Now this is the President we elected; the President that can stand up in front of a crowd and call out the opposition for what they are: obstructionist, reactionary, and in the pockets of their own special interests and a party gone mad.

The President demanded an up-or-down vote on health care; a phrase that Republicans used to use whenever they felt they couldn’t get a bill to the floor against Democratic opposition. He also trashed the same old GOP lies and talking points that we’ve seen for the past several months levvied against health care reform – all which are clearly designed not to make health care reform more palatable to Republicans and conservatives, but instead to just kill the initiative outright, completely forgetting the fact that the status quo simply isn’t acceptable.

Watching President Obama’s speech this afternoon on the way forward on health care reform, I noticed something I haven’t seen from the always-cool chief executive in a while: real passion.

It was unmistakable — this president wasn’t just making the case for reform, he was practically demanding it. Forget any rumors you may have heard about half-measures or additional compromises. President Obama is going all in.

From the outset, the president reminded his audience why the notion of reform being “rammed through” is silly. Referencing last week’s summit, Obama noted:

“This meeting capped off a debate that began with a similar summit nearly one year ago. Since then, every idea has been put on the table. Every argument has been made. Everything there is to say about health care has been said and just about everyone has said it. So now is the time to make a decision about how to finally reform health care so that it works, not just for the insurance companies, but for America’s families and businesses.”

The president noted several areas of agreement with Republicans, and presented his plan as a middle ground between the left (which wants single-payer) and the right (which wants to let insurance companies do as they please).

He also spent some time outlining exactly what his proposal is all about, including the notion that reform would give Americans “more control over their health care,” while building on the existing system. Obama presented his package in three parts: (1) ending insurance company abuses; (2) creating a marketplace for uninsured individuals and small business owners; and (3) bringing down costs. All of this would be paid for, and would bring down the deficit.

At that point, the president started knocking down GOP talking points — forcefully.

The article goes on to outline some of the GOP’s common strawman arguments and lies about health care reform – and then the President’s response to each and every one of them. If I could I would forward the article to every person who’s ever said that reform is being “rammed down our throats,” for example.

[ Fired-Up President Demands "Up or Down" Vote on Health Care ]
Source: The Washington Monthly

While it’s absolutely no surprise that the GOP would take the opportunity to be on TV to blubberingly try to talk over the President and denounce health care reform as if the alternative – millions of Americans in the US without access to health care or health insurance and thousands dying every year as a result of that fact – and while it’s no surprise that the GOP is completely out of ideas and instead would rather simply roadblock any congressional action entirely, it was a little surprising (although it shoudln’t be, I suppose) that they chose to get on national television and continue to just lie about the nature of health care reform in America, lie about how much it’ll cost, (and how it’ll actually save us money in the long run, and the amount of money required to fund it is actually a smaller figure than the amount of money we’ll spend in the same time period to keep funding health care the way we have up to this point) and lie about what the bills entail as though they’d never read any of them.

That’s the entertaining thing about the GOP – they lie and they lie, and when they’re finally called out on their lies, they backtrack and claim that they’re just the little guy being pushed around by a Democratic majority, thus rousing the hackles of their fringe Tea Party compatriots and their Ronulan allies (did you hear that their straw poll at the CPAC for the next person they should champion for the White House is Ron Paul? That’s hilarious – and I’ve explained why on at least one occasion.)

So then, we should completely have expected that they’d be out in force again, lying their faces off so badly that if the GOP were actually the pinnochio party, their collective noses would be in the way of the cameras:

The President has been charitable thus far in claiming that there are “philosophical” differences between the parties. From out here, it looks more like a visceral hatred for government on the part of Republicans rather than a real intellectual argument. That’s a divide that can’t be bridged. Because the Republicans continue to just lie, whether it’s about process (see reconciliation) or the CBO reports on the existing plan. Ezra:

Lamar Alexander and Barack Obama just had a contentious exchange on this point, so it’s worth settling the issue: Yes, the CBO found health-care reform would reduce premiums. The issue gets confused because it also found that access to subsidies would encourage people to buy more comprehensive insurance, which would mean that the value of their insurance would be higher after reform than before it. But that’s not the same as insurance becoming more expensive: The fact that I could buy a nicer car after getting a better job suggests that cars are becoming pricier. The bottom line is that if you’re comparing two plans that are exactly the same, costs go down after reform.

