“It always amazes me how some people work against their own interests (and try to screw everyone else in the process). Why are republicans working so hard to destroy the Middle Class.... when they are IN the Middle Class?

One might expect this from those who profit greatly from the present system (so much so that they're spending tens of millions on lobbying to protect their golden goose), but for the rest it makes no sense at all.

Brain damage?”

“it always amazes me how some people feel health care is a right due all US citizens and paid for with tax dollars. why are the democrats working so hard a growing government and forcing their way into yet another facet of citizens lives? why are they threatening to force feed US citizens a bs system the government has proved time and again they are incompetant of running.”

“Doctor brat t*lt must really really hate his mother.”

“'Brain damage?'

No, but yes, they're trying to lose another civil war or another election, because the past times were so much fun. Palin 2011 7/8.”

“Baume, I agree in part and disagree in part about your characterization of Democrats.

I don't think it is a right to have "free" health care. But I do think it is out of control, and, sadly for far too many, something they can't afford. I think is tragic to be the world's leading country in so many areas, but have a health care system that borders on being elitist.

Personally, I think we are spending way too much time trying to implement something new and far too little time trying to fine tune what we have.

The plan that I find to be the most interesting and what seems to be the best fix is what the Mayo Clinic uses. Now I don't think anyone will say the healthcare provided by the Mayo Clinic is sub par.”

“i'm not familiar with the plan the mayo clinic uses. i'll have to look into it.”

“They're already paying for people who don't carry insurance but in the most expensive way possible.”

“Baume, I admit I struggle with specifics when it comes to health care. God, a 1000 page Bill scares the crap out of me.

However, from what I see with the Mayo plan it is "value based" as opposed to "fee based". Their doctors are on a salary and the amount of revenue they generate through tests and upcharges doesn't affect their compensation.

To me, this seems to be the biggest problem our current insurance plans have. When I go to the doctor, he is paid on a line item. The more lines, the more $$.

Now the problem with going to a flat rate is we turn Doctor's offices into a cattle pen. Get 'em in and get 'em out.

However, it appears the Mayo clinic has been able to figure out how to manage this process. Whether we can incorporate that to a national model is beyond me. But I am convinced at this point that we need an overhaul.”

“Just as a reminder, chili36, Revolution: A Manifesto, by Ron Paul. Check out the healthcare section.”

“I have it on the list. Haven't had time to get there yet, but I will in the next couple weeks.”

“

Right-Wing Turncoat Gives the Inside Scoop on Why Conservatives Are Rampaging Town Halls

Friday 07 August 2009

    The Republican Old Guard are in the fix an atheist would be in if Jesus
showed up and raised his mother from the dead: Their world view has just
been shattered. Obama's election has driven them over the edge. Consider
Former Congressman Dick Armey. Several far right foundations and the
multitrillion dollar health-insurance industry have teamed up with him
to organize the far right foot soldiers of the Republican Party to
intimidate people speaking on behalf of health-care reform. They are
using my old shock troops - given many of these folks were first
energized by the Evangelical pro-life movement that my late father and I
started in the 1970s. What we did to clinics they are now doing to
congressmen and others speaking out for health care reform.

    Having failed at the ballot box, having watched their Fox News-organized
"tea parties" fizzle the intimidation tactics which the Republicans
have
embraced are being used in a well-financed, top-down orchestrated fake
grass roots campaign by corporate interests to try and protect the
profits of the insurance business. Armey's FreedomWorks is organizing
against health care reform. Armey's lobbying firm represents
pharmaceutical companies including Bristol-Myers Squibb. Armey's
lobbying firm also represents the trade group for the life insurance
industry. FreedomWorks is supporting the status quo at all costs. (They
are also fans of fossil fuels. Armey's lobbying firm represents Sheikh
Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Prime Minister of the UAE, on energy
related issues.)

    Last year, the Wall Street Journal exposed FreedomWorks for building
"amateur-looking" websites to promote far right interests of Armey.

