David Corn

DC,

The results will be all that matters in the end.

I hope we end up with a better system than the current one.

Doctors’ Group Opposes Public Insurance Plan

Published: June 10, 2009

WASHINGTON — As the health care debate heats up, the American Medical Association is letting Congress know that it will oppose creation of a government-sponsored insurance plan, which President Obama and many other Democrats see as an essential element of legislation to remake the health care system.

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Senators Christopher J. Dodd, left, and Tom Harkin met reporters Wednesday on Capitol Hill.

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Savings for Small Business in Health Plan (June 11, 2009)

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Post a Comment »Read All Comments (300) »The opposition, which comes as Mr. Obama prepares to address the powerful doctors’ group on Monday in Chicago, could be a major hurdle for advocates of a public insurance plan. The A.M.A., with about 250,000 members, is America’s largest physician organization.

While committed to the goal of affordable health insurance for all, the association had said in a general statement of principles that health services should be “provided through private markets, as they are currently.” It is now reacting, for the first time, to specific legislative proposals being drafted by Congress.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After Obama gets rid of private insurers and replaces them with GI (government insurance) he will then need to replace the doctors, like GM. Just imagine the new doctors like the new CEO of GM that said he knows nothing about cars.

New Doc - "I'm going to operate on your brain but I know nothing about operating on your brain. It's going to be OK!"

Please contact all of your representatives to keep the option to purchase insurance through the federal government. This will help move us to a single payer system. We must move away from employer based health insurance. This is stifling small business, which is responsible for some many of this countries jobs.

If you are self-employed or uneligible for insurance through your employer due to part-time status, etc., then being able to pool together to purchase a nationwide insurance plan is much better than the high premiums charged to small firms.

I was the benefits administrator for a small company and because we had over 50, I think, employees, we offered health insurance, but because our risk pool was so small, we were charged a high fee due to some employees pre-existing conditions, etc.

With larger pools to absorb the ristk, a nationwide insurance system would be much less expensive. It would also help foster the creation of more small businesses or allow women to work more creative schedules to care for their children without worrrying about health insurance.

This is not the same as National Healthcare - the bogeyman that the right is trying to portray it to be.

Please contact your representatives today.

By the way, I think he's a bit wily....

My mother-in-law is on Medicare. Except for the whole donut-hole thing, which I think is absurd, this is the model on which I would build my national health insurance system. I would allow for the pricription drugs to be bought at lesser rates - like for veterans - and I would simplify the coverage, getting rid of the affor mentioned donut hole.

My mother-in-law has been seeing the same doctor she has been seeing for 30 years. She has been hospitalized recently and except for the stupid donut hole thing which caused her to pay $400 for one months supply of her drug to control her crohn's disease, she has great coverage. But she has no trouble seeing the doctors she needs to see and no trouble getting hospital service and treatments.

This whole socialized medicine scare is a bogeyman that has been used before - Reagan was the spokesperson for an ad against national health insurance. It's ridiculous.

Didn't have my glasses on...prescription drugs...

"By the way, I think he's a bit wily...."

I agree.

Truly a vicious circle when I see a handful of people making millions (some billions) by denying care in a “for profit” system - it makes me sick.

http://www.democraticmajority.com/page/s/healthcare

I was the benefits administrator for a small company and because we had over 50, I think, employees, we offered health insurance, but because our risk pool was so small, we were charged a high fee due to some employees pre-existing conditions, etc.

~~~~~

Group health insurance rates are based on employee ages only. Two people or more qualify under a group plan. Pre-existing conditions are not part of the rating AT ALL. In fact, there is no underwriting for pre-existing conditions which is the benefit of group insurance. If you tried to get personal insurance, you could be denied or have the pre-existing condition excluded as a precondition of the contract.

Yikes!

With larger pools to absorb the ristk, a nationwide insurance system would be much less expensive.

~~~

There is no guarantee that it would be less expensive and quanity vs quality is not a trade off I would except. Bring down the cost of insurance, don't replace it with another failed government program.

Truly a vicious circle when I see a handful of people making millions (some billions) by denying care in a “for profit” system - it makes me sick.

~~~~~

No worries, Barry is taking care of that!

~~~~~~~~~~

WASHINGTON (AP) - American households lost $1.33 trillion of their wealth in the first three months of the year as the recession took a bite out of stock portfolios and dragged down home prices.