And the Republican plan, such as it is, and what happens to premiums under it? Jon Cohn:

So, yes, the Republican health care bill will lower premiums overall. But many people in poor health will see their premiums go up. And many people will get lower premiums only because they’re getting inferior coverage. Meanwhile, more than 50 million people will have no insurance whatsoever.

There. Can we just settle on the fact that the Republicans have absolutely no credibility, on this issue or just about any other, and be done with it? Let’s move forward with or without them.

[ GOP Lies at the Health Care Summit ]
Source: AlterNet (courtesy of The Daily Kos)

The most hilarious thing about the “alternatives” that the Republicans have tried to put on the table to health care reform is that they’re all exactly what they complain the President always does: talk but provide no direction. The Republicans claim their option will “eliminate frivilous lawsuits against hospitals and doctors,” which essentially amounts to torte reform – the kind that has been proven time and time again to benefit insurance companies by making patients less able to file claims for ineffective or inappropriate or harmful care and treatment.

The majority of Americans has never supported torte reform, and they won’t even if they change the language – it essentially puts more power in the hands of insurance companies and less in the hands of patients and doctors who are actually responsible, and it just goes to further the fear that Americans have – and are dying from – of going to the doctor for medical treatment, even when something is clearly wrong.

I’m getting too deeply into a discussion of torte reform, but this is true all around whenever the Republicans try to dabble in health care. Their last attempt was so horrific they tried to play it off like it was just a first and rough draft and no one should have seen it, even though they were the ones who released it.

But this one is just as bad. The goal here, as usual, is “self empowerment,” which is really code for “you’re on your own, no one cares about your health care, we just want to not spend money on you so we can cut costs arbitrarily to spend money on things like bombs and missles.”

Hidden in the cobwebby depths of the House Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions lies the conservative answer to health care. It’s a plan that would cost about $940 billion less than the House Democrats’ bill, and cut deficit spending by tens of billions over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office – all while keeping large employers and insurance moguls happy as clams on subsidized Prozac.

The downside? It would leave more than 52 million nonelderly Americans uninsured. That’s an improvement of roughly zero percent.

The legislation, ambitiously dubbed “The Empowering Patients First Act,” was introduced by Rep. Tom Price, chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee, in July. It has lately been resurrected as the paragon of reform done right by right-wing columnists, as well as conservative bastions such as the Heritage Foundation and the Christian Coalition.

The Empowering Patients bill would grant tax credits to people purchasing insurance – not much use to unemployed and low-income Americans. It would allow health insurance companies to sell policies across state lines, knocking off state oversight of insurers.

The legislation would not require that employers offer coverage, nor would it impose regulations preventing insurance companies from cherry picking healthy clients.

It would require that no federal funds be used to pay for abortions unless “the pregnancy endangers a women’s life or was the result of forcible rape.”

And, to help fund the minimal expense of the bill, it would instate “medical liability reforms” that would force down the cost of compensation for malpractice lawsuits and make it harder for patients to sue for injuries incurred during treatment.

Feeling empowered yet?

Awesome – so a bill that…does nothing but slash costs and benefits and leaves millions of Americans to fend for themselves, whether they’re sick, needy, elderly, or none of those things.

That’s the conservative way: I’ve got mine, you can go to hell.

[ The Republican Health "Alternative": Empowering Ourselves to Death ]
Source: TruthOut

(click the graphic for a larger version)

The National Geographic Magazine blog has this very telling infographic today detailing the cost of health care as a line between the cost of care per person and that person’s average life expectancy based on the country in which they live. The line also shows how many average doctor’s visits the person takes (on average) per year as the thickness of the line. You can clearly see that those of us in the United States spend the most on health care as any other nation on the list, is only one of two without a universal health care system, and our life expectancy doesn’t really show much for all of those dollars and the socially-reinforced lack of doctor’s office trips we take for things like preventative care.

