A Bad Word Whispered Will Echo A Hundred Miles

The post title is a Chinese proverb.

From PolitiFact.com:

In the spring of 2009, a Republican strategist settled on a brilliant and powerful attack line for President Barack Obama's ambitious plan to overhaul America's health insurance system. Frank Luntz, a consultant famous for his phraseology, urged GOP leaders to call it a "government takeover."

"Takeovers are like coups," Luntz wrote in a 28-page memo. "They both lead to dictators and a loss of freedom."

The line stuck. By the time the health care bill was headed toward passage in early 2010, Obama and congressional Democrats had sanded down their program, dropping the "public option" concept that was derided as too much government intrusion. The law passed in March, with new regulations, but no government-run plan.

But as Republicans smelled serious opportunity in the midterm elections, they didn't let facts get in the way of a great punchline. And few in the press challenged their frequent assertion that under Obama, the government was going to take over the health care industry.

PolitiFact editors and reporters have chosen "government takeover of health care" as the 2010 Lie of the Year. Uttered by dozens of politicians and pundits, it played an important role in shaping public opinion about the health care plan and was a significant factor in the Democrats' shellacking in the November elections.

PolitiFact is an independent, non-partisan fact-checking arm of the St Petersburg Times. They branded Luntz's talking points bullshit as "an inaccurate claim." As in:

"Government takeover" conjures a European approach where the government owns the hospitals and the doctors are public employees. But the law Congress passed, parts of which have already gone into effect, relies largely on the free market:

• Employers will continue to provide health insurance to the majority of Americans through private insurance companies.

• Contrary to the claim, more people will get private health coverage. The law sets up "exchanges" where private insurers will compete to provide coverage to people who don't have it.

• The government will not seize control of hospitals or nationalize doctors.

• The law does not include the public option, a government-run insurance plan that would have competed with private insurers.

• The law gives tax credits to people who have difficulty affording insurance, so they can buy their coverage from private providers on the exchange. But here too, the approach relies on a free market with regulations, not socialized medicine.

So congratulations, America; in 2010, you were punk'd by Frank Luntz and the Fox News/talk radio echo chamber. What will you fall for next year?

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Dr. Jack Cassell Is Bad Medicine.

This guy took an oath?

From the Orlando Sentinel:

A doctor who considers the national health-care overhaul to be bad medicine for the country posted a sign on his office door telling patients who voted for President Barack Obama to seek care "elsewhere."

"I'm not turning anybody away — that would be unethical," Dr. Jack Cassell, 56, a Mount Dora urologist and a registered Republican opposed to the health plan, told the Orlando Sentinel on Thursday. "But if they read the sign and turn the other way, so be it."

The sign reads: "If you voted for Obama … seek urologic care elsewhere. Changes to your healthcare begin right now, not in four years."

Cassell may be walking a thin line between his right to free speech and his professional obligation, said William Allen, professor of bioethics, law and medical professionalism at the University of Florida's College of Medicine.

Allen said doctors cannot refuse patients on the basis of race, gender, religion, sexual orientation or disability, but political preference is not one of the legally protected categories specified in civil-rights law. By insisting he does not quiz his patients about their politics and has not turned away patients based on their vote, the doctor is "trying to hold onto the nub of his ethical obligation," Allen said.

"But this is pushing the limit," he said.

Cassell, whose lawyer wife, Leslie Campione, has declared herself a Republican candidate for Lake County commissioner, said three patients have complained, but most have been "overwhelmingly supportive" of his position.

"They know it's not good for them," he said.

Dime Store Mannequins Say The Darndest Things.

From Benjamin Bell in the Boston Herald:

Former Gov. Mitt Romney seemed to be in a state of hysteria Monday - a day before President Obama signed legislation that will usher in sweeping reforms of the nation’s health care system. In a statement on the House passage of the health care bill, Romney excoriated Obama, saying “America has just witnessed an unconscionable abuse of power. President Obama has betrayed his oath to the nation.”
But behind those caustic words is of course a man who, himself signed a universal health care bill into law for this great state. In the coming months and years, Romney is bound to assert that the two plans are completely different - but that is a losing strategy. The American attention span is getting smaller not larger. We communicate in 140 characters now. Engaging in a debate over the intricacies of the different types of universal health care plans is not something people want to do. So the reality is this: Romney supported universal health care in Massachusetts and he looks duplicitous bashing Obama’s plan when his plan was quite similar.

