FORCED to BUY insurance, NO public option, ABORTION restrictions. BUSH-like health care reform.

[chimpymustgo]

We'd be in the STREETS if Bush and the Rethugs had offered up this bullshit as "health care reform." A billion dollar give-away to the insurance insurance industry. Oh, and no negotiating for lower priced imported drugs.

This, from DEMOCRATS?

This, from the man and the party with the MANDATE for change?

This Kabuki dance of lies and broken promises has been an insult. My God, if Bush had put this forward, we'd be storming the White House gates. Why aren't we now???

[gateley]

1. We don't take to the streets. We come to DU to kvetch. nt

[cliffordu]

2. ...And there ya go....

A concise analysis.

[Robb]

3. If only there was a wry DUzy. nt

[dkf]

33. Yep, I admit it.

I already complained to my Senators and Rep. That was a dead end. Sigh.

[earth mom]

36. The powers that be want us to shut up which is why I don't and none of us should.

There just aren't enough people complaining...YET and things aren't bad enough....YET.

Sooner or later the shit is going to hit the fan...because the bastards in power have simply gone too damn far. :grr:

[chimpymustgo]

40. Forgot to add: TAXES on middle class healh plans. FINES if you don't pay for "protection"

from the insurance Mafia.

[WestSeattle2]

57. For that reason alone, I will never vote for Obama again. He

does not represent my interests at all.

[Lorien]

44. Yep, and continue to wonder why no one organizes anything for us.

if 1/10 the amount of time posting here were spent constructively working for a more progressive party/ third party and/ or election reform just imagine what we could accomplish.

[FiveGoodMen]

4. Exactly.

This year has proven that many, many so-called progressives are just rooting for a team.

They don't give a flying fuck what happens to anybody -- not even themselves -- as long as they can declare that "their team won."

The human race is more stupid and move evil than I would ever have thought possible ten years ago.

[chimpymustgo]

5. " The human race is more stupid and move evil than I would ever have thought possible ten years ago"

I am watching this unfold with a sense of utter astonishment.

[Ladyhawk]

53. Yep. It's true. No one really gives a shit. nt

[glitch]

7. +scary ain't it.

Now read Shock Doctrine and never sleep again. (not kidding, it will curl your straight hairs and straighten your curlies).

[MercutioATC]

8. Remove "and more evil" and I'm in complete agreement.

As a species, we've just become very, very stupid.

...and a stupid that causes one to act against their own self interest is truly pathetic.

[Odin2005]

6. Fascism, AKA Corporatism: The fusion of the State and Corporate Power.

[stray cat]

9. Did you miss hearing McCain's Plan?

you must have - he wanted to give you a tax break and get rid of employer contributions - so instead of not paying anything a month I would have to pay 800 per month.

[ShamelessHussy]

10. that's why we voted for CHANGE, hello... not more handouts to corporate america

:eyes:

[LooseWilly]

37. In my case... McCain's plan would've been BETTER...

Is that the point you're trying to make?

Point taken...

[thotzRthingz]

11. kick & rec (n/t)

[branders seine]

12. amazing how devoid of actual principle so many here are.

they are as bubble-headed as the stereotypical cheerleader.

[mzmolly]

13. I'll wait for the final product

before taking anything to the streets. Bush and co. did not address health care Chimpy. McSame, Palin would not have, either.

[EndElectoral]

15. It's too late then and getting things changed will be much more difficult

[mzmolly]

27. We don't know what will come out of negotiations.

Hopefully a better bill.

[coti]

17. Mz! All they did in addressing it is screw everything up more!

First do no harm, remember?

[mzmolly]

As a person whose family member was denied health insurance

in his twenties due to being diabetic, I don't consider this legislation harmful.

Peace

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

41. but how much can insurance companies charge for pre-existing conditions and what

will the deductibles and co-pays be. If those amount are unaffordable, it means nothing.

[mzmolly]

43. We'll have to wait and see before we trash

this portion of bill, is my point. Many people have premiums and out of pocket deductibles through an employer. I don't see the outrage. :shrug:

However, Obama is working on lowering premiums and expenses in the negotiations from what I read yesterday.

[laughingliberal]

25. Yeah, Bush addressed health care. He got a $800 billion dollar

prescription drug benefit passed for Medicare and made it illegal for the government to use its purchasing power to get lower drug costs. In a related story, HCR, Democrat style leaves that arrangement protected. Go figure.

[mzmolly]

26. I was speaking about health care in general, not his unfunded expansion

of medicare.

