the REAL story

stray sent this article link to me.

this is not shocking (well not shocking in that it shouldn't be a SURPRISE to us. it still is shocking that we allow this to happen. we allow big bid-nez to ply our politicians with goddess only knows what, so they'll vote in their favor. it's GOT to stop. lobbying all together).

our health care system MUST be changed and it MUST be changed now. there is no reason for it NOT to change EXCEPT a few good ol' whiteboyz will have less gold in their purses.

why do a great many americans except the lies that are out there now?

it's time for not only the democrats but barack obama to grow some stones.

Revealed: millions spent by lobby firms fighting Obama health reforms
Six lobbyists for every member of Congress as healthcare industry heaps cash on politicians to water down legislation
Chris McGreal

America's healthcare industry has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to block the introduction of public medical insurance and stall other reforms promised by Barack Obama. The campaign against the president has been waged in part through substantial donations to key politicians.

Supporters of radical reform of healthcare say legislation emerging from the US Senate reflects the financial power of vested interests ‑ principally insurance companies, pharmaceutical firms and hospitals ‑ that have worked to stop far-reaching changes threatening their profits.

The industry and interest groups have spent $380m (£238m) in recent months influencing healthcare legislation through lobbying, advertising and in direct political contributions to members of Congress. The largest contribution, totalling close to $1.5m, has gone to the chairman of the senate committee drafting the new law........

I SAY ENOUGH!!!!

Watchdogs: Health industry giving more to Congress than thought
By Daniel Tencer

A joint study by two political watchdog groups has found that Sen. Max Baucus -- the Montana Democrat who authored the principal health care reform bill being debated in the Senate -- was a major recipient of "contribution clusters" from lobbyists linked to health care groups.

The study, from the Center for Responsive Politics and the Sunlight Foundation, says members of Congress working on health care reform are receiving more money from the health industry than people realize.......

yet another person behind the shite-attacks

not that it matters if rick scott discriminated or not. the people he's preaching to ARE in fact (mostly) racists and/or id-jits any damn way

make NO mistakes. the good ol' boyz backing this shite are ONLY in it for one thing. that one thing is not to protect or help out the american public by a long shot. they're in it to line their pockets babies. that's it


A healthcare reform foe's alleged history of discrimination

Plaintiffs claim conservative activist Rick Scott had strange criteria about who could work in his clinics

Editor's note: Research support was provided by the Investigative Fund at the Nation Institute. This is Part 2 of a two-part series. Read Part 1 here.

By Tristram Korten

Oct. 1, 2009 | This summer, St. Petersburg, Fla., neurosurgeon David McKalip caught heat for sending an e-mail depicting President Obama as a witch doctor with a bone through his nose. McKalip, a neurosurgeon and founder of the anti-healthcare reform group Doctors for Patient Freedom, sent the photo to a conservative listserv with a note saying "Funny stuff" and the caption "Obamacare – Coming soon to a clinic near you." The C in Obamacare was a hammer and sickle.

Given that racial unease has bubbled under much of the right-wing opposition to Obama's political agenda, it's not surprising that it should surface in the online joshings of a healthcare reform foe, even one as respectable as Dr. McKalip, a member of the American Medical Association's House of Delegates and president of the Pinellas County Medical Association. (McKalip resigned from the local post, took a leave of absence from his AMA position in the wake of the e-mail, apologized profusely and withdrew from a public role in the anti-reform movement.) But a Salon investigation of a far more prominent healthcare foe has found allegations of discrimination that go beyond a tasteless e-mail. Plaintiffs have charged that the healthcare company owned by Rick Scott, who continues his multimillion-dollar, self-funded campaign against reform, practiced hiring discrimination based on ethnicity and appearance.

After six months and lots of money, Scott, founder of Conservatives for Patients' Rights (and an ally of McKalip), has finally seen the fruits of his multimillion-dollar campaign against reform. Scott, a millionaire healthcare entrepreneur, predicted that when Congress reconvened this September the public option would be dead. "While Victory is near, we must not rest," Scott crowed on CPR's Web site. Scott himself never rested. He met with lawmakers, coordinated conference calls with conservative activists, wrote opinion pieces and spoke to the faithful about the evils of socialized medicine. Conservatives for Patients' Rights targeted elected officials in 11 states with TV ads hoping constituents would pressure the lawmakers to oppose proposed changes. Sure enough, when the public option failed in the Senate Finance Committee Tuesday, Scott took credit in this video..........

pic:

Salon composite/YouTube screenshot

Rick Scott (left) talks about Solantic to Texas Rep. Michael Burgess, chairman of the Congressional Health Care Caucus.

hey rep grayson, i don't know anything about you

but if you're ever in my hood, i'd love to buy you a coffee (or a beverage of your choice). dang i like the cut of your jib

perhaps we can open our wallets and show this man we like his 'apology' (and his brass ones as well)




Grayson on 'die quickly' quip: 'I apologize to the dead'
By Daniel Tencer

US House Rep. Tom Price, the Georgia Republican who introduced a motion to condemn Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson for saying that the Republican health care plan amounts to hoping that the sick "die quickly," said he would withdraw the motion to give Rep. Grayson (D-FL) a chance to apologize.

