WHAT HE SAID

Perhaps I should expand this title to “…AND WHAT HE DIDN’T SAY.” I think most people would agree, our President is a pretty darn good orator. He says the things his supporters want to hear, or at least appears to. He has the power to call out his detractors and calm others.

I needed time to allow the emotional reaction to fade so I could study just what the President did and did not say before firing off yet another email to my representatives on Capitol Hill and the White House.

I know I said in an earlier post I was going to leave the speech analysis to more knowledgeable minds than I, but I just can’t help myself – I must add my two cents! I have included here excerpts from the President's speech along with what I see and what I don't. I look forward to your feedback.

“Since health care represents one-sixth of our economy, I believe it makes more sense to build on what works and fix what doesn't, rather than try to build an entirely new system from scratch.”

So this is where a single payer system gets tossed away. Chalk one up for the insurance companies who represent a big chunk for that 1/6 of our economy.

“The plan I'm announcing tonight would meet three basic goals. It will provide more security and stability to those who have health insurance. It will provide insurance for those who don't. And it will slow the growth of health care costs for our families, our businesses, and our government.”

Here is the promise we have all been waiting for but will he deliver?

“Under this plan, it will be against the law for insurance companies to deny you coverage because of a preexisting condition. As soon as I sign this bill, it will be against the law for insurance companies to drop your coverage when you get sick or water it down when you need it the most. They will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or in a lifetime. We will place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses, because in the United States of America, no one should go broke because they get sick. And insurance companies will be required to cover, with no extra charge, routine checkups and preventive care, like mammograms and colonoscopies.”

Sounds good so far – aren’t these the very points we have been arguing endlessly about on the blogs?

“Now, if you're one of the tens of millions of Americans who don't currently have health insurance, the second part of this plan will finally offer you quality, affordable choices…We'll do this by creating a new insurance exchange -- a marketplace where individuals and small businesses will be able to shop for health insurance at competitive prices. Insurance companies will have an incentive to participate in this exchange because it lets them compete for millions of new customers. As one big group, these customers will have greater leverage to bargain with the insurance companies for better prices and quality coverage. This is how large companies and government employees get affordable insurance. It's how everyone in this Congress gets affordable insurance. And it's time to give every American the same opportunity that we give ourselves…And all insurance companies that want access to this new marketplace will have to abide by the consumer protections I already mentioned. And that's why under my plan, individuals will be required to carry basic health insurance -- just as most states require you to carry auto insurance.”

This is a long bit of quote and I just picked portions out of the longer version for the sake of space. Nothing I omitted changes the message and anyone who wants to read the speech in its entirety can do so just by googling it but there is something here I want to point out – While insurance companies will have to play by the rules in order to get MILLIONS OF NEW CUSTOMERS (hostages), no where in all this grand verbiage do I see where, unlike said car insurance companies and public utilities, THERE WILL BE A GOVERNMENT REGULATED CAP ON THE PREMIUMS INSURANCE COMPANIES CAN CHARGE!
It gets worse – read on…

“But an additional step we can take to keep insurance companies honest is by making a not-for-profit public option available in the insurance exchange… the insurance companies and their allies don't like this idea. They argue that these private companies can't fairly compete with the government. And they'd be right if taxpayers were subsidizing this public insurance option. But they won't be. I've insisted that like any private insurance company, the public insurance option would have to be self-sufficient and rely on the premiums it collects.”

A government backed public option? No so fast. This ambiguous passage calls for what is being touted as a “public option”, but the wording simply states a not-for-profit option. This is NOT the same thing!

It is time to put in the effort to write, call or email your representatives and demand they ONLY back:

* A single payer plan or, at the very LEAST, a government supported public option. Without a government sponsored plan, millions will STILL be left without health insurance and that is unacceptable.

* Along with that government mandate for health insurance coverage, they also include government regulation and caps on insurance premiums – if utilities and car insurance can be capped because they are considered essential services, then health insurance certainly can be!

* Lastly, remind them, strongly, just who they are working for and that the cost
of betraying the public trust will be a sound defeat in the voting booth!

This is too important to all of us to sit back and wait to see what happens. If you need links to contact your government representatives, I’m providing them here and asking everyone to stand up and be counted now!

