Archive for December, 2009

Movement politics versus partisan politics

by , posted on Friday, December 25th, 2009 at 12:46 pm

Following up on Downtowner’s post, I note that David Sirota has a new post up at Open Left which extends the discussion a little further.

Progressives have some allies right now, even if it sometimes feels like we don’t. There are people in Washington who understand how movement politics actually works. They understand the story Chris relayed about the interaction between President Clinton and then-Rep. Bernie Sanders in 1993 — that continuing to push on health care will get us closer to short-term and long term goals, whether we achieve those goals on this bill or not.

Progressives and Democratic partisans should be able to respectfully disagree on the tactics and process — specifically on whether the Senate bill should have been voted up or down (and you’ll note, those saying the Senate bill should have been sent back to the drawing board have been largely respectful, while the other side has been increasingly enraged and vitriolic). But the value of having at least some progressive voices pushing hard and demanding more is absolutely undeniable.

Movement politics versus partisan politics. That’s the heart of the matter.

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Nate Silver’s worst argument yet for Healthcare Privateering

by , posted on Monday, December 21st, 2009 at 7:13 pm

I don’t know why Nate and others keep emphasizing the low profit margins of the insurance companies.

Accounting tricks aside (e.g., counting increased perks as “costs”, etc.), the lavish compensations and bureacratic bloat are devices a “marquis class’ of individuals, who bring NOTHING of value to the system, use to extort “protection” money from vulnerable citizens. By the way, the bottom line is profit VOLUME, which is substantial.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/12/insurance-stocks-rise-on-news-of-health.html

One function of government is to protect its citizens against persons or institutions that can do harm, such as predators in the “healthcare provider” business. Is it that hard for the apologists of the Democratic “healthcare” bill to understand how distressing this is to progressives, or any good government types?

Profit has NO PLACE in a system of basic health care. Let the marketplace work its wonders in cosmetic surgery. The fact that profit margins are now inextricably imbedded in this push for universal healthcare is going to explode this effort down the way, and not very far off.

We know how this is going to work. We’ll be forced to give them our money (and since I’m 50, I may be forced to pay 1/4 of my income to these criminals) right up front – with the government being the collection muscle. And there is nothing NOTHING to force these guys to behave. The sharks will walk off with their compensations, and we’ll be forced back to square zero, with a more impoverished society, and the problems not solved.

The people running these “healthcare” protection rackets have no care for the public, the system, or even their own companies. We’ve already seen CEOs walk off with over $1B in compensation… they don’t have to look back.

They shouldn’t exist. All of these guys in the privateering “healthcare” racket losing their jobs would be a small blip in the unemployment rate. I’d rather some of them use their actuarial skills toward optimizing high-speed rail systems or smart power grids.

Don’t. Not this, not to these thugs. No.

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What Sirota Said

by , posted on Sunday, December 20th, 2009 at 4:19 pm

In terms of why it’s bad strategy for progressives to fall into line on the health care fiasco vote, this kinda says it all. On the other hand, it leaves me wondering where the screaming and yelling and Liebermanesque holding-out is from elected Progressives.

Where are they?

Is Dean – not holding any office at all at the moment and hardly a model of a progressive – really the strongest voice we have to scream “kill the bill?”

That’s scary.

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Giant Insurance Company Giveaway Eve – Early Evening Update

by , posted on Saturday, December 19th, 2009 at 6:55 pm

Just got home from work and am wondering if you are all feeling festive yet?

No?

Well, if you are, say, male, and are feeling left out of the opportunity to contribute something (like the right to control your body) to the effort to funnel billions of dollars to corporate America, don’t despair: there’s something in here for you too.

If you are, like me, so uninsurable that the only policy you will be offered will be junk insurance at punitively high premiums, you’re in there: the penalty for paying to keep more of your money to pay for your health care out-of-pocket (because your “policy” won’t) is up – reputedly to offset the fact that it’s much more expensive to give away lots of cash to our insurance overlords without the public option. So they had to raise more cash to offset that.

Or, if you are a union member, you too get to contribute to the Giant Giveaway. Those good insurance policies you have, via trading wage increases to get them, are going to be taxed at a higher rate – also to help offset the more expensive non-public-option Giveaway.

Who knows how many other lovely opportunities there are for Americans of all descriptions to do their part to create a festive season for the insurance industry. You can go read the manager’s amendment here and see if you can find more.

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Giant Insurance Company Giveaway Eve: Abortion Coverage is the New Opt-Out

by , posted on Saturday, December 19th, 2009 at 11:01 am

More on the concessions to ensure Ben Nelson gets greater control over my body (at least if I live in a Red State) from NYT.

