AFFORDABLE HEALTH CHOICES FOR AMERICA ACT--NOT

The Democrats are cheering after passing AHCAA and telling us that help is on the way. The problem is the help isn't for us, it's for the predatory health insurance industry and congress is sticking us with the bill.

Almost identical bills were enacted in the 90's in three states. Massachusetts, one of the states, has the most expensive health care on earth. The other two, Oregon and Washington were forced to cut coverage and benefits as they quickly ran out of money. If this bill passes, hang onto your wallets.

HR 3200 should really be called "The Budget Breaking Welfare for Insurers and Drug Manufacturers and Too Bad for the Rest of You Act". It's going to be wildly expensive, there are no controls on the costs or quality of the product Americans will be forced to buy, and there isn't any credible choice.

It's a huge betrayal by a heartless congress and a mean spirited White House.

The health insurance industry should have gone the way of the dodo bird decades ago. They contribute nothing to the health of Americans, skim off 25% (and growing) of all health care dollars and their policies have caused the premature dealths of tens of thousands of Americans each and every year. Instead of relagating them to the dust bin of history, congress has just granted a new lease on life and the money and power to block real health care reform for the foreseeable future.

surers, who contribute nothing to health of Americans and whose predatory business model is responsible for untold numbers of premature death, bankruptcies and untold suffering, are rewarded with 50 million new customers, taxpayer subsidies and immunity from providing for the poorest and the sickest Americans.

The bill contains NO caps on premiums, NO restrictions on deductibles or co-payments. Insurers can no longer be dropped but their rates and co-pays can still go sky high. Under this system the insured can still go bankrupt, leaving taxpayers on the hook for their inflated premiums.

The bill does nothing to address the fact that health care is not a commodity.

You can't vote with your wallet if you are having a heart attack or get cancer.

If the bill passes the Senate, insurers will still be immune from anti-monopoly laws. The puny public option, designed to be non-competitive, isn't a choice. You have to qualify and very few Americans will.

An amendment to protect states from litigation by health insurers should they want to start a single payer system of their own, was stripped from the bill, even though it passed both committee and floor votes.

The bill represents a transfer of wealth of a half a trillion dollars upward, (again).

It locks us in to a payment system that makes no sense, for the foreseeable future.

A system that exploits its customers and skims off 25% of our health care dollars. A system that every other developed nation has rejected, the foreseeable future.

That's just the beginning of what is wrong with this bill. At a time when our elderly population is increasing and the poor have become much more numerous, it will be funded in part by cuts to Medicare and Medicaid.

It handed a virtual monopoly to manufacturers of biologic drugs, the cutting edge for cancer and other intractible diseases. They will continue to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and be out of the reach of most Americans. In case you are thinking that drug companies deserve to be repaid for risk, most research is paid for by taxpayers and manufacturers are given the fruits of our labor cost free.

Congress and the White House sacrified the cost savings they could of negotiated with providers and drug companies that would have had with a large pool of publicly insured. How does no competition and no ability to negotiate add up to affordable health care? It didn't the states that tried it.

Insurance isn't really the primary business of the insurance industry. Investing is.

The potential for a health care bubble is very real.

Examine The callous disregard and vicious mendacity of the Obama White House and it's client congress.

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AMERICA'S BEST IDEA AND IT ISN'T WAR

Thank goodness for documentarian Ken Burns who helps us understand that the real American spirit lies somewhere outside the halls of power and the relentless militarism of recent decades.
It is significant that the creator of "The Civil War" and "War" about WWII awarded the title of America's best idea to the simple act of taking care of what we all ready have.
“The National Parks: America’s Best Idea” Burns latest documentary is a stunning example of his work.
But Burns left a gaping hole in the historical record of the Parks System by giving David Brower, founder of the modern conservation movement and spiritual heir of John Muir, only a bit part. I knew Brower and was associated with the Sierra Club during the growth of the conservation movement. Since this is part of my personal history and I'd like to do my part to fill in the historical record.