For the White House:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/

For Senators:

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

For State Representatives:

http://clerk.house.gov/member_info/index.html

UPDATE:

w-dervish has left a comment bringing up yet another negative aspect of the President's plan:

"This will still leave millions (not sure how many exactly, but I confidently guesstimate it will be millions) uninsured. And showing up in emergency rooms with health problems they should have had treated a lot earlier. And it means people will still die due to lack of insurance."

I quite agree with this assessment and think it should also be a bullet point for representative correspondence so I have added it above.

H/T to w-dervish for this additional information. His excellent post on the speech can be found at his blog "Sleeping With The Devil" HERE.

H/T to Elizabeth from The Middle Of Nowhere who provided a link to a call-in campaign (to your congressman) being spearheaded by Firedoglake which you can access HERE.

Limbaugh's Lament

My first thought was, he lied in every word

-Robt. Browning-

When the man behind the curtain speaks, Republicans listen. Others become speechless. It's all too predictable that Limbaugh would support Joe Wilson's outburst and not surprising that he claims to have been squealing "you lie" himself throughout the entirety of President Obama's health care speech.

"He is lying, President Obama is. From the moment he opens his mouth until he ends the speech"

he grunted on his radio show yesterday. Of course and as usual, no discussion of how or about what he actually lied ensued. Boss Hog said he lied, that's enough and Wilson never should have apologized and his colleagues shouldn't have pressured him to do so.

It reminds me of the first time I heard his radio show. I was driving through Georgia, in the days before satellite radio and I decided to give him a minute to see what he was about.

[Rush] "I mean, the guy (President Clinton) just makes me sick"

[caller 1] "Ditto Rush! I see him and I want to vomit"

[caller 2] "Ditto, ditto - oh ditto ? Rush everything about him is disgusting. He makes me sick, sick!"

The call and response chorus went on and on until I turned it off and I've only heard him a couple of other times in all these years - I mean he makes me sick, but I can usually tell you why without inventing things.

That no plan offered by anyone provides health insurance for illegal residents of the US isn't hard to determine, but Rush isn't about facts, he's about emotions; hate for the most part. It's easy for him to say that Obama is plotting

"to completely tear down the institutions and traditions that have made this country great."

It's impossible however, to make a case for that without lying. In fact his attempts to preserve some of those institutions are the basis for other Limbaugh anger crusades. I'm at a loss to understand what American institutions made America great and are now in peril from the concept of making insurance available to everyone, unless stupidity, dishonesty and perhaps insanity are institutions. I'm at a loss to understand just how

SEC. 246. NO FEDERAL PAYMENT FOR UNDOCUMENTED ALIENS.
Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States.

Means the opposite of what it says without subscribing to Limbaughian logic. In fact it proves that Rush is a liar, something all to easy to do, but one thing Rush knows is that the more absurd and preposterous the claim the less effective is the irrefutable proof of its falsity. Rush knows and Rush profits and Rush keeps on lying and Republicans keep on following in his wake, terrified to disobey.It's not so much that he makes me sick but that he is the sickness.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO US

Yup! Its true. Today the Swash Zone is one year old, and there are gifts for everyone ... hopefully. Just drag-and-drop any image you want to your desktop (double-click on the pix to enlarge).

Donations of crustaceans are always appreciated.

“YOU LIE!”

Last night we finally heard from our President on the subject of healthcare – a topic of great controversy and national division. It was about time he spoke up. I’m not going to post much about the actual speech because there are other, more qualified bloggers who will handle that. Let me just say, first I’m relieved the public option is still on the table although I would be much happier with the single payer plan. But, change comes slowly so compromises will have to be made; perhaps the next generation. I think most all of us have known that this would not be the sweeping change we had hoped for, but still, it's something.

What was far more disturbing was the disgusting, disrespectful display of some of the GOP members. There were those that sat there playing with their blackberries like petulant school children with their fingers in their ears. And the group that kept holding up their papers, presumably a GOP healthcare bill which they somehow thought should be the only one considered.

