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Friday, November 13, 2009

Playing Health Care Reform Straight

Progressive Democrats of America - Mobilizing the Progressive Vote

Playing it straight


Conor Boylan November 13 at 9:17pm Reply
House Healthcare Measure Undeserving of Progressive Cheerleading

Hi,

With the passage of HR3962, fundraising emails from Democratic groups cheering the passage of the House healthcare bill have been issued faster than denials for service from healthcare corporations. Disappointingly, MoveOn, True Majority and Democracy for America are among them. They’re not just cheering, they’re exalting the bill’s public option as the best thing since sliced bread, despite the further degradation of women’s reproductive rights.

There is no doubt that these organizations have done great work on progressive issues, but on this legislation they are wrong. This bill is, so far, a very bad bill that will further enmesh corporations into our government and our daily lives without addressing the problem. It diminishes all of our rights, not just reproductive ones, by failing to recognize healthcare as a human right, not a commodity to be traded on Wall Street.

The measure’s public option, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), will only attract 6 million out of the 45 million uninsured Americans, and the monthly premium will likely be more costly than corporate premiums. So much for affordable healthcare.

And, it does next to nothing to help Americans who are now being gouged by healthcare corporations. “if you like your insurance--you get to keep it” has morphed into “if you have insurance, you have to keep it whether you like it or not, and if you don’t have it--you have to buy it.”

Together with our allies, we kept single-payer healthcare alive much longer than anyone thought possible, which demonstrates its majority support. We never wavered, we never strayed from our goal, we made tangible progress--please help us carry on https://www.thedatabank.com/dpg/309/donate.asp?formid=donate

Just because a massive bill manages to include a few sensible measures that should have been enacted years ago, a mandate that we all buy a defective product to swell the profit margins of the very corporations who created this crisis in the first place does not make it reform, or acceptable. It certainly does not make it the much-ballyhooed achievement of the 21st century.

MoveOn’s email targeting any Democrat who voted against the House bill is unacceptable, as well. While there’s value in targeting Democrats who do not support the solution to the crisis, Medicare for All, there’s no value in targeting the two brave souls who actually exercised their backbones and voted against the bill for the right reasons--Congressmen Kucinich and Massa. This bill is a band-aid at best, not the scalpel needed to excise the cancer of for-profit, employer-based corporate healthcare insurance, which kills tens of thousands of Americans a year. Please take a moment to thank these courageous progressives http://capwiz.com/pdamerica/issues/alert/?alertid=14323226

MoveOn’s most recent mailing will raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to support incumbents who voted for this bad bill. We hope to raise tens of thousands of dollars to back only candidates who support Medicare for All and women’s reproductive rights.

Help us keep agitating, educating, and acting to secure this human right—instead of supporting “progressive organizations” that support halfway measures, which won’t do the job. Please become a PDA Change makes Change partner http://pdamerica.org/articles/misc/2008-01-24-01-07-46-misc.php

You can contribute as little as $5, $10, or $15 a month. There are additional benefits to investing in PDA; when you become a sustaining partner, we stop sending you regular fundraising letters, for one. One-time contributions are welcome, too. http://pdamerica.org/articles/misc/2008-01-24-01-07-46-misc.php

The fight isn’t over as long as we continue to demand Medicare for All:

* Take action for Sanders single-payer bill in the Senate http://capwiz.com/pdamerica/issues/alert/?alertid=14212486
* Add the Kucinich amendment during the reconciliation process.
* Establish single-payer systems in the states while we continue to push for Medicare for All.

In solidarity,

Tim Carpenter for the PDA National Team

P.S. Read this article by Rose Ann DeMoro of the California Nurses Association, which details the bill’s few positive and many negative aspects http://pdamerica.org/articles/alliances/2009-11-10-01-39-56-alliances.php . See also Dr. Marcia Angell’s article http://pdamerica.org/articles/news/2009-11-10-01-13-16-news.php .

P.P.S. Due to the healthcare debate and the upcoming holidays, PDA has moved the launch of the Brown Bag Lunch Vigils to January. We’ll maintain a pilot program among several chapters who will begin their vigils next Wednesday, November 18, and will keep you informed of developments.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale

Progressive Democrats of America - Mobilizing the Progressive Vote


Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale


To members of Progressive Democrats of America


Next Steps Following our Week from Hell

Hi,

Rest assured, we certainly would have done things differently if it had been up to us; yet the events of last week are instructive, albeit incredibly disappointing. That said, Reps. Dennis Kucinich and Eric Massa need to hear from us for their brave stand against the corporatocracy when they voted against HR 3962 for the right reasons -- http://capwiz.com/pdamerica/issues/alert/?alertid=14323226

We’ve heard from many of you--particularly over the cancellation of the Weiner amendment vote. The PDA community is angry and rightfully so. Your national team is upset and angry, too. Most responses were an expression of frustration--some called upon us to excoriate members of the CPC or run candidates against them.

We will not always agree with what progressive members of Congress do, but we do not face the immense pressure exerted on them by a centrist White House beholden to special interests.

We're building a movement here, and we don't just discard leaders within the movement because they were unable to force our issue through. We force out the opposition, the Rahm Emanuels, Joe Liebermans and Max Baucuses of the world, and replace them with progressive candidates. Once we have a Democratic progressive majority, then we can discuss firing the leaders who fail to represent our values, at the ballot box.

While anger motivates many people to action, it is too easy to over-react when angry—we need to cool down and assess the situation. This is just the first act in a three-act play:

Next, the Senate passes a bill. We need to get ready to support Bernie Sanders in his single-payer fight in the Senate. http://capwiz.com/pdamerica/issues/alert/?alertid=14212486

Third is the reconciliation process. We need to get the Kucinich amendment inserted in the bill, and we need our progressive Congress members to make this happen. Details are forthcoming.

The reason we're active is because we recognize the system is working against the people--our democracy is broken. Our opposition is not within the progressive movement but the corporations who control our elected officials. We need to go after the cause--not the effect.

At this point, we should focus on electing candidates who are not beholden to corporate interests and are running against the Blue Dogs, not replacing incumbent progressive members of Congress.

We all need to work for candidates like Marcy Winograd (http://www.winograd4congress.com) and Mike Capuano (http://www.mikecapuano.com) and wherever else they may be, in the upcoming election--true progressive candidates. We need to get out the vote, or we could lose our majority. While having the majority has proved to be frustrating for us, it's still better than the alternative--imagine a few more Michele Bachmanns getting elected in the midterms.

Mostly we need to stay focused on the prize and get single-payer established in the states. This will do more to move our progressive candidates and us forward than focusing our ire on Congressional single-payer advocates who voted for the bill.

Later this week, look for an email in which we’ll be announcing the Brown Bag Vigils as part of the Healthcare NOT Warfare campaign.

Until then, inhale and exhale.

In solidarity,

Tim Carpenter for the PDA National Team

P.S. Read John Nichols latest article, Six Smart Progressive Complaints About House Health Bill -- http://pdamerica.org/articles/news/2009-11-09-13-42-04-news.php

Please join our PDA FB Fanpage -- http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/pages/Progressive-Democrats-of-America/164462034235?ref=ts

Please join Norman Solomon on our End War and Occupation, redirect funding call tonight. RSVP here -- https://www.thedatabank.com/dpg/309/personalopt1.asp?formid=meet&c=8645634

Kudos to you, Congressman! Kucinich & Massa

Progressive Democrats of America - Mobilizing the Progressive Vote





Action Alert


Take Action Kudos to you, Congressman!
Kucinich and Massa vote "NO" on healthcare legislation for the right reasons

H.R. 3962, the remnants of healthcare reform legislation more widely recognized as health insurance legislation, passed the House on Saturday November 7, 220-215.
Among the Democrats who voted against it, Congressmen Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) and Eric Massa (D-NY) were the only two who voted against it for the right reasons:

They were also the only supporters of Medicare for All, single-payer healthcare to vote against the bill.
They demonstrated real backbone and stuck to their guns despite the arm-twisting and deal-making demonstrated by House leadership.
Call them up and thank them! Let's make sure they know we have their backs when the final vote comes down.
For Rep. Massa's Washington, D.C. Office call (202) 225-3161, or Fax: (202) 226-6599
For Rep. Kucinich's Washington, D.C. Office call (202) 225-5871, or Fax (202) 225-5745

Monday, November 9, 2009

Is the House Health Care Bill Better than Nothing? Worse!