[chimpymustgo]

47. We've been waiting for months, told to keep our powder dry, that 11 dimension chess was being played

That even though it LOOKED as though real reform was in doubt, our President was going to come through!

We've been terribly had. There's nothing else to wait for - except just HOW BAD it is.

[mzmolly]

55. I'm fairly pleased with the bill as it stands.

IF it helps as it's supposed to.

[Nikki Stone1]

14. Thank you.

You're exactly right. There's a lot that Obama is doing that we'd be protesting if it had been Bush.

[invictus]

16. K&R

[salguine]

18. Because it all came wrapped up with a (D) on it. There are too many people

in this party who, when they're handed a shit sandwich, dutifully tie on a bib and chow down.

[Skittles]

20. they go beyond chowing their shit sandwich

they try to convince those of us who dislike shit that THIS shit sandwich is mmmmmmmmmmmmm good - or, even if it doesn't taste good now, COULD taste better later :puke:

[tnlefty]

19. Christmas Eve we watched what I think is George Carlin's last

live performance...'It's Bullshit and It's Bad For Ya'. Sums up pretty much my thoughts on this senate bill that is supposed to make up most of the final product.

I don't know, perhaps that no one is organizing a protest against a dem president? And if means my neighbors, uhm, those teabag nuts being involved I'm not interested. I can save money, stay home and watch and listen to them, and I've got the real freaks to contend with.:shrug:

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

21. "Bush" and "Health care reform" don't even belong in the same paragraph.

Gimme a break.

[Nothing Without Hope]

22. I think this is why they let Obama win. A prettier face on the corporate greed. n/t

[laughingliberal]

30. Yep. Better looking. Better vocabulary. Can pronounce nuclear.

Same corporate greed in charge of our lives.

[slipslidingaway]

23. Exactly! knr n/t

[cali]

24. It also will provide primary care for millions who don't have it

And hopefully it will provide millions more with healthcare coverage like mine- subsidized and administered by the state.

Yes, there are some truly sucky things about it, and may turn out to be a disaster, but then again it might be an improvement.

[amborin]

28. not necessarily----many won't be able to afford the co-pays

even with subsidies

[Hoyt]

61. If one can't afford insurance now, deductibles/copays are limitless and even less affordable.

If I could not afford insurance, I'd be tickled to get a plan that covers at least three primary care visits 100%, limits out-of-pocket expenses, and covers at least 70% of the costs until the out-of-pocket limits are met (and then 100% from there on). That's a heck of a lot better than being denied care because you don't have any coverage, or being charges outrageous amounts because a provider has not agreed to accept the insurance allowable.

We'll get to single payer someday, but the above is a heck of a lot better than the status quo for the uninsured, underinsured or those who lose their insurance and can't get any because of a pre-existing condition, etc.

[laughingliberal]

31. It's like the RW tactics. Just keep repeating it enough and everyone will believe it

Nobody wanted health care reform more than I did. The health care system in this country destroyed my life from the consumer and the health care worker side. Trust me when I say if I thought this bill improved the system I would be the first one out there cheering for it. We will be back here in a few short years with costs still out of control and the insurance companies richer than ever with even more money to fight these 'improvements' people keep thinking we'll get after it passes. I know there are people who believe it will be an improvement. I wish I could believe it.

It not only does little to improve anything for most, it is going to kill any chance of the working and middle classes ever making any gains again. The unintended consequences of this are not going to be seen for a few years and, when they are, it's going to be too late.

Not to worry, though. It's going to pass no matter what us chickens think about it.

[amborin]

29. K&R

[Faryn Balyncd]

32. Thanks for post. K&R.

[leftstreet]

34. K&R

[PizzaDriver]

35. you're catching on. nt

[earth mom]

38. Exactly & don't forget about the kool aid drinkers on DU who are telling the rest of us to shut up

and that we'd better like the disgusting swill they are trying to force down our throats! :puke:

[chimpymustgo]

39. And now, Pelosi is "redefining" public option. They have played us for such fools.

[Blue_Roses]

45. you never supported Obama to begin with...

give me a break...:eyes:

[chimpymustgo]

51. Give yourself - and your faulty mind-reading - a break

[HughBeaumont]

42. Millions upon millions rising up against the OLD RICH MAN CABAL.

THAT'S how you'll get change.

Obama is a man who genuinely WANTS to do good, but let's face it: he can't.