And then out of the crowd, a man elected to a Congressional office, who I suppose we could assume was raised with some sort of manners, but certainly did not show them last night, yelled out, “You lie!” Apparently someone forgot to tell Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC – surprise, surprise) that this was not some sleasy street corner in Columbia…

There were, of course, all the usual GOP comments afterwards about how the President isn’t knuckling under to all their scare tactics and whining about how their campaign of shock and awe just isn’t getting the desired results but the one comment that really made me pause was from Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.):

"It was a good speech, the problem is that what he wants and what they've written are two totally different things. I'm willing to compromise to get things fixed. But I'm not willing to put the government in charge because we don't have a good track record." (emphasis mine)

The GOP is decrying government involvement even though they are part of that very same government. Now, one of their members actually admits that they aren’t any good at their jobs. But they think the nation should hang on their every word and accept their spin that somehow they are really the majority and they only lost because other petulant Republicans stayed home and didn’t vote.

All I want to say to the GOP is, “YOU lie!” And you’re not even very good it.

I'm with McCain

As a commenter below mentioned, the Supreme Court is about to revisit prior decisions that in some cases for as much as a century have been restricting the ability of corporations and trade unions to finance political campaigns. That there should be one vote for every eligible citizen is inseparable from any definition of democracy, but is a corporation an eligible person with human rights like any person?

John McCain says no, and I absolutely agree. In a press conference with Russ Feingold, McCain said:

“The one thing I know is that if the court overturns long-standing demands — long before McCain/Feingold as it’s called, the ban on corporate and union campaign contributions, I think you will see an era of corruption.”

That's an understatement. Massive amounts of money give massive political power and that turns democracy's somewhat level playing field into a cliff. As voters, we can't mount trillion dollar ad campaigns, produce movies, buy networks. As voters in a system where money does all the talking we might as well not vote. In fact, we're already in a position where this will be decided without our vote and thanks to the consistent appointment of ultra right wing judges over the past decades, it will be decided by long gone administrations whose policies are no longer in vogue.

Can we look forward to the Toyota administration? The Cigna Presidency? ( I almost said the Halliburton Administration, but arguably, we've already had that.) What's to stop it, since there are corporate entities, foreign and domestic, big enough to put anyone in office. It's a situation far more frightening than losing the health care reform battle.

Research on health care

My husband, a cancer researcher, sent letters to all of our legislators last week about health care reform. He is encouraging a letter writing campaign this week to ensure that comprehensive health care legislation is indeed passed, despite the horrific August misinformation blasted on right wing media outlets.

Here is a copy of his letter:

September 3, 2009
Re: Healthcare Public Option - Yes
Dear Senator Spector:

The US pays twice as much for health care yet lags other wealthy nations in such measures as infant mortality and life expectancy, which are among the most widely collected, hence useful, international comparative statistics. For 2006-2010, the USA's life expectancy will lag 38th in the world, lagging last of the G5 (Japan, France, Germany, UK, USA) and just after Chile (35th) and Cuba (37th).[1]

The United States is the only highly industrialized nation without some form of national health insurance. Today, 47 million people in this country have no coverage at all. Furthermore, the United States spends the most for health care among the world's 23 top industrialized nations, including countries in Western Europe, Iceland, Japan, Korea, Australia and New Zealand. Yet U.S. citizens have the lowest life expectancy of any of those countries. Furthermore, Medical debt is the principal cause of personal bankruptcy in the United States, weakening the whole economy (2).

The United States spent 15.8 percent of its gross domestic product on health care in 2006. The other 22 highly industrialized nations spent less, ranging from 7.1 percent of annual GDP in Ireland, 8.4 percent in Great Britain and 11 percent in France (2)

Despite its high health care expenditure, the United States had the lowest life expectancy - 78.1 years at birth. Life expectancies in the other 22 countries ranged from 78.4 in Denmark, 80 years in Great Britain and 82.4 in Japan. Yet, health spending per individual is $2,992 in Great Britain, but $7,290 here; and for every 1,000 residents there are 2.5 physicians and 10 nurses in Great Britain compared to 2.4 physicians and 20 nurses in the U.S. (2).