FreedomWorks represents a top-down, corporate-friendly approach that's
been the norm for conservative organizations for years. How do I know
this is the norm? Because I used to have strategy meetings with the late
Jack Kemp and Dick Army and the rest of the Republican gang about using
their business ties to help finance the pro-life movement to defeat
Democrats. I know this script. I helped write it.

    Democratic members of Congress are being harassed by angry,
sign-carrying mobs and disruptive behavior at local town halls. It's the
tactic we used to follow abortion providers around their neighborhoods.
"Protesters" surrounded Rep. Tim Bishop (D-NY) and forced police
officers to have to escort him to his car for safety. We used to do the
same to Dr. Tiller... until someone killed him.

    How Can the Right Stoop So Low?

    I used to know Dick Armey quite well. One of my sons even worked for him
as an intern. I knew Armey in the context of his being a fan of my late
Evangelical Religious Right leader father Francis Schaeffer. (Back in
the day when I was a right wing "pro-life" organizer who has long
since
quit the Republicans in disgust at their - our - descent into
extremism and hate.) Armey was once a decent guy, whatever his political
views. How could he stoop so low as to be organizing what amounts to
America's Brown Shirts today?

    I think I know what happened to him, Gingrich and the rest: They can't
compute that their white man-led conservative revolution is dead. They
can't reconcile their idea of themselves with the fact that white men
like them don't run the country any more - and never will again. To
them the black president is leading a column of the "other" into their

promised land. Gays, immigrants, blacks, progressives, even a female
Hispanic appointed to the Supreme Court... for them this is the Apocalypse.

    The last presidential election (to paraphrase Bart Simpson) "broke their

brains." What else could explain their embrace of intimidation - rather

than discourse - over the health care debate and such unsavory moments
of madness as the Republicans accusing Obama and Judge Sonia Sotomayor
of racism, knowing full well that they'd just destroyed their chances
with the Hispanic community forever?

    The "Scorched Earth Policy"

    Dick Army and company have been driven mad by their reversal, not just
of political fortunes but of seeing that they've wasted their lives.
They now know they were wrong: about the country, the free market, war
for fun and profit, and what the American people really want. They made
their best case and were rejected by the American people - and by
history. Bush was their man and he turned out to be a fool. So now all
the the Republican gurus have left is what the defeated Germans of World
War Two had: a scorched earth policy. If they can't win then everyone
must go down. Obama must fail! The country must fail!

    The Lobbyist-run Groups "Americans for Prosperity " and

"FreedomWorks/ Dick Armey-Orchestrated Memo:

    Here is a leaked excerpt from the folks organizing the intimidation
campaign:

Artificially Inflate Your Numbers: "Spread out in the hall and try to

be in the front half. The objective is to put the Rep on the defensive
with your questions and follow-up. The Rep should be made to feel that a
majority, and if not, a significant portion of at least the audience,
opposes the socialist agenda of Washington."

Be Disruptive Early And Often: "You need to rock-the-boat early in the

Rep's presentation, Watch for an opportunity to yell out and challenge
the Rep's statements early."

Try To "Rattle Him," Not Have An Intelligent Debate: "The
goal is to
rattle him, get him off his prepared script and agenda. If he says
something outrageous, stand up and shout out and sit right back down.
Look for these opportunities before he even takes questions."

    The Last Republican Tactic: Outright Lies

    A barrage of outright lies, wherein the Democrats are being accused of
wanting to launch a massive euthanasia program against the elderly, free
abortions for everyone, and "a government takeover" of health-care
is
now being combined with physical intimidation that in several cases has
required police escorts to protect pro health-care reform speakers
surrounded by angry plants sent to disrupt public forums on the
health-care issue. Demonstrators hung Rep. Frank Kratovil (D-MD) in
effigy outside of his office. (Missing from the reporting of these
stories - with the notable exception of Rachel Maddow - is the fact
that much of these protests are coordinated by public relations firms
and lobbyists who have a stake in opposing President Obama's reforms.

