ProgressiveChange's Comments (148)

“May his Ego lead him to a Mayoralty race in Chicago, which he would most certainly lose. ,”

“It won't be a Wake-Up Call.

When 'leadership' fails to lead ... gutless is the modus oprandi ... Change We Can't Believe In is manifest throughout Congress ... a long-term or permanent comatose state is evident ... 'pay-to-play' trumps substantive campaign finance reform ... and the public interest is subordinated to their personal political and/or business interests, clear-eyed folks will no longer accept 'the imperfect as the ally of greed and dishonor' aka ethical vacuums.

Arianna's leadership in moving money is just a start to volley of public protest needed to effect real change. Unfortunately, the planet and the national well-bing are running out of time.”

“I love fiction sold as progressive legislation! Democratic Senators and Members know or should know that the absence of a robust public option or single-payer system will result in a more rapid escalation in costs, no additional accountability, a larger deficit in providers willing to accept Medicaid reimbursement, no substantive quality enhancements, astronomical budget-breakers, and the proliferation of a fragemented non-system.

Adding insult to injury, they are about to reward the largest Medicare and Medicaid defrauders in the healthcare industry with a motherlode of additonal profits. Disney Studios couldn't have scripted a more farcical story line entitled health reform. They can call it whatever they want, but the most honest ccharacterization of it is legislative paralysis.

They certainly attained their #1 Goal: They didn't let the imperfect become the enemy of the good. They enabled the corrupt and the greedy to become the architects, contractors, and allies of the imperfect.”

“Doesn't even begin to describe the outrage.

The President and Democrats were very clear during the political campaigns:
Medicare Part D would be amended to allow CMS to negotiate drug prices with manufacturers.
Reimportation of far less expensive RX drugs from Canada et. al. would be legalized.
Exclusive RX drug patents would be reduced to enable generic drugs to come to market faster.
Change was coming to the way business is done in Washington.

All of the above were abandoned on the road to their 'healthcare reform'. Defrauders and scoundrels within the pharmaceutical industry could not have dreamed for more lucrative deals. If the public only had on their radar screens the history of many drug companies' fraudulent and egregious business practices victimizing consumers, federal and state governments, they would be enraged ... about as enraged as they would be if the President decided to release Bernie Madoff and Andy Fastow from prison and appointed them to head up the SEC and the Federal Reserve.”

“It would be far more respectful of the electorate if Obama or Reid called a Press Conference in prime time and admitted the obvious: "The sytemic defects in the legislation are deliberately crafted to preserve, protect, and proliferate the well-being of corporate healthcare interests. Maybe more people will be insured .... but most will not be able to afford the products insurers market in 2014. Maybe more people will have access to Medicaid coverage and community health clinics, but we have no idea where we will find the physicians, nurses, and allied health personnel to (a) staff new and existing facilities, and (b) physicians who will accept Medicaid reimbursement rates. Insurers will be required to extend coverage to children with pre-existing medical conditions upon the President's signature, but at what cost to families, we can only conjecture. Ditto adults in 2014. However, this is the best poltical compromise we could devise, given the extortion of various concessions to many of the 60 Senators necessary to pass what we will call healthcare reform. We hope to improve the legislation incrementally over time, assuming we retain power and our base continues to support us with blind faith. We can assert with confidence that we didn't let the imperfect become the enemy of the good. God Bless America and Happy New Year."”

“When will journalists here or in the MSM call Obama to account? Unless I have distorted hearing, he and the Democrat leadership in Congress said:
1. Doing business as usual in Washington would end. The Pharma deal the White House struck and Congress sustained is just one flagrant example of their peculiar approach to Change. Enabling the worst of the worst (I'm talking about those companies which paid fortunes in Medicare and Medicaid fraud fines and penalties for the past several years ... and those who rescinded coverage for sick people among others) within the healthcare industry to optimize further enrichment is simply unconscionable.
2. Democrats including Obama condemned the Bush crew's prohibition of reimportation of less expensive RX drugs from Canada and other countries. Within the last few weeks, they reaffirmed the illegality of reimportation.
3. They promised to change Medicare Part D to enable CMS to negotiate RX drug prices with manufacturers. That ship has also left the harbor --- Democrats won't fight that fight either.
4. They promised transparency and few, if any in the general populatin, knew what the hell was in the Senate legislation until very recently.”