Mitt's a hypocrite? Huh. Must be runnin' for somethin'...

Obama 2.0: "Go For It!"

Obama 2.0...

I like this version.

Nothing Newt Under The Sun.

Newt Gingrich's head finally exploded.

From Human Events:

Speaker Pelosi knew the country was against the bill. That is why she kept her members trapped in Washington and forced a vote on Sunday.
She knew if she let the members go home their constituents would convince them to vote no.
The Obama-Pelosi-Reid machine combined the radicalism of Alinsky, the corruption of Springfield and the machine power politics of Chicago.
Sunday was a pressured, bought, intimidated vote worthy of Hugo Chavez but unworthy of the United States of America.

Hey Newt, that Big Pharma check is in the mail...

Matt Drudge Has Nothing Left.

Geez, do you think you'll hear that l'il tagline again from the mimics on the right?

We Are The Ones We've Been Waiting For.

If you've read this blog at all over the past year, you know my opinion about health care reform, and you know how I feel. So here we are.
Single payer? Nope. Public option? Nope.
This country is bought and sold. Big shock, that; everything is toxic, especially the Confederates of the GOP and their media bitches, and--to listen to them--that scheming, Socialist black man in the White House has caused the End of the World as We Know It, AKA: the 1950s.
"Government Takeover?" Really? C'mon, righties! Even you aren't that f#$%@&* stupid.

Who am I kidding? Of course they are.
It might not be a great bill, but I'll go with the fact that after all these years, the alleged Greatest Country on Earth© may finally decide to begin to catch up with the rest of the industrialized world by taking a first step toward a more just health care system.

I mean, we are the ones we've been waiting for, right?

The Heart & Soul Of Teabaggers: None Of Either.

Conservatives Gone Wild At The 'Death Panel 500'

Teabagger Serenade.

More on the (Constitutionally-protected) self-executing rule here.

Are we there yet?

The Art Of The (Backroom) Deal.

This Is Your Country.

Nitwit Republicans and their valets in the echo chamber have been screaming bloody murder about health care reform for over a year, bleating about "transparency" and "corruption," all the while implying that the goddamn Kenyan socialist in the White House is plotting to take away Bubba's guns, kill off Jesus (again), bang your wife and rename 'Murica somethin' Muslim. Or, as their marketing arm and gullible followers call it, a "plan."

Meanwhile, the estimable Ezra Klein--boldly going where few fellow newspaper journalists seem to go these days--actually came up with some, you know, facts:

Here are some things that happened on the night the GOP pushed the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit through the House of Representatives:

A 15-minute vote was scheduled, and at the end of 15 minutes, the Democrats had won. The Republican leadership froze the clock for three hours while they desperately whipped defectors. This had never been done before. The closest was a 15-minute extension in 1987 that then-congressman Dick Cheney called “the most arrogant, heavy-handed abuse of power I’ve ever seen in the 10 years that I’ve been here.”

Tom DeLay bribed Rep. Nick Smith to vote for the legislation, using the political future of Smith's son for leverage. DeLay was later reprimanded by the House Ethics Committee.

The leadership told Rep. Jim DeMint that they would cut off funding for his Senate race in South Carolina if he didn't vote for the bill.

The chief actuary of Medicare, Rick Foster, had scored the legislation as costing more than $500 billion. The Bush administration suppressed his report, in a move the Government Accounting Office later judged "illegal.”

Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, a "no" vote, spent the night "hiding on the Democratic side of the floor, crouching down to avoid eye contact with the Republican search team."

Rep. Butch Otter, who provided one of the final votes after hours of arm-twisting from the Republican leadership, said, “I thought there was a chance I would get sick on the floor.”

Remember all this? Probably not.

Klein has more here, and Salon chimes in here.

'Daily Dope' Rush Limbaugh: "If You Don't Have Any Teeth, So What? What's Applesauce For?"

John McCain Is Still The Lint On Barack Obama's Sleeve.

RIP: Health Care Reform 2009-2010.

Well, it wasn't even that much fun while it lasted...
A supermajority really isn't very super or much of a majority at all when it's led by Democrats, is it?

Republicans walked in lockstep with every disasterous decision Bush/Cheney dreamed up. Democrats couldn't even hold together to pass their signature issue. And now they can't even carry Massachusetts.

Out with a whimper instead of a bang...

