Where Do They Get These People?, Pt. 2

Jeebus H. Crispies:

Think Progress makes a great catch on C-SPAN this morning: Someone calls in while Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) is answering the lines, practically in tears because Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) missed this morning's procedural vote on health care.

He was apparently concerned that -- after following Sen. Tom Coburn's (R-OK) instructions to pray that someone couldn't make a manager's amendment vote Sunday night -- his prayers for Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) to die struck the wrong senator.

Tea Partier Calls C-SPAN, Worried His Prayers For Byrd To Die Got Inhofe Instead

I'm going to give this individual the benefit of the doubt and assume that wasn't hoping that a U.S. Senator would die so he couldn't vote for cloture on a bill. I wouldn't be shocked to be wrong about that, but I will.

We're still being treated to the spectacle of someone who earnestly believes not only that there is a being that is responsible for the creation of the universe, and at the same time will act on his behalf for some comparatively petty political concern, but that this being will get the message wrong and actually make someone else miss the vote.

People say that science and mathematics are complicated, but it's child's play compared to the rationalizations of religious nutcases.

Ahmedinijad On Nuclear Weapons

ABC News announced their transcript of the interview of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by Diane Sawyer with this lede:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declined to give a yes-or-no answer on whether he could assure the West that Iran would never weaponize its nuclear material and turn it into a bomb.

Exclusive: Iran Prez Won't Say Yes-or-No to Nuclear Bomb

Here's what I believe is the relevant part of the transcript:

SAWYER: May I try a yes or no question?

AHMADINEJAD: To what question?

SAWYER: Many journalists have tried to get a yes or no answer and I'm going to try one more time. Will you say to the American people, tonight, that Iran will never weaponize nuclear material? There will be no nuclear weapon in Iran, ever?

AHMADINEJAD: We have got a saying in Iran which says, "How many times shall I repeat the same thing?" You should say thing only once. We have said once that we don't want nuclear bomb.

SAWYER: No?

AHMADINEJAD: We don't accept it -- finish. You see, the Iranian government and the Iranian people are brave people. And we are frank people, too. Whatever they want to say, they say it with clarity. We said we wanted the fuel production cycle, that was it. And we created it. We said we industrialize it and we did it. Now we announced that we are going to bring in new centrifuges and we will do it. We announced that we were not afraid of resolutions and sanctions and we didn't fear from them. If we had been looking for bombs, we would have had the courage to announce it either. We are not afraid of anyone. We have said it time and again that we don't accept bombs. But now we have got claims and we are saying that America and all those who possess bombs should be disarmed. We will follow this up. They ought to be disarmed. They do not have the right to comment on the nuclear issue until they are disarmed. After they are disarmed, then they will have the right to intervene in the nuclear issue. The reason they are unable to control proliferation in countries in the East of Asia is they have got bombs themselves. If someone has got bombs how can they prevent others from making bombs? But we can, because we don't want bombs and we don't have any. We can disarm [others] and we can also stop proliferation. This is why we have proposed to the agency and to the U.N. to form an independent body for disarmament and proliferation, not those people have got bombs themselves and are sitting there and saying they want to stop proliferation. This is funny. All people of the world are laughing at this.

If the American government is worried about bombs, it should disarm itself first so that the world understands that they are honest. It is very clear this is dishonest.

Diane Sawyer Interviews Iranian President Ahmadinejad (page 3)

Now, I'll grant you that my Persian isn't all that good, but that reads to me like he said that Iran doesn't want nuclear weapons, and has no plans to build them. That could be a lie, it might be a prevarication, but it's as much of a statement as you'll ever get out of an honest politician in that situation. Iran may see the need to develop nuclear weapons someday. Ahmadinejad could answer Sawyer's question no more than President Obama could answer "Will the United States always have nuclear weapons?" In neither case can the leader speak for future generations. He can only speak for his and his contemporaries' own intentions, assuming he really understands the latter.