Is the House Health Care Bill Better than Nothing?

by Marcia Angell

Well, the House health reform bill -- known to Republicans as the Government Takeover -- finally passed after one of Congress's longer, less enlightening debates. Two stalwarts of the single-payer movement split their votes; John Conyers voted for it; Dennis Kucinich against. Kucinich was right.

Conservative rhetoric notwithstanding, the House bill is not a "government takeover." I wish it were. Instead, it enshrines and subsidizes the "takeover" by the investor-owned insurance industry that occurred after the failure of the Clinton reform effort in 1994. To be sure, the bill has a few good provisions (expansion of Medicaid, for example), but they are marginal. It also provides for some regulation of the industry (no denial of coverage because of pre-existing conditions, for example), but since it doesn't regulate premiums, the industry can respond to any regulation that threatens its profits by simply raising its rates. The bill also does very little to curb the perverse incentives that lead doctors to over-treat the well-insured. And quite apart from its content, the bill is so complicated and convoluted that it would take a staggering apparatus to administer it and try to enforce its regulations.

What does the insurance industry get out of it? Tens of millions of new customers, courtesy of the mandate and taxpayer subsidies. And not just any kind of customer, but the youngest, healthiest customers -- those least likely to use their insurance. The bill permits insurers to charge twice as much for older people as for younger ones. So older under-65's will be more likely to go without insurance, even if they have to pay fines. That's OK with the industry, since these would be among their sickest customers. (Shouldn't age be considered a pre-existing condition?)

Insurers also won't have to cover those younger people most likely to get sick, because they will tend to use the public option (which is not an "option" at all, but a program projected to cover only 6 million uninsured Americans). So instead of the public option providing competition for the insurance industry, as originally envisioned, it's been turned into a dumping ground for a small number of people whom private insurers would rather not have to cover anyway.

If a similar bill emerges from the Senate and the reconciliation process, and is ultimately passed, what will happen?

First, health costs will continue to skyrocket, even faster than they are now, as taxpayer dollars are pumped into the private sector. The response of payers -- government and employers -- will be to shrink benefits and increase deductibles and co-payments. Yes, more people will have insurance, but it will cover less and less, and be more expensive to use.

But, you say, the Congressional Budget Office has said the House bill will be a little better than budget-neutral over ten years. That may be, although the assumptions are arguable. Note, though, that the CBO is not concerned with total health costs, only with costs to the government. And it is particularly concerned with Medicare, the biggest contributor to federal deficits. The House bill would take money out of Medicare, and divert it to the private sector and, to some extent, to Medicaid. The remaining costs of the legislation would be paid for by taxes on the wealthy. But although the bill might pay for itself, it does nothing to solve the problem of runaway inflation in the system as a whole. It's a shell game in which money is moved from one part of our fragmented system to another.

Here is my program for real reform:

Recommendation #1: Drop the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 55. This should be an expansion of traditional Medicare, not a new program. Gradually, over several years, drop the age decade by decade, until everyone is covered by Medicare. Costs: Obviously, this would increase Medicare costs, but it would help decrease costs to the health system as a whole, because Medicare is so much more efficient (overhead of about 3% vs. 20% for private insurance). And it's a better program, because it ensures that everyone has access to a uniform package of benefits.

Recommendation #2: Increase Medicare fees for primary care doctors and reduce them for procedure-oriented specialists. Specialists such as cardiologists and gastroenterologists are now excessively rewarded for doing tests and procedures, many of which, in the opinion of experts, are not medically indicated. Not surprisingly, we have too many specialists, and they perform too many tests and procedures. Costs: This would greatly reduce costs to Medicare, and the reform would almost certainly be adopted throughout the wider health system.

Recommendation #3: Medicare should monitor doctors' practice patterns for evidence of excess, and gradually reduce fees of doctors who habitually order significantly more tests and procedures than the average for the specialty. Costs: Again, this would greatly reduce costs, and probably be widely adopted.

Recommendation #4: Provide generous subsidies to medical students entering primary care, with higher subsidies for those who practice in underserved areas of the country for at least two years. Costs: This initial, rather modest investment in ending our shortage of primary care doctors would have long-term benefits, in terms of both costs and quality of care.

Recommendation #5: Repeal the provision of the Medicare drug benefit that prohibits Medicare from negotiating with drug companies for lower prices. (The House bill calls for this.) That prohibition has been a bonanza for the pharmaceutical industry. For negotiations to be meaningful, there must be a list (formulary) of drugs deemed cost-effective. This is how the Veterans Affairs System obtains some of the lowest drug prices of any insurer in the country. Costs: If Medicare paid the same prices as the Veterans Affairs System, its expenditures on brand-name drugs would be a small fraction of what they are now.

Is the House bill better than nothing? I don't think so. It simply throws more money into a dysfunctional and unsustainable system, with only a few improvements at the edges, and it augments the central role of the investor-owned insurance industry. The danger is that as costs continue to rise and coverage becomes less comprehensive, people will conclude that we've tried health reform and it didn't work. But the real problem will be that we didn't really try it. I would rather see us do nothing now, and have a better chance of trying again later and then doing it right.

Marcia Angell, M. D., is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. She stepped down as Editor-in-Chief of the New England Journal of Medicine on June 30, 2000.

Six Smart Progressive Complaints About House Health Bill

Six Smart Progressive Complaints About House Health Bill

by John Nichols

The Affordable Health Care for America Act was approved by the U.S. House Saturday night with overwhelming support from progressive Democrats who serve in the chamber and from a president who was nominated and elected with the enthusiastic support of progressive voters.

But that does not mean that informed and engaged progressives are entirely enthusiastic about the measure.

In fact, some are openly and explicitly opposed to it -- among them former Congressional Progressive Caucus chair Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, and CPC member Eric Massa, D-New York, both of whom broke with the majority of their fellow Democrats to vote "no" when the House approved the measure by a narrow 220-215 vote Saturday.

How can this be?

Isn't this a fight between Democrats and Republicans? Between reforming liberals and tea-party conservatives?

How can there possibly be any subtlety or nuance to this debate?

Well, of course, the debate over this 1,900-page behemoth of a bill is more complicated than the easy spin of political insiders -- and media cheering sections -- would have Americans believe.

Key interest groups, such as the National Organization for Women, and key congressmen who have been long-term supporters of reform, such as single-payer backers Massa and Kucinich, argue that the bill is not the cure for what ails the U.S. health care system.

Indeed, they suggest, the bill as it is currently constructed could make a bad situation worse.

Many sincere progressives in the House, and outside of it, chose to back the bill as the best that could be gotten. Others supported it on the theory that flaws could be fixed in the Senate and in the reconciliation of the House and Senate bills.

But those repairs will only be made if activists are conscious of what ails this bill.

For that reason, even supporters of the House legislation would be wise to consider the criticisms of it by groups that advocate for the rights of women, patient advocates, unions and some of the most progressive members of the House.