From the New York Times:

With no clear path forward on major health care

legislation, Democratic leaders in Congress effectively slammed the brakes on President Obama’s top

domestic priority on Tuesday, saying that they no longer felt pressure to move

quickly on a health bill after eight months of setting deadlines and missing

them.

The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat

of Nevada, deflected questions about health care. “We’re not on health care

now,” he said. “We’ve talked a lot about it in the past.” He added, “There is no

rush,” and noted that Congress still had most of this year to work on the health

bills passed in 2009 by the Senate and the House.

Mr. Reid

said that he and the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi of

California, were working to map out a way to complete a health care overhaul in

coming months. “There are a number of options being discussed,” Mr. Reid said,

emphasizing “procedural aspects” of the issue.

At the same

time, two centrist Democratic senators who are up for re-election this year,

Blanche L. Lincoln of Arkansas and Evan Bayh of Indiana,

said that they would resist efforts to muscle through a health care bill using a

parliamentary tactic called budget reconciliation, which seemed to be the

simplest way to advance the measure.

The White House has said

in recent days that it would support that approach.

Some Democrats said that they did not expect any

action on health care legislation until late February at earliest, perhaps after

Congress returns from a weeklong recess. But the Democrats stand to lose

momentum, and every day closer to the November election that the issue remains

unresolved may reduce the chances of passing a far-reaching bill.

Wednesday is the State of the Union address. President Obama hoped to be able to trumpet credible health care reform in his speech.

Rewrite!

The state of the union? #@&%$!

Brock Lesnar Wants To Talk To You About Health Care.

From the Toronto Star:

Two months after nearly dying in the Canadian wilderness, UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar is healthy and ready to fight – against challengers to his belt and against anyone advocating health care reform in the U.S.

Lesnar still won't say exactly where in Canada he was last November, when a severe bout of diverticulosis made him so ill that his career and long-term quality of life both were jeopardized, but in a conference call to announce his return to action he blasted the hospital system here.
"They couldn't do nothing for me," he said Wednesday. "It was like I was in a Third World country. ... I'm just stating the facts here, and that's the facts. If I had to choose between getting care in Canada or in the United States, I definitely want to be in the United States."

The disdain the UFC heavyweight champion, who calls himself a "Conservative Republican," feels for Canada's health care system bubbled over after a November hunting trip.

For about a year beforehand Lesnar had suffered from intermittent stomach pains, fatigue and flu symptoms, but worked through the discomfort, which U.S. doctors eventually diagnosed as mononucleosis.

But the symptoms persisted and drained him so badly that he had to cancel a Nov. 21 title defence against Shane Carwin. With his calendar suddenly wide open he headed to Canada for a hunting trip, where sharp stomach pain and a 40C fever sent him into shock and into hospital.

When Lesnar arrived at the hospital – three hours' drive from his Canadian cabin but within driving distance of Bismarck, N.D. – he said doctors were unhelpful, and unable to diagnose him because of malfunctioning equipment.

After his wife checked him out and drove him to a hospital in Bismarck, doctors diagnosed him with diverticulosis, a condition characterized by inflamed and perforated pouches in the lining of the intestine.

Lesnar says his poor treatment in Canada and quick diagnosis in America confirm his belief that the U.S. should resist any attempts to socialize its health care system.

As an uninsured American with a pre-existing condition, I have been longing to hear the health care reform views of a right-wing UFC fighter who ignored his stomach pains for a year before they resulted in his body going into shock while on a hunting trip. Since only crooks and cops hunt in populated places, the still-unnamed medical facility that treated Lesnar was--as the newspaper item indicates--obviously in a remote area of rural Canada.

(Tie your guts in knots in rural America, numbnuts. Do you think you'll be airlifted to the Mayo Clinic?)
Prediction: Lesnar will be a featured guest on Fox News within a month, where he'll be welcomed not as the musclebound asshole who ignored severe stomach pains while embarking on a Yukon hunting trip, but as a health care expert with credentials rivaling those of Sarah Palin, the newest nitwit in the Fox stable of unstable fools.

UPDATE: Erstwhile JackRabbit Cafe´contributor TBLMISBT--who is not on performance-enhancing drugs--passes this along...

Oops! Limbaugh Loves Him Some Socialized, Unionized Health Care!

Now that Rush Limbaugh is out of the hospital and not dead, we are no longer under a societal obligation to act as if we are extending our best wishes.