Yet that lede will be the headline. You know it will. I don't know whether we can trust Ahmadinejad's word or not, but I have little trust in the veracity or the judgment of our own news these days.

I Told You So

Back in June, I wrote this:

Here's the bottom line - the Congress and the President have sold us out to the insurance companies. There will be no government-funded insurance like medicare. There will be no single-payer system. The President expressed "interest" in such a provision, but realistically that's not going to happen without some cuts to Medicare. That's only going to happen over the AARP's corpse. They have sold us out to the insurance industry for more campaign contributions. They will make it so the only way Americans will be able to receive health care is if they pay off an insurance company.

...

There will be no meaningful cost controls, nor will any of the restrictions that might be placed on insurance companies' ability to refuse to cover people or refuse to pay for their treatments actually mean anything. The insurance companies will control that process just as they control the states' regulation of no-fault auto insurance.

What The Whores In DC Are Doing While I'm On Vacation

Today, Josh Marshall put us on notice that I was correct:

[E]verybody is on notice that the House is not going to be able to make any major changes to the senate bill. Nelson and Lieberman hold an effective veto on anything coming out of the House. By and large, everyone seems to get that. But there's a broader fissure that needs to be addressed between the two chambers and that's in many ways actually a proxy for the deeper ideological fracture within the Democratic party. Since the House is being forced to basically give way entirely to the senate, they need at least a fig leaf, something to preserve institutional and intra-party self-respect.

How Does This All Play Out

Now, I'll make another prediction. That fig leaf will be so small that only a Democratic communications director will be able to see it clearly. Maybe they'll expand Medicaid coverage to 150 percent of the Federal Poverty Level, instead of the 133 percent in the Senate bill. Whatever it is, it will be no more consequential, and quite probably less.

Then the House progressives will fold like a cheap card table, because that's what they always do.

Meanwhile, I have this to say to all the folks who have been writing nonsense about how this was all going to be fixed in committee, and why am I trying to ruin the Democrats' chances in 2010? I have just this to say - I saw this coming. If you did, too, you have business lecturing me. Send me a link from June or earlier proving you did. If you didn't, take your hand off your hip and explain to me why you think this is less politically devastating to Democrats than not passing a bill at all. And by that, I mean explain it, don't just do the written equivalent of rolling your eyes and saying it's obvious. Plus, you'd better be able to answer these questions, or else you have no idea how bad it's going to get.

If you can't do that, either shut the hell up or learn to ask questions when you don't know something, because you really have no business lecturing anyone. Politics is one of those subjects everyone thinks he's an expert on, because no matter how little someone knows he can always spin it so someone takes him seriously. You have no business calling anyone crazy, selfish, naive, or drug addled for holding a position contrary to your own.

Because at least around here, knowledge and analysis count for more than attitude.

UPDATE: On the cheap card table front, things are already proceeding according to plan, according to Steve Benen:

Rep Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, has been fighting constantly all year to keep as many liberal provisions in the health care reform bill as possible. He'd made some veiled threats (and some not-so-veiled threats) about opposing any bill without a public option, though he's now signaling his support for the watered-down legislation.

Grijalva's is, however, looking for another concession -- one that need not alienate any center-right members of the Senate Democratic caucus. He talked to Greg Sargent today, and said he's eyeing the implementation schedule[.]

Grijalva Eyes Implementation Schedule

What that means is that he's trying to get some bits of the program implemented earlier. Recall that many of the provisions of both the House and Senate bills do not start until 2014. What bits might be accelerated, and by how much, is what they're hashing out, it would seem.

Of all the predictions I've discussed in this article, this was the easiest to foresee. In fact, if you didn't see this coming, and you've been following Congress for the last few years, you may consider yourself an honorary drooling idiot.