James Von Brunn(registered democrat) Like Most Holocaust Deniers are From the Left not the Right

Macsmind ^ | 06-11-2009 | MacRanger

The media is a abuzed about this, and the lefty blogs are acting as though this being some nuance of the right.

Wrong. Let’s not forget that Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan, both antisemitic and neither considered spokesmen for the right.

But after some research it appears the shooter, James Von Brunn is in fact - despite the protestations of the Kos Kids - a registered democrat from Maryland.

So much for the “Right Wing Conspiracy”.

Fact is that most of the Holocaust Denier crowd is from the left. Many of the groups follow the writings of Naom Chomsky, the premier antisemite. Paul Bogdanor’s website is devoted to the subject of leftwing antisemitism, as well as Communism and Genocide committed under left wing ideology.

~~~~~~~

Looks like some here yesterday would have us believe this nut job was a republican!

*time for some nose-rubbing
================================
Regardless of what little solace the concept of Von Brunn as a one-time Democrat four decades ago may have been to Freepers, there's little doubt about his latter-day political leanings. Freepers themselves cite pictures of Von Brunn's personal truck with "Bush/Cheney '04 sticker" on it posted to the website, holywesternempire.org.

http://tinyurl.com/kjz5w4
===============================
*note, the "four decades ago" comment refers to the most likely WRONG belief that he ran for office as a Democrat in '68. Seems he was IN PRISON in '68.
"ruh roh"

Sorry Dems-- This kook killer is all yours...

The Holocaust Museum killer James von Brunn was targeting conservative magazine The Weekly Standard.
FBI agents said von Brunn was carrying the address of the magazine on a piece of paper.

The Politico reported:

FBI agents visited the offices of the conservative Weekly Standard magazine yesterday after a shooting at the Holocaust Memorial Museum and told employees they'd found the magazine's address

A senior Standard staffer confirmed the visit but declined to discuss it in detail. An FBI spokeswoman, Katherine Schweit , also declined to comment on the investigation.

Two other sources said two FBI agents arrived shortly after 5:00 p.m. Thursday at the 17th Street offices of the magazine. They told staffers that they had found the address of the magazine on a piece of paper associated with the shooter, James von Brunn, and asked whether the Standard had received any threats.

The magazine is about a mile north of the Holocaust Museum, and there's no other indication that von Brunn had targeted it. Von Brunn's published rants included attacks on "neocons," and the Standard has been at the heart of the neoconservative movement.
Macsmind is reporting that the Holocaust Museum killer was a registered Democrat in Maryland.
I am not sure if this was confirmed or not.

The crazed killer hated conservatives, John McCain, George W. Bush and Jews.

So far, this is what we know about James von Brunn, via icwhatudo at Free Republic:

Registered Democrat (needs confirmation)
Christian hater
Jew Hater
FOX News’ O'Reilly hater
Weekly Standard hater
Bush hater
Neo-con hater
9-11 was an inside job nut
artist
Stated that “SOCIALISM, represents the future of the West”
Stated that the Apostle Paul destroyed Rome by undermining its pagan virility.
Hated corporations

Gee, that sorta sounds like your typical Far Left lib, huh?

~~~~~~

Sorry Alan, he might have a Bush Cheney sticker on his bumper but his Ideology is strickly left wing!

Rabbi: Obama Breeds Climate of Hate Against Jews

Wednesday, June 10, 2009 9:12 PM

By: Rabbi Dr. Morton H. Pomerantz

Our new president did not tell a virulent anti-Semite to travel to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington to kill Jews, but he is most certainly creating a climate of hate against us.

It is no coincidence that we are witnessing this level of hatred toward Jews as President Barack Obama positions America against the Jewish state.

Just days ago Obama traveled to Cairo, Egypt. It was his second trip in a short time to visit Muslim countries. He sent a clear message by not visiting Israel.

But this was code.

In Cairo, Obama said things that pose a grave danger to Jews in Israel, in America and everywhere.

And if his views are not vigorously opposed they will help create a danger as great as that posed by the Nazis to the Jewish people.

Just last week, Obama told his worldwide audience — more than 100 million people — that the killing of six million Jews during the Holocaust was the equivalent of Israel’s actions in dealing with the Palestinians.

This remark is incredible on its face, an insult to the six million Jews who died as a result of Hitler’s genocide — and it is a form of revisionism that will bode evil for Jews for years to come.

While Obama acknowledged that “six million Jews were killed — more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today” — his discussion about the Holocaust was followed by this statement: “On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people — Muslims and Christians — have suffered in pursuit of a homeland.”

