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27Mar2011
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27Mar2011
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27Mar2011
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I have spent the better part of the morning catching up on the goings on with the health care bill. And after watching many news videos, I have to say that I have little faith left, that this bill as it stand now, if it passes, will be good for the American people. At this point I am questioning it…and I really don’t know. And I don’t like the fact that I am unsure.
We have fought so hard these past months to pass a bill that would benefit all. I truly thought that we had a strong voice and that the system would work…that if we shouted hard enough by writing letters and signing petitions, by doing our part, that we would be heard, and we could make a difference.
I know that I am usually a positive person, with visions of the glass being half full, but I have to be honest and say that today, I am doubting the system. Today, I have nothing inspiring to say. Today, I am confused, upset, and disenchanted about the entire thing and the entire process.
Those that oppose and wish to ‘Kill the bill’ at every and all cost, today, is a kill to my will.
Of all the videos that I watched this morning in regards to the health care bill, I decided to post Keith Olbermann’s Special Comment from last night.
Readers: Where are you with all of this? I miss the hearing from you. I wish that I could open the flood gates. Although I know I am not alone here…although I know you are reading, not being able to hear from you is weighing heavy on me today. We have been through so much together on this blog. I value your input, your insight, your inspiration. I just want you to know your presence here is missed.
However, where ever you are, we are still connected. Stay strong and keep the faith, and I will do the same. Today is still ahead of us. Keep the collective intention going. Ah…I knew I had a tiny bit of inspiration still left inside of me :)
Doug: Thank you for your insight on yesterday’s subject.
Zen Lill: Nice to hear from you too – happy that you made some time to grace us with your presence.
Peace out…
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: Your Bad Ass Bitch Editor
If you love my blog and my writes, please make a donation via PayPal, credit card, or e-check, please click the ‘Donate’ button below. (Please only donations from those readers within the United States. – International readers please see my ‘Donate’ page)
I don’t know if you’ve been keeping up with everything that has been going on with Joe Lieberman, but this man has got to be stopped. He is one man who is getting in the way, in any way he can, to stop real health care reform. If you agree, and want to take action, keep reading.
Sen. Joe Lieberman announced Sunday that he will join Republicans in blocking a vote on any real health care reform bill — including any public option and even the fake “compromise” floated last week.
The Washington Post‘s Ezra Klein writes, “At this point, Lieberman is just torturing liberals. That is to say, he’s willing to directly cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in order to settle an old electoral score.”
Lieberman was asked if he’d accept losing his powerful committee chairmanship as a consequence of blocking reform, and he answered, “Oh, God no.” Our message to Sen. Harry Reid and other Democratic leaders says:
“Any Democratic senators — including Joe Lieberman — who support a Republican attempt to block a vote on health care reform should be stripped of their leadership titles. Americans deserve a clean up-or-down vote on health care reform that includes a public option.”
Today, we are releasing a new poll with Howard Dean‘s Democracy for America that shows wide support for our petition:
Democratic voters think Senate Democrats should take away Lieberman’s chairmanship by 81% to 10%. Independents also support it by 13 points.
Democratic voters want Senate Democrats to use “reconciliation” by 73% to 13%. This requires just 51 votes to pass reform instead of 60, bypassing Lieberman.
Voters favor Howard Dean’s “We Can Do Both” proposal (a public option PLUS a Medicare buy-in for ages 55-64) by 57% to 32%. Among Independents, it’s 56% to 28% (2 to 1).
84% of Democratic voters want progressive primary challengers to congressional Democrats who oppose a public option.
This poll is being reported by many news outlets. Now, we need to back it up with grassroots action.
–Adam Green, Stephanie Taylor, Aaron Swartz, Michael Snook, Natasha Patel, and the PCCC team
And what about Mrs. Lieberman, the other half of the ‘party of Joe’? Let’s take a look and see what his other half is up to, shall we?