Another Petition

Over at FireDogLake, Jane Hamsher and the other principal writers who cover health care have come up with a top ten list of reasons to kill the Senate health care reform bill that's now being considered:

1. Forces you to pay up to 8% of your income to private insurance corporations — whether you want to or not.


2. If you refuse to buy the insurance, you’ll have to pay penalties of up to 2% of your annual income to the IRS.


3. Many will be forced to buy poor-quality insurance they can’t afford to use, with $11,900 in annual out-of-pocket expenses over and above their annual premiums.


4. Massive restriction on a woman’s right to choose, designed to trigger a challenge to Roe v. Wade in the Supreme Court.


5. Paid for by taxes on the middle class insurance plan you have right now through your employer, causing them to cut back benefits and increase co-pays.


6. Many of the taxes to pay for the bill start now, but most Americans won’t see any benefits — like an end to discrimination against those with preexisting conditions — until 2014 when the program begins.


7. Allows insurance companies to charge people who are older 300% more than others.


8. Grants monopolies to drug companies that will keep generic versions of expensive biotech drugs from ever coming to market.


9. No re-importation of prescription drugs, which would save consumers $100 billion over 10 years.


10. The cost of medical care will continue to rise, and insurance premiums for a family of four will rise an average of $1,000 a year — meaning in 10 years, your family’s insurance premium will be $10,000 more annually than it is right now.

10 Reasons to Kill the Senate Bill

To that list, I'll add the elephant in the room: How are the new regulations, inadequate as they are, going to be enforced? Passing a law doesn't make people obey the law. Enforcement does. How will that work? I suspect it will work badly, if it can work at all.

The article goes on to provide a list of articles explaining each point, and then points to on online petition to sign asking the Senate to kill this bill.

Like Jane, I think the idea that this bill could be improved after it's passed is absurd. Look how much time and effort this one has taken. Is Congress going to sign up for another round? How would we expect it to go any better next time? Once they've passed a bill, they are going to think they have political cover. That's been one of the consistent themes of the people who advocate its passage. Plus, to be fair, there are other matters Congress needs to work on.

This action on FDL's part represents a change in their position on the bill. Initially, they supported passage, despite what I thought were fatal flaws. As the bill got worse, they changed their minds. Despite some criticism that's been both petty and off the mark, they have come to this position from a different one, and they have good reasons for the one they now have taken.

Once laws and bureaucracies are put in place, they tend to take on a life of their own. If the Senate version of the bill passes, the starting point for any future version of health care reform will be the Frankenstein monster of a bill that emerges from the House-Senate conference committee. At least starting with the House bill makes that prospect a little less frightening.

So, read the article, and if you agree, sign the petition.

It's still our country, so they keep telling me.

UPDATE: By inadvertently hitting the "Publish Post" button, I published this article at 11:09 before it was complete.

Happy Solstice

Caption: Newgrange, a prehistoric passage tomb in Ireland. Each winter solstice, a narrow beam of light illuminates a particular passageway for a short time.

Image credit: Shira/Wikimedia




Today is the 2009 Winter solstice. From now until the Summer solstice, the days will be getting longer. If you live in a place like the Pacific Northwest, that's welcome news, because the days are about eight hours long this time of year.

Wherever you are, have a good one.

Sunday Photo(s)

Ah, winter in the Pacific Northwest! Last year, as you may recall we were worried about all the snow and ice that was on the ground, and whether we'd be able to drive to the shopping centers or the airport. This year is more typical - the principal danger is that we may drown:
Image credit: Cujo359

These are pictures of Saltwater State Park that I took yesterday. As you can see, it was not just rainy and overcast, but also foggy. Around here, that's a wintertime trifecta.
Image credit: Cujo359

As always, click on the pictures to enlarge. Have a good Sunday.

We're Not So Exceptional After All

Maybe we aren't so uniquely cursed with narcissistic politicians:

Tony Blair has hit back defiantly at his British critics, insisting that he is appreciated overseas much more than at home. He also defended his money-making activities.