From the NatGeo blog:

The United States spends more on medical care per person than any country, yet life expectancy is shorter than in most other developed nations and many developing ones. Lack of health insurance is a factor in life span and contributes to an estimated 45,000 deaths a year. Why the high cost? The U.S. has a fee-for-service system—paying medical providers piecemeal for appointments, surgery, and the like. That can lead to unneeded treatment that doesn’t reliably improve a patient’s health. Says Gerard Anderson, a professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who studies health insurance worldwide, “More care does not necessarily mean better care.” —Michelle Andrews

Sounds right to me, and by “right” I mean horrendously unacceptable.

[ The Cost of Care ]
Source: The National Geographic Magazine Blog

Over at the Campaign for America’s Future, Terrance Heath has an excellent post wrapping up the events leading to last night’s historic vote for sweeping health care reform in the Senate.

A ton of compromises have been made to get us to where we are now – too many for my taste, but that’s a different matter – some progressives are calling for the bill to stop altogether because it’s been gutted too far, but I think that’s a horrible idea. There’s still the much more palatable House version to go into conference with, and the fact that the Republicans and libertarians would like nothing more than to see this bill die where it stands is more than enough to pass SOMETHING as opposed to nothing. That and the fact that the Senate bill bans insurance companies from discriminating against individuals for pre-existing conditions, extends health insurance to millions via federal aid, cuts prescription drug costs and overall pays for itself in 10 years – I think those are all things to celebrate, even if it doesn’t get us the beloved public option that we all wanted…and there’s still conference to go to, so if the Senate bill is the least we’ll get and the House bill is the most, I’m comfortable with something in between. Most of all, President Obama and the American people want this mandate. We all voted for it. We need and deserve this victory, even if it’s not the highest peak or the farthest we could possibly throw.

And at the very least, it’s shown us who our enemies in our own clothing really are. (I’m looking at you, Lieberman and Nelson) Even so, it looks like the American people are about to get a much deserved and long-awaited gift for the holidays come Christmas Eve:

T’was the weekend before Xmas
And all through the Senate,
There was talk of a bill
With some health care reform in it.

With Nelson and Lieberman
Both finally placated,
All that’s left, it seems,
Is for the bill to be debated.

Progressives may grumble,
But with no worries about Snowe,
Passing a bill in the Senate
Seems almost certainly a “go.”

The rest of the post is an excellent analysis of what’s left to be done (eg, conference committee, which could actually still kill legislation as opposed to help it) and a roundup of how we got to this point, what people have said, and the Republican’s unilateral opposition to not just the bill, but every bill in Congress since the President took office, and every opportunity to extend health care to Americans who don’t have it.

[ Progressive Breakfast: Health Reform Passes Key Senate Vote ]
Source: Campaign for America’s Future

And here you thought we were rid of him with his passing. And no, you can chastise me for not speaking kindly of the dead all you like – the man was a monster in life, he deserves no more respect in death than his accomplishments earned him while he was alive.

But to the point, and to the point of the health care debate, Scott Galindez made an excellent point writing for TruthOut – that whenever Jesse Helms didn’t like a bill, he’d attach an abortion amendment to it in order to grind it to a halt. We’re seeing similar behavior in the Senate over health care now – where certain senators will only support it if one option or another is added or removed: striking at women’s rights and reproductive rights, for example, or eliminating a public option that will extend coverage to all Americans instead of demanding they have insurance but leaving them to the sharks of the insurance industry to get it.

While many Democrats were declaring victory last Saturday night with the passage of a health care reform bill, Republicans, too, had a victory of sorts. They may have successfully passed the “poison pill” that will kill health care reform down the road.

One of the culprits this time was Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Michigan). He co-sponsored an amendment to the health care bill with Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pennsylvania). The amendment would require women to buy separate “riders” to cover abortions, even if they otherwise paid for a full insurance plan. Even before the amendment was voted on, the Democratic leadership was signaling that there was no reason for alarm; if the amendment passes, it won’t survive conference with the Senate was the spin.