What should surprise you is that donations to find a cure for cancer are paying the salary of Hadassah Lieberman, wife of Joe and former employee of the insurance and pharmaceutical lobbying complex.
We’re calling on Susan G. Komen for the Cure and its celebrity endorsers to remove Hadassah Lieberman as a compensated “Global Ambassador.” Will you join us?
Hadassah Lieberman’s relationship with Susan G. Komen for the Cure is unethical and misleading. Important and often very personal donations made to Susan G. Komen for the Cure to benefit the sick and dying are essentially undermining their intended use.
Hadassah Lieberman has worked for the insurance-pharmaceutical-lobbying complex, making her role with Susan G. Komen for the Cure already questionable. And as Hadassah travels the globe under the banner of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, decrying the inadequacies of our health care system and the need to reform it, her husband is at home to kill the reform efforts we so desperately need.
People who are racing for the cure wouldn’t be racing to pay Hadassah Lieberman money, especially if they knew her ties to the same corporations that are blocking women’s health reforms currently being debated in Congress.
If you love my blog and my writes, please make a donation via PayPal, credit card, or e-check, please click the ‘Donate’ button below. (Please only donations from those readers within the United States. – International readers please see my ‘Donate’ page)
The Public Option died on Thursday. Or did it just resurrect under another name? I’m sure most of you feel as I do: I don’t care what they call health care reform or what title the bill falls under, as long as it covers what’s needed to improve our health care system.
As Arianna Huffington so simply states below, ‘ It’s not the label we give these that matters, it’s the end result: competition and cost reduction.’
If the fight over health care reform has proven anything, it’s just how broken our system has become — from the crippling influence of money on our politics to the way the modern misuse of the filibuster has taken away the power of the duly elected majority and handed it to a handful of bought-and-paid-for senators (yes, I’m talking about you Joe Lieberman).
This disturbing and destructive state of affairs has created a country that is, in the words of Tom Friedman, “only able to produce ‘suboptimal’ responses to its biggest problems.”
And that’s where we find ourselves on health care as we head towards the legislative end game. The big optimal solutions have all been gutted — and we are left to pick through the patchwork of suboptimal ones.
What makes this exercise harder is that the details seem to change form more frequently than the characters in Twilight. At the moment, and while we are waiting for the latest CBO score, “the whole town,” as Mike Allen puts it, “is talking about a proposal that few have seen, and none understand.”
One by one, Congressional leaders who said they would not support a bill without a public option have come to the conclusion that, on second (or third or fourth) thought, they actually will. Leaving aside what this does to the already tattered trust the public has in their representatives, is a progressively watered-down public option preferable to a Medicare expansion combined with a national non-profit insurance plan similar to the one offered to federal employees, regulated by the Office of Personnel Management?
Bernie Sanders, one of the leading advocates of the public option, is now arguing that these proposals combined “may be stronger than the very weak public options that both the House and the Senate have already passed.”
Jacob Hacker, the godfather of the original public option concept, also approves of the proposed expansion of Medicare, calling it an “enormous positive development.”
Of course, expanding Medicare by allowing those 55 to 64 to buy into the program won’t besubsidized for the first three years and therefore may end up being prohibitively expensive, especially if it ends up being an expansion of Medicare not tied to Medicare rates.
Amidst the tea leaf reading and jockeying for political position (at least among Democrats; Republicans are united in their commitment to kill reform) it’s important not to lose track of the things that absolutely have to be included in any health care bill for it to deliver reform in more than name only.
It has to expand access to include as many of the 46 million uninsured Americans as possible. Both the House version and the current incarnation of the Senate bill go a long way to meeting this goal.
It has to create competition and reduce costs. In the end, it doesn’t matter if this is accomplished by creating a government-run non-profit insurance provider (the so-called “public option”) or by adopting a national privately run system that is heavily regulated by the federal government, and allowing those 55 to 64 the “option” of buying into the Medicare program. It’s not the label we give these that matters, it’s the end result: competition and cost reduction. The current bill mandates that most Americans get insurance coverage, creating 30 million new customers for the insurance industry. These new customers have to have options — especially less expensive options — or this will be a massive windfall for insurance companies.
