Sebelius and Obama on message shutting the door on single-payer forever.

[clear eye]

In Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius' interview on NPR's Morning Edition, the following exchange took place:

STEVE INSKEEP(Morning Edition host): Can you say flat out that it's just never going to be single-payer health insurance and we're going to try to write it if we can so it won't ever be?
SEBELIUS: Oh, I think that's very much the case.

Listen to the audio.

President Obama included in the prepared remarks to the AMA, June 15th, the following:

What are not legitimate concerns are those being put forward claiming a public option is somehow a Trojan horse for a single-payer system. I'll be honest. There are countries where a single-payer system may be working. But I believe - and I've even taken some flak from members of my own party for this belief - that it is important for us to build on our traditions here in the United States. So, when you hear the naysayers claim that I'm trying to bring about government-run health care, know this - they are not telling the truth.

The paragraph in essence says that the AMA doesn't have to worry about single-payer coming in the backdoor, because it's not "the truth" that the President is "trying to bring about government-run health care".

What is most disturbing about that paragraph is the intentional conflating of "a single-payer system" with "government-run health care". This says to me that the President is not only excluding single payer from his proposal, but that he intends to fight dirty to squelch the public demand for it. From now on will he do as Cheney did w/ Iraq and 9/11, mention one whenever the other is brought up?

Read the entire text of his address.

[FiveGoodMen]

1. This is a show-stopper

Anyone blocking real health care will never get my vote again.

[TomCADem]

52. Americans Trust Doctors More Than Obama, And The AMA Is Against Single Payer

Look at the gallup website. Single payer has no chance politically when 70% of people trust doctors on healthcare compared to 48% for President Obama.

[FiveGoodMen]

53. Americans should trust themselves more than the AMA.

[TomCADem]

54. They Should, I Agree, But President Obama Loses v. AMA - People Trust Doctors

It is a political reality reflected in recent poll numbers. People don't see that doctors are motivated by self-interest. They are used to trusting doctors as authorities on all issues related to healthcare, even costs, where doctors have a conflict of interest.

[FiveGoodMen]

56. "People don't see that doctors are motivated by self-interest"

because no one in office has the guts to say so.

When Clinton was in office, Jesse Helms, slated to be the new chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Clinton is so unpopular on military bases in North Carolina that "he better watch out if he comes down here. He'd better have a bodyguard."

He practically threatened the president -- of course nothing happened to him, being a repuke.

Meanwhile, the Dems are so frightened of offending anyone that they just can't get in front of a camera and tell the truth. "Horrors! Someone might get mad!"

Decades of such cowardice have led much of America to believe that the left doesn't have an argument.

Sorry, but you're just adding to the problem.

[TomCADem]

57. Do You Know A Doctor Or A Politician? Who Do You Trust?

I don't share your faith that President Obama getting on TV and attacking doctors for being greedy will generate much support for his plan. Most people know their doctors, and trust their doctors. They may hate their insurance company, but they tend to like their doctors. I personally know and like my doctor.

So, if the President gets on TV, and starts calling doctors greedy, and suggests that I should not trust AMA claims that single payer will result in poorer care, I am not confident that people will trust the President more on such matters, particulary if the AMA goes to the mat on it.

People trust their doctors. If they didn't, they would not be able to confide in their doctors, and receive adequate care. So, I don't think calling doctors greedy is the most effective stategy.

[FiveGoodMen]

59. It's a problem now, because no one has said anything about it for three decades

Following your advice, no one will say anything now.

That will lead to the argument against doing anything next time...

[TomCADem]

60. Not offering advice - Just an observation - People trust doctors

I am not making an argument. Just noting the following facts:

<>

People trust doctors. So, based on facts, I just don't see how President Obama saying that doctor opposition to a public option is motivated by greed, rather than concern about the health of patients, is really going to be all that helpful.

If you have facts to support a different strategy, then I'm all for it, because we need all the help we can get. But, attacking a trustworthy profession is a tall order.