From Firedoglake:

I don’t think Rush Limbaugh realized at the time what a colossal blunder his “I don’t think there’s one thing wrong with the American health care system” comment would turn out to be. And it all comes down to the fact that he was vacationing in Hawaii, which really doesn’t have a health care system with the same features as the American health care system. For one, they have a strong employer mandate that has led to the lowest premium prices in the country:

Hawaii’s health care system is distinct from the rest of the country, in that they passed a version of health reform decades ago, in 1974. The Hawaii Pre-Paid Health Care Act includes a requirement for employers to provide health coverage to their workers. As you may know, a similar requirement on large employers is a key part of the reform now pending in Congress.

And the employer requirement seems, by and large, to have succeeded. It has increased coverage–just under 8 percent of the state’s population is uninsured, second only to Massachusetts–and access to care. At the same time, Hawaii still has some of the lowest health care costs in the nation, despite its high cost of living and without an apparent decrease in quality–as Limbaugh himself discovered.

In fact, Hawaii’s system goes FURTHER than the efforts in the House and Senate to mandate employer responsibility, without complicated Rube Goldberg contraptions that lead to things like the “free rider” problem in the Senate bill. This has not killed jobs on the island and has led to far lower costs.

Hawaii also forces its employers to choose one of a few standardized insurance packages, which feature low co-pays and out-of-pocket expenses.

Hawaii is effectively tied with North Dakota for having the lowest average employer provided insurance premiums and has the lowest employee contribution toward premiums in the country. This is a very impressive accomplishment for a variety of reasons. First, Hawaii basically has the highest cost of living in America. Almost everything except health care costs dramatically more in Hawaii, compared with the mainland. Second, because of the “Prepaid Health Care Act,” the average quality of the employer-provided insurance in Hawaii is substantially greater than the rest of the country. Finally, Hawaii is the state with the second lowest level of uninsured people. None of the other ten states with the lowest level of uninsured are also in the top ten for lowest average single coverage employer health insurance premiums. Based on all metrics (cost, cost growth rate, quality, coverage, life expectancy, etc.), Hawaii has probably the best health care system in the country.

The real world evidence from this country and others points to some clear solutions. Mandating only a few (or one) precisely defined, high-quality, low-cost-sharing benefits packages would help keep costs down. It reduces administrative overhead, helps prevent insurance companies from gaming the system, allows true apple-to-apple comparison shopping, and encourages people to seek early treatment (the more cost-effective kind). Providing everyone with actual high-quality, affordable health insurance is not just morally the right thing to do, but also makes strong financial sense.

Limbaugh stayed at Queen’s Medical Center, where nursing staff are represented by the Hawaii Nurses’ Association (read: a labor union). The nurses at Queen’s are protected by their contract, which adheres to the ANA’s safe-staffing principlesguaranteeing appropriate staffing levels for any patient care unit.

In fact, Hawaii has one of the greatest percentages of organized workers of any state and also had the highest percentage of organized RNs. All private-sector acute care hospital RNs are organized, with just two known exceptions. We’re guessing this might have something to do with why Limbaugh found the Hawaii hospital staff’s work so “confidence-inspiring.”

When Limbaugh was released from Queen’s Medical Center, he cheerily noted, “The treatment I received here was the best that the world has to offer.”

Whether he realized it or not, Limbaugh was praising the care he received from union nurses in one of the country’s most progressive health care systems. On behalf of the labor movement and health reform advocates everywhere, THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT, Rush!

Let me add my thanks, asshole. Your role as a loud-mouthed, ignorant media whore actually helped expose some truth this time.

Rich Demagogue Lauds Health Care System; Rich Demagogue Doesn't Golf With The Uninsured.

What Reform?

No public option, no ability to buy in to Medicare, and health insurance stocks hit a 52-week high on Friday.

Change that insurance corporations can believe in, anyway.

Joe Lieberman, Asshole.

Joe Lieberman, insurance state flunky and Grade A asshole.
Good-bye, public option, good-bye Social Security buy-in.
I sure as hell hope Connecticut Democrats are gearing up to find a candidate who kicks this sham's ass in 2012, and I also sure as hell hope Senate Democrats--and President Obama--stop trying to pander to this meandering putz. C'mon, Senate Dems--grow a pair and strip him of his Senate Homeland Security Committee chairmanship and toss him in the sewer. That's exactly where he belongs.

More here.