Well, Grayson has apologized -- just not to the Republicans he offended.

"I apologize to the dead and their families that we haven't voted sooner to end this holocaust in America," a defiant Grayson said on the House floor Wednesday.

The "holocaust" Grayson was referring to was the 44,000 Americans that a recent study says die each year because of inadequate access to health care. The representative cited the Harvard study (PDF) in what appeared at first to be an apology, but quickly turned into a retort.

The number of dead "is 10 times more than the number of Americans who have died in Iraq and who died in 9/11," Grayson said. "But that was just once. This is every single year. That's right. Every single year.".............

sen pat roberts tells you EXACTLY whose bitch he is

your mama

did!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i personally wouldn't have given an inch

to the close-minded wind-bagged fool hearted two faced giant dip shites. it's ok for their government to be ALL the fuck over illegal wiretapping of it's own citizens and WORSE but it's NOT ok for their own government to REALLY take care of it's own people? what the fuck??????????? when will those teabaggedy brainless americans wake up and see most of those stalling about health care reform ONLY CARE ABOUT THEMSELVES AND WHAT GOES IN THEIR OWN POCKETS? when will those teabaggedy brainless americans wake up and see if their kid gets some kind of horrible illness (or their parent or their spouse) and needs long term medical care, it will WIPE THEM THE FUCK OUT? (and no i am in no way shape or form wishing ill will to them or their families, i'm making a point)

they're lemmings. stupid ones at that


The Republicans' Deaf Ear Is a Preexisting Condition

By Dana Milbank

The Senate Finance Committee was barely an hour into its consideration of health-care reform on Tuesday morning, but Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) already knew where he stood.

"I do not support a government takeover of the health-care system," he railed. The proposal "confiscates more money from the taxpayers," he went on. "It tramples on American freedom and liberties."

After this vigorous display of open-mindedness, Bunning was spent. About an hour later, spectators noticed that the senator, who had been resting his chin in his hand, had fallen fast asleep. As giggles rippled through the chamber, an aide shook Bunning, who woke with a start.

Bunning's nap was a fitting comment on how he and his Republican colleagues had received the efforts of the committee's chairman, Max Baucus (D-Mont.), to craft a bipartisan compromise on the mammoth legislation. Baucus made major concessions to Republicans: He dropped the "public option" for a government-run health plan; he tossed aside the mandate that employers provide health coverage; he cut the bill's cost and made sure it was all funded by revenue from within the health-care system; he stipulated that government funds would not go for abortion or to illegal immigrants; and he included efforts to curtail medical malpractice awards...........

be sure to look for the article when it comes online

it isn't there yet. i checked as well (in rolling stone that is). no one in their right minds should be the least bit surprised
1) all the shite about death panels is drek
2) one can't be a witch doctor, communist, nazi, socialist, dictator, muslim, hippie ALL AT ONCE
3) people are afraid of a black president (some not all)
4) big bid-nez (health care) is behind all this shite (regarding health care reform that is. other big bid-nez is behind other lies regarding this administration)
5) obama and his administration are NOT perfect by any means but they're NOT the anti-christs
6) a lot of people on the right lie (not all of 'em)
7) faux news is NOT fair and it's NOT balanced

Report: ‘Death panels’ author worked with big tobacco to scuttle health reform

By Daniel Tencer

The person credited with inventing the “death panels” claim about health care reform worked with tobacco giant Phillip Morris to railroad health care reform in the Clinton administration, Rolling Stone magazine reports.

In an article in the magazine’s October 1 issue, not yet available online, writer Tim Dickinson reveals that Phillip Morris “worked off-the-record with … writer Betsy McCaughey as part of the input to the three-part expose in The New Republic on what the Clinton plan means,” Rolling Stone reports.

McCaughey, a conservative columnist and former deputy governor of New York, penned a 1994 article in The New Republic that was credited with helping to kill the Clinton-era health reforms. As RS noted, the magazine later retracted the story. And The Atlantic magazine ran a story in 1995, entitled “A Triumph of Misinformation,” debunking McCaughey’s arguments at TNR............

however here IS an article from this month's issue by the most wonderful matt taibbi
Sick and Wrong
MATT TAIBBI

Watch Matt Taibbi break down his report on the sad state of health care reform in his blog, Taibblog.

Let's start with the obvious: America has not only the worst but the dumbest health care system in the developed world. It's become a black leprosy eating away at the American experiment — a bureaucracy so insipid and mean and illogical that even our darkest criminal minds wouldn't be equal to dreaming it up on purpose.

The system doesn't work for anyone. It cheats patients and leaves them to die, denies insurance to 47 million Americans, forces hospitals to spend billions haggling over claims, and systematically bleeds and harasses doctors with the specter of catastrophic litigation. Even as a mechanism for delivering bonuses to insurance-company fat cats, it's a miserable failure: Greedy insurance bosses who spent a generation denying preventive care to patients now see their profits sapped by millions of customers who enter the system only when they're sick with incurably expensive illnesses.

