurance premiums paid by employers rose about 5% in 2008, says a survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Some insurers say increases this year for individual policies aren’t out of the ordinary. Aetna, for example, says individual policy increases nationwide range from 8% to 22%

And by the way, the recession has thrown many, many more suckers into that wonderful individual market than before and they are all screwed now too.

Which brings us to the employer paid insurance market which most people have. Guess what? This article says that employer paid health care dropped from 64% to 59% in 2007 alone! It’s getting ridiculously expensive out there for employers as well and they are dropping their coverage like hot potatoes. I can’t wait to see the stats for 2008.

And that doesn’t even address the fact that by having your insurance tied to your specific employer you are, at this point, giving yourself over to indentured servitude in order to be free to get sick. I’ve always suspected that America’s great love of “liberty” was overstated (except when it comes to guns, of course) but the fact that people are willing to continue to submit themselves to virtual serfdom to some corporation for insurance rather than support a change that would allow them to easily move from job to job (or start their own business), just strikes me as a sad commentary on what we’ve become.

So yeah, everybody you know who’s panicking over the idea the government’s gonna take what they’ve got, had better think twice. They’re likely to lose what they’ve got anyway, or at least start paying a whole hell of a lot more for it. Maybe they think the god of the market can save them, but they’d better hope he intervenes before they get sick because if he doesn’t they are just as screwed as those who are stuggling mightily to hang on until we can crawl to the Medicare office at 65 and finally get some decent insurance.

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Guest Poem

Buzzflash’s Tony Peyser is contributing some pertinent poetry to Hullabaloo this week.

In South Carolina, Sanford’s Wife & Kids Move Out Of Governor’s Mansion by Tony Peyser Now whenever Mark wants to call his “soul mate” He’ll no longer be in an odd situation Where he’d whisper & then tell the Missus, “Relax: I’m talking to aides about legislation.”

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They Love Lucy

by digby

Adam Green notes Mark Warner’s tiresome comments over the week-end about the need for bipartisanship and reminds us that this isn’t the first time the Democratic Charlie Brown’s have fallen for this:

Newt Gingrich on the House floor during the health care debate — March 16, 1994:

Mr. GINGRICH.

I agree with my friend, the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Gephardt]. I want to reach out in a bipartisan way to pass the bill. I praise the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Bilirakis] and the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Rowland] for a bipartisan bill. I praise the gentleman from Iowa [Mr. Grandy] and the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Cooper] for a bipartisan bill. They are starting in the right direction to reach out.

How did that work out?

I can answer that:

Then minority whip Newt Gingrich (R-GA) led a politically opportunistic and stubborn conservative charge against health care reform. He argued internally that any successful bill would set back Republican electoral prospects in November 1994. At a March 1994 strategy retreat, Gingrich warned GOP senators that “any Republican concessions will be met with more Democratic demands,” and that the GOP should concede nothing.

I doubt the game plan has changed. And sadly, I doubt that these Democrats think it has either.
Adam sez:

Democratic politicians, please — stop playing right into the hands of Gingrich and other reform opponents. Stand on principle. Follow Sen. Jay Rockefeller’s lead. Say that if Republicans won’t do the public’s work, Democrats will do it without Republican votes if that’s what it takes.And if you haven’t yet joined the fight to hold Democratic politicians accountable, you can do so here.

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Peachy Green

by digby

Ezra found a semi-sane Republican on the “The Dingoes Want Moy Bayby” controversy. He’s Johnny Isakson of Georgia, who turns out to be the guy who put the Soylent Green amendment in the Senate bill:

Is this bill going to euthanize my grandmother? What are we talking about here? What we’re talking about in the health care debate mark-up, one of the things I talked about was that the most money spent on anyone is spent usually in the last 60 days of life and that’s because an individual is not in a capacity to make decisions for themselves. So rather than getting into a situation where the government makes those decisions, if everyone had an end-of-life directive or what we call in Georgia “durable power of attorney,” you could instruct at a time of sound mind and body what you want to happen in an event where you were in difficult circumstances where you’re unable to make those decisions. This has been an issue for 35 years. All 50 states now have either durable powers of attorney or end-of-life directives and it’s to protect children or a spouse from being put into a situation where they have to make a terrible decision as well as physicians from being put into a position where they have to practice defensive medicine because of the trial lawyers. It’s just better for an individual to be able to clearly delineate what they want done in various sets of circumstances at the end of their life. How did this become a question of euthanasia? I have no idea. I understand — and you have to check this out — I just had a phone call where someone said Sarah Palin’s web site had talked about the House bill having death panels on it where people would be euthanized. How someone could take an end of life directive or a living will as that is nuts. You’re putting the authority in the individual rather than the government. I don’t know how that got so mixed up. You’re saying that this is not a question of government. It’s for individuals. It empowers you to be able to make decisions at a difficult time rather than having the government making them for you. The policy here as I understand it is that Medicare would cover a counseling session with your doctor on end-of-life options. Correct. And it’s a voluntary deal. It seems to me we’re having trouble conducting an adult conversation about death. We pay a lot of money not to face these questions. We prefer to experience the health-care system as something that just saves you, and if it doesn’t, something has gone wrong. Over the last three-and-a-half decades, this legislation has been passed state-by-state, in part because of the tort issue and in part because of many other things. It’s important for an individual to make those determinations while they’re of sound mind and body rather than no one making those decisions at all. But this discussion has been going on for three decades. And the only change we’d see is that individuals would have a counseling session with their doctor? Uh-huh. When they become eligible for Medicare. Are there other costs? Parts of it I’m missing? No. The problem you got is that there’s so much swirling around about health care and people are taking bits and pieces out of this. This was thoroughly debated in the Senate committee. It’s voluntary. Every state in America has an end of life directive or durable power of attorney provision. For the peace of mind of your children and your spouse as well as the comfort of knowing the government won’t make these decisions, it’s a very popular thing. Just not everybody’s aware of it. What got you interested in this subject? I’ve seen the pain and suffering in families with a loved one with a traumatic brain injury or a crippling degenerative disease become incapacitated and be kept alive under very difficult circumstances when if they’d have had the chance to make the decision themself they’d have given another directive and I’ve seen the damage financially that’s been done to families and if there’s a way to prevent that by you giving advance directives it’s both for the sanity of the family and what savings the family has it’s the right decision, certainly more than turning it to the government or a trial lawyer.

He’s so going to be in trouble.It turns out that Isakson got the point on the Schiavo mess too. Oddly enough it turns out that the wholoe state ofGeorgia is a hotbed of euthanasia activism:

Georgia Senator Johnny Isakson will kickoff Health Care Decisions Week Monday, Nov. 7, 2005, at 10 a.m. in the Capitol South Atrium. Senator Isakson will publicly sign a personal “Directive for Final Health Care” to urge Georgia citizens to talk with their families and loved ones about their personal wishes for final health care. The “Directive For Final Health Care” is a recognized form of advance directive, used for legally documenting final health care wishes. Joining Senator Isakson in signing a Directive For Final Health Care will be State Representative Nan Orrock, State Senator Judson Hill, Gary Nelson, President of Healthcare Georgia Foundation, Dr. Jack Chapman, Board Chairman of Medical Association of Georgia, and Maria Greene, Director of Georgia Division of Aging Services. Isakson said the Terri Schiavo case is a wake-up call to how important it is to sort out end-of-life decisions “I believe it is every person’s right and responsibility to make sure their loved ones are prepared to make decisions on their behalf by discussing and documenting their wishes,” he said. “It is my sincere hope that all Georgians will join me in following the lead of the Georgia General Assembly’s Resolution and make their final wishes known.”

Why is the state of Georgia trying to kill your grandmother? Where will it end?
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Quick Hits

by digby

For those of you still looking for info on the Town Halls and where you can go to participate in this exercise in “raw democracy” FDL’s got everything you need and even created a handy widget you can embed in your own site. (Just go here to get the code.)

Also, Glenzilla’s on vacation and so I’ve contributed some of my scribblings to his site today. If you’re interested in reading about latest on torture and tasers, it’s all there.

Finally, Howie thinks it’s time to have another chat with Blanche. As you know we have more ads in the can, ready to go. You can send in your shekels and we’ll do our best to make sure she hears from us this month.

Where he found this picture, I’ll never know, but it’s just perfect:

Two insurance company lackeys enjoying the joke that their constituents think they’re working for them…

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Give Them What They Need

by digby

Oh good God. If even putative liberals are seeing the Soylent Green Police behind the extremely benign and useful Medicare counseling for living wills in the House health care bills then we have gone so far down the rabbit hole that it’s become the equivalent of the contraception hissy fit in the stimulus package. Remember this?

Christian Defense Coalition calls Speaker Pelosi’s decision to add contraceptives to the economic stimulus package bigoted, racist, elitist and anti-child.

It is unthinkable that the Speaker of House would try to stimulate the economy by seeking to reduce the number of children.

Our political leaders should do all within their power to protect, support and encourage America’s children, not crush and destroy them.

This policy would lay the foundation for racism and eugenics because it would seek to reduce the number of children to the nation’s poorest economic groups, which tend to be persons of color and other minorities.

It is now becoming clear that the Democratic leadership intends to use the economic crisis to push forward a radical anti-family social agenda.

The hissy fit is as predictable as John Boehner’s orangish glow.