    There is no daylight between the Republican Party, the health-care
insurance industry, far right leaders like Dick Armey, the legion of
insurance lobbyists, and now, a small army of thugs. All we're missing
is actual uniforms, otherwise we now have a full blown American version
of the Nazi Brown Shirts.

    No, I don't believe that these people are about to take over the
country. No, the sky is not falling. But the Republican Party is. It is
now profoundly anti-American.

    The health-insurance industry is run by very smart and very greedy
people who have sunk to a new low. So has the Republican Party's
leadership that will not stand up and denounce the likes of Dick Armey
for helping organize roving bands of thugs trying to strip the rest of
us of the ability to be heard when it comes to the popular will on
reforming health care.

    Conclusion: the Fascist Formula

    Here's the emerging American version of the fascist's formula: combine
millions of dollars of lobbyists' money with embittered troublemakers
who have a small army of not terribly bright white angry people
(collected over decades through pro-life mass mailing networks) at their
beck and call, ever ready to believe any myth or lie circulated by the
semi literate and completely and routinely misinformed right wing -
Evangelical religious underground. Then put his little mob together with
the insurance companies' big bucks. That's how it works - American
Brown Shirts at the ready.

    What's the results of the fascist formula for the rest of us? Well,
think how this "method" worked against Dr. Tiller's abortion clinic
and
how that story ended. In this case a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to
save our economy from going bankrupt because of spiraling health care
costs may be lost, not because of a better argument, but because of lies
backed up by anti-democratic embittered thuggery. The motive? Revenge on
America by the Old White Guys of the far right, and greed by the
insurance industry.

    What Can Be Done?

    It's time that this whole shabby (and insane) business be exposed,
vilified in run out of town on a rail by whatever responsible
Republicans - if any - that are still in the party and who want to see
the fortunes of their party revived. Republican leaders taking insurance
industry money via lobbying firms and using it to organize what amounts
to roving bands of thugs not only need to be exposed but thrown out of
the public debate forever. They should become absolute pariahs.

    It's time to give this garbage in name: insurance industry funded fascism.

”

“The right wing. Will immediately declare this guy to have a mental disorder but he did give a first hand observation.”

“you guys seriously overestimate how many people watch foxnews or listen to talk radio in the general population”

“You don't know how many people are on the web visiting the liberal sites and blogs. The right are the TV people and do fill up on that Fox. Fox is along for the right while the left has the other networks, but the web is the liberals hangout-they can't work an AM radio.LOL

Health reform is fighting an up hill battle. 160 million Americans get employer health care and many think it is free, because they pay no income tax on it.
How in hell is anyone going to turn these people away from this government subsidized system when most of them don't even know(mostly don't want to admit) Medicare is socialized care. The government pays for 45% of the health care in the US. It'll be over 50% soon.
last edited: 8/07/09 9:21:16 PM”

“Vile and his alternet posts

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA”

“Well, you right wingers step up. Is dude a liar or not?”

“Stovie, that Frank Schaeffer was on Rachael Maddows show tonight on MSNBC, it's a must see.

He looks into the camera and reaches out of your TV screen and cuts your rotten heart out with a cold dull knife.LMAO”

“Wow, he nails it huh.

You can see the exact stuff he's talking about here in a few posters.”

“Thanks 'V', I couldn't find that at the time. where are the Knights Templars this morning, cleaning their swords I'm sure.”

“Do not compare some of these right wingeres with the Templars.

Assuming a sworn duty to defend Christianity actually means practicing it.”

“At least it's not like the bad old days when they'd send in the Pinkertons to bust heads.”

“Chili, with no offence intended, I can't live with protecting any religion. That just me.

Tilt, were'nt you a Pink in a past life? I'll ask Stovie.”

““Chili, with no offence intended, I can't live with protecting any religion. That just me.”

salebored
7:36:02 AM
8/08/09

The very crux of freedom is not having it forced upon you.”

