Turn Up the Heat on the Insurance Industry, Lobbying Database & 10 Reasons

This? Is Christian????



Click above or go here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fq9G44tomKY

That's a MINISTER in The U.S.A. ?!?
You have GOT to be kidding!

Are you as sickened as I am?!?

Ben Cohen
Editor of The Daily Banter.com
Posted: August 24, 2009 04:18 AM

10 Reasons We Need a Public Option

It has become increasingly clear that the president and the Democratic Party have done a poor job of articulating why we need a public option in the next health care bill. The Republicans and centrist Democrats have successfully managed to dictate the terms of debate, casting the push for a public insurance option as an obsession of the far Left. Progressives will have to fight very hard to keep any form of the public option included in the final health care package, and its strength will be determined by the Left's ability to pressure Obama.

Real health care reform cannot happen without a public option, and we need a constant reminder of exactly what we are fighting for.

The top 10 reasons why there MUST be a public insurance option:

   1. Passing health care reform with a public option means millions of currently uninsured people will get access to comprehensive coverage at an affordable rate.

   2. A public option will force private insurance companies to compete with the power of the government. Prices will come down, and they will no longer be able to charge insane premiums or deny coverage.

   3. A public option gives power to consumers who can walk away from insurance companies that do not pay out, deny coverage, or excessively increase their premiums.

   4. It will give Americans a sense of ownership of health care. It will no longer be a privilege of the rich, but an affordable part of everyone's life and a comfort in times of crisis.

   5. With a public option, drug prices will come down due to the government's ability to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies.

   6. It will prevent people from going bankrupt because of excessive medical bills. According to the National Coalition on Health Care, "62 percent of all bankruptcies filed in 2007 were linked to medical expenses. Of those who filed for bankruptcy, nearly 80 percent had health insurance."

   7. A public plan will have significantly lower overheads than a private plan. The government won't need to market their plan, and they don't need to make a profit from it. Therefore, the the consumer reaps the savings.

   8. It will save small businesses huge amounts of money and allow them to raise wages, increase vacation time and take better care of their employees.

   9. After a few years, it will prove Republicans totally and utterly wrong about socialized medical care.

  10. Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Sarah Palin will have very visible and hilarious meltdowns.


      What could be better than that?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lobbying Database
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



Turn Up the Heat on the Insurance Industry

CLICK HERE

It is time for health care reformers to turn up the heat on the major obstacle to Congress passing a good policy -- the private insurance industry.

Few Americans know the names of the nation's largest health insurance companies or their CEOs.
That has to change, quickly.

The political muscle of the insurance industry is the major reason that seven conservative Democratic Senators -- led by Max Baucus (Montana) and including Blanche Lincoln (Arkansas), Kent Conrad (North Dakota), Jeff Bingaman (New Mexico), Ben Nelson (Nebraska), Mary Landrieu (Louisiana), and Arlen Specter (Pennsylvania) -- are blocking President Obama's proposal for a public option to compete with the private insurance companies.


Here is a list of the country's largest health insurance companies, according to Fortune magazine.
They are: United Health Care Group, WellPoint, Aetna, Humana, Cigna, HealthNet, Coventry Health Care, WellCare Health Plans, Universal America, Amerigroup, Centene, Molina Healthcare, Medical Mutual of Ohio, and HealthSpring.

Anyone can click on each corporation's website and find the names and affiliations of the companies' boards of directors, including their CEOs, as well as the addresses of their headquarters -- in case anyone is interested in organizing a protest rally. Anyone can go to the Center for Responsive Politics website and find out how much each company's PAC and employees spend on influence-peddling, and which members of Congress received the industry's largesse. Wait a few paragraphs and we'll start naming names.

As Obama recently said in his weekly radio and YouTube address: "Every time we come close to passing health insurance reform, the special interests fight back with everything they've got. They use their influence. They use their political allies to scare and mislead the American people. They start running ads. This is what they always do." He said that the current health care system "works better for the insurance industry than it does for the American people." We need, he insisted, to "pass health insurance reform that finally holds the insurance companies accountable."