The cost of all of this to society, in illness and death and lost productivity and a soaring federal deficit and plain old anxiety and anger, is incalculable — and that's the good news. The bad news is our failed health care system won't get fixed, because it exists entirely within the confines of yet another failed system: the political entity known as the United States of America................

i have a question for rep joe wilson

did you ever yell "YOU LIE" at king george or the big dick? i'm just curious here. that's all. just asking. it was a question.


un EFFING believable

The Republican Response, Arriving a Little Early
By Dana Milbank
As President Obama addressed a joint session of Congress on Wednesday night, the nation's rapidly deteriorating discourse hit yet another low.

It happened at 8:40 pm, just after the president vowed to lawmakers that his health-care reform proposals would not provide benefits to illegal immigrants. As millions of Americans watched from home, Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) shouted at the president from his fifth-row seat: "You lie!"

Murmurs of "ooh" filled the stunned chamber. Nancy Pelosi's chin dropped. Obama moved on to the next sentence in his speech, about how no federal money would be used to fund abortion. "Not true!" came another shout..............

............

Above all, though, was Wilson's effrontery. From the reaction in the chamber -- one Democrat could be heard calling for him to be thrown out -- Wilson knew he had stepped in it. He shrugged, then consulted his BlackBerry. He puffed out his cheeks to exhale and licked his lips.

Toward the end of Obama's speech, the text of which was handed out before the congressman's outburst, was a fitting rebuke of the sort of behavior Wilson had just exhibited. When "we can no longer even engage in a civil conversation with each other over the things that truly matter," Obama said, "we don't merely lose our capacity to solve big challenges. We lose something essential about ourselves."........

this isn't a high school student government here. this isn't russia back in the 'shoe' days, this isn't one of those lands where our highly elected officials in dc get into fist fights and shouting matches. we have a lawfully elected president. he should be MUST be allowed the dignity to speak without interruption or heckling. disagree all you want AFTER he is finished. if i was on the floor when king george was speaking, NO MATTER HOW MANY LIES came out of that mouth, i'd not heckle him (and i don't believe obama lied by the way. i DO believe king george lied). what the fuck is WRONG with these people (by these people i mean the republicans)? are they SO fucking afraid of brown skin they'll sabotage everything that's going on in this country? really.

In Lawmaker’s Outburst, a Rare Breach of Protocol

By CARL HULSE
WASHINGTON — It was a rare breach of the protocol that governs ritualistic events in the Capitol.

In an angry and very audible outburst, Representative Joe Wilson, Republican of South Carolina, interrupted President Obama’s speech Wednesday night with a shout of “You lie!”

His eruption — in response to Mr. Obama’s statement that Democratic health proposals would not cover illegal immigrants — stunned members of both parties in the House chamber.

Democrats said it showed lack of respect for the office of the presidency and was reminiscent of Republican disruptions at recent public forums on health care.

“It is outrageous,” said Representative Joseph Crowley, Democrat of New York, who said it reminded him of the “antics that are being used to disrupt and fog what is going on.”.........

pic:

Doug Mills/The New York Times

Rep. Joe Wilson, pictured here pointing at other Republican members of Congress, received criticism for shouting out that the president lied during the speech.

i don't think this could be MORE on the mark

it says it all and it says it in under a minute. PLEASE WATCH THIS



via

if you could all watch this

and by 'all' i mean the town hall foamers at the mouth. i don't want to get too political here. someone, a hero who volunteered to defend his country, has died. to the friends and family of army spc greg missman, my thoughts and prayers are with you.





Soldier killed in Afghanistan re-enlisted to get health care coverage for family
--Diane Sweet

these are the americans we WANT to be?

the ones who think it's ok to call themselves a TERRORIST but eject someone else for using the word FUCK?

when did we change and not only start TURNING INTO TERRORISTS but THINKING IT'S OK TO BE A TERRORIST*???

GOP congressman supports ‘proud right-wing terrorist’

By Daniel Tencer
House Rep from northern California says public health option a ‘threat to democracy’

US House Representative Wally Herger, of California’s 2nd congressional district, expressed “enthusiastic approval” of a town-hall attendee who described himself as a “proud right-wing terrorist,” newspapers in northern California report.

According to the Redding Record Searchlight, an incident broke out at a town hall at Simpson University in Redding on Tuesday when Herger signaled encouragement to a 67-year-old town hall attendee, Bert Stead, who called himself a “proud right-wing terrorist.”

“Amen, God bless you,” Herger reportedly replied to the comment. “There is a great American.”

That was enough for 50-year-old Marisa Hewitt, who called the largely anti-health reform crowd “a bunch of racist haters” and started “using the f-bomb” after the controversial comments.

That did not sit well with crowd. One individual grabbed Hewitt by the arm and ejected her from the hall with the words “you’re outta here.”.............

*in all fairness, sometimes i refer to myself as an AESTHETIC terrorist. then again, i use the f word like it's going out of style