Stand Up, Max Baucus
It must finally be clear to us all that the stumbling block to successful health/disease care reform has been definitively reduced to two words. They're not "public option" or "single payer", they're "Max Baucus".
He was not elected to eliminate the Democratic Majority in the Finance Committee, but that's what he's done. It was not mandated that he exclude a representative expert on single payer from his 15-person advisory board but that's what he did. More than that, he's filled his campaign coffers with millions of dollars of Insurance Company money, for heaven's sake. Fine that he sits there holding the president's suit coat at that town hall meeting, great that he gets identified by the president a bunch of times. Great, because now we can all have a good look at who he is, sitting there squirming in the spotlight.
Enough sitting. It's time Max Baucus stands up and is counted, and if he can't get up on his own then Rahm Emanuel with someone hefty should go grab him by the scruff of his neck, stand him up and shake some sense into him. Standing by the likes of Grassley only counts with the insurance profiteers. It doesn't count with us. Stand up, Max Baucus, stand up for what's right or you'll be sitting down for a long, long time!
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"The overriding strategy is to scorn progressives while keeping them in their place and then expand the party by making it more conservative and more reliant on Blue Dogs."
From Friday Aug.21 in Glenn Greenwald's column (Third story down.)
http://www
Baucus is doing what the lobbiest that give him so much money for his campaing want him to do. All the drama going on at the townhall meetings is just a bunch of B.S.! It really doesn't matter what the president or congress say in front of the camera's I think they already decided how to screw us!
from Huffington Post:
Without health care reform, health insurance premiums could almost double by 2020, according to a report by the Commonwealth Fund, a 90-year-old non-profit health care charity.
According to "Paying the Price: How Health Insurance Premiums Are Eating Up Middle-Class Incomes," employer-sponsored family plans will rise from an average cost of $12,298 in 2008 to $23,842 in 2020 (the same coverage would have cost close to $9,200 in 2003) if health-care costs continue to rise at the current rate.
Anyone who wants to call the Senate Finance Committee directly the number is:
(202) 224-4515.
Let them know what you think and feel.
Looks like healthcare insurance is being positioned to be the new next big Wall St bubble .
Thank you for your voice Mr Sutherland.
All Max Baucus stands for is protecting corporate profits. He and the rest of the suits taking big bucks from the forprofitcare industry care nothing about the welfare of people. They only care about their power, their position, and their lifestyle. They will go to any lengths to defend their power and status.
Short and sweet. Nice article.
Well said! You touch it with a needle. Baucus is going to have some 'splainin to do come re-election time.
PS: I used to have the biggest crush on you LOL
I still do! (Re: that last sentence.)
those M*A*S*H doctors knew how to keep the ladies (nurses) entertained!
What a Blue Cross Democrat ......
the time is OVER for trying to get the GOP on track with anything,,except being in bed with the insurance companies,,,and any Dems sharing that bed and making any decisions that any smart American knows is wrong for US,,,is OVER....ta
Go get 'em Donald! Thank you so much!
but who put baucus in that position of power????/
and why????????
that's the question of the year.
maybe exactly for the consequence we see:
baucus plays the fallguy
without costing the neo-lib-dominated dem party much politically,
since he and the other 5 members of the gang are all from tiniest states....
You can count him and about another 50 Senators in both parties that need a shaking Senators and congressman need term limits there in there to long and get lazy and complacent and don't give a dam about the people only money and fringe benefits it has to be true when they have to stoop to lying to save there job.
I don't get it.
Why do all of these bloggers assume that Rahm is a progressive, or that he will try to line up votes for a progressive bill?
He's supposed to be hot stuff, but I don't see it.
If Emanuel could get single payer passed, that would be something to brag about.
You'd think that someone with his competitive spirit would want to rise to a real political challenge, win a truly staggering victory that he would be remembered with gratitude for generations, instead of just knuckling under to the plutocrats and passing BAU fish-in-a-barrel legislation. After all, this is Rahm's one stint in the White House. Next thing we know, Rahm will go quali-hunting with Dick Cheney, where the corporate types put all the bird in a basket, and then release them a few feet away from you, so you can blow them away with a shot gun. Yeah, that takes some real skill all right.
Rahm reminds me of the old play, "What Makes Sammy Run." He's just a cheap pol on the make.
I seem to recall that Rahm vehemently opposed Howard Dean's 50 state strategy (see http://www
Can the Senate leadership revoke Baucus' position on the finance commitee or can he both voted out by the Senate Dems?
MONTANA MAX -- PROTECT THE RICH MAX
Drive thru Montana "Sky country" and you become most impressed by the immense wealth of the few. Like this lady on talk radio who said, "If a man has less then a thousand acres we say he is all hat."
Comes now our conservative Democratic Party, so far right as to be out of touch with the vast majority, and it to act like a paid actor party, one hired by the rich nobility.
That is a fact!
Thanks for the comment, Mr. Sutherland, excpet that for all things, Rahm Emanuel IS TO THE RIGHT OF, and has made far more money from BIG FINANCE, than "Democrat" pay-to-play Senator Baucus.
Emanuel, in his 2 1/2 years at Chicago "boutique investment bank" Wasserstei
Mr. Emanuel cares no more for those those forced into bankruptcy by insurance company denial of health coverage
(much less those denied claims when a family member needs costly treatment),
than he cares for those forced into foreclosure by predatory lenders, or than he cares for those forced into unemployment by outsourcing US jobs,
any more than he cares for taxpayers forced to make good on massive Freddie Mac losses (Emanuel was a paid FreddieMac Director),
much less does Mr. Emanuel care for those laid off in LBO & M&A deals he made so many millions of dollars from, in such a short time.
http://dea
http://www
http://abc
And he obviously does not care f there is any fallback fr the 50 mil citizens and growing daily citizens with no where to turn for healthcare coverage.
Why should he ?, he's coverd by government health insurance and should he leave office he can always return to israel where he has dual citizenship and be covered by their universal health coverage, subsidized by the billions in aid we've sent and continue to send Israel for decades
Hold up. So no RAHM is to blame for all the citizens with nowhere to turn for healthcare coverage? And what exactly does this "return to Israel" bit have to do with the topic, the comment, or his participation in the healthcare debate.
I think you're revealing a little more than you'd intended.
CHICAGO GANSTER POLITICS
As we born and raised in Milwaukee did always say, being a two hour drive from the corrupt Windy City on a sunny day, "Got to be a gangster if in Chicago politics you want to stay."
Yes, I'm puzzled by all the bloggers at HuffPo who keep repeating the myth that Emanuel is a tough guy, scrappy, real fighter, etc.
Who cares? He's fighting on the wrong side.
He's about as useful to the People in this fight as tats on a Taurus.
Big deal, so another egoistic plutocrat is strutting around DC.
The guy's as magic as a plastic spatula in a five-alarm fire.
He'll give the obstructionists 50 lashes with a wet noodle.
HeHeHe. LIKE IT!
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