Here are six smart progressive complaints about the House bill:

1. FROM CONGRESSMAN ERIC MASSA: "This Bill Will Enshrine in Law the Monopolistic Powers of the Private Health Insurance Industry"

At the highest level, this bill will enshrine in law the monopolistic powers of the private health insurance industry, period. There's really no other way to look at it. I believe the private health insurance industry is part of the problem.

This bill also, I believe, fails to address the fundamental question before the American people, and that is how do we control the costs of health care. It does not address interstate portability, as Medicare does. It does not address real medical malpractice insurance reform. It does not address the incredible waste and fraud that are currently in the system.

2. FROM THE CALIFORNIA NURSES ASSOCIATION: This Bill Fails to Control Costs

While the current bills will provide limited assistance for some, the inconvenient truth is they fall far short in effective controls on skyrocketing insurance, pharmaceutical and hospital costs, do little to stop insurance companies from denying needed medical care recommended by doctors, and provide little relief for Americans with employer-sponsored insurance worried about health security for themselves and their families.

3. FROM THE NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR WOMEN: "This Bill Obliterates Women's Fundamental Right to Choose"

The House of Representatives has dealt the worst blow to women's fundamental right to self-determination in order to buy a few votes for reform of the profit-driven health insurance industry. We must protect the rights we fought for in Roe v. Wade. We cannot and will not support a health care bill that strips millions of women of their existing access to abortion.

Birth control and abortion are integral aspects of women's health care needs. Health care reform should not be a vehicle to obliterate a woman's fundamental right to choose.

The Stupak Amendment (to the House bill, which was approved and attached on Saturday) goes far beyond the abusive Hyde Amendment, which has denied federal funding of abortion since 1976. The Stupak Amendment, if incorporated into the final version of health insurance reform legislation, will:

• Prevent women receiving tax subsidies from using their own money to purchase private insurance that covers abortion;

  • Prevent women participating in the public health insurance exchange, administered by private insurance companies, from using 100 percent of their own money to purchase private insurance that covers abortion;

• Prevent low-income women from accessing abortion entirely, in many cases.

NOW calls on the Senate to pass a health care bill that respects women's constitutionally protected right to abortion and calls on President Obama to refuse to sign any health care bill that restricts women's access to affordable, quality reproductive health care.

4. FROM PLANNED PARENTHOOD'S CECILE RICHARDS: This Bill Embraces Religious-Right Extremes

It is extremely unfortunate that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and anti-choice opponents were able to hijack the health care reform bill in their dedicated attempt to ban all legal abortion In the United States.

Most telling is the fact that the vast majority of members of the House who supported the Stupak/Pitts amendment in today's vote do not support HR 3962, revealing their true motive, which is to kill the health care reform bill.

These single-issue advocates simply used health care reform to advance their extreme, ideological agenda at the expense of tens of millions of women.

5. FROM CONGRESSMAN DENNIS KUCINICH,: This Bill Worries About the Health of Wall Street, Not America

We have been led to believe that we must make our health care choices only within the current structure of a predatory, for-profit insurance system which makes money not providing health care. We cannot fault the insurance companies for being what they are. But we can fault legislation in which the government incentivizes the perpetuation, indeed the strengthening, of the for-profit health insurance industry, the very source of the problem. When health insurance companies deny care or raise premiums, co-pays and deductibles they are simply trying to make a profit. That is our system.

Clearly, the insurance companies are the problem, not the solution. They are driving up the cost of health care. Because their massive bureaucracy avoids paying bills so effectively, they force hospitals and doctors to hire their own bureaucracy to fight the insurance companies to avoid getting stuck with an unfair share of the bills. The result is that since 1970, the number of physicians has increased by less than 200% while the number of administrators has increased by 3000 percent. It is no wonder that 31 cents of every health care dollar goes to administrative costs, not toward providing care. Even those with insurance are at risk. The single biggest cause of bankruptcies in the U.S. is health insurance policies that do not cover you when you get sick.

But instead of working toward the elimination of for-profit insurance, H.R. 3962 would put the government in the role of accelerating the privatization of health care. In H.R. 3962, the government is requiring at least 21 million Americans to buy private health insurance from the very industry that causes costs to be so high, which will result in at least $70 billion in new annual revenue, much of which is coming from taxpayers. This inevitably will lead to even more costs, more subsidies, and higher profits for insurance companies - a bailout under a blue cross.

By incurring only a new requirement to cover pre-existing conditions, a weakened public option, and a few other important but limited concessions, the health insurance companies are getting quite a deal. The Center for American Progress' blog, Think Progress, states, 'since the President signaled that he is backing away from the public option, health insurance stocks have been on the rise.' Similarly, healthcare stocks rallied when Senator Max Baucus introduced a bill without a public option. Bloomberg reports that Curtis Lane, a prominent health industry investor, predicted a few weeks ago that 'money will start flowing in again' to health insurance stocks after passage of the legislation. Investors.com last month reported that pharmacy benefit managers share prices are hitting all-time highs, with the only industry worry that the Administration would reverse its decision not to negotiate Medicare Part D drug prices, leaving in place a Bush Administration policy.

During the debate, when the interests of insurance companies would have been effectively challenged, that challenge was turned back. The 'robust public option' which would have offered a modicum of competition to a monopolistic industry was whittled down from an initial potential enrollment of 129 million Americans to 6 million. An amendment which would have protected the rights of states to pursue single-payer health care was stripped from the bill at the request of the Administration. Looking ahead, we cringe at the prospect of even greater favors for insurance companies.

Recent rises in unemployment indicate a widening separation between the finance economy and the real economy. The finance economy considers the health of Wall Street, rising corporate profits, and banks' hoarding of cash, much of it from taxpayers, as sign of an economic recovery. However in the real economy - in which most Americans live - the recession is not over. Rising unemployment, business failures, bankruptcies and foreclosures are still hammering Main Street.

This health care bill continues the redistribution of wealth to Wall Street at the expense of America's manufacturing and service economies which suffer from costs other countries do not have to bear, especially the cost of health care. America continues to stand out among all industrialized nations for its privatized health care system. As a result, we are less competitive in steel, automotive, aerospace and shipping while other countries subsidize their exports in these areas through socializing the cost of health care.

Notwithstanding the fate of H.R. 3962, America will someday come to recognize the broad social and economic benefits of a not-for-profit, single-payer health care system, which is good for the American people and good for America's businesses, with of course the notable exceptions being insurance and pharmaceuticals.

6. FROM "SICKO'S" DONNA SMITH: The Bill Does Not Cure What Ails Us

Passing a healthcare reform bill that does not provide me with better access to care or protection from bankruptcy and financial ruin is not what I asked you all to do. Stripping away all reference to a progressively financed, single standard of high quality healthcare for all - also known as single-payer -- is done only to more deeply ensconce the deep pocketed interests in healthcare: the private, for-profit insurance giants, the big pharmaceuticals, the medical equipment companies, the hospital corporations and all the other making huge profits as thousands die needless deaths.

Healthcare is a basic human right. Granting that right is not something to be calculated differently in swing Congressional districts, off-year election strategy or second-Presidential term planning. It is your (members of Congress') duty to me, to my fellow citizens and to your nation.

And (members of Congress) are marching away from reality when you think all the hard-working people who counted on you to make this a better healthcare system will not notice when you deliver insurance purchase mandates and a corporate bail-out that will dwarf the Wall Street trillions you've already justified.

Watch Smith's video: "American Sickos: Will the Current Bills Help? No"

Follow Smith's organizing for real reform at the website of Progressive Democrats of America. She is the national co-chair of PDA's Healthcare NOT Warfare campaign.

John Nichols is Washington correspondent for The Nation and associate editor of The Capital Times in Madison, Wisconsin. A co-founder of the media reform organization Free Press, Nichols is is co-author with Robert W. McChesney of Tragedy & Farce: How the American Media Sell Wars, Spin Elections, and Destroy Democracy - from The New Press. Nichols' latest book is The Genius of Impeachment: The Founders' Cure for Royalism.