With his signiture style of documentary, Burns has discovered how to make history as engaging and immediate as today’s news. His unique style of documentary weaves together the ragged fragments of the past into a compelling narrative.

“The National Parks” is well worth setting aside the 10 hours it takes to watch. Not only will you be bathed in beauty but you'll learn to appreciate a whole new class of American heroe. You will understand that it has never been easy to protect even a small corner of our nation from the rapacious appetite of big business and the ignorance and corrupton of decision makers.

Sadly few of us will have the same quality of experience Burns reminisces about or be allowed the unrestricted access he and his film crew enjoyed.
Time and a lack of political will have taken their toll on aging infrastructure. Many of the Parks have been degraded by neglect, inappropriate development, penny pinching, under staffing, mismanagement and the power of special interests. Burns and his fortunate crew did not have to contend with seasonal closures, capricious restrictions, limited visiting hours, irritating traffic congestion and the hub bub of peak season crowds that afflict most visitors today.

Given the state of many of our best loved parks, is Burns film a celebration or a eulogy?

Burns skims over uncomfortable facts such as the majority of park employees being underpaid, seasonal help or that luxury homes crowd the borders of parks. He ignores the gas and oil leases that threaten Park integrity and transfer even more public wealth into private hands. Many Park boundaries were drawn before the word ecosystem was in the dictionary. Vital food sources for animals and migration routes were inadvertenely cut off. Park boundaries sometimes left sensitive areas unprotected or at the mercy of multi-use agencies like the BLM and Forest Service.

Perhaps Brower ended up on the cutting room floor because he was never a man to sugar coat unpleasant realities. He spoke in defense of downtrodden park employees and spoke out against the "Corporate takeover of nature and the Disneyfication of Wilderness".

Burns blows by Brower's enormous contribution to the Parks System itself and the populist conservation movement he founded that has been crucial in defending it. Instead he focuses on the battle for Dinosaur National Monument, unaware or uninterested in the fact that Brower considered it "the greatest sin of my life". The scrapping of the Echo Park dam , slated to built in the middle of Dinosaur was not the triumph Burns described. It was a trade. Brower and other key members of the conservation community agreed not to oppose two other dams slated to be built in Colorado River Basin. One of them was Glen Canyon.

Dam building was very popular with western states congressmen. Dams provided water storage for the arid west, cheap but unneeded electricity and gas powered, mass recreation. In all, eight dams were planned for the Colorado River Basin. Floyd Dominy, Browers arch rival in the Bureau of Recreation, poorly educated in the more delicate art of nature and scarred by a hard scrabble life in Wyoming, believed in the sanctity of dams and dam building.

Brower, like John Muir, the founder of the Sierra Club, was drawn to wild places and spent as much of his life in them as possible. In 1952 when Brower took over the reins of the Sierra Club, he was an accomplished mountaineer and guide. He had 70 first ascents, stretching from Canada to Ship Rock on the Navajo Indian Reservation. But the Sierra Club Brower inherited was not the dynamo of conservation justice we think of today. There were only 2000 well-heeled members, whose interests were limited to keeping mountains nice for their outings and happily nursing a portfolio of blue chip stocks. What the new Executive Director had in mind was something entirely different.

Browers passion for preservation was awakened in Europe during WWII, where he trained members of the 10Th Mountain Division in mountaineering and cross country skiing. He saw first hand the fate of Europe's wild places and feared that the US was heading down the same path. He knew that a handful of private outdoor clubs could not stand against the powerful interests that threatened America's last wild places. Brower set out to build a national consensus; a powerful and effective conservation movement.

One of his projects was to publish a series of exhibit format books with stunning photography, interwoven with poetry and prose that delivered a strong conservation message. He agonized over ever print, wrote much of the copy and searched the world for the best printers. He wanted readers to weep over the beauty of our last wild places and rush to save them.

Brower was not someone to wait around for permission. He committed a substantial amount of Sierra Club resources to the publishing venture without formal Board approval.