So, the amendment passed with the help of dozens of Democrats; later in the night, the full bill passed 220-215. After the euphoria settled, a stark realization set in for many supporters of health care reform. The margin of victory was not large enough to guarantee final passage if the bill comes back from conference without the abortion amendment. So, the question in the House is did the Democratic leadership make a huge blunder when they allowed the Stupak amendment a vote on the floor?

There wasn’t time to see what the real impact of the Stupak amendment will be. Groups like the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) are cranking up efforts against the amendment. Which raises another question: If the amendment remains in the bill, will Democrats be pressured by their base to oppose the conference report?

Either way, with or without the abortion amendment, the bill is in trouble. Jesse Helms would be proud of Stupak and Pitts.

While the abortion controversy could find its way down the hall to the Senate, at this time the biggest hurdle is opposition to a “public option.” The Senate will begin debating their version of health care reform next Tuesday, if they can muster 60 votes to authorize the start of debate. In the Senate, you need 60 votes to start debate, and 60 votes to end debate. If even one of the 60 members of the Democratic caucus defects, a Republican will have to join the Democrats to overcome the procedural hurdles.

“Traitor Joe” Lieberman has threatened that he will not vote to end debate if any form of the public option is in the bill. Lieberman has indicated he will vote to allow the debate to begin. His opposition to ending debate is what has the bill stalled in the Senate.

When Lieberman announced his plans to join a Republican filibuster, many responded by saying, “Let him do it; he will look like a fool.” I think people had images in their mind of Jimmy Stewart standing on the floor for hours bringing the Senate to a standstill. That is not how this filibuster would work. For, as long as 41 senators vote against ending debate, the bill cannot be brought up for a vote. The rest of the business of the Senate would continue; only health care would be delayed.

Classy Joe, really classy. It was only a matter of time before he showed his true colors, and this is part of the reason why I was worried about him in the first place – he is not a Democrat even though he claims to caucus with them – he is an independent in every sense of the word; not far right enough to be embraced by Republicans, but far right enough that if he were he’d be happy to join their camp. You can bet he’ll try to sabotage immigration reform, climate change action, and other progressive bills moving through the Senate, too – this is why you have to be careful when you say the Democrats have a filibuster-proof majority in Congress…all it takes is a voice from someone like Joe to make that not true and grind progress to a halt.

[ The Ghost of Jesse Helms Haunts Health Care Debate ]
Source: TruthOut

Remember just a year or so ago, when people were dancing in the streets because George W Bush wouldn’t be their president anymore? When people were so thrilled that the Republicans were out of office that they couldn’t help but celebrate the future?

Sure, some of that euphoria has worn off, and the honeymoon is definitely over with President Obama, but if you ask anyone if they’d rather go back to the civil-liberties-stealing, war-funding, fear-mongering, terrorists-blaming days of a government run and managed by the Republicans, most Americans would visibly shudder in fear. Why? Because even though things aren’t perfect today and there are serious hardships at hand, people still feel like today is a better day than yesterday.

But what if the Republicans were still in control? Let’s take a look at what kinds of “change” we probably would have to deal with if they were still in power. Here are some of my favorites from a roundup at Alternet:

3) Stubbornly deny the existence of ominous climate change while blithely pumping more pollutants into the environment from lucrative, dirty industries and practices. Although reputable scientists say 350 carbon parts per atmospheric million is the safe limit for sustained life on Earth, Republicans dismiss the frightening fact that we’re already at a carbon level of roughly 390 ppm.

4) Remove “restrictive” regulations on everything from investment banks and credit card companies to a broad array of “profit-eroding” consumer protections, leaving the American masses exposed to a host of resulting abuses and dangers.

5) Continue to criticize and insufficiently fund public education, advocating private schooling instead, thus entirely ignoring that progressive public systems are used in every country that has education outcomes superior to our own.

6) Outlaw abortion, under a fraudulently moral guise, compelling the US to bloodily join those benighted, backward nations where thousands of already-born, living, breathing, socially functioning females perish because of sexist denials of their basic reproductive rights.

