Portrait of a Scoundrel

Here's a video clip of Joe Lieberman advocating--just three months ago!!!--for the same Medicare buy-in plan he's now threatening to filibuster.

There's no excuse for anyone to pretend any longer that Lieberman's behavior can be explained in terms of logic, evidence or principle. Ezra Klein's comments on this are particularly apt.

UNITY WALK AND RALLY FOR HEALTH CARE

August 29, 2009

UNITED, WE WALK FOR REFORM

2 PM Rally at Times Square, 42nd St. and 7th Avenue

Health reform is finally within grasp. Opponents are spending millions every day to destroy it. We cannot let this happen. We voted for change in '08 and we must see it through.

On Saturday, August 29, 2009, New Yorkers will walk from all parts of the city for the first ever United We Walk for Reform Rally in support of the historic health reform legislation before Congress.

It's our health care. It's our time. Save the date to make your voice heard.

MID-MORNING, ACROSS THE CITY: Grassroots groups will meet in front of hospitals and health clinics across the city to walk to rally at Times Square. Check out mybarackobama.com for meeting locations in the next week (or set up one of your own).
2 - 3:30 PM - UNITY RALLY: Rally for health care at Times Square, 42nd St. and 7th Avenue


Want to organize your own walk to the rally? It's easy:

1) List your "United, We Walk for Health Care Reform" event on mybarackobama.com and spread the word to your friends.
2) To calculate the time you'll need to get to Times Square, we recommend hopstop.com.
3) Have fun and bring banners, wear t-shirts and buttons. Be creative!
4) Remind people to use sidewalks and bring posterboard signs (nothing on sticks).

Thank you for being a leader for health care reform. This can't happen without you!

Demystifying the Health Care Debate

We break down what’s going on with Health Care Reform

Saturday, August 15 at 3pm

Harlem4
2479 Frederick Douglass Blvd just below 133rd St.

Featuring Harlem4 members:

Dr. Janet Taylor (Today Show, Star Jones Live)
Steve Leser (Editor, OpEd News)

Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane." -Martin Luther King, Jr.

In November-and against all odds, we took the driver's seat. We cannot become guilty of falling asleep at the wheel.

The availability, the expense and the inadequacies of health care in America are a national disgrace. We worked hard to elect an Administration that is responsive to the needs of everyday Americans. The next stage requires that we continue our call that health care in America is regarded as a human right. We are making the statement that national health care is a national imperative and we feel that there is no more appropriate place to make our stand than in Harlem.

Join us. Bring your family. Bring your friends, neighbors and coworkers. Please forward and distribute the flier below. To make change, we must make our stand.

As Barack Obama said himself, change in health care "requires a mobilization of energy of the American people to insist on a Congress and a White House that are actually going to deliver this time."

Chet Whye


On Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=113090443562&__a=1
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=113090443562&__a=1#/group.php?gid=103281453579

On mybarackobama.com:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/gpfcl3

Resources for Health Care Phone Banking

If you're phone banking or canvassing, here are some excellent sources you can use if you're faced with questions about the current health care system (if that's the word for it) and the proposed alternatives:

Health Care Reform Myths

Health Care--An International Comparison (great tool!)

National Coalition on Health Care--Facts on Health Insurance

Mythbusting Canadian Health Care, Part 1

Mythbusting Canadian Health Care, Part 2

CBO Gives the Public Option the OK

Paul Krugman--Why Markets Can't Cure Health Care

Links

Here are links to various news stories from the past week:

Bill Moyers' interview with former insurance company executive Wendell Potter (a real eye-opener).

Here's a conundrum from the inspector general's report on Bush/Cheney era spying programs--Did the threat assessments drive the surveillance program, or, Alice-in-Wonderland like, was it the other way around?

Here's a review of Andrew Bacevich's latest book, The Limits of American Empire.

Obama increases pressure on Congress re health care legislation.

Keynes and the Efficient Markets Hypothesis.

The Daily Show on Palin resignation (I hadn't seen this before--it's hilarious).

Not wanting to be left out of the meltdown on the right, wingnut bloggers --never mind; see for yourself.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.) catches hoof-and-mouth disease at the Sotomayor hearings.

The House of Representatives release of its version of the health care reform bill.

Here's a chart showing an international comparison of unemployment benefits.

Eric Martin on Obama's Afghanistan conundrum.