[cornermouse]

81. Try attacking the insurance companies.

Because they are the basis of the problem, not necessarily the doctors. Besides which, if you look around on the internet, the AMA may be against it but there is a growing movement by physicians inside the AMA in favor of single payer.

[TomCADem]

90. Absolutely Agree With You!

Indeed, one of the biggest changes had been the introduction of a profit seeking insurance bureacracy between patients and doctors that encouraged doctors to charge for procedures that can be billed to insurance companies, rather than focus on overhaul health.

[clear eye]

86. I don't understand this sub-thread

When most people think of doctors now, they are thinking about the doctors from the PNHP who got arrested for demonstrating in favor of single payer health care. In fact, over 40% of doctors surveyed support it, and don't support the AMA position. Most of the rest support other means of getting universal coverage.

The media coverage of the Senate demonstration may have created the perception that MDs are more strongly in favor of single payer than Pres. Obama. I think it's highly probable that the survey is not indicative of public support for the AMA position. I doubt most people have any idea what that is.

[jmowreader]

65. Which means WE fucked up...

People trust doctors, as well they should, but doctors aren't making a lot of the decisions on healthcare. Insurance companies are.

A fun ad that might get through to The Masses: A really pretty woman and her cute 7-year-old daughter are in a doctor's exam room talking to the doctor, and every time the doctor says anything that's not 100-percent medical related (like "good morning") a man in an expensive suit screams "We're not paying for that!" Toward the end of the ad, a voiceover explains that it's really insurance companies, not doctors, pharmacists or parents, who make most of the medical decisions--and those people care about the insurance companies' profits, not people.

[defendandprotect]

67. Doctors today will sell you out for a buck .. .. these aren't the doctors we used to know ...

Any doctor who ever cared is long, long gone --

and, unfortunately, any American who hasn't awakened to this at this

point, is in for a lot of suffering.

[northernlights]

2. "it is important for us to build on our traditions"

:wtf: Our tradition of a healthcare denying bureaucracy skimming the healthcare dollars and increasing the cost of healthcare?

Not getting single-payer out of the box is one thing. Saying it will never happen, period, is game over.

[dgibby]

4. Wonder if the same goes for "enhanced interrorgation and rendition"

We'll just go forward, building on our traditions of not holding our predecessors cupable for crimes committed when they were in office. I think I'm beginning to see a pattern here.

And don't forget building on our other traditions, secrecy, wiretapping, DOMA, DADT. What am I forgetting? Oh, yes, I remember now, the economy.

Great, just fucking great. The beatings will continue until morale improves.

[FiveGoodMen]

9. Our current president acts like he was hand-picked by Cheney

to continue the 'Bush' legacy.

There is no way he's working for us.

[SammyWinstonJack]

33. +1

:thumbsup:

[John K]

62. You have a really short memory

For those of us who worked so hard to get Obama elected, we know that its not about giving the kids all the candy they want. If we try to get single payer and end up with nothing, what have we accomplished. The repubs are good at killing things gradually. They are tightening the nooses as we speak. If we start picking on each other, we are dead.

I find your comparison to Cheney so odious as to be unbelievable.

[FiveGoodMen]

64. No, my memory is fine.

You assume a lot for someone that just got here.

[kenny blankenship]

10. "take, for example, our thriving financial industry, steeped in laissez-faire tradition..."

Please take it. Somebody.

(Why does nobody interviewing these witless tools ever ask them, BUT ISN'T IT PRECISELY OUR TRADITIONS WHICH GOT US INTO THIS TROUBLE?)

[defendandprotect]

74. Because the corporate-press is complicit . . . including in election steals . . .

I trust you noticed John Ellis/Fox News 2000 . . . began long before that!

[ohheckyeah]

16. This is pretty much what he said during the primaries.

I don't know why anyone would think Obama would support single payer health care - he never said he did. I'll rephrase that, to my knowledge he never did. I certainly never heard him say he was supportive of single payer.

[magellan]

17. You're right

He said if we could start from scratch, single payer would be the way to go. But as it is, we have to work with the infrastructure we've got.