Under Mr. Reid’s proposal, health insurance plans are not required or forbidden to cover abortion services, but there is a major exemption that would give states power to prohibit abortion coverage in the insurance markets, or exchanges, where most health plans would be sold.

Oh, also, Reid was also apparently required to sweeten the deal by outright buying Nelson off:

Mr. Reid’s amendment also includes a substantial increase in federal contributions to Nebraska’s costs of providing Medicaid coverage to the poor.

Which, of course, does not extend to abortion coverage. Because, you know, they are poor.

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Giant Insurance Company Giveaway Eve: Nelson Speaks

by , posted on Saturday, December 19th, 2009 at 10:46 am

Well, CNN is reporting that Ben Nelson is feeling a bit more in control of my body, so a happy camper overall.

He says:

“Anyone who is in the exchange who also gets a federal subsidy because they’re poor, if they choose a private insurance policy and want any kind of abortion coverage, they have to write that part of the premium from their own personal funds.”

Offhand I’d say that means most poor women getting subsidies will elect not to write that additional check for the coverage – can’t afford to, really, if you are poor.

No word on whether Nelson’s other demands, such as cutting the aforementioned subsidies, have also been met.

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Happy Giant Insurance Co. Giveaway Eve

by , posted on Saturday, December 19th, 2009 at 8:43 am

Harry Reid has indicated that he anticipates a vote on the Senate’s Festive Giant Insurance Co. Giveaway on Christmas Eve, making that a really big day for celebration by Insurance Inc.

But today is a big day too; Harry Reid says he has his 60 votes and today will unveil the final version of the Festive Giant Giveaway.

Of course, neither we nor Harry can really know that it’s final until Lieberman and Nelson have issued their public responses to the “final” version Harry thinks they’ve agreed to. We will then learn what additional perks we will have to provide to Big Insurance in order to get our money on it’s way to them.

I plan on monitoring events throughout the course of the day and hope to be back with updates, comments, despair, panic, as the situation warrants.

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BREAKING: I don’t need overpriced junk

by , posted on Thursday, December 17th, 2009 at 3:32 pm

I need health care. Which the Senate bill will neither provide, nor provide access to for uninsurable people like me.

Sorry to put the “Breaking” into the title, but this appears to be news to so many diarists and commenters that I thought it was justified.

Also, sorry to be repetitive, as I posted much of the same appeal here recently, but there seem to be so many people deluded by the belief that at least the Senate bill offers access to care for the uninsured that I can’t help thinking someone, possibly lots of people need to repeat this, in real terms, until we are debating reality.

This is a piece of junk legislation, that will lead to junk “coverage” and continued lack of care for people who are currently most damaged and most at risk because they have been uninsurable – in some cases for quite a long while. In short, for people like me, uninsurable people, it is worse than the status quo.

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Dems have a Kate Problem

by , posted on Thursday, December 10th, 2009 at 2:09 pm

My youngest daughter, Kate, is 31. She’s married with three children. She has Type I Diabetes and was medically bankrupt at the age of 20 when she fell into a coma and spent two weeks in intensive care while uninsured. She is the principal breadwinner for her family, and despite her health challenges and past financial hardships they are doing okay now. In fact, Kate is doing so well right now that the most pressing personal family problem on her mind is that her brother will be deployed to Afghanistan this spring. And that is weighing heavily on her mind, though I won’t here go into what Kate thinks of the Afghanistan escalation.

Up until the 2008 election there was no force on earth – including me – that could move Kate to so much as vote. Her take on it: there is no point, big business owns government, and nothing will change. But in 2007 Kate changed, radically, sharply, suddenly, changed her mind.

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Things Rich Miller Pretends to Know About-Part 1

by , posted on Thursday, December 10th, 2009 at 1:46 am

I was a bit fascinated by Illinois Media Progressives posting of this item on their blog, now cross-posted here on Progressive Fox. I can’t say I disagree with anything in the post, but I can say this: It doesn’t go far enough.

I know the author of the post, in fact in the interest of my own full disclosure I’ll point out that I first met the author when we were both working on John Laesch’s 2008 primary campaign, which is when he also first met John Laesch. My acquaintance with Laesch goes a bit farther back – to the 2006 campaign. Which is part of the reason I think the post does not go far enough: the author of it was not in the room when Rich Miller’s favorite Republican 18 second John Laesch YouTube sound-bite was taped. I was.

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