“If I did what these people who criticise me here wanted, I’d end up just sitting in a corner, but that is never going to be me,” he said.

Interviewed for today’s News Review, the former prime minister said: “You get to a position where the criticism you get, you just have to live with. It’s the way it is. When you are someone like me, you create a lot of controversy one way or another. You just decide to do what you are going to do and let that speak for itself.”

It’s Only You Brits Who Don’t Appreciate Me, Insists Tony Blair

Speaking mostly from experience with our own politicians, I think there's a more logical explanation for this than that somehow the rest of the world's press are less surly and nit-picky than one's own. I think it's just might be because Tony Blair wasn't as much of a problem for the rest of us as he was for his own people.

Healthcare: How Much Are You Giving Up?

Caption: You'll get this one by the end of the article.

Image credit: The Dawg Blog by Dawgdad (Click to see the whole picture - it's cute.)

There are times when Prof. Paul Krugman shows up at his blog to write erudite and informative articles about how our economy is doing, and how it could be doing better. Other times, some condescending twit shows up who writes things like this:

What’s going on with health care is very different. Those who grudgingly say “pass the thing” — a camp I have reluctantly joined — aren’t naive: by and large they’re wonks who have looked at the legislation quite carefully, understand both its virtues and its flaws, and have decided that it’s a lot better than nothing. And there isn’t much careerism involved: if you’re a progressive pundit or wonk, the risks of alienating the people to your left are at least a match for the risks of alienating people to your right.

Now, the pass-the-thing people could be wrong. Maybe hopes of improving the new health care system over time, the way Social Security has been improved, will prove to have been fantasies; or maybe rejecting this bill and trying again, a strategy that has failed many times in the past, would work this time. But it’s a carefully thought-out, honest position. And arriving at that position has, in my case at least, required a lot of agonized soul-searching.

And maybe I’m being unfair, but I don’t seem to see the same degree of soul-searching on the other side.

Health care and Iraq

Nate Silver, who also ought to be smart enough to know better, wrote this:

I know Markos and consider him a friend; I don't know Jon but always find him level-headed. So, this is not meant to implicate them. Nor am I going to go about trying to illustrate for you exactly which arguments against the bill were or weren't made out of spite.

But I've never seen things get quite so personal -- I've gotten as many nasty comments and e-mails from Democrats on this issue as I have in the past six months from conservatives (on all issues). That emotion is a factor in this debate seems self-evident to me. I do somewhat regret egging things on with a deliberately provocative headline on Tuesday.

20 Questions, 20 Responses

I could go on, but I think you catch my drift. People who oppose this bill, or the nearly equally bad House version, are ideologues, need to grow up, are ready to hand Republicans a stirring victory, or should tell them which progressive congressmen we should ask to change their votes and do what they said they would originally. Worse still, Ezra Klein had the temerity to suggest that we worry about policy over the lives of all those people who will be so much better off.

Well, while some of the other people who oppose this bill and I were running around throwing feces at each and trying to avoid getting our tails stuck in the fan, a thought occurred to me - have these people ever in their lives been poor?

There's certainly nothing in Paul Krugman's bio to suggest that he has. I don't know about some of the other folks on that list after the Nate Silver quote, but I think it's unlikely. Why do I say that? I say that, because once you've been poor, or if you know people who are, then you remember.

Being poor means doing without. You do without a lot of things. Much of what you need, like bank services and car insurance, is more expensive. Since Nate's so fond of numbers, let's just run a few to illustrate, shall we?

If you're earning minimum wage in this country and working 40 hour weeks, you're earning about $20,000 ($20K) a year. If you're trying to support two dependents on that wage, here's where your money goes:

• You'll spend at least $800 a month for a place to live. Try finding a two bedroom apartment for significantly less than that. $9.6K.


• You'll spend somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 a week for food. If you can get food stamps, or know a lot of folks who will give you food, then you might be able to do with less. We'll say $5K, with some qualification.