[ohheckyeah]

20. So, I don't get why people are pissed off at him now?

It doesn't compute.

[magellan]

23. Expectations meet reality

We hear what we want to, especially with a subject as emotional as healthcare is to so many in this country. I'm as guilty as the next person for hoping for more. But I'm passed pissed off and disappointed with Obama -- the decisions on Gitmo, Iraq, torture photos and investigations into Bush**'s war crimes straightened me out quick.

[roody]

41. I'm not pissed off. I realized in the campaign that all he offered

was hope.

[blindpig]

48. Doesn't matter if that's what he said.

What matters is what people want.

It's that 'we the people' thing.

Never expected him to back single payer, never expected much of anything.

Are you saying that because the President doesn't want it that we should sit down and shut up?

No way in hell.

[cornermouse]

50. Why are people angry?

Ex: If you have private insurance but can't get a disabled adult child on your private insurance because even though your adult child has no physical problems and is not on medicine for anything, they find reasons why they can't cover the adult child. Reason #1? They're already covered by insurance because they're on medicaid. Problem with that? Finding a doctor who is willing to treat someone who is on medicaid is nearly impossible. Full time employment severely limits one's ability to look for it during doctor hours. Medicaid, at least around here, doesn't cover dental or insurance needs. End result, you start taking your adult child to the acute care clinic where they are allowed to see a nurse.

Meanwhile, you have private insurance. Great? Not really. As a parent how can you possibly justify to yourself seeing a doctor when your adult child cannot? I was planning on dropping my insurance because it's pretty much rendered worthless but if Obama makes health coverage mandatory I will continue paying for insurance that I cannot use. That is why I'm angry at him over his health insurance coverage debacle/disaster.

[defendandprotect]

68. Because a "people's" government exists to do the greatest good for the

greatest number of people -- i.e., MEDICARE FOR ALL.

Corporate government exists, otoh, TO BRIBE OUR ELECTED OFFICIALS TO IGNORE THAT!!

[Mermaid7]

83. Here, here!

that certainly is what our government is supposed to be doing for us, least they have forgot that and now think they can look down their noses at us?????

Change is coming. Better sooner than later. That's for sure!

The People have spoken and voted for change. If we don't get it as we were promised from this administration, I think it's going to turn into a really big problem.

The People only can take so much, after the 8 years of what we all went through.

[kenfrequed]

30. infrastructure?

I wouldn't call what we have a proper infrastructure. It is an ediface of sorts but not the sort of foundational service like roads, fire-fighting services, police, or what not that I think of when I think of the word infrastructure.

Calling our current healthcare system an infrastructure is like saying a shopping mall or funeral parlor is infrastructure.

[magellan]

45. Agreed 100%, but that's the gist of what Obama has said

From a town hall meeting:

“If I were starting a system from scratch, then I think that the idea of moving towards a single-payer system could very well make sense. That’s the kind of system that you have in most industrialized countries around the world. The only problem is that we’re not starting from scratch. We have historically a tradition of employer-based healthcare. And although there are a lot of people who are not satisfied with their healthcare, the truth is, is that the vast majority of people currently get healthcare from their employers, and you’ve got this system that’s already in place. We don’t want a huge disruption as we go into healthcare reform, where suddenly we’re trying to completely reinvent one-sixth of the economy.”

The infrastructure is screwed and skewed, Obama recognizes that, but he obviously feels baby steps are in order.

I'd like to reiterate my complete disagreement and disappointment with him on this matter. The system will remain broken and work against us until the insurance companies are X'd out of the equation.

[kenfrequed]

46. Our history will always be our history...

It is our present and future we need to be concerned with. The insurance companies will not just sort of fade naturally. I twill be a drag down screaming, howling, fight. It will be a fight they will always be ready for. There will be no easy time to do it and there will be no time where there will be more political capital to implement a public option or full tilt universal health coverage.

In fact, if we wait for the economy to improve there will be more people covered by crappy bastardized private plans and they will not stand up and make noise about the public option then.

[Mermaid7]

84. Exactly, history should be HISTORY!

Time to get off this dead horse and find a new mount.