Infant mortality in Great Britain is lower - 4.8 deaths for every 1,000 live births, compared to 6.7 deaths for every 1,000 live births in the United States.” Only Latvia, with six deaths per 1,000 live births, has a higher death rate for newborns than the United States, which is tied near the bottom of industrialized nations with Hungary, Malta, Poland and Slovakia with five deaths per 1,000 births (3). Yet, "The United States has more neonatologists and neonatal intensive care beds per person than Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom, but its newborn death rate is higher than any of those countries," said the annual State of the World's Mothers report (4).

According to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, the United States is the "only wealthy, industrialized nation that does not ensure that all citizens have health care coverage" (i.e. some kind of insurance) [5].

In summary, our system costs more and works less effectively than health-care systems in 22 other industrialized nations.

I grew up on a farm in rural southern Iowa. I have spent most of my career as a clinical faculty member in a tertiary academic medical center, and my father-in-law was the hospital administrator in a 600-bed hospital in north Jersey. I have seen health care in this country from the inside and from the outside. The U.S. should have universal health care coverage with both public option and private option components. It would be a tragedy to waste this opportunity to enact universal health care coverage.

The principle apparent reason that the general public does not seem solidly behind major renovation of our health care system and adoption of universal health care coverage is that behind the scenes, executives and spokesmen from insurance and pharmaceutical companies discourage reforms that might lower their significant annual profits.

I urge you to vote for the public option in the health care reform bill in Congress. Thank you.


References:
1. Recent Trends in Infant Mortality in the United States, Marian F. MacDorman, Ph.D., and T.J. Mathews, M.S., National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Data Brief, No. 9, October 2008

2. “Health care in the United States”, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_the_United_States

3.CNN,May102006, http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/parenting/05/08/mothers.index/

4. State of the World’s Mothers 2006, Saving the Lives of
Mothers and Newborns, Save the Children Foundation, www.savethechildren.org/publications/mothers/2006/SOWM_2006_final.pdf

5. Insuring America's Health: Principles and Recommendations, Institute of Medicine at the National Academies of Science, 2004-01-14. Retrieved 2007-10-22.

ANNOUNCEMENT: NORMAL COMMENTING RESUMED

Wednesday Update: GOOD NEWS
That vile impersonator who snatched Captain Fogg's screen ID has been identified and exposed. Congratulations to Captain Fogg for catching the culprit. This means we can remove comment moderation and return to business as usual.

Monday Announcement: COMMENT MODERATION TEMPORARILY ENABLED
Last week, someone hijacked Captain Fogg’s screen ID moniker … leaving despicable comments under his name at various blogs. To thwart this vicious stuff, the Swash Zone will activate the comment moderation function to filter all comments before they are posted. It means there will be delays in posting comments, and our forum will be less interactive until the hijacking stops. We are determined to take any/all steps necessary to protect our community. Hopefully, this inconvenience will be temporary.

The Pendulum Swings

I am currently teaching a course grounded in feminist critical theory. My students – both male and female – have been very responsive to the material we are studying. I look forward to going to class. These young people 25 years younger than me are willingly embracing the curriculum of the course – better than I had expected. The response of my male students has been particularly heartening. Across generational and gender lines we are learning from each other about gender in our world today – and with a sense of humor and grace. They have made a grumpy second-wave feminist such as myself feel positive about the future with respect to all things related to gender.

Then I learned this week of an outrage perpetuated by a politically influential, radical right wing woman of my little corner of the country against the cause of women in our mutual corner of said country and I came crashing right back down with a loud thud to earth from the starry-eyed universe of hope that I’d allowed myself to believe in these past few weeks.

It’s been sobering. When I visit this blog or watch Rachel Maddow I learn of the utter idiocy of the increasingly powerful radical right in this country. Up ‘til now it’s only been hovering on the fringes of my personal world like a hazy fog. Now it has entered it like a thundercloud hurling lightning bolts. Now it’s personal. This is no longer a lunatic fringe but a lunatic presence.

Don’t ask for details – I can not give them. But suffice it to say – I am a down at heart Squid. I am pushing 50. I have been fighting this crap for so long. I get so tired of it. And maybe I’m just losing perspective – but I genuinely fear that sexism and misogyny are getting worse. That it is getting more shrill. Just as racism has lately been reasserting itself without shame – so has sexism and misogyny – perpetrated – oh so sadly – not only by men but also by women. This woman has the power to alter the paths of some of my students - that's not an exaggeration. How dare she. Yes – SHE!