The right-wing fanatics who are disrupting the town meetings are a diversion. These Limbaugh lunatics would never vote for Baucus or any other conservative Democrats, whether they support Obama's plan or not. But by creating a ruckus, lying about Obama's plan (calling it "socialism" and warning that it would create "death panels"), and getting more media attention than they deserve, these Republican extremists are doing the insurance industry's dirty work. In fact, there's evidence that the insurance industry is funding some of these right-wing groups to cause chaos.

In a recent cover story, Business Week declared that the industry industry has "already won" the health reform battle, but that assessment is premature. The majority of Americans want health care reform and don't trust the private insurance industry.

President Obama, and the major grassroots groups that are pushing for reform -- including faith-based organizations, unions, community groups, netroots groups like MoveOn, and Organizing for America, the organization formed by Obama's campaign volunteers -- can still win the fight if they focus public attention on the insurance industry and their lackeys in Congress. And George Lakoff, the well-known linguist and political advisor, has provided reformers with a new way to frame the debate to put the industry and the Baucus Caucus on the defensive.

So let's pay attention to the health insurance industry behind the curtain.

This year alone, the industry has spent over $34 million to hire 923 lobbyists to influence Congress, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The industry has also spent almost $16 million in campaign contributions in the past two years.

The industry's trade association, called America's Health Insurance Plans, is one of the country's most powerful lobby groups, representing almost 1,300 corporations. Although health insurance companies compete with each other for customers, they work together -- through this lobby group -- when it comes to resisting government rules that require them to be more efficient and socially responsible. This year alone, America's Health Insurance Plans has already spent $3.9 million in lobbying, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Its Washington, D.C. headquarters is at 601 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, South Building Suite 500. Its board is comprised of the CEOs of the largest health insurance corporations.

During her campaign for president, then-Senator Hillary Clinton accurately observed that insurance companies "spend tens of billions of dollars a year figuring out how not to cover people" and "how to cherry-pick the healthiest persons, and leave everyone else out in the cold."

What does the industry want? The big health insurance companies actually want the federal government to require every American to have health insurance. That would expand its customer base. The industry would also like the government to provide subsidies for people and families who can't afford insurance. To get that, the industry is willing to live with one of Obama's key selling points -- a ban on insurance industry discrimination against sick people, especially those with "pre-existing" conditions.

What do they object to?
What the insurance companies don't want is another key component of Obama 's plan -- a "public option" that would compete with them for customers and provide Americans with more choices.

A public option would provide insurance for those who don't get it from employers or can't afford private premiums -- similar to the current Medicare program for seniors.
The high cost of U.S. health care is due in large measure to the outrageous greed and costly inefficiencies of the insurance industry that requires so much paperwork that its bloated administrative costs push up the cost of premiums, compared with the much lower administrative costs of Medicare.
By competing with the private insurance companies, a public option would keep them honest.

Not surprisingly, the health insurance industry has been exercising its political muscle to thwart a public option. Not a single Senate Republican supports a public option. But Obama doesn't need any Republican votes if he can get all 60 Senate Democrats, and most Democrats in the House, to support his plan.

The insurance industry knows that, too. That's why, according to a recent report by the Center for Responsive Politics, and a recent article in the Washington Post, the industry has focused much of its campaign contributions -- America's version of legalized bribery -- on the conservative Democrats in Congress known as the Blue Dogs.

The industry has been particularly generous to Baucus, the Montana Democrat who chairs the Senate Finance Committee that is drafting a version of the legislation. According to the Washington Post, Baucus "has emerged as a leading recipient of Senate campaign contributions from the hospitals, insurers and other medical interest groups hoping to shape the legislation to their advantage. Health-related companies and their employees gave Baucus's political committees nearly $1.5 million in 2007 and 2008, when he began holding hearings and making preparations for this year's reform debate."

In 1993, when President Clinton proposed an overhaul of the health care system, the insurance industry was the visible opponent of reform, running the infamous "Harry and Louise" television ads that warned of a government takeover that would get between patients and their doctors. They used their political clout to derail any reform.

Today, the situation is much worse. Many more Americans (at least 47 million) have no health insurance, because many employers have stopped providing it for employees, because families can't afford the cost of premiums, or because insurance companies won't offer it to people with "pre-existing" health conditions. In addition, many more Americans who do have insurance discover that it doesn't cover many things they need and forces them to make costly out-of-pocket expenses. Not surprisingly, health care costs are the nation's number one cause of personal bankruptcies.