The books were extremely successful. They became the gold standard for coffee table books and they sold like hotcakes. Sierra Club membership swelled to 77,000.

Brower's messianic zeal was hard on the people around him. There was a level of chaos that followed in his wake and his methods sometimes bruised egos. The fact that his unconventional methods were so successful made it even harder for his antagonists to swallow.

Brower had never visited Glen Canyon, located in a near roadless area on the Utah Arizona border, when he helped to seal its fate. After the dust had settled from the Dinosaur battle, he and his family floated the canyon, past its red walls and side canyons with names like Ticaboo Rapids, Sundog Bar, Music Temple and Cathedral Canyon. He realized that he'd made terrible mistake. He saw that it was an amazing place, fragile and unique and no place for dam; especially a dam that would back water up 187 miles, completely drowning the canyon and destroying the unique ecosystem. Unfortunately, the dam was nearly completed.

Never one for hand-wringing , Brower launched a vigorous campaign opposing Glen Canyon Dam. He published the large format book “The Place No One Knew” with stunning photographs by Eliot Porter and shuttled back and forth between San Francisco and DC imploring Congress to reconsider. He bombarded them with facts and figures.

Brower was the first conservationist to use paid advertising in national newspapers to affect public opinion. He bought advertising in newspapers culminating in a full page ad comparing the flooding of Glen Canyon to “the flooding of the Sistine Chapel so visitors could get closer to the ceiling”. It was a response to the one of Dominy's claims that people could enjoy the canyon better from motor boats.

The ads sparked a huge public protest against the dam. Dump trucks full of letters from citizens arrived in Washington; 95% were against the dam. They also caused outrage in the halls of power. The IRS took away The Sierra Club’s tax-exempt status, citing the "Sistene Chapel" ad and claiming it constituted lobbying. Since many other tax exempt groups were engaging in similar activities unimpeded by the IRS, the decision was almost certainly politically motivated. Brower claims it was Morris Udall, congressional ally Stewart Udall's brother.

Over time, pro and anti-Brower factions had formed on the Sierra Club Board. The 1968 election put the conservative anti-Brower faction in the majority. The tax issue provided a convenient way to push him out which the following year.

It was a crushing blow. Brower's protege, Ansel Adams and almost all his friends voted against him. Brower looked stunned as he emerged from the meeting room, brandishing a copy of the San Francisco Chronicle. On the front page of the paper were the headlines "A Giant Falls" and underneath a picture of the giant Wawona Tunnel Tree in health. The photo was taken by Ansel Adams and standing beside tree was a much younger David Brower. He quipped about both of the tree and himself falling together and you could see the disappointment and sadness on his face.

The campaign that cost Brower his job did not prevent the flooding of Glen Canyon but it did prevent two dams being built in the Grand Canyon, even though Dominy insisted that a free flowing Colorado River was "no good to anyone". Even those who voted against Brower believed that saving the Grand Canyon from development was worth the loss of their tax exempt status.

Europe may have awakened the Brower but it was the Bureau of Reclamation that radicalized him. Bloodied but not bowed, Brower founded Friends of the Earth within a year of leaving Sierra Club. Today Friends of the Earth continues to be influential and boasts independent affiliates in 68 countries. Brower did more to export the idea of parks than almost anyone else. Brower helped create the League of Conservation Voters and later founded the Earth Island Institute, both flourishing as we speak.

Brower’s achievements as a Park benefactor are the equal of any of Burns's brightest stars. In addition to preventing dams from being built in the Grand Canyon, he prevented dam construction inside saved King’s Canyon National Park. He spearheaded the establishment of Redwood National Park, the North Cascades National Park, Point Reyes National Seashore, Cape Cod National Seashore, Glacier Peak Wilderness Area and more. He was key in getting the Wilderness Act passed and establishing the National Wilderness Preservation System, a whole new paradigm in conservation and preservation.