This discussion of reforming the health care for the profiters, is bullcrap! Everyone knows it
and needs to come to an end! NOW!!!

Feeding the vampire at the stake, the vultures at the sake of our well being, is akin, in a sense to keeping slavery alive and going for the sake of 'tradition'? (Not meant to be offensive or to say it's equivalant to those who went thru Civil Rights and Salvery but this too, is Human Health Rights issue and in relation to keeping the people down)

Affordable, improved healthcare for all in the USA. As in equality for all!

SINGLE PAYER NOW

GET RID OF THE Friggin LEACHES.

[nightrain]

82. we certainly DON'T have to work with the

bloated infrastructure that we have! Other countries have made massive changes in how health care is provided and financed, why not the US? Don't buy into the fear tactic. The health insurance corporations are a major part of the problem.

Look, if Medicare can manage to have a 3% overhead, and insurance corporations have about a 30% overhead, what is the rational decision?

I don't buy the proposition that I will have to purchase private insurance and support their CEOs obscene compensation of millions and billions. Think about it, that money could go toward actual healthcare services!!

I'm a healthcare practitioner and have to deal with the multiple insurances. It's a nightmare.

[magellan]

87. I don't buy into it either

Please don't mistake my answer to a question as approval of what Obama/Congress is doing (or not doing) about health care. My husband and I are self-employed. We were insured -- for two years -- until we were once again priced out of the market with a 30% increase on our premium. We can't afford health insurance to claim it back on our taxes!

Meanwhile our taxes subsidize the health care of corporate employees.

ENOUGH!

But reality is, Congress and Obama appear to have no intention of upsetting the corporate cash cow.

[alarimer]

28. He did say he was in support of single payer,

in 2003. He reversed himself once he got elected to Senate and started getting bribes for the insurance companies (otherwise known as campaign contributions).

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/05/16/sirota/

Listening to a 2003 Obama speech, it's hard to believe he has become such an enigma. Back then, he declared himself "a proponent of a single-payer universal healthcare program" -- that is, one eliminating private insurers and their overhead costs by having government finance healthcare. Obama’s position was as controversial then as it is today -- which is to say, controversial among political elites, but not among the general public. ABC's 2003 poll showed almost two-thirds of Americans desiring a single-payer system "run by the government and financed by taxpayers," just as CBS's 2009 poll shows roughly the same percentage today.

[JVS]

58. He also promised not to subject us to mandatory private insurance.

How's that promise going?

[librechik]

39. Medicare and SS aren't part of the American Way?

Since when? Since Reagan destroyed our country, that's when.

[defendandprotect]

75. This Sebelius/Obama mindset suggests to me that they'll be after Medicare and SS....!!!

[defendandprotect]

70. Tho Obama promised C H A N G E .... and most needed in health care ...

[msongs]

3. change we can believe in. seriously, corporate $$ talks and politicans must answer nt

[cascadiance]

5. Translate "traditions" to "inflexible corrupt hierarchy" and then its more the truth!

[Karmadillo]

6. Maybe this will inspire us to rebuild the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party.

The Status Quo, Get Your War On, Post-Partisan Wing seems a little disappointing.

[defendandprotect]

72. Kucinich and Dean could lead that rebuilding . .. if we demanded it-!!!

And Obama can sit out his second term with the insurance companies and
health care corporations he's serving.

[OKNancy]

7. I think you are mistaken

Your opinion is that there is conflating of single-payer with the public option. I think they mean what they say..
there will not be single payer. That has unfortunately never been on the table. The public option is still out there and as far as I can tell, Obama still wants a public option.

[clear eye]

8. I think you misread my OP,

I didn't bring up the public option. What the President was conflating was single payer and "government-run healthcare". Which looks an awful lot like a bald-faced effort to mislead people into thinking they're the same thing.

[PHIMG]

11. They can't shut the door.

We own the door. The people. We'll get single payer, it will be easier once this charade in D.C. is done. The post-mortem will open a lot of eyes.