What would it mean to expose and target the health insurance industry?

Let's look, for example, at WellPoint, the nation's second-largest health insurance corporation. With a few clicks, you can discover that last year WellPoint had profits of $2.5 billion. WellPoint's headquarters is located at 120 Monument Circle in Indianapolis. Its corporate phone number is (317)488-6000.

This year WellPoint has spent over $2.4 million in lobbying, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. WellPoint's parent, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, has spent over $9.5 million to lobby Congress. In the last two years, WellPoint's political action committee made $1.8 million in campaign contributions to Republicans, Democrats, and other lobby groups, including $3,900 to Baucus. In addition, WellPoint employees -- mostly its top executives, including CEO Angela Braly -- contributed over $154,000 to Congressional candidates in the past two years.

The 17 members of the WellPoint board of directors have a web of corporate and political connections that supplements the company's campaign contributions and lobbying expenditures.

Angela Braly is WellPoint's CEO. She was paid $4.2 million last year. Braly also serves on the board of America's Health Insurance Plans, the powerful lobby group.

Larry C. Glasscock, the prior CEO, still serves as chairman of WellPoint's board and is also a director of Sprint Nextel (the giant telecommunications corporation) and Zimmer Holdings (an Indiana-based manufacturer of orthopaedic products).

Susan Bayh is a former attorney with the giant Indianapolis-based drug company Eli Lilly & Company. She is also a director of Curis (a drug company), Dendreon (a biotechnology company), Dyax (a biopharmaceutical company), and Emmis (a media corporation that owns radio stations and magazines). In the last two years, according to the Indianapolis Star, she has earned over $2 million serving on the boards of these health care corporations. She also happens to be the wife of Evan Bayh, the Democratic Senator from Indiana. Sen. Bayh recently told an Indiana newspaper that he is an "agnostic" regarding the public option. That means he's sitting on the fence, trying to decide which side he's on -- the insurance industry or the majority of people of Indiana.

Donald W. Riegle Jr is another WellPoint director with political connections. He is a former Democratic Senator from Michigan (1976-1995). Since 2001 he has been chairman of government relations for APCO Worldwide, a DC-based lobbying firm, and was also, until earlier this month, a director of Stillwater Mining Company, based in Montana, Baucus' home state.

William H. T. Bush, a WellPoint director since 2004, is chairman of the board of Bush-O'Donnell & Company, a St. Louis-based investment management firm. He is the younger brother of former President George H.W. Bush, and the uncle of former President George W. Bush

William G. Mays is the CEO of Mays Chemical Company, based in Indianapolis. He is also on the board of Vectren, an energy company that covers Indiana and Ohio.

Ramiro Peru is CFO of Saint Corporation, a holding company of Swift Transportation Co., and previously CFO of Phelps Dodge, a mining company. Peru is also a director of Tucson Electric Power Co., and Unisource Energy Services, a utility based in Arizona.

Warren Jobe, like Peru, is on the boards of both WellPoint and Unisource. Until his 2001 retirement, Jobe's day job was senior VP of Southern Company, a huge Atlanta-based utility. He is also on the board of the Atlanta-based HomeBanc Corp. and chairman of the board of trustees of Oglethorpe University.

William Ryan is CEO of Banknorth, a Massachusetts-based financial services company. He serves as the director of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Maine, the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston, and Maine Machine Products.

Victor S. Liss, retired CEO and now vice chairman) of Trans-Lux Corporation (an electronics company), also serves on the boards of BNC Financial Group, the Bank of Fairfield and Honey Hill Care Center (nursing care facility) and a trustee of Norwalk Hospital in Connecticut.

Jackie M. Ward sits on the boards of the Bank of America, SYSCO (a Houston-based food company), Flowers Foods, and Sanmina-SCI Corporation (a San Jose-based global electronics company). She served as CEO of Computer Generation Inc .

George A. Schaefer Jr., , retired last year as chairman of the board of Directors of Fifth Third Bancorp, based Cincinnati, Ohio. He sits on the board of Ashland, a chemical company based in Covington, Kentucky.