Brower was nominated three times for the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1998 he was awarded the Blue Planet Award for lifetime achievement, an even richer prize than the Nobel. He used some of the generous proceeds to establish the Glen Canyon Institute whose primary goal is the draining of Lake Powell and the restoration of Glen Canyon. Brower passed away in 2000 but even in death he fights on. The Brower Institute in his hometown of Berkeley provides scholarships and education.

Brower was intelligent, engaging, charming, forthright, impatient and inconvenient. Almost no one could match his energy and drive. That was his gift and his curse. He'd fly to DC, lobby all day, fly back that night, dump a manuscript he'd written on the plane, full of run on sentences on someone's desk and call you up at midnight and ask you to run an errand. He demanded a great deal of those around him but no more than he demanded of himself.

His unwillingness to bow before the altar of corporate or political power made him dangerous man and a shining example to us all.

His critics called him raucous and brash and unreasonable; the exact combination of personality traits required to penetrate the armour and egocentric venality of the ruling elite. Compared to killer instincts of the corporatocracy, Brower was sweet reason itself. His accomplishments are legion and everything he did benefited everyone of us.

Brower chastised those who did less than he was willing to do. “Polite conservationists leave no mark except the scars upon the earth that could have been prevented had they stood their ground”

He was the enemy of any technology that produced large-scale environmental degradation. He was one of the first to uncover the hidden costs of hydroelectric power and to recognize the negative environmental impact. He stood firmly against America’s worst idea, nuclear energy. He was fond of saying “any technology should be assumed guilty until proven innocent” and he was right. He was not afraid to take on the third rail of conservation, population control.

The Park System and the conservation movement itself are expressions of a deeper philosophy that challenges most corporate, economic and religious thought; that we are stewards of the earth and not its masters. It is an observable belief that places us within the web of life and challenges the magical thinking that places us apart from the rest of the natural world. Brower's genius was his ability to articulate this in a way that resonated with millions of people around the world.

That we are nature and nature, inextricably linked, is us is not just America’s best idea, it’s the planet’s best idea. As Brower himself said, “there is no business to be done on a dead planet”. Fighting for ideals you believe in is the next best idea.

To me Brower is important not just for his accomplishments but as a model for confronting the destructive powers that threaten not only the wild places but our very existance. He accused his adversaries of treating the planet "as if we had a spare". That remains true to this day.

His life is a reminder that the most important battlefield is not in some foreign land but close to home. If we follow in his footsteps it will require each of us to be just as exasperating, just as courageous and just as uncompromising.

Carol DW

WHERE THE RUBBER MEETS THE ROAD

A behind the scenes look at the budget process of local government in these “interesting times”.

When the pirates on Wall Street and their friends

in goverment finished raping and pillaging the economy, they left an ugly trail of despair and desperation in their wake. Their victims are showing up at shelters, soup kitchens, emergency

rooms and tent cities that are mushrooming across the nation. They include the well educated and the victims of our more recent military adventures. The job market, never robust during the Bush years, is shrinking at an alarming rate. All this is happening at a time when States, Counties, Cities and Communities, charged with their care, are experiencing huge revenue shortfalls.

In King County WA, which includes the city of Seattle, Council Members are trying to solve the shortfall by channeling Ronald Reagan. Close parks, shut down 911 emergency services and allocate zero dollars for human services. Give law enforcement a raise and hope for the best. The ugly phrase “public/private partnerships’ was bandied about by one council member. A smug euphemism for transferring even more of the public wealth to the private sector.

The shortsightedness and brazen inhumanity of these budget decisions are incomprehensible. How can one human being say to another that their need is of no consequence? When people are granted power, is it a requirement to have one’s humanity surgically removed?
Dismantling welfare programs (400+vendors) always ends up costing more than any short-term savings. The ensuing chaos created by slashing vital services costs is exponentially more expensive than maintaining current levels of service. The social costs continue far beyond the temporary budget crisis.
When the people making these proposals take home $120,000 of taxpayer’s dollars every year, the process becomes obscene.