The best way to provide more choices for consumers is through the latest incarnation of Sen. Ron Wyden’s Free Choice Act, which he is offering as an amendment to the health care bill. The provision would give employees the ability to choose their own insurance plans within the insurance exchange — instead of having to accept the plan chosen by their employer, as is the case in the bill Harry Reid brought to the floor of the Senate.
To qualify as real reform, the bill also needs to give Congress the ability to negotiate with the drug companies over Medicare prescription drug prices. The White House cut a deal with PhRMA taking away this ability to negotiate. That agreement is still part of the Senate bill but not part of the House bill — and should not survive the conference process.
And, knowing how quickly things can get slipped into bills, or carved out of bills, in the dark of night, we have to ensure that the positive elements of the current bill don’t suddenly vanish — especially the provisions that keep insurance companies from denying people coverage on the basis of pre-existing conditions or dropping customers when they actually become sick.
If the final bill contains all these elements, it will be a suboptimal solution worth supporting.
Then we can move on to the business of fixing our broken system, so we can get back to being a country able to produce optimal responses to our biggest problems.
Readers: I know you’re out there reading, and my sense is you’re having a tough time posting. Such is life sometimes in blogsville, especially here. Miss you…
Doug: You know how I feel about your optimism. :)
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: Your Bad Ass Bitch Editor
If you love my blog and my writes, please make a donation via PayPal, credit card, or e-check, please click the ‘Donate’ button below. (Please only donations from those readers within the United States. – International readers please see my ‘Donate’ page)
I woke up this morning to two e-mails, about two women, that made me smile.
One, informing me that today is Human Rights Day. On the one hand, I’m delighted that there is a day that recognizes and honors human rights. And on the other hand, I wish for a world where human rights didn’t need a day to be recognized, a world where human rights wasn’t an issue, because we honored the rights of humans, all humans, daily without question.
But unfortunately, in this present day, there are many humans in this world who fight for their rights, and thankfully there are people who stand up for them. One woman is Hillary Clinton.
When then First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton told the world in 1995 that “women’s rights are human rights, and human rights are women’s rights,” she sent a message of hope and aspiration that continues to resonate today, from kitchen tables in American cities to small villages in countries around the globe.
As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton has continued her strong commitment to human rights and women’s rights. In the last year, she has appointed the first ever Ambassador for Global Women’s Issues, chaired the first UN Security Council sessionon violence against women, and offered significant medical help and protection for rape victims in the Congo.
Secretary Clinton has spoken out for religious freedom and diversity in Tazakh, LGBT rights in town halls from Washington, D.C. to Moldova, and increased access to technology for grassroots advocates fighting to be heard inIran. She’s condemned the murder of journalists in Russia, and called on China to release those still imprisoned for their actions during the protests in Tiananmen Square two decades ago.
To read more about Hillary’s work around the world click here
Here at NoLimits.org, we’re proud of Hillary’s leadership as Secretary of State: working to rebuild our global alliances and serving as a strong voice for human rights. Our progressive agenda includes supporting these new directions in foreign policy, and also focuses on economic and work-family issues here at home, including the need for health care reform and new initiatives to combat the too-high rate of unemployment. We are advocates for an America engaged and active, domestically and internationally, supporting policies that truly reflect our values.
“I hope you believe, as I do, that foreign policy matters“, Hillary said at our policy conference last month, “[and] that what we’re doing can be explained and understood by the small business owner in Colorado or the homemaker in California…because it is important to our society and it’s important to who we are as a nation, what we stand for in pursuit of our interests and in accordance with our values. I believe that…but we have to make the case to the rest of our country as well.“
Thank you Hillary!