“
Maddow calls out GOP operatives behind healthcare mobs
Published: August 6, 2009
Updated 2 days ago

By David Edwards and Stephen Webster


On Wednesday night, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow named names and called out Republican operatives and organizations that are “generating exploitative, manufactured, strategically deployed outrage” to benefit their corporate clientele.

These political consultants and big-money backers are selling “crazy, disprovable, but nevertheless endlessly stoked conspiracy theories that health care reform is communism, that it’s a secret plot to kill your grandpa, that it’s a government takeover, it’s something called Obama-care. It’s going to mandate abortions. It’s going to mandate sex change operations.”

She added: “I would make up something that could be the next crazy thing, but everything I could think of that is that crazy has already been actually used by these people.”

(Health reform, Maddow went on to say, is of course not a plot to kill old people.The GOP has claimed it is, pointing to a measure that would cover the cost of making a living will — even though that measure was proposed by a Republican.)

The centerpiece of Maddow’s shot at the so-called healthcare “mobs” was an examination of a Web site promoting protests during the congressional recess through August.

The site — recessrally.com — features a list of sponsoring groups that include familiar names in conservative spheres, such as Michelle Malkin and the Red State blog. But it also includes a number of vaguely-named organizations like “Freedom Works,” “American Majority” and “The Sam Adams Society.”

At time of this writing, recessrally.com and the site that appears to host some of its digital assets — americanlibertytour.com — were offline. In Google’s cache of both sites (1, 2), neither provides image assets and it was not immediately apparent as to why. Recess Rally’s Facebook page illustrates their ties to the tax day tea parties and advertises anti-health protests outside every congressman’s office on August 22.

And just who are behind these groups?

“The executive director of American Majority’s Minnesota office — ko’inky dink — regional field director for Bush-Cheney ‘04,” began Maddow. “Executive director of their Kansas office would be a former Republican state legislator; executive director of their Oklahoma office, a former Washington, D.C. conservative lobbyist — you know, just your average middle-class Americans.”

Another ‘Recess Rally’ sponsor is The Sam Adams Society, run by “the former executive director of the Illinois State Republican Party,” said Maddow. “Sam Adams Alliance is also led by a former Dow Chemicals engineer who’s also president of the nation’s largest conservative state-level policy think tank…”

Finally, and what Maddow called “the most illustrative of all,” is Americans for Prosperity, run by Art Pope.

“Art Pope. Art Pope,” she said. “Why does that name sound familiar? Oh, right! That’s the headquarters of the North Carolina Republican Party. That building is named after Art Pope because Art Pope is a multi-millionaire far-right activist who’s given the Republican Party in North Carolina so much money over the years that they could think of no grander gesture than to name their headquarters building after him.”

After all, they’re just “average, middle-class Americans” much like yourself, Maddow concluded with a smirk.”

“'Looks to me like person A really doesn't get jack schidt and person B takes it up the rectum if he is healthy and breaks even if he is sick.' chili36

Of the 160 million Americans, that receive Employee Funded Care, how many know how much HC cost and how much the existing tax code is subsidizing?

Any gov. subsidies like HC, food, gasoline, churches and on and on always end in overuse and abuse.


If the government wants to give something away, be honest about it by exposing it cost and the ill effects if may cause on consumption.

PS the tax and return as Standard deduction on HC , is partially an attempt to rid the tax code of hiden susides, YES, AS IT SHOULD.
last edited: 8/09/09 9:30:49 AM”

“Employers, always focused on costs, do not seek to provide more costly health care benefit programs. In my experience, for those that DO offer it (I spend most of my time working with small employers), none have expressed interest in increasing their costs. On the contrary, they seek not to have to provide it at all if not required to do so, although some do recognize this as a cost of doing business, and of obtaining qualified employees who seek out employers providing such benefits.

The cost of health care often begins with those providing the services. Physicians must make their $500K incomes, hospitals must have that new wing, and because of our litigation-happy populace, every test that CAN be done MUST be done, if facilities and physicians alike are to minimize the costs of awards to - at least in some cases - people who think medical care is absolute, and that whatever happens, it is either a doctor's malpractice, a pharmaceutical company, or a facility's error that is to blame.