The sad and sorry fact is that even in good times King Country has never allocated a set amount to HHS. Law enforcement and the Courts are mandated expenses but not the simple, sensible act of helping those in need. The desperate and adrift have always had to rely on the crumbs from short-term revenues.
In the same budget session King Country managed to find federal dollars to help “stabilize” real estate prices by offering first time homebuyers down payment assistance but no one even mentioned looking for federal dollars to help with the HHS shortfall.

A group of determined citizens showed up a recent budget meeting to voice their displeasure at their cold-hearted approach to the victims of Wall Street’s unchecked greed. Church leaders spoke about being cognizant of their own vulnerability and mindful of the suffering of others. Others questioned 73% of the general fund going to law enforcement and courts, demanding that a paltry 3% be allocated to helping the most vulnerable.
While the council members were “feeling our pain” and fretting about how difficult it was to solve this problem, the man next to me silently held a sign aloft; “tax the rich”.
This common sense message failed to penetrate the consciousness of the Council. There are many profiting from "disaster capitalism".

There are systemic problems in the tax structure that are impacting the current crisis. Too many responsibilities have been off loaded onto local government and too few Federal dollars are returned to the States.

In the end, Council members recommended a 1% mandate HHS, about six million dollars. That leaves law enforcement about 438 million to scrape by on.
The King County Council called their paltry recommendation a “political victory” for us. It was a telling phrase. When Council Members have to make choices they don’t consider the problem, they consider the politics of the problem. What interest groups will make the most noise if they negatively impacted and which populations have little or no power? That is why politicians instinctively reach for the worst possible solution in a crisis, screw the poor and vulnerable.

That is precisely how the powerful become separated from their humanity.

That is how people who exercise power become dangerous to the society they live in.

Carol DW

Judge Bybee: Coming to a Court Room Near You

From time to time Seattle has the dubious honor of hosting Judge Bybee, one of the infamous authors of the torture memos.

He sits on the 9th District Court, a lifetime appointment awarded to him by President Bush for providing legal cover (albeit thin) for the Bush administration's brutal interrogation practices. Since the date of these memos, more than a hundred people (that we know of) have died in US custody. Many more have been permanently injured in mind and body.

There is evidence that "enhanced interrogations" were used to provide justification for the extra legal invasion of Iraq.

Under domestic and international law, torture is always crime. There are no mitigating circumstances and no statute of limitations. Conspiring to commit torture ( Bybee's gig) bears the same punishments as torture.

To his credit, Bybee has expressed regret for having written the memos. Regret is not the same as doing time for doing the crime. It is a stain on the character of our new president (or worse) that that Bybee continues to sit in judgment instead of in a cell.

A dozen or so patriotic citizens decided to provide a welcome for Judge Bybee outside the courthouse where he was presiding. It would be a small demonstration that including pictures of Bybee's victims, a large paper mache statue of Justice, peeking through her blindfold and a motley assortment of peace and justice folks. The most aggressive thing planned was to hand out literature and postcards addressed to the Attorney General.

When the demonstrators arrived, Homeland Security was waiting. In addition to the usual courthouse security , there were SEVEN white vans each containing uniformed, armed guards ssurrounded the building. Several were parked in right in front of the demonstration. There was an assortment of plain clothes officers looking like Mormon missionaries. There were no terrorists for Homeland Security to sniff out and the most dangerous person, aside from themselves, was Bybee.

How they knew we were coming is puzzling. It was an ad hoc event put together through frantic phone calls and last minute email messages. Were they reading our email, listening in on our cell phones or is there a mole?
How would Homeland Security react if we were to stand around in front of their headquarters
with guns strapped to our hips and a cadre of men in black suits with cell phones clapped to their ears. How much did it cost tax payers to provide that much intimidation?

My apologies to good cops everywhere, but I have yet to encounter a situation where police involvment didn't mean that things were going to get a lot worse. This was no exception.

About 40 minutes into the demonstration the man in the picture took out a camera and began aggressively photographing all the demonstrator's faces, including myself. When I began photographing him, he and his ICE badge hot-footed it up the stairs. He looked haunted.