“It is apparent that Congressional staffers either disregarded or failed to explore ehealthinsurance.com Othewise they would have determined that expensive monthly premiums, high deductibles, and limited use co-pays are the rule ... and that there is little cost difference between insurance companies. Out-of-pocket expenses and monthly premiums erase any prospect that most middle class wage-earners and families will be able to afford coverage. So, they will pay their fines and be without healthcare coverage.

Those who do qualify for Medicaid will need much patience and luck finding primary care physicians who accept Medicaid assignment. Private practitioners avert Medicaid patients like the plague ... and a tiered medical system already in place will be proliferated.

By rewarding the private insurance industry and other vested economic interests, Congress is essentially hamstringing its ability to expand access, control costs, and improve quality. It is making the conscious choice to prioritize special interests over the public interest. Democrats will claim victory ... but the political victory is not a societal triumph. There is no shame.”

“His advisors remain clueless. They are still doing the SNL routine ... any legislation stamped 'healthcare reform' will be signed by Obama.

Normally we know what something might cost us ... that's right, us ... before we are expected to buy it. In this instance, the government wants us to buy it without knowing what the insurance industry will charge us for it.

Nothing more ludicrous is imaginable.”

“Are there any Clinton Admin. veterans, who aren't tools of the healthcare industry?”

“Smart woman. She's effecting change she can believe in.”

“Yep ... I am one of the 30% ... and the Dems will need armies of RX and insurance companies' employees to canvass and get out the vote next November, because sure as hell, we won't be doing it again. MoveOn.org better start importing campaign workers.”

“Democrats have perfected the formula for Progressives withholding energy and time in November 2010. Escalating the Afghan War + TARPing Wall Street + neglecting Main Street + an impotent healthcare 'reform' package = disaster next year.”

“Joe represents the State of Aetna-Cigna, which is headquartered in Hartford. It is that simple. He was their guy in 1993-94 during the Clinton-lite healthcare 'reform' effort ... nothing has changed other than he has increased his campaign war chest.

I doubt that Joe will run for another term in the Senate. I would bet that he will accept a lucartive job or lobbying offer from the insurance industry .... or other healthcare special interests ... before or after his current term expires.

If the Democrats had any backbone, they would opt for the legislative equivalent of the nuclear option ... the reconciliation process, which requires a simple majority. The current legislation is about as weak as Congress could have made it ... about 180 degrees to the right of a single-payer universal healthcare system.”

“Where they will be able to find more physicians, who will accept Medicaid patients (unless they improve reimbursement dramatically), will be a real challenge. As it stands today, a large majority of primary care physicians and significant minority of specialists in private practice wlll not accept Medicaid patients. Adding tens of millions of patients to the rolls of Medicaid will create bottlenecks ... and a tiered healthcare system, already in place, will be proliferated.”

“Conyers is doing Obama a favor. If Barack continues to look through the prism of his political advisors (cowards from what we can tell) and the gutless on healthcare reform, financial services industry regulation, and other progressive concerns ... he will be a one-term President and Democrats wil lose significantly in 2010. The army of volunteers Democrats had in 2008 will evaporate. It's that simple.”

“Now it gets amusing ... Dems will be caught in a box if they don't pass something significant ... and this is the bare minimum.”

“Now if he can just purge The White House staff and in-house advisors of those influenced by lucrative past, present, (and perhaps hope-to-be future) relationships with the financial services and healthcare industries, we may resume our hppe for Change We Can Believe In.”

“If the Administration needs a Bibliography, they should start with the New England Journal of Medicine and finish with Heatlh Affairs.

They should also leave the glass houses on Pennslvania Avenue and Capitol Hill and go out and actually speak to PCPs, ER personnel, admissions staff, professional consultants, medical social workers, and yes ... patients! The truth is not, with all due respect, the monopoly of pundits and journalists. Indeed, it lies with those who witness and suffer the current non-system.”

“You are absolutely correct. Somewhere between price-gouging, their overhead costs, their marketing costs, executive salaries and perks, shareholder dividends and ... fraud fines and penalties, cash settlements in class action litigation, and legal defense fees ... the health insurance industry is as necessary for an efficient healthcare system as 10 tires would be on a passenger vehicle.”