[bighart]

34. Those who pay own the door.

Not us little people, we only get it slammed in our faces.

[PHIMG]

36. History is made by the people not by politicians.

The reason the special interest have to spend billions is to overcome our inherent power. We have the numbers, we have the power.

The single payer movement has been saying for well over a couple decades that it will take a civil-rights level commitment from the people to get meaningful health care reform.

I think this bullshit Obama-Baucus-Kennedy bill will get us there quicker than any of us can imagine.

Single Payer will rise like a Phoenix from from the ashes of the Public Option.

[bighart]

37. I wish I could believe as you do but

I have seen entirely too much apathy and indifference on the part of the general masses to believe any significant changes to the status quo are coming. The vast majority of people do not care one bit about any issue until it directly impacts them.

[roody]

42. This issue impacts them directly.

[bighart]

44. not until they have catasrophic medical bills that they can't pay.

that is when most will get motivated and realize just how broken the system is.

[blindpig]

49. More than one way to open a door.

Some folks just don't respond to 'nice'.

[Mermaid7]

85. I agree, yes, no they can't.

We do own the door. And it swings both ways.

I have and still do propose, that we could all at any agreed point, in masses, drop those cherished health insurances policies (unfortunately my husband doesn't have one to drop, as he was declined, heart trouble you know?)

I am so ready to let mine go.

We own the door.
We also own the policies.

[slipslidingaway]

12. knr ...

P. Obama has excluded them from the start and thereby set the tone for the rest of Congress.

:(

[clear eye]

13. If you want single-payer on the table,

please urge your House Representative to demand that the Congressional Budget Office calculate the costs for a single-payer program, so that it can be compared w/ the other proposals. It's especially important if your Representative is one of the 83 co-sponsors of HR 676*, the proposed "Medicare for All" bill, or if you live in VT--the state of Sen. Sanders who authored S. 703, also a single payer bill.

*http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:HR00676:@@@P

[slipslidingaway]

14. Agree...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5875929&mesg_id=5875929

"...What we really need is a complete, honest, side-side comparison of all proposals, including single payer.

That comparison must NOT bee limited to just the costs to the Federal government, but also the total costs (e.g., currently about 2.5 trillion and 17% of GNP) as well as the costs to State government, employers, and individuals and household of different income levels...

Now that the various plans are getting more specific, the CBO and/or GAO and/or OMB could do such an analyses:

"There must be a complete, honest, side-by-side comparison of all proposals, including HR-676, by the Congressional Budget Office.

The side-by-side comparison should include projected costs to state governments, employers and to households of different income levels. For 2010 and beyond."

[Cleita]

19. Bernie Sanders spends the first hour of Thom Hartmann's radio program

every Friday morning answering questions from callers. The show is on at 9:00 AM PT time or 12:00PM ET. Thom's call in number while he's on the air is 866-987-THOM. If we all call and to ask him to do this, maybe one of us will get through.

[slipslidingaway]

27. That's a great idea, I'll try, already made several calls yesterday

to push this issue.

:hi:

Should be a stand alone thread.

[slipslidingaway]

38. I tried a few times but the number was always busy. n/t

[Ms. Toad]

43. Please read the bill before you urge sponsorship of it

Just because something is called single payer does not necessarily make it an acceptable option.

I am on the fence on this particular bill because it leaves far too much to be decided by regulation (mostly behind closed doors) has a 15 year timetable before any implementation deadlines, includes a capitation payment scheme (which provides strong motivation to primary care docs to deny access to specialists and expensive tests), an a drug formulary without a requiring a process to obtain an exception-for-need/medical appropriateness.

I am not opposing it - but I have enough concerns that I am also not yet supporting it.

[Dragonfli]

15. Refusing to shed the greed of corporate parasites.

That make obscene profits by denying care is hardly a platform I can follow.

An objective comparison and a policy choice based on the needs of the citizens (rather than the profits of vultures) would seem to me to be much more in my best interests than the 30% to 40% profit margin of an industry that provides 0% of the care it sells.

Must we refuse to achieve what all other civilized cultures have achieved?
Why?