There's nothing sadder than feeling dragged into battle by one of your own.

HAPPY LABOR DAY BANANA REPUBLIC DAY

It was not my intention to wish everyone a happy holiday because there is little to celebrate. Traditionally, Labor Day marks the end of summer and is supposed to honor … well ... labor. These days, the facts speak otherwise.

Unemployment has reached 9.7%, a 26 year high. Worker pay has fallen 11 percent since 1973, although worker productivity has risen 78 percent in the same period.

In 1973, corporate CEOs made 45 times more than the average worker. By 1991, CEOs made 140 times more, and by last year, CEO income rose to 400 times more.

CEOs take home a larger slice of the American pie. Executive pay rose from 4.8 percent of company income (1993-1995) to 10.3 percent (2001-2003) … more than double in less than a decade.

Corporate interests and their shills clamor for lower taxes and more perks - chauffeured cars, jets, company apartments, club memberships, fancy trips, sports tickets, and financial planning experts. Meanwhile, labor gets downsized and outsourced. Workers watch their home values and retirement accounts vanish, and their wages and benefits cut.

So what is there to celebrate? Maybe we should just rename Labor Day and call it by its real name: National Banana Republic Day.

MarXrays from planet Obama

My doctor was running a bit late yesterday morning and I spent about a half hour sitting in the waiting room staring at the wall. About 10 minutes before my name was called, a tall, gaunt man in his late 70's lowered his newspaper and said to his wife in the loud way those hard of hearing do: "this is just wrong." His wife seemed to slump down in her chair and mumbled something about Obama only urging kids to work hard and stay in school. "Sixth graders aren't the ones dropping out" he replied "and asking them to help him - that's just wrong."

Of course nothing is "just wrong" it's what you say when you don't have a reason you wish to think about, much less discuss. Of course nobody faulted Bush for reading to kids, and I don't remember any such idiocy about keeping kids from listening to the President since radio broadcasting began in the 1920's, but the idea that president Obama should avoid talking about civics or anything else with school children is based on unsavory premises that need to be hidden -- and so "it's just wrong."

It's amazing how the idea that Obama not only would be "indoctrinating" anyone by making a public speech; much less indoctrinating them in some insidious Marxist plot, is to me one of the most fascinating things about American insanity. It may be the most obviously contrived meme ever to infect us, stemming at first from his questioning of the gospel of tax cuts and privatization and then reflecting the demand by a large majority for the kind of system we have in Medicare already. I don't have space to show how foolish this is and I don't need it -- just read the papers.

If a graduated income tax is Marxist, then as I've said several times, Adam Smith and Teddy Roosevelt were socialists FDR was the anti-Christ and Dwight Eisenhower was Lenin. Still the meme has cascaded down from the RNC through Fox and the ignorant backwoods bastards who hate black people and want to launder their bigotry at Murdoch's laundromat. "Work hard and stay in school?" "Think about ways to improve our nation?" COMMUNISM! FASCISM!

It's not just that miserable old hypocrite in the waiting room, doubtless having his bill payed by "socialist" medicare, it's the ignorant, stupid, miserable bastards of America pushing school boards to let their kids stay home and not be exposed to the communising Obamanite which emits MarXrays causing them to speak French and visit a dentist regularly.

Michelle Malkin is squealing like a stuck pig. World Net Daily is calling for a national "stay home from school day." Glenn Beck is being -- Glenn Beck and the rest of the Republican blogswamp is croaking like bullfrogs after a rainstorm: "Obama wants to create his own Hitler Youth!" School boards all over the country are being besieged by howling rednecks and districts in 6 states so far are refusing to tune in. It's crawling through the nation's school system like a flesh eating virus.

In a way, it's encouraging that after nearly 8 months, giving a speech to America's students is the worst thing they can pin on Obama, but that this pathetic collection of misbegotten miscreants will buy into it as enthusiastically as monster hunting peasants surrounding castle Frankenstein makes me continue to be ashamed at any country with such people in it.