Sheila Burke, a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, who served in the George W. Bush adminstration and also sits on the board of the Chubb Corporation, one of the nation's largest property and casualty insurance companies.

John Zuccotti, is co-chairman of Brookfield Properties, a real estate firm based in Toronto, and senior counsel of Weil, Gotshal and Manges, a global corporate law firm based in New York City. He also sits on the board of Emigrant Savings Bank and the Dreyfus Investment Corporation.

Julie Hill (a California real estate entrepreneur), Jane Pisano (president of the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles and former executive of the University of Southern California), and Lenox Baker, Jr. (a cardiac and thoracic surgeon and president of Mid-Atlantic Cardiothoracic Surgeons, Ltd. in Norfolk, Virginia) also sit on the WellPoint board.

These individuals -- and their counterparts on the boards of the other major private health insurance companies -- are not evil people. Many serve on the boards of various charities and are civic leaders in their communities.

But in their roles as board members of WellPoint, they serve the interests of the nation's second largest private health insurance company and thus against the interests of the majority of Americans who want and need health insurance reform.

A few hundred people serve on the boards of the nation's largest health insurance companies.

As President Obama noted, they, the industry they serve, and the politicians who do their bidding, need to be held accountable.



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Howard Dean, CLICK HERE

• TWO TERM GOVERNOR OF VERMONT,
• PRESIDENT OF THE DNC (which fueled the biggest Democratic win, in the presidential race, the House and the Senate, since LBJ,)
• Himself a doctor.
• His wife a practicing doctor.
• Listen. HE IS AN EXPERT ON HEALTH CARE!!

It has GOT to mean something!

XOXO
Me


PS
Please read these top two comments before commenting.


PPS
New "Life in Flintville" blog to post shortly...
I promise...

Flu; H1N1 Virus May Have Biological Advantage Over Seasonal Influenza Viruses,

http://www.nih.gov/news/health/aug2009/niaid-31.htm

...not a good thing.

*********

Studies in Animals Suggest 2009 H1N1 Virus May Have Biological Advantage Over Seasonal Influenza Viruses

For Immediate Release, Monday, August 31, 2009
Anne A. Oplinger, 301-402-1663

Preliminary findings in ferrets suggest that the novel 2009 H1N1 influenza virus may outcompete human seasonal influenza viruses, researchers say. Tests in animals showed that levels of the 2009 H1N1 virus rose more quickly than levels of the seasonal virus strains, and the new virus caused more severe disease. In line with previous findings by other research groups, the University of Maryland researchers also observed that the novel H1N1 virus was transmitted more easily from infected to uninfected ferrets than either of the two seasonal influenza viruses.

The researchers found no evidence that the 2009 H1N1 virus combined with either of two seasonal flu viruses to form new, so-called reassortant viruses.
These findings suggest that while 2009 H1N1 virus probably will predominate in the coming flu season, there may not be biological pressure for the new virus to re-combine with other circulating viruses, the researchers say.

The work was done by Daniel Perez, Ph.D., and colleagues from the University of Maryland. The researchers were supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health.

"This elegant study, conducted in a useful animal model of human influenza, provides important information about how the 2009 H1N1 influenza virus interacts with other flu virus strains," says NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D.

"The results suggest that 2009 H1N1 influenza may outcompete seasonal flu virus strains and may be more communicable as well. These new data, while preliminary, underscore the need for vaccinating against both seasonal influenza and the 2009 H1N1 influenza this fall and winter."

When the investigators inoculated ferrets with 2009 H1N1 virus plus either seasonal H1N1 virus or seasonal H3N2 virus, the animals became co-infected with both viruses. However, only the 2009 H1N1 virus was then transmitted from co-infected ferrets to uninfected ferrets; there was no evidence that either of the seasonal flu viruses were transmitted between co-infected and uninfected animals. "The H1N1 pandemic virus has a clear biological advantage over the two main seasonal flu strains and all the makings of a virus fully adapted to humans," says Dr. Perez.