This isn't to say in any way that such circumstances exist. Of course, they do. And they should pay for their mistakes. But the inevitable costs of doing so - whether truly an avoidable error, or simply a "victim" failing to take responsibility for their own actions (or lack thereof) - filter down through the system in convoluted ways which, inevitably, reach into all our pockets by way of the premiums we pay for health care services.

Those premiums also come in the form of taxes which, in part, pay for the multitudes - approximately 47 million people - who don't have, or can't afford, even the most basic care. For these, emergency rooms are seen as the only resource for those with minor OR major medical needs, and thusly are hospitals overburdened with care they must provide to the indigent, poor, and uninsured. This is why Medicaid exists, minimal as its expenditures may be. As a result, the medical provider system (hospitals, clinics, and the like) receives minimal reimbursement for even actual costs, and must therefore double-down on the health insurance industry - and the uninsured middle class - to cover the gap.

This may be why you have $250 aspirins, $1,000 per day semi-private rooms, and $600 X-rays. And while I don't begrudge anyone the right to make a nice income, the economic demands of the system force an industry destined to pay for it to increase premiums to pay for it all. The entire industry, it seems, has such a huge infrastructure to support that it can never be fully unravelled. Parmaceutical companies making outrageous sums on medications whose R&D has been paid for 10 times over, unheard of malpractice insurance premiums, redundant testing & lab requirements, new technology... the magnitude of items on the "reasons-the-cost-of-health-care-are-so-high" list seems endless. And to some, self-serving.

Where does it stop?

No system of health care will make everyone happy. Each solution has its proponents AND detractors, and the media feeds this fire with headlines designed to inspire your purchase of the next day's paper, or to watch their next broadcast, thereby assuring advertisers the money THEY'RE spending on your behalf is recovered 10-fold as you somehow remember their name or product the next time you shop.

Advertising - defined as the process of arresting human intelligence long enough to obtain money from it.

Capitalism, free enterprise, entrepreneurial spirit... where is the line drawn that partitions individual responsibility and citizen entitlements? What obligation do we demand of our government, when it comes to social programs and entitlements such as Social Security, Medicare, and the like?

Surely, the system must change. And just as surely, that change will p*ss some people off. Yet it would seem that those benefit the most by our freedoms and opportunities will, and must, bear a larger burden of the solution.

Socialism? Regretfully, it would appear the prior comments are suggesting it, though personally, I'm not in favor of it. Still, it seems if our governement is to continue to provide certain "social" programs, that some elements of socialism already exist. And if that doesn't seem ironic, nearly everyone who advocates against it has, is, or will be benefitting from it at some point. How willing would they be to give up those benefits in order to purify their commitment?

Make no mistake... without governmental intervention - which, by Constitutional decree, and the Bill of Rights, must be by the people, and FOR the people - solutions left to the private sector will be many, varied, and almost certainly self-serving. All will propose what works best for THEM, and typically at the expense of the government (read: U.S. Taxpayers), or directly borne via the public domain.

Lobbyists, whose allegiance aligns them with whomever signs the check, will light on Washington like flies to a carcass, all hoping to feed on a system so maze-like as to trap nearly all who enter.

Some might make it out, but likely they will have a map, or be the ones to have drawn it.

You understand maps, don't you?”

“It would be refreshing if the AMA would make some attempt to police its membership.”

“'And if that doesn't seem ironic, nearly everyone who advocates against it has, is, or will be benefitting from it at some point. How willing would they be to give up those benefits in order to purify their commitment?' obiwan canoli

This excerpt from your excellent post seems to discribe many of the mobsters that object to any reform of HC.

The doctor dudes ain't gona let that happen Tilt..
last edited: 8/09/09 11:24:37 AM”

“The moonbats are running scared.”

“I love it when people with no convictions claim to understand the motivations of those that do.”

“I'm wrong for not believing in 'Miracles' you hexy thang?”