The second e-mail, and the other woman, is Barbara Boxer. I am so impressed with her lately. She nailed it Monday night when she confronted those behind the proposed Nelson Amendment. If anyone’s got a pair, she does.
Monday, during the opening rounds of debate on Sen. Ben Nelson’s (D-Neb.) proposed amendment to prohibit any federal funding of abortion, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) hit “the men who have brought us this” where it hurts.
Boxer likened a measure in the Nelson Amendment that would force women to purchase special abortion riders to a theoretical yet unimaginable measure — requiring men to purchase a special rider for a Viagra prescription.
I love that Barbara hit ‘em were it hurts. How does it feel boys?
But last night she really brought it home for women.
Last night, the Stupak Amendment was defeated in the Senate by a vote of 54-45 — and I know that you will be proud to hear that Senator Barbara Boxer was there on the Senate floor, working to defend women’s health until the last vote was counted.
Once again, Barbara stood up for us. She offered the motion to defeat this amendment and fought to pass it. And she won.
Inserting the anti-choice Stupak Amendment into the Senate’s health care reform bill would have been one of the biggest setbacks for women’s health in decades.
It would have upset a very difficult and delicate compromise that has held firm for decades: Women can use their own private funds for legal reproductive health care procedures, but federal funds cannot be used for abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or to protect the life of the mother.
Fortunately, Barbara Boxer — along with more than 85,000 Boxer supporters — were there to stand up, speak out, and defeat this dangerous measure.
Thank you Barbara! You can bet I’ll be fighting to keep Barbara in office come the 2010 election.
Readers: I hope this write left you smiling too.
Peace & Love: “Gotta live it, gotta give it!”
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: Your Bad Ass Bitch Editor
If you love my blog and my writes, please make a donation via PayPal, credit card, or e-check, please click the ‘Donate’ button below. (Please only donations from those readers within the United States. – International readers please see my ‘Donate’ page)
Health care reform is thankfully still on the table, and it is a crucial time that we continue to give our support in any way that we can. The big insurance company lobbyists are still fighting big and will continue to do so with a vengeance- we need the ammunition to fight back.
I realize that asking for a contribution is tough on many of you. I join you in that arena. But I still need to ask, as we are so close. And as our president said in an e-mail that I received yesterday: “We will not back down.”
Michelle –
As we head into the final stretch on health reform, big insurance company lobbyists and their partisan allies hope that their relentless attacks and millions of dollars can intimidate us into accepting the status quo.
So I have a message for them, from all of us: Not this time. We have come too far. We will not turn back. We will not back down.
But do not doubt — the opponents of reform will not rest. So I need you, the members of Organizing for America, to fight alongside me.
We must continue to build out our campaign — to spread the facts on the air and on the ground, and to bring in more volunteers and train them to join the fight. I urgently need your help to keep Organizing for America’s 50-state movement for reform going strong.
Can you donate $25 or whatever you can afford today?
Readers: I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, “If we all just give a buck or two, we can make a difference.” Can you spare a few bucks for the health and well-being of America? You can always count on me to give my ‘two’. :) Thanks again.
Peter: Thanks to you and Anna, if any of my readers were not aware that Guam is a part of the U.S., they are now. I appreciate and admire your dedication to your island, not to mention the very interesting and enlightening historical lessons. Keep ‘em coming. Hafa Adai.
Ruth and Trudy: Both of your articles were so interesting and informative – Thanks for posting. Ruth, did you have a nice visit with Evelyn? How are things with you? And the girls?
Eham: I have tried to find information but not much has been written in regards to the student rallies. So I am lead to believe that those in power have been successful in portraying your movement as you have mentioned. Good luck in your endeavor in bringing your message to the people.
Al: Thank you.
Peace out
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: Your Bad Ass Bitch Editor
If you love my blog and my writes, please make a donation via PayPal, credit card, or e-check, please click the ‘Donate’ button below. (Please only donations from those readers within the United States. – International readers please see my ‘Donate’ page)