Six Smart Progressive Complaints About House Health Bill

Six Smart Progressive Complaints About House Health Bill

by John Nichols

The Affordable Health Care for America Act was approved by the U.S. House Saturday night with overwhelming support from progressive Democrats who serve in the chamber and from a president who was nominated and elected with the enthusiastic support of progressive voters.

But that does not mean that informed and engaged progressives are entirely enthusiastic about the measure.

In fact, some are openly and explicitly opposed to it -- among them former Congressional Progressive Caucus chair Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, and CPC member Eric Massa, D-New York, both of whom broke with the majority of their fellow Democrats to vote "no" when the House approved the measure by a narrow 220-215 vote Saturday.

How can this be?

Isn't this a fight between Democrats and Republicans? Between reforming liberals and tea-party conservatives?

How can there possibly be any subtlety or nuance to this debate?

Well, of course, the debate over this 1,900-page behemoth of a bill is more complicated than the easy spin of political insiders -- and media cheering sections -- would have Americans believe.

Key interest groups, such as the National Organization for Women, and key congressmen who have been long-term supporters of reform, such as single-payer backers Massa and Kucinich, argue that the bill is not the cure for what ails the U.S. health care system.

Indeed, they suggest, the bill as it is currently constructed could make a bad situation worse.

Many sincere progressives in the House, and outside of it, chose to back the bill as the best that could be gotten. Others supported it on the theory that flaws could be fixed in the Senate and in the reconciliation of the House and Senate bills.

But those repairs will only be made if activists are conscious of what ails this bill.

For that reason, even supporters of the House legislation would be wise to consider the criticisms of it by groups that advocate for the rights of women, patient advocates, unions and some of the most progressive members of the House.

Here are six smart progressive complaints about the House bill:

1. FROM CONGRESSMAN ERIC MASSA: "This Bill Will Enshrine in Law the Monopolistic Powers of the Private Health Insurance Industry"

At the highest level, this bill will enshrine in law the monopolistic powers of the private health insurance industry, period. There's really no other way to look at it. I believe the private health insurance industry is part of the problem.

This bill also, I believe, fails to address the fundamental question before the American people, and that is how do we control the costs of health care. It does not address interstate portability, as Medicare does. It does not address real medical malpractice insurance reform. It does not address the incredible waste and fraud that are currently in the system.

2. FROM THE CALIFORNIA NURSES ASSOCIATION: This Bill Fails to Control Costs

While the current bills will provide limited assistance for some, the inconvenient truth is they fall far short in effective controls on skyrocketing insurance, pharmaceutical and hospital costs, do little to stop insurance companies from denying needed medical care recommended by doctors, and provide little relief for Americans with employer-sponsored insurance worried about health security for themselves and their families.

3. FROM THE NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR WOMEN: "This Bill Obliterates Women's Fundamental Right to Choose"

The House of Representatives has dealt the worst blow to women's fundamental right to self-determination in order to buy a few votes for reform of the profit-driven health insurance industry. We must protect the rights we fought for in Roe v. Wade. We cannot and will not support a health care bill that strips millions of women of their existing access to abortion.

Birth control and abortion are integral aspects of women's health care needs. Health care reform should not be a vehicle to obliterate a woman's fundamental right to choose.

The Stupak Amendment (to the House bill, which was approved and attached on Saturday) goes far beyond the abusive Hyde Amendment, which has denied federal funding of abortion since 1976. The Stupak Amendment, if incorporated into the final version of health insurance reform legislation, will:

• Prevent women receiving tax subsidies from using their own money to purchase private insurance that covers abortion;

  • Prevent women participating in the public health insurance exchange, administered by private insurance companies, from using 100 percent of their own money to purchase private insurance that covers abortion;

• Prevent low-income women from accessing abortion entirely, in many cases.

NOW calls on the Senate to pass a health care bill that respects women's constitutionally protected right to abortion and calls on President Obama to refuse to sign any health care bill that restricts women's access to affordable, quality reproductive health care.

4. FROM PLANNED PARENTHOOD'S CECILE RICHARDS: This Bill Embraces Religious-Right Extremes

It is extremely unfortunate that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and anti-choice opponents were able to hijack the health care reform bill in their dedicated attempt to ban all legal abortion In the United States.

Most telling is the fact that the vast majority of members of the House who supported the Stupak/Pitts amendment in today's vote do not support HR 3962, revealing their true motive, which is to kill the health care reform bill.

These single-issue advocates simply used health care reform to advance their extreme, ideological agenda at the expense of tens of millions of women.

5. FROM CONGRESSMAN DENNIS KUCINICH,: This Bill Worries About the Health of Wall Street, Not America

We have been led to believe that we must make our health care choices only within the current structure of a predatory, for-profit insurance system which makes money not providing health care. We cannot fault the insurance companies for being what they are. But we can fault legislation in which the government incentivizes the perpetuation, indeed the strengthening, of the for-profit health insurance industry, the very source of the problem. When health insurance companies deny care or raise premiums, co-pays and deductibles they are simply trying to make a profit. That is our system.

Clearly, the insurance companies are the problem, not the solution. They are driving up the cost of health care. Because their massive bureaucracy avoids paying bills so effectively, they force hospitals and doctors to hire their own bureaucracy to fight the insurance companies to avoid getting stuck with an unfair share of the bills. The result is that since 1970, the number of physicians has increased by less than 200% while the number of administrators has increased by 3000 percent. It is no wonder that 31 cents of every health care dollar goes to administrative costs, not toward providing care. Even those with insurance are at risk. The single biggest cause of bankruptcies in the U.S. is health insurance policies that do not cover you when you get sick.

But instead of working toward the elimination of for-profit insurance, H.R. 3962 would put the government in the role of accelerating the privatization of health care. In H.R. 3962, the government is requiring at least 21 million Americans to buy private health insurance from the very industry that causes costs to be so high, which will result in at least $70 billion in new annual revenue, much of which is coming from taxpayers. This inevitably will lead to even more costs, more subsidies, and higher profits for insurance companies - a bailout under a blue cross.

By incurring only a new requirement to cover pre-existing conditions, a weakened public option, and a few other important but limited concessions, the health insurance companies are getting quite a deal. The Center for American Progress' blog, Think Progress, states, 'since the President signaled that he is backing away from the public option, health insurance stocks have been on the rise.' Similarly, healthcare stocks rallied when Senator Max Baucus introduced a bill without a public option. Bloomberg reports that Curtis Lane, a prominent health industry investor, predicted a few weeks ago that 'money will start flowing in again' to health insurance stocks after passage of the legislation. Investors.com last month reported that pharmacy benefit managers share prices are hitting all-time highs, with the only industry worry that the Administration would reverse its decision not to negotiate Medicare Part D drug prices, leaving in place a Bush Administration policy.

During the debate, when the interests of insurance companies would have been effectively challenged, that challenge was turned back. The 'robust public option' which would have offered a modicum of competition to a monopolistic industry was whittled down from an initial potential enrollment of 129 million Americans to 6 million. An amendment which would have protected the rights of states to pursue single-payer health care was stripped from the bill at the request of the Administration. Looking ahead, we cringe at the prospect of even greater favors for insurance companies.

Recent rises in unemployment indicate a widening separation between the finance economy and the real economy. The finance economy considers the health of Wall Street, rising corporate profits, and banks' hoarding of cash, much of it from taxpayers, as sign of an economic recovery. However in the real economy - in which most Americans live - the recession is not over. Rising unemployment, business failures, bankruptcies and foreclosures are still hammering Main Street.