I will no longer vote against my best interests. I doubt I will be alone in this.

They are not even hiding the attempt to continue to trap us into one of the worst health care systems in the world, even as the bodies pile up and we pay twice as much as nearly all others for the privilege of not obtaining care while the care enlightened nations receive is superior at half the cost.

Do they really have so little respect for our intelligence just because a few cheerleaders carry pom poms and chant how lucky we are?

No more money for betrayal, only for those that advocate for our best interests.
No more canvassing to elect front men for corporations, only for pols that advocate what is in our best interests.
No more voting for republicans that wear a false flag to deceive us into believing they are Democrats, only votes for Democrats or even third party candidates that advance and defend traditionally Democratic principles.

It could not be clearer - I don't see why so many refuse to see the snake oil being sold to them for what it is.

[Cleita]

18. Then we are going to have to throw a grenade through that door, metaphorically

speaking of course. I'm in for the long haul and it's not over until it's over. Speaking of the AMA, I asked my doctor employer to end his membership and he agreed. He said he didn't think the JAMA articles were that great anyway. Anybody, who has a friendship or relationship with any doctor ask them to do the same until the AMA no longer exists.

[Selatius]

21. Obama NEVER promised anything remotely close to single-payer.

There were other candidates in the primaries who proposed a transitional system (Edwards and Hillary) or simply outright single-payer (Kucinich).

Democratic voters did not support them. They voted for Obama when all was set and done, but that was after the Chamber of Commerce and other industry groups like PhRMA and health insurance companies started flooding the airwaves with the idea that single-payer is socialist and therefore bad.

Maybe enough Democratic voters were suckered in by the advertising blitz that Edwards et al. were derailed.

[blue_onyx]

35. Health care wasn't the only issue

Not everyone voted for Obama based on that issue. I supported him because he had been against the Iraq war. If I had been supporting a candidate based solely on health care, maybe I would've picked Hillary, Edwards, or some other candidate.

Obama may not have promised a single payer health care system but I will criticize him for not supporting it. The only way to let Obama know what we really want is to criticize him.

[HughMoran]

22. I've yet to meet a person that knows what Single Payer even means

As stated in another post - if people don't even know what it means, how are you going to get them to fight for it?

[Cleita]

26. It means government secured health insurance.

The delivery of health care is from the private sector, doctors, clinics and hospitals. They send the bill to the single payer insurer, who usually is the government. What's not to understand?

[Wilms]

24. k&r n/t

[leftstreet]

25. Will the Republicans have the balls to run with single payer?

:popcorn:

[Autumn]

29. I'm just hoping the Democrats

have the balls to run with single payer.

[WI_DEM]

31. I think any plan will have a public option. But we are not going to have a Canadian style

single payer plan--that never has been the case.

[bdamomma]

32. oh oh, read this

Hillary's campaign attempts to distort:


UPDATE Now and Then: Sen. Obama on Single Payer Health Care
1/21/2008 9:42:37 PM

Tonight Obama said "I never said that we should try to go ahead and get single payer."

It was the AP who reported that Sen. Obama could have “a pretty good debate” with himself: “If he wanted, the Barack Obama of today could have a pretty good debate with the Barack Obama of yesterday.”

The fact is, Sen. Obama said he was a “proponent of a single payer health care plan” – not just in principle but in practice:


“So the challenge is, how do we get federal government to take care of this business? I happen to be a proponent of a single payer health care program. I see no reason why the United States of America the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14% of its Gross National Product on health care cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that’s what Jim is talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out. A single payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that’s what I’d like to see. And as all of you know, we may not get their (sic) immediately. Because firs (sic) we have to take back the white house, we have to take back the senate, we have to take back the house.” (VIDEO: Obama remarks at AFL-CIO, 6/30/03)

Today, he opposes single payer health care, and attacks Sen. Clinton for proposing a plan that covers everyone.




http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x4155096

[Karmadillo]

40. Orwell: "the lie always one leap ahead of the truth"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublethink

<edit>

According to the novel, doublethink is:

“ The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them....To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies — all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth."

more...