The solution to this is obvious. The Democrats should always put something really outrageous into every bill to give the wingnuts something to rend their garments over. In the stimulus they should have set aside a couple million for illegal alien subsidized beachfront housing. In health care they should have put in a tax on guns to cover plastic surgery. When the nutters predictably go bonkers, they can reluctantly “give in,” thus leaving perfectly mainstram, useful items like contraception and counseling for living wills alone.

I don’t know what else to do about this but give them a hissy fit. They’re going to have one no matter what. Might as well plan for it.

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Rationale

by digby

Southern Beale has some words for Sarah Palin:

In your free market wonderland everyone somehow manages to get healthcare, even those who are poor or live in isolated areas, though the poor and isolated in your own state required assistance from the federal government.

And despite all of this, you appear blithely unaware that the free market healthcare system we have now does, indeed, have “death panels.” I’ve been part of a death panel conversation. I know about death panels.

You have no idea what it’s like to be called into a sterile conference room with a hospital administrator you’ve never met before and be told that your mother’s insurance policy will only pay for 30 days in ICU. You can’t imagine what it’s like to be advised that you need to “make some decisions,” like whether your mother should be released “HTD” which is hospital parlance for “home to die,” or if you want to pay out of pocket to keep her in the ICU another week. And when you ask how much that would cost you are given a number so impossibly large that you realize there really are no decisions to make. The decision has been made for you. “Living will” or no, it doesn’t matter. The bank account and the insurance policy have trumped any legal document.

If this isn’t a “death panel” I don’t know what is.

There are death panels being held everyday in hospital corridors and living rooms across America. It’s how we currently ration health care: by who can pay. Unfortunately, because we spend so much health care money on profits for the health care industry, costs are still skyrocketing so that we are going to have to “ration” even more.

But since Good People, Real Americans, have health insurance, only bad people have to worry about this, which is how it should be. The problem is that if the government takes over they’re going ration by taking away the Good People’s health care and giving it to welfare queens and illegal immigrants who don’t deserve it.

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A Bad August

by tristero

I’ve got a bad feeling about all this:

There are reports that rightwing lunatics brought guns to at least one healthcare event.

And there are reports that rightwing activists are urging that guns be brought to other healthcare events.

All of this is bad enough. But in addition, Glenn Beck urged his listeners not to resort to violence. Now we have that creepy grifter, Sarah Palin, calling for civility, after describing healthcare reform as “evil” and implying that Obama would euthanize her kid.

I don’t believe them. Beck and Palin urging that wingnuts not get violent calls to mind those ever-so-outwardly-pious 19th Century warning guides to vice in New York City which urged their readers to avoid like the very Devil Himself the southwest corner of Bowery and 3rd because there’s a large whorehouse on the third floor that disgracefully offers free wine to the first fifty men who use the password “Johnnie sent me.”

It seems to me that the far right is genuinely expecting something truly violent to happen and only pretending to be concerned; they’re egging their morans on at the same time they’re covering themselves from charges of incitement.

Paranoia? Maybe. Then again, days after Beck urged his brownshirts – sorry, I mistyped, I meant to write “his insane followers” – he was back on the air joking that he poisoned Nancy Pelosi’s wine. Note to comedy lovers: That’s not funny.

Meanwhile, Holy Horse Has Left The Barn, Batman! House Democrats have finally gotten around to setting up a “war room” to push back against the thuggery on the right. That’s nice, kids. Be home by 5:00, ok?

A bad August, indeed.

Your Money Or Your Life

by digby

I was going to write about this reprehensible Robert Samuelson column, but find that there’s no need since Jonathan Cohn already took him downtown. These conservatives really do believe that taxation is more immoral than allowing people to die for lack of health insurance in the most prosperous nation on earth.

Cohn concludes his post with this:

Even if everything Samuelson said about cost control were true, how on earth does that qualify as defending the status quo? Last time I checked, the status quo means that tens of millions of people have no insurance while tens of millions more have insurance that doesn’t cover their needs. The reforms Obama supports would mean everybody get could comprehensive insurance at a price they could afford.
Samuelson doesn’t contest this. On the contrary, he sees it as part of the problem. Note the quotes around “right” and “moral” in his column. The people who end up going “bankrupt” or watching loved ones “die” because of unaffordable health insurance might beg to disagree.

I actually am finding this health care debate quite clarifying. After the years of sanctimonious garbage about “compassionate conservatism” these people are finally being forced to say what they really believe: they just don’t care about anybody but themselves. If anything should happen to them personally, or they fail to get wealthy, the government should help them because they are deserving. Others (and I think you know what I’m talking about) simply aren’t worthy.
After all, if you acknowledge that someone else has a “right” it means you’ve lost yours. There’s only so much life, liberty and happiness to go around.

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