HEALTHCARE, NOT JUST BEGGING FOR REFORM

HEALTHCARE, NOT JUST BEGGING FOR REFORM, IT IS SCREAMING ON TOP OF ITS LUNGS FOR REGULATIONS AND A PUBLIC OPTION

One of the few industries that have not been subjected to ANTITRUST regulations has been the Health Care companies. Does anybody know why? They have avoided any significant regulation to curb their voracious appetite for obscene profits. Their financial contributions to both Republicans and Democrats is the reason for this and is unparalleled as compared to any other special interest groups except the oil industry.

What have they achieved in these past 50 years? They have increased their premiums not at the same pace as the increase in the cost of living or wages, they have systematically denied claims and excluded millions of people from being covered. They have also created a quagmire for small businesses and employers who just can’t afford to offer health insurance as one of their benefits.

More consequences are bordering on the insane, the one that gets most people is that the rising cost of medical care has placed a lot of folks into bankruptcy, and forcing them into an indigent type of situation.

I’m just saying….what is it that the Insurance Companies offer or contribute? Do they produce anything? Do they provide a useful service? Are they acting in earnest to satisfy a need of society to spread the risk among everyone? The answer is no to all of the above. What is then the conclusion one might deduce from this? That the Insurance Companies have it coming to them. By letting greed take over and abandon the model of a free enterprise business concern, they have forefitted all reasons to even exist.

The argument many give is that the Health Care industry comprises about 1/6 of the economy. But I pose to you the premise that if they are too big to fail or cause a disruption in the economy, then they are also too big to even exist. They have placed themselves in this position and now they are trying to influence the efforts by the general public to reform and get a fair and equitable Health Care system.

I was listening today to one conservative Republican saying that he didn’t understand why there were some Democrats voting against the Public Option. He suggested that it was because they understood it was a bad thing. I beg to differ; the reason some of them are still holding out against the very voters who elected them is because they are in the pockets of the Insurance Companies. It is no secret that this is so, just like it is no secret that Republicans are even bigger recipients of all these billions of dollars in campaign contributions.

What these assholes don’t realize is that the insurance campaign contributions will dry up either way, whether the regulations/Public Option passes or not. Eventually, once they are emboldened and Health Care reform is defeated, they will raise premiums even more, more than 100 million Americans will be left without Health Insurance and then what? Do the insurance companies think that they will continue to suck from the tit of America? Do they really think that the system as it exists is sustainable?

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HuffPo headline:

After Months Of Negotiations And Concessions, Senator Baucus' Health Care Bill Introduced With Zero Republican Support

When are the Dems going to get it through their granite skulls that nothing . . . N-O-T-H-I-N-G . . . will appease the Republicans? There is no "negotiating" with them. No conceding. They never should have even tried. Obama should have taken the lead back in March and shoved real health care reform through both houses.

George Bush is an obnoxious dick?

Who'da thunk it?

President Bush mocked other prominent politicians behind their backs while in office, according to a new book by former speechwriter Matt Latimer.

Bush thought Hillary would be the Democratic nominee. "'Wait till her fat keister is sitting at this desk,' he once said (except he didn't say 'keister')," Latimer wrote.

Well, he did get the whole Sarah Palin thing right:

I'm trying to remember if I've met her before. I'm sure I must have." His eyes twinkled, then he asked, "What is she, the governor of Guam?" [...]

"This woman is being put into a position she is not even remotely prepared for," he said. "She hasn't spent one day on the national level. Neither has her family. Let's wait and see how she looks five days out." It was a rare dose of reality in a White House that liked to believe every decision was great, every Republican was a genius, and McCain was the hope of the world because, well, because he chose to be a member of our party.

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FROM: Sen. Debbie Stabenow

Friday's Senate Finance Committee debate on requiring insurance companies to cover maternity care perfectly shows what worldview we Senate Democrats are fighting against:

Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., said: "I don't need maternity care."

To which I responded: "I think your mom probably did."

We can't let people who are so divorced from the realities of everyday Americans determine our future. Positive progress depends on holding the line on the "Party of No."

SOURCE: http://dscc.org,

The Founding Fathers couldn’t have seen this coming. If they had, the right to free speech would have been conditional upon one’s ability to read. But the Founding Fathers didn’t plan on the likes of Palin, Cheney and Limbaugh.

I too long for the America I remember as a child, Margaret. The one where men used guns to hunt quail and women visited a beauty salon at least once a week. Oh, those were the days. I wish we had them back. I mean it. Really.

Republicans and Bush left us with a mess...they have to take responsibility

Are you going to take into consideration that Bush and the Republicans left us with an insurmountable debt to pay for an unnecessary and immoral war, these same people by stripping away systematically and without shame any regulations that kept the country solvent cause a catastrophic economic crisis. Are they going to own it? Will they take responsibility for this and many other blunders? Of course not.

Republicans are going to make an issue of this for the upcoming midterm elections and they are going to blame Obama and the Democrats for increasing the national debt to levels unseen and unimaginable a few years ago. But what choice did he have? Doing nothing as the Republicans have suggested would mean collective suicide. It would not just destroy the economy but destroy the country to a position we will never be able to crawl away from.

Just think, if Bush had not embarked on that adventure they called “the search for Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq) or in other circles known as “a war for oil”; we would have had enough resources to fight the terrorists in Afghanistan, we would have had enough money left to take care of our infrastructure, our education, and yes, even Universal Health Care for every American.

We were left instead with a broken economy, two wars, a broken healthcare system and a tremendous dependency on foreign fuel, owned by countries that are our foes. Doing nothing was not an option for Obama, and don’t blame him and the Democrats for the debt; it is time you fucking Republicans own it.

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