Eric Martin, contra Peter Bergen, agrees that historical analogies shed little light on the situation in Afghanistan.

Ben Stein seems to have problems with ethics.

The GOP presented a confusing chart on the floor of Congress Friday, supposedly illustrating that the Obama health care plan is complicated. No fooling... Here I thought a bill reforming interactions between doctors, hospitals, insurance companies, patients, labs, etc., making up a significant portion of the economy was going to fit on the back of a bubble gum wrapper. In response, The New Republic's Jonathan Cohn offers his own chart--of the system we have now.

Ezra Klein interviews conservative economist Bruce Bartlett on taxes and health care reform.

Conservatives, says Kevin Drum, are trapped by their own ideology on health care.

An article in Parameters, the U.S. Army War College Quarterly, argues that tying defense spending to GDP is a bad idea.

Wingnut blogger predictions about Iraq in 2003 didn't turn out very well.

The myth of conservative judicial restraint.

Matthew Yglesias on economic recovery based on recapitalization via profits.

He illustrates with a chart showing the percentage of total income earned by the top 1% of the population, 1913-2008.

The mechanism proposed to keep costs down in the health care reform bill.

Intellectual irresponsibility test (wingnut bloggers jump off cliff, chapter ???).

Fasten your seatbelts for a jobless recovery.

Yoo on Yoo.

Help for one time homeowners.

Buchanan being Buchanan.

Jon Stewart on Goldman.

More Health Care Reform Events--Brooklyn

As you likely know, the next three weeks or so are a crucial time for health care reform. President Obama has made it clear that he would like to see a final bill brought to a vote before the August recess. This week, the House of Representatives and the Senate HELP committee put forward health care legislation, and the Senate Finance Committee is expected to produce a bill in the coming days. Therefore, it is critical that we, and Democrats in other states, reach out to our legislators and urge them to move forward with health care reform.

To that end, grassroots organizers in Brooklyn have organized a number of local canvasses and phone banks this weekend in support of health care reform. Below are some times and locations for events, or, as always, feel free to organize one of your own.

Like during the election, you also have the option to phone bank from home using barackobama.com .

We hope to see you out at a canvass or phone bank this weekend!


Saturday, July 18th

Fort Greene
Canvass at the Brooklyn Flea
12 to 3
176 Lafayette (b/w Clermont & Vanderbilt)
RSVP here: http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/gpctl4

Park Slope
Canvass at the Grand Army Plaza Farmer's Market
10:30 to 12:30
Grand Army Plaza
RSVP here: http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/healthcarecanvass/gpfx2t

Carroll Gardens
Canvass at Carroll Park
1:30 to 3:30
Carroll Park
RSVP here: http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/healthcarecanvass/gpctgh

Carroll Gardens
Phone Bank
11 to 1
Contact organizer for details
RSVP here: http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/healthcarephonebank/gpcrpq

Bed-Stuy
Phone Bank
12 to 1
Contact organizer for details
RSVP here: http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/healthcarephonebank/gpct2w

Sunday, July 19th

Flatbush
Phone bank
12 to
Help Community Learning Center
1821 Nostrand Ave
RSVP here: http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/healthcarephonebank/gpctyr

Harlem Health Care Reform Canvassing Event

In recognition of NATIONAL HIV TESTING DAY, we are hosting a FREE health clinic that will include HIV, STD, TB, and Hepatitis Testing Services. We also will be canvassing, making phone calls and initiating several advocacy initiatives in support of President Obama's three health care principles:

1. Reduce costs
2. Guarantee choice
3. Ensure all Americans have quality, affordable health care.

Nowhere else in our country do people in communities like Harlem know better that Health Care Reform is urgently needed. It is essential that our voices are heard.

Saturday, June 27 from 11:00 AM - 3:00 PM
Staging Location: African Services Committee (New York, NY)
429 West 127th Street (between Amsterdam & Morningside Aves.)
Hosts: Oscar Carter and Gregg Ross
Contact: ross.gregg@gmail.com

RSVP:
MyBarackObama.com: http://tinyurl.com/kqjpkc
Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/mr4ead

Health Care Rally & Town Hall Meeting!

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Join thousands of Americans at the

largest health care rally in history!

Limited FREE buses

Meet at 5:30 AM at Union Square; leave at 6 AM

Back at 9:30 PM

RSVP to Naomi.Rothwell2@gmail.com

www.healthcare09.org

mybarackobama.com link: http://tinyurl.com/lwappy

Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/m8bv64

Public Option Teach-IN: Fact over Fear

The fight for health care reform is on. The public option is in jeopardy.