[Kansas Wyatt]

47. And I will vote to fire them both in 2012.

Millions of other Americans will also vote to fire them both, or will just stay home. It wouldn't matter if George W. Bush was running again, the White House and the Democratic Party are insisting on their own defeat, with this alleged representation. Like millions of other Americans... Enough and never again!

If we end up with Corporate Republicans in the end anyway, then there is no use voting for the alleged Democratic candidate. Bill Maher was right... We need a Progressive Party, and today's Democrats are yesterday's Republicans.

The White House is guaranteeing a Republican landslide in 2010 and 2012, and they will deserve it. Moving on from 'snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory,' the Democrats are comfortable with just forfeiting future elections now.

A few days after the upcoming elections, the Washington Democrats will all be wondering why 'people vote against their (alleged) best interests,' and they really have no clue why people think they are no better than Republicans.

[Horse with no Name]

51. If we continue to financially support a government and an election system

that is steeped in corporate payoffs and profits and lobbyists...the WE are part of the problem.
They are going to do what they are going to do, with us or without us.
Well, certainly if they don't care about ME, they don't care about my money or my support anyway.
So far, the war is still going on, we still don't have universal coverage, we still don't have investigations of past misdeeds.
What we have is a very photogenic family in the White House that happens to sit on our "side". I really don't see much else.:shrug:

[leftofthedial]

55. No change.

That you can believe in.

[Wednesdays]

61. K&R

:kick:

[John K]

63. Worry about single-payer while the republicans kill the whole thing

If we make single-payer into a fetish, we will sow the wind and reap the whirlwind. The republicans are going to line up all they have to make sure that Obama doesn't get anything on health care. If you saw Gregg on tv today you saw that look in their eyes. They don't care about the people who are uninsured, they figure it didn't cost them anything to kill it last time. We must insist that we take steps toward a sustainable health care system and not hold out for what may or may not be the 'perfect alternative".

[FiveGoodMen]

69. I don't think the compromises being proposed will be sustainable.

[defendandprotect]

66. MEDICARE FOR ALL .. . we should have had it 60 years ago!

And, I thought Sebelius was promising!! Disgusting --

both of them!

[defendandprotect]

71. Only on the internet will the question be asked... was Obama BRIBED...

by insurance/health care industry to stop Single Payer?

[ima_sinnic]

76. he wasn't bribed, he just can't stomach taking a stand on anything

he's a fucking wimp. oooh, there might not be "bipartisan support" for single payer. we must always seek the most insipid, least controversial, least threatening to the status quo, least suggestive of "rocking the boat," mediocre, uninspired, least changeworthy and bland solution to every problem.

[defendandprotect]

78. As far as I can see Campaign financing is BRIBERY ...but agree with the rest ....

[ima_sinnic]

80. yeah, that's another factor, an important one, & all the more reason

not take a "controversial" stand on anything. It makes being wishy washy soooo convenient.

[ima_sinnic]

73. oh fuck these corporate tools and stinking greedhead politicians

that's all Obama is, a fucking politician with clever but insincere marketing. In other words, a fucking phony. I will never vote for him again. If he loses out to the repuke in 2012, ask me if I care. Now I am going over to another website where I can really say what I think of him and 99% of all democrats.

[Deep13]

77. How you you know they're telling the truth?

I think they may be downplaying the public option to sell it. Of course if they do that, the public might just ask "well why bother?"

[undeterred]

79. Getting fucked over by insurance companies is a "tradition".

Yeah, that's stinkin' thinkin'.

[earcandle]

88. Can't we do this ourselves? Without these jokers. Stop paying this government our PR taxes and

start paying it to a real governing power that shows up to do
the job right?  And if they want to kill us like the Guard is
doing in Iran, they will be seen by the world for the evil
they are!  Can we organize a parallel economy that works for
us and ease out of this dogpile?  

[earcandle]

89. Yes We Can

[JCMach1]

91. Building on a tradition of failure the last 30yrs...

sigh