Bye Bye Norma Rae

You remember Norma Rae, although her name was Crystal Lee. Sally Field played the Union Organizer from Burlington North Carolina in 1979 and won an academy award for the performance. Ms. Field who presumably is financially secure, is still with us but Crystal Lee, who wasn't, isn't. She got brain cancer she couldn't afford to treat, she had to battle her insurance company to live up to its contractual obligation, they stalled and she died Last Friday.

Sarah Palin is right, Death Panels are real and the Health Insurance companies all have them, practicing 'delay and deny' tactics that resulted -- intentionally -- in the death of the 68 year old Crystal Lee Sutton. Her insurance company interfered between her and her doctor, she couldn't afford Chemo on her own and some employee likely got a bonus for saving the company money.

Like Most Republican arguments, the Death Panel idea illustrates the principle of projective accusation. if your president was guilty of more lies than any other in history, you start accusing the opposition of lying and if you're lucky you can find a mote in his eye and gleefully use it to deny the giant sequoia in your own. Thus to protect the insurance companies that profit by interfering in the doctor-patient relationship, dictate and deny treatment and let people die unnecessarily they accuse a system designed to stop it of doing the same thing. Americans are stupid enough to buy it.

Death Panels are real and death panels are inevitable because corporations are beholden to their stockholders, not to their insured clients. Actual panels of actual people get salaries and bonuses for obfuscating and delaying claims until it's too late, or for scouring your life for some unreported case of acne or the flu to justify denying your cancer claim. A large part of your premiums go, in fact, to pay for these Death Panels and to keep the stockholders happy.

Perhaps someone will chime in here and deny it. I hope so because I'm dying to say You Lie! I can't wait to tell the inevitable troll who will insist that just like Public Schools, Public Libraries, National parks and the National Guard, Government claims administration is Socialism! You lie!

Plan 9 from Outer Space

Mention ACORN to a Republican and watch him start to hiss and twitch. Some are still telling me that because a few ACORN workers registered fake names like Micky Mouse, the will of the majority was overturned and Obama managed to sneak in the door. Of course Micky never actually showed up at the polls -- for obvious reasons -- and Obama won by 10 million votes, but reality never has stood in the way of any Republican belief system. They're still out in the streets with signs shrieking about Obama and corruption and ACORN. They have to, since the Marxism thing, the Birth certificate thing: the death panels, the death book and the other accusations have succeeded at best at looking like the ad hoc plot of an Ed Wood movie.

The silly symphony probably won't drop the theme now that the Government has decided not to use that organization to collect census data in the interest of avoiding the appearance of impropriety. They'll take it as an admission that the Pod people from planet Zorchtron did indeed rig the election, but maybe it will weaken the inevitable claim that the government is using the census to round up Republicans to feed them to brain eating zombies in a secret cave underneath Philadelphia. Maybe not. The chances of someone leaving a comment arguing that there are insane Democrats, that I've rewritten the popular vote margins (like all lefties do) or that any mention of the unprecedented, gun toting madness out in the streets is all part of plan 9 from outer space to smear the sacred name of George W. Bush.

Wait for it.

The dogs do bark

"This is not some kind of radical right-wing group,”

said Senator Jim DeMint, to the Times today.

Sure it is, although to DeMint the definition of radical right might be a bit idiosyncratic. Thousands Rally in Capitol reads the headline although the picture shows at most a couple of hundred white, middle aged people carrying all sorts of signs ranging from the inexplicable to the ridiculous. A huge photo of Nancy Pelosi with a thought bubble saying "Nazis" has the word Astroturf!!! under it. Another claiming that

"Jesus Christ is the messiah and not Obama"

is there to reinforce the idiotic idea that Obama supporters think he's chosen of God and perhaps to help us forget the glaring fact that Bush was widely portrayed as God's right hand.

"Just say no to Chicago Style Politics"

brays another, doubtless setting off thousands of WTF alarms in the Windy City - often referred to as the city that works.

"Obama's nuts, that's why he's involved with ACORN"

reflects the inexplicable obsession with that organization the less mentally organized Republicans seem possessed of.

"Trade freedom for security. . . you will have neither"

says a large sign approximating a Ben Franklin quote that would have been very much appropriate for the previous administration: so appropriate to the gang who gave us the Patriot Act, ignored the law and told us blowing up Iraq was necessary to preserve "our freedoms."

In fact, the fact that not only were these marionettes not in display in Washington a year ago but also that the Bush administration routinely bussed protesters out to remote and fenced-in enclosures while Bill O'Reilly called them "loonies" certainly speaks better for Obama and worse for Republicans than anything else. It certainly doesn't speak well of the silly people, the stupid people, the petty people who see these choreographed parades as anything but bought and payed for advertising: bought and payed for with our country's future.

BILLIONAIRES FOR WEALTH CARE: IF YOU CAN’T BEAT ‘EM, JOIN ‘EM

Have we no sense of humor? Do we take Tea Baggers, Birthers, and Deathers too seriously every time we take them too seriously? Must we always be confrontational? Why can’t we be friends? Here is a new website called, Billionaires for Wealthcare, that shows how to make friends with your friendly neighborhood Tea Baggers (while making a point better than any rant can):



Go to a Tea Bagger rally in your block-long stretch limo. Step out wearing your black tux and monocle. Women wear furs, diamonds, opera gloves, and a $1,000 Dior gown. Outclass Rush Limbaugh by smoking a Gurkha Black Dragon cigar. Have legions of camera-flashing paparazzi follow you. Tea Baggers will adore you and worship the ground where your dog squats. Finally, don’t forget your own Palm Court ensemble performing this theme song:

“This Healthcare Plan Must Die”
(To the tune of “Battle Hymn Of The Republic”)

Rejoice and let us glory in the profits that we gain
By rationing the remedies for suffering and pain.
We will not let you regulate our budgetary drain.
This healthcare plan must die! (Chorus)

We bought a bunch of senators and congresspeople too.
They serve our corporate interests and we tell them what to do.
This gravy train will stop the day a healthcare bill gets through.
This healthcare plan must die! (Chorus)

Our PR team is crackerjack. We’re framing the debate!
We’re spreading lots of lies and we’re unleashing lots of hate.
We’ll drive a stake into the bill the day it leaves the gate.
This healthcare plan must die! (Chorus)

And finally, don’t forget to bring your placards (as gauche as it may seem, every tea bagger is a sucker for one of these):


Nothing like a little satire to soothe the savage beasts.

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.