This Tuesday, June 16th, learn about the public option, why it's critical to health care reform, the debate on Capitol Hill, and what you can do to support President Obama's historic health care reform initiative. Health care policy blogger Tim Foley (Change.org) will present a balanced overview as well as key messaging points.

The Irish Rogue Pub
356 West 44th St. (Southeast corner of 9th Ave.), 2nd Floor
Pub food, drink specials, comfortable couches, and great company!
Tuesday, June 16th, 7:30 to 9:30PM

RSVP: here. This is your opportunity to be part of the legislation of a lifetime. Please spread the word to your family, friends, co-workers. Health care affects everyone!

Portrait of Political Irresponsibility

Starting in the 1970s, the GOP in Congress (with help from some Dems) removed the Depression-era oversight of the banking industry & prevented regulation of complex financial instruments such as credit-default swaps.

Congress (still under Dem control but totally craven in the face of GOP attacks) passed the Reagan tax cuts in 1981, resulting in federal deficits bigger than those of all previous presidents combined. (Reagan did a U-turn a year later, increasing taxes to refill the coffers, but that never made it into conservative mythology.)

In 1995, the Gingrich-era GOP Congress shut down the government in an effort to force President Clinton to slash social spending and cut taxes. Millions of people around the country, dependent on the federal government for social security payments, paychecks, various services, etc., were hurt by this stunt & the GOP had to back down.

The GOP-led Congress under President Katrina passed enormous tax cuts, turning the biggest budget surplus in U.S. history into the biggest deficit in a year. This in spite of our involvement in 2 wars simultaneously.

The GOP-led Congress voted in lockstep with President Katrina’s administration from 2001 through 2006, authorizing spending on the Iraq War, etc. It exercised no oversight during that time.

The GOP has argued, contra historical evidence, that tax cuts are the answer to the current economic crisis. Economists—including conservatives, agree that tax cuts would turn the current crisis into outright catastrophe.

In mid-September, 2008, Lehman Brothers collapsed and there were large withdrawals from the Reserve fund. Against that backdrop, the bank bailouts (which I certainly agree are due for criticism on a number of grounds) began. Obama’s economic plan was crafted in response to the situation he inherited—one caused by the combination of factors mentioned above (not primarily due to activities of Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac, as the GOP & its wingnut chorus would have us believe). Obama’s economic plan only passed in the Senate due to a compromise with 3 GOP “moderates” & some blue dog Dems. The so-called compromise eliminated federal funding for state unemployment programs in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the 1940s—this despite the CBO’s study showing that one of the most effective mechanisms for reviving the economy in a recession is unemployment insurance (the people who get it need to spend it; therefore it cycles through the economy, boosting economic activity via the multiplier effect). So if the recession lasts longer & gets deeper, we all know who to thank for it.

The CBO, the Commonwealth Fund and others analyzing the numbers project that without the public option, health care costs are projected to increase to 60% of the federal budget by 2030, crowding out other federal programs. The GOP in Congress is universally opposed to Obama’s health care reform plans, especially the public option.

The GOP-led Congress refused persistently to do anything in response to global warming, making our ability to do anything about it now much more difficult—and expensive.

Despite all the above, die-hard wingnuts continue to argue that Obama is a socialist, he’s throwing money around recklessly, and we need a return to GOP govenance. Try to imagine what shape we’d be in now if the party whose only principle is tax cuts (for the richest 1% of the population, at that) were in power now. God protect us from such a fate.

Some still claim, despite all the above, that there’s no real difference between the two major parties—that “everyone does it.” The record is clear that, despite definite cravenness on the part of some Dems, overwhelming responsibility for the mess we face lies with the GOP.

Insurance Industry Double-Cross--Fight Back

I got this from moveon.org today:

Breaking news on health care: The Washington Post is now reporting that insurance giant Blue Cross Blue Shield "is putting the finishing touches on a public message campaign aimed at killing a key plank in Obama's reform platform."1

The Huffington Post sums it up as "Insurers Planning on Double-Crossing Obama."2

We knew the insurance companies would eventually turn on the president, but this is much sooner than expected. And they're targeting the public health insurance option—the crucial piece that will help cover everyone. So we're immediately launching a rapid-response campaign to go toe-to-toe with Blue Cross Blue Shield and win quality health care for all Americans.