• You have to pay utilities, electricity at a minimum. Since we're being a bit spendthrifty on food, let's say that's another $0.5K.


• You have a car? Then you need car insurance. Where I live, that's at least $1K a year for the poor, because the poor generally have poor credit, and insurance companies are allowed to charge them more if they do. $1K.

Now, forgive me for pointing out the obvious, but $20K - $9.6K - $5K - $0.5K - $1K is $3.9K. That $3,900 dollars has to cover all the other stuff - clothing, car (and gas), medical expenses, glasses, household goods that need to be replaced. That's $400 a month and change. Try saving for a college education on that. Try going to night school yourself. Try buying a computer that will run Windows 7.

As Nate Silver pointed out in an earlier part of that article, these people would be required to spend up to $1,600 (8 percent of income) on health insurance. Now, our family only has $200 a month for all those other things. They'd better hope they don't have to drive very far to get to work.

Being in this financial condition, which more of us are falling into all the time, means that you have to save up for a new set of tires. It means that a four dollar coffee drink is a luxury, not something you pick up every day on the way to work because you're in a hurry. It means having to decide if you go without car insurance or get the kid braces.

I've been poor and I've been well off. Sometimes, it's hard to remember what it was like to be poor. Thankfully, I still know other people who are in that situation. When I mention to one of them that all they need to make their computer work better is more RAM or a new hard disk for $100, the inrush of breath reminds me what it's like.

It's like you can barely get from one paycheck to the next.

What's more, as Keith Olbermann pointed out recently, if you take home twice as much money, things don't look a whole lot better.

Most of us who have spent careers as professionals find it hard to remember this, if we ever knew. Travel in the right circles, and you might never meet someone who has to save up for a refrigerator or to take a vacation to the shore.

That's why I'm so ideological. That's why I don't search my soul, and stay immature. It's why I'm so unreasonable as to expect comfortable people to screw up a little courage and change their fucking minds when they should know they're wrong.

If you're one of the people I mentioned, and you think I am one or all of those things, or you don't understand why others are even less "reasonable", then I suggest you do one of the following:

A. Get to know people who have to live on the minimum wage, or not much more. Talk to them about things like whether their kids, who do well in school but not well enough to get by on scholarships, will go to college or not. Ask them why the landlord can't be bothered to fix the window that's been leaking air each winter.

Then tell me how you're going to explain to those people that buying insurance that, in all likelihood, won't do them any good when they really need it is going to make the country a better place, and how we just all need to pull together and make this work.

or,

B. Kiss my furry ass.

Really, it's up to you. Except for Ezra Klein. He, and anyone else who has suggested that I and others who oppose what's come out of Congress are only concerned with policy or future considerations, don't have a choice. As someone who would "benefit" from these bills, I invite you all to go straight to alternative B. You're already worthless.

But if you opt for "A.", let me tell you that you'd better have some other explanations:

• How either the House or the Senate bill will enforce the even the limited, new restrictions they place on the insurance industry. In particular, I want to know: Will it be done by an existing agency, or a new one? Will it be empowered to look for violations, or only able to resolve complaints? What will its budget be? How many people, including how many people directly responsible for investigation and enforcement, will this agency (or these agencies) employ?


• How will this work so that people who are sick, and thus unable to properly fight for the money that insurance companies now routinely deny them or pay late, are not victimized after they've paid their hard-earned cash for that insurance?


• Why do you think that progressive chances will be worse if the current bills are killed than if 30 million Americans are forced to buy insurance that they can't afford and that won't do them any good?


• Just how much time and effort do I have to go through to show that I can't afford any of the health insurance offered? Someone who works full time and has a family, or even a life not related to work, might find this requirement pretty onerous, too.

If you don't have solid answers to those questions, you have no business claiming that you've studied this really hard, or that I or anyone else who objects is being too ideological, unreasonable, selfish, or pro-Republican. Because these questions are exactly what anyone with any sense should ask, and so far I haven't encountered any intelligent answers.