“On the other hand . . . ”?

Obama’s clever construct comparing the mass genocide of six million Jews to the Palestinian struggle will not be lost on the estimated 100 million Muslims who tuned into to hear him.

Perhaps it was not lost on James W. von Brunn, the 88-year-old white supremacist identified as the alleged attacker Wednesday at the Holocaust Museum. He apparently felt that he could easily take retribution against the Jews for the atrocities Obama implies they are guilty of.

AMA Pans ObamaCare; Dems Freak Out

—Gabriel Malor

Democratic commentators today are hopping mad that the American Medical Association preempted the President's scheduled speech on healthcare by unequivocally stating that it opposes any healthcare reform that includes a public insurance option.

While committed to the goal of affordable health insurance for all, the association had said in a general statement of principles that health services should be “provided through private markets, as they are currently.” It is now reacting, for the first time, to specific legislative proposals being drafted by Congress.
But in comments submitted to the Senate Finance Committee, the American Medical Association said: “The A.M.A. does not believe that creating a public health insurance option for non-disabled individuals under age 65 is the best way to expand health insurance coverage and lower costs. The introduction of a new public plan threatens to restrict patient choice by driving out private insurers, which currently provide coverage for nearly 70 percent of Americans.”

If private insurers are pushed out of the market, the group said, “the corresponding surge in public plan participation would likely lead to an explosion of costs that would need to be absorbed by taxpayers.”

Typically, Democrats responded to the AMA by, well, lying about their own healthcare plan. After accusing the AMA of having Stockholm Syndrome and "collective battered wife syndrome" Kevin Drum writes:

Obama Reasserts Support For Public Plan While AMA Backtracks On Opposition

[...]

The ability of the president to elevate himself above the usual political scrum proved monumentally valuable during the course of the campaign. His appearance at Green Bay on Thursday suggests that the Obama White House thinks it can apply this formula to the health care reform debate. The friendlier turf, they believe, is outside Washington.

http://tinyurl.com/mrfooz

Robert Gates And Hillary To GOP Leaders: You’re Putting Our Security At Risk

Wow. Robert Gates and Hillary Clinton are now thrusting themselves into the raging fight over the White House’s request for Congressional cash for the International Monetary Fund, demanding in a letter that GOP leaders back the funding or put our security at risk.

http://tinyurl.com/myka76

Gates is wrong, Hillary is always wrong.

Obamanomics isn't working here so why should the tax payers be footing the bill for other countries?

What happened to pay as you go that he promised just yesterday?

Congressional negotiators reach a war-funding deal

[...]

Lawmakers announced the informal agreement on the war-funding measure at a House-Senate negotiating session. The real work was done behind the scenes.

Competing House and Senate versions passed by wide margins last month, but several issues slowed House-Senate negotiations on a compromise bill. The most significant obstacle was the loss of support from House Republicans opposed to an $5 billion Obama request to secure a $108 billion U.S. line of credit to the International Monetary Fund to help poor countries deal with the world recession.

The loss of GOP support gave House liberals leverage to force out a Senate provision by Sens. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., that would block the release of photos showing detainee abuse. Obama doesn't want the photos made public because they could incite anti-American violence.

http://tinyurl.com/lkmc5z

Vice President Biden Kicks Off "Road to Recovery" Tour in Pennsylvania

http://tinyurl.com/ktl2su

Conservative Media Freaked Out Over DHS Report On Right Wing Extremists

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fL7iY5uarA8

American Medical Association Has Long Donated to Opponents of Health Care Reform

[...]

These aren't particularly moderate Republicans the AMA is donating to either. The leading Senate-side recipient of its campaign contributions since 1998 has been John Ensign of Nevada, to whom the AMA has given $30,000. Ensign is the chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee. And Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, with $20,000 in donations, is in a tie with six other Republicans for second place. By contrast, the AMA has given just $3,000 to Ted Kennedy over this period, $4,000 to former Senator Hillary Clinton, and nothing to Majority Leader Harry Reid. Nor did President Obama or Vice President Biden receive any contributions from the AMA before departing for the White House. The AMA has, however, has given more generously to some other Democrats who are key players in health care reform, like Ron Wyden of Oregon ($12,800) and Max Baucus of Montana ($15,000; Baucus is the leading Senate Democratic recipient of AMA funds).