We need to raise $150,000 in the next two days. It's a lot, but we'll need every penny to take on Goliath. We'll run ads, hold events, and work like crazy to get the real truth out to voters. AND we'll keep the pressure on Congress to make sure they don't get bullied into gutting the president's plan to guarantee health care coverage for everyone. Can you chip in $35 right now to make it happen?

https://pol.moveon.org/donate/blueshield.html?id=16160-655913-Nvq8QFx&t=3

Meanwhile, my friend Theresa Thanjan at South Asians for Opportunity forwarded the following message from Amy Miller at NYC for Change:

We are doing a Postcard Canvass Campaign. We are looking to gather huge numbers of postcards that we have which say "New Yorkers Demand Quality, Affordable Health Care for All." What I need is individuals who want to serve as "canvass captains."

I will work together with the captains to set up canvasses in the place/date/time that is good for them in the next few weeks (preferably May Sat 30th/ Sun 31st and June Sat 6th/ Sun 7th) and I will be providing materials, help recruit canvassers, train as necessary, and later gather the postcards and deliver them to Senator Schumer!

The idea is for canvass captains to tap into their own networks and neighborhoods so we can get postcards from all over New York!

It is very important we pressure our elected officials to include a public plan option in upcoming health care reform legislation! We can't let private insurance win!

If you know anyone who may be in interested please have them contact me asap at amymiller3@gmail.com or 415-990-2770.

I would also like to reach out to them myself if you could get me their contact info that would be a big help!

Time is of the essence. Let's get to work!

Let Them Know We Want the Public Option

Yes, it's your friendly neighborhood noodge again, this time urging you to tell your Senators you support their efforts to put the public insurance option on the health care reform agenda. Here are the people to call if you live in the state of NY:

Senator Charles Schumer
Phone: 202-224-6542

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand
Phone: 202-224-4451

For those unfamiliar with the terminology, the public option is a government-sponsored insurance plan, like Medicare, which would operate side-by-side with the current private insurance options. This would enable people to choose either the public or private insurance option and would force private insurance plans to compete with the public plan. Predictably, private insurers have been arguing that a public plan would not compete fairly with private insurance. When countered on this claim, they claim the public plan would make everyone's health insurance worse; as a fallback argument, they're claiming that the problems with the existing system (if that's the word for it) will be solved if we just institute more stringent regulation of the insurance industry--in other words, "please don't make us compete with a public plan."

And here we see one of the most fundamental problems with the current system--the insurance industry, which functions as an (interested) arbiter between doctors and their patients, is concerned primarily with their own profits, not the health of patients--which is why they've constructed a massive bureaucracy devoted to avoiding payment of medical claims. And this fact, in case you hadn't noticed, stands as one of the clearest refutations possible of the idea that markets, left to their own devices, will always produce optimal results for all participants. The current system, after all, is utterly dysfunctional for a large part of the population of the U.S. (we humans lacking the information and other resources available to the insurers), but it works like a charm for the insurance companies--which is why they're working as hard as possible to find a way to kill the public option.

Health Care Links

Ezra Klein says Chuck Schumer’s compromise public option plan, created in concert with Max Baucus, separates the insurance industry’s main arguments that (a) the public option will be worse for you and will take away your freedom of choice by preventing the insurance companies from competing with it and (b) the public option will compete unfairly with the insurance industry, threatening their profits.

(Note: The public plan is NOT single payer, which has been excluded thus far from the discussions in the Senate Finance Committee, as noted previously.)

Klein also reports that Chuck Schumer forced the Senate Finance Committee roundtable to address the public plan, which he defended bluntly.

Matthew Yglesias foresees Congress killing health care reform by expressing support for it publicly while opposing every reasonable way of paying for it. I worry about the same thing, which probably has a lot to do with the fact that I keep blogging about the issue. Psychohistorians take note. ;-)

He also relates that the GOP claims that Obama isn’t doing enough to compromise, but refuses (surprise) to offer anything of their own, in this case in re health care reform. I know—I was so shocked I had to sit down. ;-)

Moving from politics to policy: Since there is NO correlation between levels of health care spending and levels of improvement in public health in the U.S., Yglesias argues we should focus not on setting a specific level of spending, but on health care outcomes, in terms of increased efforts at prevention and “lifestyle issues.”