7) Continue to recite a Pledge of Allegiance whose last six words are “with liberty and justice for all,” while remaining numbly oblivious to the harsh hypocrisy of preventing our homosexual citizens from marrying.

8 ) Speak often and loftily of freedom, but engage in secret wiretapping, repression of domestic dissent, neo-McCarthyite witch hunts, Red-baiting name calling, and a panoply of Patriot Act transgressions against the Constitution of the United States…all under the misused rubric of “national security.”

Those are some good ones, but here are some shiners:

14) Give full vent to the intensely bigoted hatred that has crazed extremists dreaming of literally tearing Barack Obama to pieces and gassing all liberals…if only they could.

15) Place the livelihoods and lives of over 300 million Americans in the hands of incompetent ideological “purists” such as Sarah Palin.

Yeah, that sums it up nicely.

[ 15 Awful Things Republicans Would Do If They Had the Chance ]
Source: Alternet

If you’ve been paying attention to some of the media undercurrents, you’ll have heard that the Republicans in the house, before the historic vote for health care for all Americans, released their sad, sorry attempt at an alternative bill just to say they had one.

Now we all know the Republicans at this stage are the party of bluster but no ideas, rage but no intentions, anger without direction, but the Republican bill was so horrible it shouldn’t even have been deemed “health care,” it was more like “insurance care.” It was terrible – it would do nothing to insure the uninsured, would do nothing to extend health care or coverage to anyone who currently doesn’t have it, wouldn’t eliminate the antitrust loophole that health insurers enjoy – in fact, the bill was pretty much tantamount to punishing Americans for getting sick by giving away tax breaks and benefits to insurance companies, protecting insurance companies from lawsuits when they illegally deny coverage to customers and patients, shield doctors who commit malpractice from patients who want to hold them accountable, and so on.

When House minority leader John Boehner was asked why his party’s bill was so absolutely terrible and devoid of substance, his response? Well, after waiting and finding out it was so poorly received by the media, he and the Republicans decided to claim “It was a leak! Unauthorized! It’s not done yet! We swear!”

…right. You release the bill, everyone mocks it, and that’s when you stand up and say “well it isn’t finished?” Sure thing. Over at Daily KOS, diarist mcjoan has it right:

Yesterday, hours after the House Republicans healthcare “reform” plan was released and universally mocked, Rep. Boehner cried foul, insisting that this unauthorized leak was of a draft bill that wasn’t finalized and hadn’t been seen by members.

Just a quick reminder of the reaction in the media to Boehner’s bill. Here’s what the original WSJ article reported:

A House Republican health-care bill wouldn’t seek to prevent health-insurance companies from denying sick people insurance, Minority Leader John Boehner said Monday.

And here’s Roll Call:

Under the GOP plan, insurance companies would still be allowed to exclude anyone with a pre-existing medical condition from coverage, there would be no national insurance exchange and businesses would not face any mandate to provide insurance nor individuals to buy it. Boehner also left out tax credits to help the poor and middle class buy insurance — a central pillar of most GOP reform proposals and a key feature of a four-page outline Republican leaders released in June.

But that bill, says Boehner and Pence, wasn’t the real bill, as reported by The Hill:

Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) was “hot” when news broke that a premature copy of his much-awaited healthcare bill had been published on the Internet, aides and GOP lawmakers told The Hill….

“It was a very unauthorized leak,” the member told The Hill, noting that the GOP aides were still in discussions with staffers at the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

On Tuesday afternoon, GOP Conference Chairman Mike Pence (Ind.) had to tell reporters that the document was not, in fact, the final text of their bill.

“The Republican alternative is still a work in progress, and we’re putting the finishing touches on our legislation as we speak,” Pence said hours after media outlets, including The Hill, posted copies of the document online.

As the article points out, this fury didn’t emerge until “hours after media outlets” posted the draft, and hours after it was universally derided as a massive gift to the insurance industry. It took them a full day to come up with the story that it was a leaked draft.

And then, of course, is the fact that the leaked draft [pdf] is pretty much identical to the final draft [pdf] filed late last night by Boehner. I’ve done a cursory side-by-side comparison and found no significant difference in the “substance” of the bill, except for in the Eschoo amendment on the pathway for biosimilars, which they originally had included word for word.