If you don't have intelligent answers, proceed to alternative B. Or you could consider talking to us like we were adults, and realize that a lot of times how alternatives look depends on how much you have to give up for them.

UPDATE: Added the Windows 7 link, and corrected my arithmetic (our family actually has $1K less per year of "discretionary" income than I thought.)

UPDATE 2: Over at FireDogLake David Dayen (A.K.A. "DDay") has a good article on the implications of how the proposed regulations would be enforced. I'd just add that the basic question of how well financed the new enforcement regime will be is another important point. No one among all the people who are telling me and folks like me that we are being immature, or whatever, has even mentioned these concerns, let alone dealt with them.

That should give you some idea why I don't take their opinions seriously.

Lieberman Socks

Yes, that's just what I was thinking - Lieberman s..., what?:

This was sponsored somehow by MoveOn.org, but I love it anyway.

What's On My Computer

This is a still from a celestial animation program called Celestia:

It's a model of the International Space Station, of course. I can't identify which coastline it's flying over at the moment, but it's a very realistic view of Earth from this distance.

Celestia won't do this right out of the box, but if you select the right textures and models from the Celestia Motherlode, you can have similarly realistic scenes of Earth or other planets on you screen when it's not doing anything else.

Yes, it's all free, as in libre and beer.

Ian Welsh Schools The Morons

Dec. 17 - Updated with new links

Those among the depressingly large number of liberals who write things like "don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good" and "we don't want to encourage the Republicans by giving them a victory" about the current health care bills need to read Ian Welsh's thoughts on the subject:

30 million more people will be FORCED to buy insurance, which many of them can’t afford. If they could afford insurance, many of them would already have it. What part of FORCED don’t these idiots understand? Let me repeat: Forced, Forced, Forced.

Yes, Jonny [Cohn of The New Republic], it is worse than nothing, because it will push many of these people over the edge financially in order to give them insurance which is capped, and which, therefore when they get really sick, will not save their life anyway. Not just a moron, but a moral imbecile.

Enough

There's more of course. Sadly, there's not that much more for every other moron or imbecile, but you get the idea. Yes, he's being more offensive than is probably wise if one wants to persuade, but deservedly so. Anyone who thinks that buying shit insurance so that the government doesn't fine us constitutes "coverage" really is a moron.

There comes a time when the losses outweigh the benefits. When that time comes, it's time to walk away. The only way the bill is moving is in a way that will ultimately leave us both bankrupt and without health care. As a nation, we're better off without it.

If that's our choice, it's time we got a new Congress.

UPDATE: Sort of related...

I just found another of those e-mails from the Obama "campaign" asking me to call my Senators to ask them to vote for this ridiculous bill. My response:

It's too late in the day, but tomorrow I'll gladly call my Senators and ask them to vote against this atrocious bill. Do you think that being forced to pay for crap insurance just so the government won't fine us constitutes being "covered"? I really wonder at the mental discipline it must take to compartmentalize that fact and then write something like this to millions of people.

The Obama Administration has bargained away nearly every feature of this bill that could have made it worth the cost. The public option, expanded Medicare, reimportation of drugs, the possibility of competition or anti-trust action, all gone. As it is, it's just turning the people and the people's treasury into a couple more ATMs for the health insurance and drug industries.

I'd just like to say that your guy really, really sucks at his job.

I'm sure that will get all the attention my other replies have gotten, but somehow I feel better.

UPDATE 2: Definitely related ...

Jon Walker at FireDogLake schools Nate Silver about why this is a lousy bill, and why killing the Senate bill doesn't mean there's no bill. I won't even try to quote it, because Nate's original article goes on at some length, as does Jon's response.

UPDATE 3 (Dec. 17): Ian takes a crack at Nate's twenty questions. Also worth a read, as is some of the discussion in the comments.

