Month: October 2009

Spoiled And Out Of Touch

by digby

Steve Benen writes:

From time to time, we’re reminded of the fact that members of Congress — many of whom are fighting to kill health care reform — give themselves pretty good coverage. Several weeks ago, the LA Times reported on the taxpayer-subsidized insurance federal lawmakers currently enjoy. The piece noted that, while most Americans have to go with whatever their employer offers, members have a choice of 10 plans that offer access to a national network of doctors. “Lawmakers also get special treatment at Washington’s federal medical facilities and, for a few hundred dollars a month, access to their own pharmacy and doctors, nurses and medical technicians standing by in an office conveniently located between the House and Senate chambers,” the article added. ABC News explores this conveniently located facility in more detail today. It sounds like a pretty sweet deal for lawmakers.

This fall while members of Congress toil in the U.S. Capitol, working to decide how or even whether to reform the country’s health care system, one floor below them an elaborate Navy medical clinic — described by those who have seen it as something akin to a modern community hospital — will be standing by, on-call and ready to provide Congress with some of the country’s best and most efficient government-run health care. Formally called the Office of the Attending Physician, the clinic — and at least six satellite offices — bills its mission as one of emergency preparedness and public health. Each day, it stands ready to handle medical emergencies, biological attacks and the occasional fainting tourist visiting Capitol Hill.

Please read on to see what excellent facilities are available to our elites as they argue that the rest of us should ask our neighbors for charity or just get a job working for a big employer if our current one doesn’t offer health insurance.

As Benen pithily notes:

Keep this in mind the next time you hear a member of Congress complaining about the nightmares of government-run, taxpayer-subsidized health care.

God help us if every American had such health care. How would we know which people deserve to live and which ones don’t?

h/t to Susie Madrak
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How It’s Done

by dday

Republicans seriously don’t know who they’re dealing with when it comes to Alan Grayson.

This just does not compute for Republicans, who are supposed to wail and moan and collect their scalp for their hissy fit. They don’t understand a Democrat taking ownership of his actions and throwing it right back at them. Incidentally, most of the Democrats I’ve seen today, including members of Congress, haven’t backed away from his remarks even a little bit.

Teaching Democrats how to neutralize a hissy fit is all the more reason to support Alan Grayson.

…by the way, media idiots, he didn’t compare health care death to the Holocaust, he compared it to a holocaust. That’s the definition of the word – “an act of mass destruction and loss of life.” What else would you call the needless deaths of 45,000 Americans every year due to lack of health insurance, while political leaders stand mute? I call it “an accurate description.”

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