A short time later this same man had a short middle aged woman arrested. Two armed Homeland Security officers grabbed her roughly by the arms and marched her up the steps into the building. She was charge assault??? and banned from court property.

During the Bush years I had read accounts of demonstrators being harassed and spuriously arrested. Riding rough shod over citizen's constitutional rights was one of Bush's favorite pastimes. It was outrageous but not surprising.

In my wildest dreams I never imagined that this would continue under a new administration. It had all the stupid militancy of a Banana Republic, legitimizing itself by force. The message was clear: "sit down and shut up, or else". This is not the America I know and care for.

This was a journey to another country; one I wish I had not taken.

Carol DW

OBAMA THE UNREADY

Shortly before Obama redeployed US troops to Afghanistan Rep. McDermott (D-WA), just returned from the region, warned the President that increasing our military presence would be, costly, deadly and counterproductive. He likened Obama's situation to Kennedy's Bay of Pigs.

Long before either man was elected, the Pentagon had invasion plans languishing in their vaults waiting for a young, inexperienced president, eager for success and unwary of the uncertainties of war. McDermott, went on to say that Obama was an intelligent man and he hoped he would discover the folly of a militaristic policy in Afghanistan. He didn't.
Now with body counts ballooning and Obama's generals telling him that the US is losing, it's all too apparent that intelligence without wisdom or experience is a poor commodity.

In very short time Obama has shown us that he is man unready to face America's problems head on. His timidity has ensnared him in every trap that might undermine his effectiveness.

The financial bailout package pushed through congress, contrary to public opinion and against the best advice, rewarded the authors of economic destruction and punished their victims. Obama's persuasive rhetoric was the candy coating on another raid on the treasury by the ruling elite. The economy continues to trend downward, toxic assets still threaten the banks. There is no such thing as a jobless, homeless recovery.

Obama's health care package, crafted by the lobbyists he promised to shun and rife with concessions, has become a plutocrats dream; a bonanza for the corporate elite and their major shareholders. A big bill for tax payers. The fact that it will do little to raise the standard of health care, in steep decline since ascent of the corporate model or reduce costs, driven by the greed of CEOs and major shareholders, has fallen off Obama's radar.

Obama's reluctance to prosecute the war criminals and garden variety crooks that swelled the ranks of the last administration, is his most foolish decision to date. He has signaled his enemies, some of most ruthless and dangerous people on the planet, that anything goes. He has freed them from the cares of imminent prosecution and allowed them to fully focus on bringing down his administration.

Sidelining the Constitution and selectively administering the law undermines the social contract that between a government and its people. When the rich and powerful can do as they like, the society becomes fundamentally unjust. No government can maintain itself happily or long under these conditions.

A thousand years ago, a ten year old boy was thrust upon the throne of England after his brother was murdered by members of mother's household (not so very far from the current political climate). Aethelred's reign was marked by division, violence and failure. History dubbed him Aethelred the Unready. The epithet was not as much a reference to his youth, as a condemnation of the Royal Council (representing the vested interests of the day) whose advice was unfailingly bad. In the old Anglo Saxon raed means counsel. The combined form, ironically translated to "noble counsel". Aethelred, and Unraed is a play on words; noble council, no council. Aethelred may have been an intelligent boy but bad advice coupled with youth and inexperience are a recipe for disaster. Without a doubt Obama is being ill served by the cynical insiders surrounding him. But is that all?

No one forced Obama to be president. He fought for power. He didn't inherit his father's counselors, he chose his own. If they do not serve (they don't) he has the power to replace them (he's not). Obama is young but he has the responsibility to draw on the experience and wisdom of others. Obama is not a king, he is meant to preside, to execute the office the president. His refusal to act in concert with the majority opinion of Americans on every major issue is the stuff of kings. Even kings can only manage it for a limited time.