This health care bill continues the redistribution of wealth to Wall Street at the expense of America's manufacturing and service economies which suffer from costs other countries do not have to bear, especially the cost of health care. America continues to stand out among all industrialized nations for its privatized health care system. As a result, we are less competitive in steel, automotive, aerospace and shipping while other countries subsidize their exports in these areas through socializing the cost of health care.

Notwithstanding the fate of H.R. 3962, America will someday come to recognize the broad social and economic benefits of a not-for-profit, single-payer health care system, which is good for the American people and good for America's businesses, with of course the notable exceptions being insurance and pharmaceuticals.

6. FROM "SICKO'S" DONNA SMITH: The Bill Does Not Cure What Ails Us

Passing a healthcare reform bill that does not provide me with better access to care or protection from bankruptcy and financial ruin is not what I asked you all to do. Stripping away all reference to a progressively financed, single standard of high quality healthcare for all - also known as single-payer -- is done only to more deeply ensconce the deep pocketed interests in healthcare: the private, for-profit insurance giants, the big pharmaceuticals, the medical equipment companies, the hospital corporations and all the other making huge profits as thousands die needless deaths.

Healthcare is a basic human right. Granting that right is not something to be calculated differently in swing Congressional districts, off-year election strategy or second-Presidential term planning. It is your (members of Congress') duty to me, to my fellow citizens and to your nation.

And (members of Congress) are marching away from reality when you think all the hard-working people who counted on you to make this a better healthcare system will not notice when you deliver insurance purchase mandates and a corporate bail-out that will dwarf the Wall Street trillions you've already justified.

Watch Smith's video: "American Sickos: Will the Current Bills Help? No"

Follow Smith's organizing for real reform at the website of Progressive Democrats of America. She is the national co-chair of PDA's Healthcare NOT Warfare campaign.

John Nichols is Washington correspondent for The Nation and associate editor of The Capital Times in Madison, Wisconsin. A co-founder of the media reform organization Free Press, Nichols is is co-author with Robert W. McChesney of Tragedy & Farce: How the American Media Sell Wars, Spin Elections, and Destroy Democracy - from The New Press. Nichols' latest book is The Genius of Impeachment: The Founders' Cure for Royalism.

Six Smart Progressive Complaints About House Health Bill

Six Smart Progressive Complaints About House Health Bill

by John Nichols

The Affordable Health Care for America Act was approved by the U.S. House Saturday night with overwhelming support from progressive Democrats who serve in the chamber and from a president who was nominated and elected with the enthusiastic support of progressive voters.

But that does not mean that informed and engaged progressives are entirely enthusiastic about the measure.

In fact, some are openly and explicitly opposed to it -- among them former Congressional Progressive Caucus chair Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, and CPC member Eric Massa, D-New York, both of whom broke with the majority of their fellow Democrats to vote "no" when the House approved the measure by a narrow 220-215 vote Saturday.

How can this be?

Isn't this a fight between Democrats and Republicans? Between reforming liberals and tea-party conservatives?

How can there possibly be any subtlety or nuance to this debate?

Well, of course, the debate over this 1,900-page behemoth of a bill is more complicated than the easy spin of political insiders -- and media cheering sections -- would have Americans believe.

Key interest groups, such as the National Organization for Women, and key congressmen who have been long-term supporters of reform, such as single-payer backers Massa and Kucinich, argue that the bill is not the cure for what ails the U.S. health care system.

Indeed, they suggest, the bill as it is currently constructed could make a bad situation worse.

Many sincere progressives in the House, and outside of it, chose to back the bill as the best that could be gotten. Others supported it on the theory that flaws could be fixed in the Senate and in the reconciliation of the House and Senate bills.

But those repairs will only be made if activists are conscious of what ails this bill.

For that reason, even supporters of the House legislation would be wise to consider the criticisms of it by groups that advocate for the rights of women, patient advocates, unions and some of the most progressive members of the House.

Here are six smart progressive complaints about the House bill:

1. FROM CONGRESSMAN ERIC MASSA: "This Bill Will Enshrine in Law the Monopolistic Powers of the Private Health Insurance Industry"

At the highest level, this bill will enshrine in law the monopolistic powers of the private health insurance industry, period. There's really no other way to look at it. I believe the private health insurance industry is part of the problem.

This bill also, I believe, fails to address the fundamental question before the American people, and that is how do we control the costs of health care. It does not address interstate portability, as Medicare does. It does not address real medical malpractice insurance reform. It does not address the incredible waste and fraud that are currently in the system.

2. FROM THE CALIFORNIA NURSES ASSOCIATION: This Bill Fails to Control Costs

While the current bills will provide limited assistance for some, the inconvenient truth is they fall far short in effective controls on skyrocketing insurance, pharmaceutical and hospital costs, do little to stop insurance companies from denying needed medical care recommended by doctors, and provide little relief for Americans with employer-sponsored insurance worried about health security for themselves and their families.

3. FROM THE NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR WOMEN: "This Bill Obliterates Women's Fundamental Right to Choose"

The House of Representatives has dealt the worst blow to women's fundamental right to self-determination in order to buy a few votes for reform of the profit-driven health insurance industry. We must protect the rights we fought for in Roe v. Wade. We cannot and will not support a health care bill that strips millions of women of their existing access to abortion.

Birth control and abortion are integral aspects of women's health care needs. Health care reform should not be a vehicle to obliterate a woman's fundamental right to choose.

The Stupak Amendment (to the House bill, which was approved and attached on Saturday) goes far beyond the abusive Hyde Amendment, which has denied federal funding of abortion since 1976. The Stupak Amendment, if incorporated into the final version of health insurance reform legislation, will:

• Prevent women receiving tax subsidies from using their own money to purchase private insurance that covers abortion;

  • Prevent women participating in the public health insurance exchange, administered by private insurance companies, from using 100 percent of their own money to purchase private insurance that covers abortion;

• Prevent low-income women from accessing abortion entirely, in many cases.

NOW calls on the Senate to pass a health care bill that respects women's constitutionally protected right to abortion and calls on President Obama to refuse to sign any health care bill that restricts women's access to affordable, quality reproductive health care.

4. FROM PLANNED PARENTHOOD'S CECILE RICHARDS: This Bill Embraces Religious-Right Extremes

It is extremely unfortunate that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and anti-choice opponents were able to hijack the health care reform bill in their dedicated attempt to ban all legal abortion In the United States.

Most telling is the fact that the vast majority of members of the House who supported the Stupak/Pitts amendment in today's vote do not support HR 3962, revealing their true motive, which is to kill the health care reform bill.

These single-issue advocates simply used health care reform to advance their extreme, ideological agenda at the expense of tens of millions of women.

5. FROM CONGRESSMAN DENNIS KUCINICH,: This Bill Worries About the Health of Wall Street, Not America

We have been led to believe that we must make our health care choices only within the current structure of a predatory, for-profit insurance system which makes money not providing health care. We cannot fault the insurance companies for being what they are. But we can fault legislation in which the government incentivizes the perpetuation, indeed the strengthening, of the for-profit health insurance industry, the very source of the problem. When health insurance companies deny care or raise premiums, co-pays and deductibles they are simply trying to make a profit. That is our system.

Clearly, the insurance companies are the problem, not the solution. They are driving up the cost of health care. Because their massive bureaucracy avoids paying bills so effectively, they force hospitals and doctors to hire their own bureaucracy to fight the insurance companies to avoid getting stuck with an unfair share of the bills. The result is that since 1970, the number of physicians has increased by less than 200% while the number of administrators has increased by 3000 percent. It is no wonder that 31 cents of every health care dollar goes to administrative costs, not toward providing care. Even those with insurance are at risk. The single biggest cause of bankruptcies in the U.S. is health insurance policies that do not cover you when you get sick.