So much for the “it was just a draft” excuse.

Nice try guys – but…at the same time, really really sad.

[ Boehner's Lame Excuse About Why the GOP Health Care Bill Sucks So Badly ]
Source: Daily KOS (courtesy of AlterNet)

Snagged this one from BoingBoing, and it tells a pretty hilarious tale. Head over there to see each charge in larger glory, but all in all it boils down to this: for as much as the US healthcare industry and Republicans in congress want you to believe that everything is just fine the way it is and we shouldn’t change anything, and that all of these pharmaceutical companies and health care industry groups have our best interests at heart and well…they must, right, considering everything is just so much more expensive here than it is in every other first-world nation on the planet.

Or as noted by BoingBoing:

s Jay Livingston of the Montclair SocioBlog says, “Our Lipitor must be four to ten times a good as the Lipitor that Canadians take.”

[ Charts Showing How Much US Residents Pay for Health Care Compared to People in Other Countries ]
Source: The International Federation of Health Plans (courtesy of BoingBoing)

As much as the far-right and the anti-everything camp would like you to believe that the inclusion of a public option in health care reform is somehow the will of the Congress being bent to the will of the progressive movement, this isn’t about the progressive movement at all – this is about the will of the American people, who overwhelmingly support a public health insurance program that can cover all Americans, give them the choice to opt out if they don’t want to be a part, challenge corporate health insurers to stop abusing their customers, and in the end cut costs of coverage and access to health care and save the American people money.

But you won’t hear that in the shouting, nonsensical talking points from the right, and you won’t hear it from the so-called independent thinkers among the Libertarians and free marketeers – the same folks who would rather let a boardroom decide whether they live or die, eat or starve, or breathe air or toxins, all in the name of the free market, each with their own series of talking points they like to parrot.

The truth is that the American people simply got fed up with the nonsense they saw: people comparing the President to Hitler, shotuing racist epithets at the President of the United States, threatening to kill him, and so on – all from people who claim to be their countrymen and have their own communal best interests at heart. It was clear to the American people that these fringe few were both completely ignorant of the situation, ignorant of their own condition, and ignorant of the facts. And thus the tide turned, and people came out to support universal access and availability to health care for every American man, woman, and child – the American people decided that the costs of such were nothing compared to both the dollars and cents and the human costs of doing nothing.

And the American people spoke:

Today, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced he would submit a health care reform bill with a national public option that states could choose not to join.

This is how democracy is supposed to work. The highest ranking member of Senate was able to hear the will of America’s progressive majority over the din of the insurance lobby and the right-wing noise machine, and was responsive to the majority.

But that’s mere idealism. From a practical standpoint, this is how the modern progressive movement is
supposed to work.

In 1993, there was no significant progressive movement putting positive pressure on the Clinton Administration. Many naively assumed having a Democratic president and Congress was enough, the hard work was done, and we could kick back with a Crystal Pepsi and let democracy work its magic.
We learned the conservative minority had many tricks up its sleeve, and was able to smear and fear to death any attempt at major progressive reform.

The election of a uniquely compelling figure in President Barack Obama threatened to bring back some of that complacency. A false notion persists in some corners that the President should be able “ram through” any legislation he likes.

But Obama himself has always stressed that real change is too hard to be accomplished by one person, even the President. Without a progressive movement pushing good ideas, debunking conservative information and countering special interest pressure, any attempt at reform will suffer the right-wing meat grinder, spooking even the biggest congressional majority from acting.

Over the last several years, the infrastructure of a modern progressive movement has been falling into place. There may be plenty of kinks to work out, but the movement has been making its mark.

Bill Scher, writing for the Campaign for America’s Future pins the credit on the American progressive movement, but I’d take that a step further – it has less to do with the American progressive movement and more to do with the will of the American people who – after all – are and always have been some of the most progressive on the planet, despite what conservatives would have you believe.

[ Public Option: This Is How It's Supposed To Work ]
Source: Campaign for America’s Future