The reason he CAN'T is because of the old white-man cabal of about 4000 powerful individuals who run corporate America, who run the military, who run criminal conglomerates, who run hit squads . . . who've been doing this since before this century. They can assassinate someone and get away with it and not lose a second's sleep over it, and why not? There'll be plenty of water-carriers and "logical skeptics" with finger-wags at the ready, stating "Republicans are bad, but they're not assassins. The military has nothing but YOUR BEST INTERESTS in mind. Corporate America is NEVER. THIS. BAD."

PFFFFFFFFFFFFFT. WAKE UP. Your wealthy controlling unspoken arch-conservatives ARE this bad and they've BEEN this bad since the dawn of America. People with rights are not as easily controlled. You open up rights for one group, another will want this and that and the other. And it goes on and on, and they KNOW this. It's about "keeping those ants in line", as one animated movie once said.

They get THEIRS first, always and, as sad as it is apparent, ONLY.

The only way to stop unspoken corporate/military rule . . . the only way to GET progressive values is, I'm genuinely sorry to inform you, with violent overthrow of this old white man cabal by hundreds of millions of people, ubiquitously.

Then, you'll see which side the Police, the military, the wanna-be "soliders" (i.e. "yes massah" freepers) and the so-called "teabag" brigade are really on.

The reason this will never happen is because it takes too many people already Super-Glue affixed to televisions and iPods to care. Ther reason it can't happen is because they've taken just about every right available to us so that we're completely tethered to the remaining jobs we have in order to survive.

It would also result in bloodshed this nation has never seen, worldwide economic collapse, a 20 year recovery period (one RIPE for totalitarianism and a dystopia worse than four decades of Republican presidents would give us) and hope that the people who lead us out of the rubble won't become as over-the-top greedy as this bunch of assholes has.

But short of hyperbole, we can work even harder to expose the actions of the tyrannical powermongers and stop brushing off people who are already working hard at doing this as "loony leftist conspiracy theorists".

Their ideologies aren't dying off. Greed is worse than crystal meth with some people.

Yet, you have to remove them by force. Start making us ashamed as a nation that we still tolerate people getting their rights taken away (rights that just about every other industrialized nation recognizes as a human right) and that we still tolerate our citizen's hard work being dismissed as a "hobby" which they shouldn't be compensated any better than a common prisoner or third-world slave for.

Otherwise, get used to the same president . . .. over and over and over again.

The sad fact of life is that money talks and bullshit rides the Hindenburg.

This is a government for certain people, of certain people, by certain people. "Certain people", meaning, "not us".

And then there's the fear of arrest.

One arrest in America, even for a misdemeanor, will essentially end your working life. Europeans don't care because they have better social safety nets and they also have universal health care; they're also more unionized. This is why they CAN protest when an official proposes something like taking bank holidays away. European governments also fear their people, not the other way around. Americans are so tethered and indentured to their jobs, they absolutely cannot lose them under any circumstance.

Corporations own us lock, stock and barrel, and we're too scared of ARREST, ARREST, ARREST to resist or overtake them. We think marching on Washington when cable networks won't broadcast it is going to do some good.

We live in a nation where a person's success and future is almost completely dependent on how gainfully they're employed. And that has to stop.

[inna]

46. KR

[NorthCarolina]

48. Actually This is from CONSERVATIVE (aka DLC) Democrats. Might as well be GOP (nt)

[kenny blankenship]

49. The Rethugs would never propose this reform

simply because they know they could never get away with it.

They must be eating their hearts out watching the Democrats out-Rethug them.

[flvegan]

50. I voted for Kucinich.

[cui bono]

52. We're waiting for his next chess move

which is sure to be a DUZY.

[indepat]

54. Maybe most people are so glad to see Bush gone, any Bush-lite would seem good in

comparison. :P

[seeinfweggos]

56. and government subsidies to assure everyone has insurance

i guess paul krugman is a corporatist whore?

[midnight]

58. K&R Nancy Pelosi was heard yesterday saying that they put something in this

bill that will make the insurance co. ask for public option.

[blackbear79]

59. What happened to CSPAN

Obama clearly stated several times during the campaign that all discussions would be on CSPAN. Obviously there is no urgency (other than the State of the Union Address) regarding this ridiculous health care bill since it does little or nothing for several years. Why not debate in public. We are entitled to be part of the process.

Dean 2012

[soyousay]

60. The only reason democrats get elected is so "REFORM"....

can happen. As in Nafta and welfare reform ect.
They figure us good little liberals will be happy that the GOP is not in office and go back to rubbing our
tummys and will not notice how all the previous administrations facist edicts are being codified by OUR guy.