Health Care: Something We Can Do

Caption: A petition started by Thomas Edison requesting that the World's Fair be open on Sunday. Note the subtitle: Religious Toleration Is Christian Civilization. Some today might disagree.

Image credit: National Archives

Lately, it seems like all we can do about the health care debate is complain and talk about how much of a turd Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) is. Today, though, a couple of e-mails arrived for a couple more online petitions.

The first one is pretty conventional. It's from CREDO Action, and it requests that some of the more progressive members in the Senate demand that there is a public option:

Don't let Joe Lieberman win! Americans need you to stand strong and block any 'compromise' without a strong public option. If necessary, demand that Sen. Harry Reid and President Obama support budget reconciliation and pass a bill with just 51 votes -- at which point, Joe Lieberman will be irrelevant and the public option can be made even stronger.

CREDO Action Petition For Public Health Insurance Option

The second petition, sponsored by The Peace Team, A.K.A. "The Pen", is the one I find more interesting. Its purpose is to declare to your Senators, Representative, and the President that you would sign up for Medicare if it were offered. While this does not apply to nearly as many people as a more general desire for a public option and effective health care reform, those who actually would sign up may find that this is something that their Senators and Representative pay attention to. To me, it represents an earnest individual appeal that says that you are ready to put your money where your mouth is.

Here's the petition in its entirety:

Last week there was a serious proposal in the Senate to extend to people 55-64 the opportunity to buy into Medicare. It gave the people of the United States a glimmer of hope that meaningful health care reform might actually happen. So why is the U.S. Congress in full panic reverse, trying to dash that hope, trying to kill the idea before the CBO even has a chance to score it?

Well I, for one, DECLARE that I too want to sign up for Medicare. And why should I not have that right as a citizen of the United States of ANY age, if I am willing to pay for it? Does not Medicare have the lowest overhead of any health care system in the country? If I were to pay a fair price, why couldn't Medicare take my money, and cover me when I need to see a doctor, just like everyone else who is covered right now?

I am not asking for anyone else to be forced to participate in Medicare. That is just another phony argument to try to scare people with words like "government takeover." But the fact is that our medical care is now in the hands of greedy corporations hostile to the public interest, and we the people need to take it BACK.

Petition: I Want To Sign Up For Medicare, Too

If you actually would sign up for Medicare, I urge you to sign this petition, as well as the CREDO one. If the people who really would sign up for Medicare made that known, that could be a powerful incentive for some congresspeople to make it available. They should know how many people their decisions are affecting, and this is a wonderfully specific way to illustrate that point.

On the other hand, if you wouldn't sign up for Medicare, at least sign the CREDO petition. It's probably not going to be as effective, but it's a way of speaking your mind.

An Open Letter to Senator Dodd

I didn't write this one. Over at My Left Nutmeg, Met00 has put into words what I've been thinking lately in an open letter to Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT). It starts out like this:

Senator Ted Kennedy considered health care reform "the cause" of his life. In his 47 years in the Senate, Senator Ted Kennedy fought for universal comprehensive coverage some 15 different times. Working closely with the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) committee to create a fair and just bill and pass health care reform bill this year, even while undergoing cancer treatments in Massachusetts.

But the bill before the Senate today does not look at all like the reform that Senator Ted Kennedy fought for.

There is no universal coverage. There is no "public option." The only thing that there is, is a mandate that every American buy health coverage from the same jackoffs that have been ripping off the American people for years.

This is not Senator Kennedy's dream. It is not a progressive vision.

Open Letter to Senator Dodd

The other thing I keep thinking, actually what I keep wondering, is how many indignities the Senate's progressives will suffer just to pass any bill they can call "health care reform". This thing sucks, and it's not going to do anyone a damn bit of good besides the people who are doing fine already.

If you're into sadomasochism, you're probably better suited to watching how this process concludes than I am.