The storm clouds are gathering over the Obama presidency. His ratings are said to be in free fall. His netroots administrators are sending out frantic messages asking for new strategies, a job usually left to the Madison Avenue suits who packaged Obama as a reformer. Progressives are finding that, contrary to the latest White House meme, there is absolutely nothing "in it for them". McDermott's people say that Progressive Caucus is very unhappy with many of Obama's policies. The 91% of the victims of Wall Street Banksters sacrificed to line the pockets of the undeserving rich are unlikely to support for "four more years". Ditto for the "filibuster proof" Congress. The destructive forces that Obama has failed to contain are continuing their assault on the economy. Obama's ideological enemies (the birthers, the anti-healthcarists, wingnuts and warped descendents of merchant princes) are circling. Non-voters, motivated by the horror of the Bush administration, are unlikely to show up again.

Obama has moved from the "Audicity of Hope" to tarnished hopes in a matter of months. Even his supporters are calling his presidency a squandered opportunity. Obama has said he's willing to be a one term president. No one is working harder toward that end than he, himself.

Carol DW

Healthcare Headache

When the Democrats put Max Baucus in charge of
Senate healthcare reform it certainly wasn't to promote a broad-
ranging discussion on how to reform the nation's broken healthcare system. It was to narrow the debate to a few corporate friendly options. Baucus has taken more money from the healthcare industry than any other member of congress. Blue Cross, Blue Shield, New York Life and Schering-Plough are his top five contributors. The conservative Blue Dog Democrats get 18% of their campaign contributions from the same sector.
America's healthcare system is the most expensive of the planet and leaves nearly 1/6th of us out in the cold and many more shivering. We have the poorest health outcomes in the developed world.
The industries stuffing money in the campaign chests of Baucus and the Blue Dogs are directly responsible for all of the above.
Insurance companies and HMOs make money by cherry picking patients, charging as much as the market will bear and denying care. Big Pharma are one of the most profitable industries on the planet and after their US customers finish funding their research, they pay more for their drugs than anyone else. 25-30% of our healthcare dollars go to administrative costs levied by the insurance giants.
Baucus's refusal to even discuss a single payer option, a proven and effective solution to what ails us, is a direct result of his own gross conflict of interest. The Democrats ran as the Party of change but plainly, it's business as usual.

The most disappointing Democrat by far is our president. He knows better and still refuses to act in the best interests of the country. His response to the considerable pressure being brought to bear for single payer doesn't pass the sniff test. No nation that has adopted a single payer, inclusive public health system "started from scratch". His fondness for schmoozing with healthcare industry bigwigs has CREW (Citizens for Responsible Ethics in Washington) up in arms. They have submitted a FOIA request to see who is and isn't visiting the White House.

Obama's hour long promise to the corporate sponsored AMA was depressing. He seems to be taking his cues from the opponents of reform rather than the advocates.
By the time the convoluted and costly plan being shoved through congress plays itself out, the current administration and their supporters will have left town and we'll be stuck with the the bill.

We pay for the best healthcare system on the planet and the last time I read the Constitution, the job of the president and congress are to see that we get it.

Carol DW

Tarnished

President Obama's outrage over the North Korean's nuclear test is understandable but rife with troubling inconsistancies.
He points out that the second nuclear test of the North Korean's is a "blantant violation of international law".
Is it a violation? The North Koreans withdrew from the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty in 2003 when Bush began threatening them. As a designated member of the "axis of evil" the North Koreans were quick to note Americans did not bomb or invade nations who had a nuclear arsenal.
As long the US continues to flaunt international law itself, the president stands on shrinking ground. The list of our crimes are long and varied; aggressive war, illegal occupation, torture, rendition, the use of banned weapons, failure to protect civilians, destroying civilian infrastructure, failure to provide aid and medical services to civilians, extra judicial detention, assassination by drone, stealing national resources and supporting the expansionist and genocidal agenda of other nations.
America's "soft power", the ability to influence others to operate in the common good will continue to be enfeebled as long as the policies that undermined it remain.
Obama's cries of "foul" will continue to have the ring of blatant hypocricy as long as he refuses to prosecute those Americans that did so much harm to so many.
Carol DW