But instead of working toward the elimination of for-profit insurance, H.R. 3962 would put the government in the role of accelerating the privatization of health care. In H.R. 3962, the government is requiring at least 21 million Americans to buy private health insurance from the very industry that causes costs to be so high, which will result in at least $70 billion in new annual revenue, much of which is coming from taxpayers. This inevitably will lead to even more costs, more subsidies, and higher profits for insurance companies - a bailout under a blue cross.

By incurring only a new requirement to cover pre-existing conditions, a weakened public option, and a few other important but limited concessions, the health insurance companies are getting quite a deal. The Center for American Progress' blog, Think Progress, states, 'since the President signaled that he is backing away from the public option, health insurance stocks have been on the rise.' Similarly, healthcare stocks rallied when Senator Max Baucus introduced a bill without a public option. Bloomberg reports that Curtis Lane, a prominent health industry investor, predicted a few weeks ago that 'money will start flowing in again' to health insurance stocks after passage of the legislation. Investors.com last month reported that pharmacy benefit managers share prices are hitting all-time highs, with the only industry worry that the Administration would reverse its decision not to negotiate Medicare Part D drug prices, leaving in place a Bush Administration policy.

During the debate, when the interests of insurance companies would have been effectively challenged, that challenge was turned back. The 'robust public option' which would have offered a modicum of competition to a monopolistic industry was whittled down from an initial potential enrollment of 129 million Americans to 6 million. An amendment which would have protected the rights of states to pursue single-payer health care was stripped from the bill at the request of the Administration. Looking ahead, we cringe at the prospect of even greater favors for insurance companies.

Recent rises in unemployment indicate a widening separation between the finance economy and the real economy. The finance economy considers the health of Wall Street, rising corporate profits, and banks' hoarding of cash, much of it from taxpayers, as sign of an economic recovery. However in the real economy - in which most Americans live - the recession is not over. Rising unemployment, business failures, bankruptcies and foreclosures are still hammering Main Street.

This health care bill continues the redistribution of wealth to Wall Street at the expense of America's manufacturing and service economies which suffer from costs other countries do not have to bear, especially the cost of health care. America continues to stand out among all industrialized nations for its privatized health care system. As a result, we are less competitive in steel, automotive, aerospace and shipping while other countries subsidize their exports in these areas through socializing the cost of health care.

Notwithstanding the fate of H.R. 3962, America will someday come to recognize the broad social and economic benefits of a not-for-profit, single-payer health care system, which is good for the American people and good for America's businesses, with of course the notable exceptions being insurance and pharmaceuticals.

6. FROM "SICKO'S" DONNA SMITH: The Bill Does Not Cure What Ails Us

Passing a healthcare reform bill that does not provide me with better access to care or protection from bankruptcy and financial ruin is not what I asked you all to do. Stripping away all reference to a progressively financed, single standard of high quality healthcare for all - also known as single-payer -- is done only to more deeply ensconce the deep pocketed interests in healthcare: the private, for-profit insurance giants, the big pharmaceuticals, the medical equipment companies, the hospital corporations and all the other making huge profits as thousands die needless deaths.

Healthcare is a basic human right. Granting that right is not something to be calculated differently in swing Congressional districts, off-year election strategy or second-Presidential term planning. It is your (members of Congress') duty to me, to my fellow citizens and to your nation.

And (members of Congress) are marching away from reality when you think all the hard-working people who counted on you to make this a better healthcare system will not notice when you deliver insurance purchase mandates and a corporate bail-out that will dwarf the Wall Street trillions you've already justified.

Watch Smith's video: "American Sickos: Will the Current Bills Help? No"

Follow Smith's organizing for real reform at the website of Progressive Democrats of America. She is the national co-chair of PDA's Healthcare NOT Warfare campaign.

John Nichols is Washington correspondent for The Nation and associate editor of The Capital Times in Madison, Wisconsin. A co-founder of the media reform organization Free Press, Nichols is is co-author with Robert W. McChesney of Tragedy & Farce: How the American Media Sell Wars, Spin Elections, and Destroy Democracy - from The New Press. Nichols' latest book is The Genius of Impeachment: The Founders' Cure for Royalism.

Six Smart Progressive Complaints About House Health Bill

Six Smart Progressive Complaints About House Health Bill

by John Nichols

The Affordable Health Care for America Act was approved by the U.S. House Saturday night with overwhelming support from progressive Democrats who serve in the chamber and from a president who was nominated and elected with the enthusiastic support of progressive voters.

But that does not mean that informed and engaged progressives are entirely enthusiastic about the measure.

In fact, some are openly and explicitly opposed to it -- among them former Congressional Progressive Caucus chair Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, and CPC member Eric Massa, D-New York, both of whom broke with the majority of their fellow Democrats to vote "no" when the House approved the measure by a narrow 220-215 vote Saturday.

How can this be?

Isn't this a fight between Democrats and Republicans? Between reforming liberals and tea-party conservatives?

How can there possibly be any subtlety or nuance to this debate?

Well, of course, the debate over this 1,900-page behemoth of a bill is more complicated than the easy spin of political insiders -- and media cheering sections -- would have Americans believe.

Key interest groups, such as the National Organization for Women, and key congressmen who have been long-term supporters of reform, such as single-payer backers Massa and Kucinich, argue that the bill is not the cure for what ails the U.S. health care system.

Indeed, they suggest, the bill as it is currently constructed could make a bad situation worse.

Many sincere progressives in the House, and outside of it, chose to back the bill as the best that could be gotten. Others supported it on the theory that flaws could be fixed in the Senate and in the reconciliation of the House and Senate bills.

But those repairs will only be made if activists are conscious of what ails this bill.

For that reason, even supporters of the House legislation would be wise to consider the criticisms of it by groups that advocate for the rights of women, patient advocates, unions and some of the most progressive members of the House.

Here are six smart progressive complaints about the House bill:

1. FROM CONGRESSMAN ERIC MASSA: "This Bill Will Enshrine in Law the Monopolistic Powers of the Private Health Insurance Industry"

At the highest level, this bill will enshrine in law the monopolistic powers of the private health insurance industry, period. There's really no other way to look at it. I believe the private health insurance industry is part of the problem.

This bill also, I believe, fails to address the fundamental question before the American people, and that is how do we control the costs of health care. It does not address interstate portability, as Medicare does. It does not address real medical malpractice insurance reform. It does not address the incredible waste and fraud that are currently in the system.

2. FROM THE CALIFORNIA NURSES ASSOCIATION: This Bill Fails to Control Costs

While the current bills will provide limited assistance for some, the inconvenient truth is they fall far short in effective controls on skyrocketing insurance, pharmaceutical and hospital costs, do little to stop insurance companies from denying needed medical care recommended by doctors, and provide little relief for Americans with employer-sponsored insurance worried about health security for themselves and their families.

3. FROM THE NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR WOMEN: "This Bill Obliterates Women's Fundamental Right to Choose"

The House of Representatives has dealt the worst blow to women's fundamental right to self-determination in order to buy a few votes for reform of the profit-driven health insurance industry. We must protect the rights we fought for in Roe v. Wade. We cannot and will not support a health care bill that strips millions of women of their existing access to abortion.

Birth control and abortion are integral aspects of women's health care needs. Health care reform should not be a vehicle to obliterate a woman's fundamental right to choose.

The Stupak Amendment (to the House bill, which was approved and attached on Saturday) goes far beyond the abusive Hyde Amendment, which has denied federal funding of abortion since 1976. The Stupak Amendment, if incorporated into the final version of health insurance reform legislation, will:

• Prevent women receiving tax subsidies from using their own money to purchase private insurance that covers abortion;

  • Prevent women participating in the public health insurance exchange, administered by private insurance companies, from using 100 percent of their own money to purchase private insurance that covers abortion;

• Prevent low-income women from accessing abortion entirely, in many cases.