The AMA has given, since 1998, a total of $280,485 to the 66 Senators who voted in January to pass the Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). That is $4,250 per vote. By contrast, it has given $374,745, or $11,711 per vote, to the 32 Senators who opposed SCHIP. All but one Senator who voted in opposition to SCHIP, the newly-elected Jim Risch of Idaho, has received at least some contributions from the AMA over this period. By contrast, 30 of the 66 yea votes on SCHIP have not received a donation from the AMA since at least 1998, although we should note that a relatively high number of Democrats have joined the Senate chamber since 2006 and have not had as much opportunity to receive contributions.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 40% would vote for their district’s Democratic congressional candidate while 40% would choose the Republican.
Support for Democrats is up two points from last week, while support for the GOP is up three points. Support for the GOP is just one point below its highest level found over the past year. Last week’s results for the Democrats tied the lowest level of support for the party during the same period.

Voters not affiliated with either party now favor Republicans by a 38% to 21% margin.

~~~~~~~~~

2010 is looking good. Pretty impressive numbers considering the repubs are a bunch of old white guys with no leader.

hahahaha

Dobson And Disgraced WH Staffer Pay Bush Tribute: He Was ‘The Instrument In God’s Hand’ That Kept Us Safe

This week, James Dobson has been using his Focus on the Family Daily Broadcast to air his 1 1/2-hour interview with Tim Goeglein, a former special assistant to President Bush. The interview — billed as an “Insider’s View of the Bush Presidency” — has actually been a 1 1/2-hour love fest to the former president. Some highlights of Goeglien’s thoughts:

http://tinyurl.com/mpdxx6

Republicans Down on Their Own Party

Almost 4 out of 10 Republicans have unfavorable image of their party

PRINCETON, NJ -- Almost 4 out of 10 (38%) Republicans and Republican-leaning independents have an unfavorable opinion of their own party, while just 7% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents have an unfavorable opinion of the Democratic Party. Additionally, a May 29-31 USA Today/Gallup poll shows that the top-of-mind images of the Republican Party among Republicans are considerably more negative than are the images of the Democratic Party among Democrats.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/120815/Republicans-Down-Own-Party.aspx

Nice try Capt,

Unfavorable image and supporting a congressional candidate at the ballot box aren't even in the same ball park.

Obama is a failure and the independents are finally starting to realize it with buyers remorse!!

Boehner: 'Digging Ourselves Out of a Deep Hole'

House GOP leader Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, invited me to his “smoke-filled room” in the Capitol this afternoon.

Offering me a Diet Coke and pulling out a Camel 99 for himself, he spent the next half hour giving me a blunt analysis of his party’s problems and a forceful presentation on how to solve them.

“We’re digging ourselves out of a deep hole,” he admitted. “We took it in the shorts with Bush-Cheney, the Iraq War, and by sacrificing fiscal responsibility to hold power.”

Boehner also acknowledged that the GOP hasn’t done a good enough to job shaking the “party of no” label.

http://tinyurl.com/no43jp

Latest Right-Wing Meme: Von Brunn's A Lefty

It's hardly been 24 hours since James Von Brunn allegedly walked into the Holocaust Museum and shot museum guard Stephen Johns. But already conservatives from Rush Limbaugh to Red State have started advancing their latest up-is-down meme: Von Brunn -- a white supremacist consumed by hatred of Jews and blacks, who has called for President Obama to release his birth certificate -- isn't really a right-winger -- in fact, he's a lefty.

http://tinyurl.com/mmsc68

Von Brunn -- a white supremacist consumed by hatred of Jews and blacks, who has called for President Obama to release his birth certificate -- isn't really a right-winger -- in fact, he's a lefty.

Truth be told!

Amen brother!

Black is White and War is Peace

Yeah...Right...

The Health Care issue is symbolic of the inability of the Obama administration to make decisions that will be of ultimate benefit to the American people. He has used up his ability to make choices by the inept handling of the economic situation, or the military agenda decisions which leaves no wiggle room for implementing decent domestic projects.

The question is whether he realizes what his choices have created and if so, is unable to unshackle himself from the power interests. He is destroying his administration as a result to the detriment of the many people who voted for him with such hope.

I supported and voted for him but feel betrayed by the lack of insight and courage he has shown, and no where more than in the inability of getting a Universal Health care system in place. Any other combination involving the private sector will not succeed and the majority of Americans know this and are very angry.

I am afraid we will see more and more failures for our country as a result. It is such a waste and loss to finally get an intelligent, interesting man into office who may well be replaced by the opposition come the next election.