“Healthcare defrauders have been paying up to several billions in fines and penalties without admissions of wrongdoing for at least 2 decades.

It is a cost/risk caluculation ... the cost of doing business for many corporations. As long as the executives need not go to jail, writing checks in settlement of federal civil suits and paying lawyers to handle the unpleasantries are considered acceptable business practices. The fact that the fortunes being expended to resolve unpleasantries are ultimately paid indirectly by consumers and/or taxpayers is another undisclosed offense of the perpetrators.”

“The first priority of Members of Congress is to be re-elected. The means for being re-elected is to play nice with special interests ... a quid pro quo for campaign funding, jobs for their relatives and friends, and jobs for themselves after they leave office.

The only leverage progressive activists have on Congress is to promise to not show up as volunteers and foot soldiers for their campaigns ... and to fulfill the promise. Democratic Members of Congress are confident that whatever they do, activists have no place to go when campaigns rev up ... and they will invariably come home to the Party faithful.

Unless and until activists stop volunteering ... and pay-to-play is ended with publicly financed elections campaigns ... change will be nominal, cosmetic, token or incremental at best.”

“Don't …’let the imperfect become the enemy of the good’.

Wiener must have borrowed this expression from Obama … who borrowed it from Ron Pollack, Famillies, USA. It enables those primed for compromise on major issues to explain that something is better than nothing.

So, the merchants of greed and most infamous in committing massive fraud (the “imperfect”) will survive and be rewarded … their profits will proliferate … but millions more will be added to the Medicaid rolls (aka “the good”), where they will need more than luck to find doctors willing to treat them (the vast majority of doctors don’t accept Medicaid). Individuals will be required to buy swiss cheese health insurance plans (”the imperfect”), which they may not be able to afford … and earn too much to qualify for Medicaid. Americans will not have access to the same insurance at the same cost as Members of Congress (”the imperfect”), ... but if they can afford inferior insurance policies, pre-existing conditons denials will be eliminated (”the good”).

How it all works in reality years from now remains to be seen. But overall, The Health Care Insurance and Pharmaceutical Industries Profit Proliferation Act 2009-10 is well on its way to Imperfection peppered with some Good.”

“If they were governing from the platform of principle in pursuit of the public interest, they would be free. Instead, they have chosen, as their predecessors did, to govern from the subverting posture of the next election, which paralyzes them from effecting Change We Can Believe In.

The Congress is the worst offender. Pay-to-play has corrupted policy-making. Private funding of public elections is corrosive. It breeds legalized bribery in many forms. It attracts candidates with minimal strength of character.

Canidates unprepared to lose re-election should not be rewarded with public office in which to enrich themselves, families and friends ... and inflate their egos.”

“... too many times, after the election was over, and the confetti was swept away, all those promises fade from memory, and the lobbyists and the special interests move in, and people turn away, disappointed as before, left to struggle on their own. --- Senator Barack Obama, 2/10/07

President Obama has not produced Change We Can Believe In. He has demonstrated Yes We Can ... But No We Won't.

'Changing the way business is done in Washington' was among his team's battle cries. Cutting a deal with the RX drug industry ... failing to openly, aggressively insist upon a robust public option or single-payer universal health care system ... failing to use the power of The White House to demand quick legislation to end the prospect of more abuses by the banking and financial services fraud perpetrators ... are just a few of the glaring discrepancies between what was promised and what has been done or not done to date.

"He closed the revolving door, forbidding anyone who works in his administration from lobbying when they leave their jobs" ... Many appointees served on Boards and had lucrative roles with the industries, which have been outrageously exploitive of Americans. It is unacceptable to appoint political hacks ever-cautious about making the wrong moves on the chess board without balancing their routines with more grounded and reality-based personnel.

The valley between what David Plouffe believes what is yet to be done and what we expect from President Obama is much wider than”

“Joe is voting his pocketbook. He and his family are inseparable from industries contributing to their personal wealth. Too few Congressional members have the integrity to prioritize their constituents' interest above their own.

Unless and until we see publicly financed elections, the outcomes of most legislation will be predictable.”