NOW calls on the Senate to pass a health care bill that respects women's constitutionally protected right to abortion and calls on President Obama to refuse to sign any health care bill that restricts women's access to affordable, quality reproductive health care.

4. FROM PLANNED PARENTHOOD'S CECILE RICHARDS: This Bill Embraces Religious-Right Extremes

It is extremely unfortunate that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and anti-choice opponents were able to hijack the health care reform bill in their dedicated attempt to ban all legal abortion In the United States.

Most telling is the fact that the vast majority of members of the House who supported the Stupak/Pitts amendment in today's vote do not support HR 3962, revealing their true motive, which is to kill the health care reform bill.

These single-issue advocates simply used health care reform to advance their extreme, ideological agenda at the expense of tens of millions of women.

5. FROM CONGRESSMAN DENNIS KUCINICH,: This Bill Worries About the Health of Wall Street, Not America

We have been led to believe that we must make our health care choices only within the current structure of a predatory, for-profit insurance system which makes money not providing health care. We cannot fault the insurance companies for being what they are. But we can fault legislation in which the government incentivizes the perpetuation, indeed the strengthening, of the for-profit health insurance industry, the very source of the problem. When health insurance companies deny care or raise premiums, co-pays and deductibles they are simply trying to make a profit. That is our system.

Clearly, the insurance companies are the problem, not the solution. They are driving up the cost of health care. Because their massive bureaucracy avoids paying bills so effectively, they force hospitals and doctors to hire their own bureaucracy to fight the insurance companies to avoid getting stuck with an unfair share of the bills. The result is that since 1970, the number of physicians has increased by less than 200% while the number of administrators has increased by 3000 percent. It is no wonder that 31 cents of every health care dollar goes to administrative costs, not toward providing care. Even those with insurance are at risk. The single biggest cause of bankruptcies in the U.S. is health insurance policies that do not cover you when you get sick.

But instead of working toward the elimination of for-profit insurance, H.R. 3962 would put the government in the role of accelerating the privatization of health care. In H.R. 3962, the government is requiring at least 21 million Americans to buy private health insurance from the very industry that causes costs to be so high, which will result in at least $70 billion in new annual revenue, much of which is coming from taxpayers. This inevitably will lead to even more costs, more subsidies, and higher profits for insurance companies - a bailout under a blue cross.

By incurring only a new requirement to cover pre-existing conditions, a weakened public option, and a few other important but limited concessions, the health insurance companies are getting quite a deal. The Center for American Progress' blog, Think Progress, states, 'since the President signaled that he is backing away from the public option, health insurance stocks have been on the rise.' Similarly, healthcare stocks rallied when Senator Max Baucus introduced a bill without a public option. Bloomberg reports that Curtis Lane, a prominent health industry investor, predicted a few weeks ago that 'money will start flowing in again' to health insurance stocks after passage of the legislation. Investors.com last month reported that pharmacy benefit managers share prices are hitting all-time highs, with the only industry worry that the Administration would reverse its decision not to negotiate Medicare Part D drug prices, leaving in place a Bush Administration policy.

During the debate, when the interests of insurance companies would have been effectively challenged, that challenge was turned back. The 'robust public option' which would have offered a modicum of competition to a monopolistic industry was whittled down from an initial potential enrollment of 129 million Americans to 6 million. An amendment which would have protected the rights of states to pursue single-payer health care was stripped from the bill at the request of the Administration. Looking ahead, we cringe at the prospect of even greater favors for insurance companies.

Recent rises in unemployment indicate a widening separation between the finance economy and the real economy. The finance economy considers the health of Wall Street, rising corporate profits, and banks' hoarding of cash, much of it from taxpayers, as sign of an economic recovery. However in the real economy - in which most Americans live - the recession is not over. Rising unemployment, business failures, bankruptcies and foreclosures are still hammering Main Street.

This health care bill continues the redistribution of wealth to Wall Street at the expense of America's manufacturing and service economies which suffer from costs other countries do not have to bear, especially the cost of health care. America continues to stand out among all industrialized nations for its privatized health care system. As a result, we are less competitive in steel, automotive, aerospace and shipping while other countries subsidize their exports in these areas through socializing the cost of health care.

Notwithstanding the fate of H.R. 3962, America will someday come to recognize the broad social and economic benefits of a not-for-profit, single-payer health care system, which is good for the American people and good for America's businesses, with of course the notable exceptions being insurance and pharmaceuticals.

6. FROM "SICKO'S" DONNA SMITH: The Bill Does Not Cure What Ails Us

Passing a healthcare reform bill that does not provide me with better access to care or protection from bankruptcy and financial ruin is not what I asked you all to do. Stripping away all reference to a progressively financed, single standard of high quality healthcare for all - also known as single-payer -- is done only to more deeply ensconce the deep pocketed interests in healthcare: the private, for-profit insurance giants, the big pharmaceuticals, the medical equipment companies, the hospital corporations and all the other making huge profits as thousands die needless deaths.

Healthcare is a basic human right. Granting that right is not something to be calculated differently in swing Congressional districts, off-year election strategy or second-Presidential term planning. It is your (members of Congress') duty to me, to my fellow citizens and to your nation.

And (members of Congress) are marching away from reality when you think all the hard-working people who counted on you to make this a better healthcare system will not notice when you deliver insurance purchase mandates and a corporate bail-out that will dwarf the Wall Street trillions you've already justified.

Watch Smith's video: "American Sickos: Will the Current Bills Help? No"

Follow Smith's organizing for real reform at the website of Progressive Democrats of America. She is the national co-chair of PDA's Healthcare NOT Warfare campaign.

John Nichols is Washington correspondent for The Nation and associate editor of The Capital Times in Madison, Wisconsin. A co-founder of the media reform organization Free Press, Nichols is is co-author with Robert W. McChesney of Tragedy & Farce: How the American Media Sell Wars, Spin Elections, and Destroy Democracy - from The New Press. Nichols' latest book is The Genius of Impeachment: The Founders' Cure for Royalism.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Thom Hartmann's November Review of R. Crumb Illustration of the Book of Genesis

Fight Ignorance: Read BuzzFlash.com

BuzzFlash Reviews
BuzzFlash.com

Reviewed by Thom Hartmann, Illustrated by R. Crumb

BUZZFLASH REVIEWS

THOM HARTMANN'S INDEPENDENT THINKER REVIEW OF THE MONTH FOR BUZZFLASH:
November, 2009

Each month or so, BuzzFlash is privileged to have nationally syndicated progressive talk show host Thom Hartmann review a progressive book or DVD exclusively for BuzzFlash. See other progressive premiums at The BuzzFlash Progressive Marketplace.

Thom Hartmann's Review -- Exclusively for BuzzFlash -- for November, 2009:

"The Book of Genesis"
Illustrated by R. Crumb

Reviewed by Thom Hartmann

The Book of Genesis is arguably the most important of our cultural foundations today. And R. Crumb’s illustration of it – and his postscripted commentary – is astonishing. Jewish and Christian “believers” as well as anthropologists and atheists will find a gold-mine in the stories which most inform our modern culture’s interpretation of who we are as humans relative to the world, its other life forms, and the “god” of the Bible.

In the Introduction, he says, “I, R. Crumb, the illustrator of this book, have, to the best of my ability, faithfully reproduced every work of the original text…” It’s true. For the first time, even the boring or confusing parts of Genesis are readable. Crumb took five painstaking years to produce this masterpiece, and it truly deserves that word when being described.

But it’s in the commentary at the end of the work that R. Crumb reveals a thoughtful brilliance that almost transcends the artistic brilliance he brought to the text. Simple, straightforward, and almost buried with absolutely no fanfare whatsoever at the end of the book, Crumb lays out an understanding and vision of the early Hebrew tribes that is startling, revolutionary, and ultimately totally credible.
According to one of the two different creation stories in Genesis, Adam and Eve gave birth to Cain and Abel, but after Cain killed Abel, he went to a nearby city and found a wife. Another city? Apparently Jehovah didn’t create all human beings; he only created the Hebrew tribe. (Virtually every aboriginal tribe in the world, in fact, has its own creation story which is unique to its own people and doesn’t include or often even explain other tribes.)

Crumb explains this in his commentary on Chapter Six of Genesis:
“The divine beings”: In the ancient world everyone, including the Hebrews, believed in the existence of multiple gods and demigods. Nowhere in Genesis does it say that the god of the chosen people is the only god. He is their god. In the Hebrew his is called “Yhwh” (Jehovah) by one of the original writers, and “Elohim” by another. Other times he is called “El-Shaddai,” which may mean “god-of-the-mountain.” In Chapter 14, Abraham swears an oath to “El Elyon,” the “god most high” of the Canaanites. Every tribe, every city-state, had its “god most high” in its pantheon of gods, demigods, demons and spirits.

Referencing Savina Teubal’s 1984 book “Sarah the Priestess,” Crumb begins in Chapter 12 with the stories of Abraham and Sarah, to lay out his vision of how most of the Book of Genesis is actually the story of a matriarchal, matrilineal, often goddess-worshipping tribe that, as it moved from hunting/gathering to pastoralism to urban living was eventually overtaken by a military-industrial complex of sorts that empowered the men to take over.

He notes how “the historical record shows that in the earlier millennia of this development in Mesopotamia and Egypt, there existed a powerful matriarchal order alongside the patriarchy. They coexisted in relative harmony until the size and power of these organized city-states became so great, probably due in part to this male-female balance, that the military elites finally became supreme. The matriarchy was then gradually suppressed, armies of slaves were brought in, kings were declared divine, and property became more important than people.… But back in the days of Abraham, around 2000 B.C.E., matriarchy was just in the beginning stages of being suppressed, and the struggles and assertions of the female characters [in Genesis] are all about this, as Savina Teubal so clearly explains.”

He goes on to suggest that Sarah was actually a High Priestess, and this explains all the bizarre stories of Abraham getting various kings to sleep with her. It wasn’t Abraham’s choice, Crumb asserts, and really was a way of solidifying political relationships with neighboring tribes. Crumb describes the hieros gamos or “’sacred marriage’ in which any powerful man who wanted to be given a position of leadership had to be ‘invited’ into the bedchamber of the high priestess, ‘guardian of the grains stores,’ and he had to meet with her approval. If somehow he failed the text, it went bad for him. The high priestess ‘chose’ him. In this ritual, she represented the ‘most high’ goddess.”

And, as Genesis 12 tells, “…the ‘sacred marriage did not go well for the Pharaoh. ... He must make peace with this powerful woman and her husband. They receive valuable animals and human slaves in compensation for his embarrassment.”

And that’s just the beginning: Genesis has 50 chapters.

If you want to understand the founding pillar of the world’s three most powerful religions, read Genesis illustrated by R. Crumb. But first, flip to the back and read his “Commentary.” It’s worth the price of the book, and makes the illustrated text not only illuminated but illuminating.

Thom Hartmann is a New York Times bestselling Project Censored Award winning author and host of a nationally syndicated progressive radio talk show. You can learn more about Thom Hartmann at his website and find out what stations broadcast his program. You can also listen to Thom over the Internet.

THOM HARTMANN'S INDEPENDENT THINKER REVIEW OF THE MONTH FOR BUZZFLASH

Fight Ignorance: Read BuzzFlash.com

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Weiner: Giving Up Single-Payer Was 'Real Politics'

Progressive Democrats of America - Mobilizing the Progressive Vote

Weiner: Giving Up Single-Payer Was 'Real Politics'

By Michael McAuliff
November 7, 2009, New York, NY

Published by New York Daily News.

Read Weiner's statement, Waxman's statement, Pelosi's statement and Conyers statement.

Rep. Anthony Weiner says he’s not giving up on a single-payer health care system forever, but stopping the push for it now was the only pragmatic choice.

“I’m disappointed, but this is real politics,” he said, explaining that the vote he was promised on a single-payer system was causing “turbulence” and endangering the reform package.

By turbulence, he meant, among other things, certain Democrats in conservative districts felt they would have to vote for single-payer to keep peace with progressives who put them in office, even though the measure would not pass, then they would have to vote against the reform bill to appease the rest of their constituents.

But Weiner still sees many silver linings in having resurrected the single-payer debate, especially in making it clear that the public option is a compromise for liberals, not the favored option.

“We’ve won a partial victory in that the debates on the the public option have been kind of a weird surrogate debate about single-payer,” he said.

And, in an argument that GOP opponents of single-payer will surely point to, Weiner thinks the public option could be the first step.

“If the public option is a success and it succeeds in reducing costs… it may argue for doing different types of public options in the future,” he said. “This is a laboratory for a goverrment plan, albeit a small one. I think it does help us.”

And he notes that Speaker Nancy Pelosi has not withdrawn the promise she made to let him have some sort of vote on single-payer.

“The commitment the Speaker made is still there for me; she still said we’d have this vote and she’s still committed to it,” he said. “This is hopefully just a delay in the stream.”

But the bottom line now is politics. “We did not want to let the perfection of the single-payer be the enemy of the good,” Weiner said.

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Friday, November 6, 2009

Co-Authors Question Stand Alone Vote on National Single Payer

Co-Authors Question Stand Alone Vote on National Single Payer

by Dennis Kucinich & John Conyers

Dear Friends,

We thank you for your continued devotion to the cause of health care for All Americans. We have worked together for many years to write, promote and campaign for HR676, a single payer, not for profit health care system. Your work, in communities across America, has been instrumental in helping at least ten states create single payer movements, with many more states to come.

Tomorrow, the House of Representatives is scheduled to consider a single payer bill. As the two principal co-authors of the Conyers single payer bill, we want to offer a strong note of caution about tomorrow's vote.

The bill presented tomorrow will not be HR676. While we are happy to relinquish authorship of a single payer bill to any member who can do better, we do not want a weak bill brought forward in a hostile climate to unwittingly accomplish what would be interpreted as a defeat for single payer.

Here are the facts: There has been no debate in Congress over HR676. There has not been a single mark-up of the bill. Single payer was "taken off the table" for the entire year by the White House and by congressional leaders. There has been no reasonable period of time to gather support in the Congress for single payer. Many members accepted a "robust public option" as the alternative to single payer and now that has disappeared. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has scored the bill scheduled for a vote tomorrow in a manner which is at odds with many credible assumptions, meaning that it will appear to cost way too much even though we know that true single payer saves money since one of every three dollars in the health care system goes to administrative costs caused by the insurance companies. Is this really the climate in which we want a test vote?

While state single payer movements are already strong, the national single payer movement is still growing. Many progressives in Congress, ourselves included, feel that calling for a vote tomorrow for single payer would be tantamount to driving the movement over a cliff. The thrill of the vote would disappear quickly when the result would be characterized not as a new beginning for single payer but as an end. Such a result would be seen as proof that Congress need not pay attention to efforts to restore in Conference Committee the right of states to pursue single payer without fear of legal attacks by insurance companies.

We are always grateful for your support. We are now asking you to join us in suggesting to congressional leaders that this is not the right time to call the roll on a stand-alone single payer bill. That time will come. And when it does there will not be any doubt of the outcome. This system of health care injustice will not be able to endure forever. We are pledged to make sure of that.

Sincerely,
Congressmen John Conyers and Dennis Kucinich

Dennis Kucinich is a Congressman (D) from Ohio. John Conyers is a Congressman (D) from Michigan.