Next, the team conducted experiments to learn whether 2009 H1N1 virus would combine with seasonal flu viruses in co-infected animals to create new reassortant viruses. Some scientists have speculated that reassortant viruses may be more virulent or transmissible than either 2009 H1N1 or seasonal flu viruses alone. The researchers collected virus-containing material from the ferrets' nasal cavities, but found no evidence of reassortment between the 2009 H1N1 and seasonal influenza strains, either in ferrets that were directly infected with both viruses or in ferrets that came in contact with the co-infected animals.

The investigators' findings are posted on PLoS Currents: Influenza, a Web site for rapid communication of new scientific data on influenza. Submissions to PLoS Currents: Influenza are screened by a panel of leading influenza experts prior to posting but do not undergo formal peer review. The new research may be submitted later for peer review and eventual publication in scientific journals.

This research was supported in part through the NIAID Centers of Excellence for Influenza Research and Surveillance (CEIRS) program. http://www3.niaid.nih.gov/LabsAndResources/resources/ceirs/

For more information on influenza, visit www.flu.gov for one-stop access to U.S. government information on avian and pandemic influenza. Also, visit NIAID's Flu Portal, http://www3.niaid.nih.gov/topics/Flu/default.htm

NIAID conducts and supports research — at NIH, throughout the United States, and worldwide — to study the causes of infectious and immune-mediated diseases, and to develop better means of preventing, diagnosing and treating these illnesses. News releases, fact sheets and other NIAID-related materials are available on the NIAID Web site at http://www.niaid.nih.gov.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) — The Nation's Medical Research Agency — includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical and translational medical research, and it investigates the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.

Reference: D Perez et al. Fitness of pandemic H1N1 and seasonal influenza A viruses during co-infection. PLoS Currents: Influenza. Posted Aug. 25, 2009. RRN1011. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/rrn/RRN1011

Additional information about research in Dr. Perez's laboratory is at: http://avianflu.umd.edu/Avian_Influenza_Program/Avianflu.html

*********

So, are you getting your shot?
You all know I will be getting any/every shot available to me, given the fact that Casey has no spleen.

I have never gotten a flu shot before. Have you?

XOXO
Anne

Pea Cheese. Blog? Tag!

It is time for a little tag...  hehehe
NOW we're having fun!

XOXO
Me

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

1. How tall are you barefoot? 5' 9" (and a quarter).

3. Do you own a gun? You bet your bippy I do! More than one. (AND I even know how to use them)!

4. Rehab? No

5. Do you get nervous before “meeting the parents”? Only my own. (See 'about me' on my top page).

6. What do you think of your friends? If I didn't like them they wouldn't be my friends- (What the hell kind of question is this anyway)???

7. What’s your favorite Christmas song? "Jump"

8. What do you prefer to drink in the morning? Whiskey

9. Do you do push-ups? Yes, but I prefer popsicles or drumsticks

10. Do you wet your toothbrush before pasting it or vice versa? Sometimes...

11. Are you vegetarian? NO WAY Meat Head.

13. What is your secret weapon to lure in the opposite sex? Must have lost mine somewhere...

14. Do you own a knife? I eat my peas with honey; I've done this all my life. (I know it may sound funny, but it keeps them on my knife)!

15. Do you have A.D.D.? Wanna ride bikes?

16. Date Of Birth? Adopted... Does anyone ever tell the truth? (I think I am about 32).

17. Top 3 thoughts at this exact moment: Who comes up with these? Do you want fries with that? Why does my dryer keep making that noise?

18. Name the last 3 things you have bought? No

20. What time did you wake up today? 3am, 7:30 am

21. Current hair? Needs shaving, or quilling, or something/ANYthing

22. Current worry? Sheesh, I drink too much whiskey to worry about anything

23. Current hate? Knees and Politicians

24. Favorite place to be? In a cavern, in a canyon, excavating for a mine...

25. Least favorite place to be? Caught.

26. Where would you like to go? Where ever the dogs go.

27. Do you own slippers? This is Wisconsin. We either own slippers or wear snowmobile boots to bed.

28. What do you think you’ll be in 10 yrs? Where the dogs are. (Pay attention).

29. Do you burn or tan? Depends what I am cooking...

30. Last thing you ate? Vegetarian fried eggs

31. Would you be a pirate? I already am! ~~~Calico Anne Kidd...  "Often indecisive, I can't even choose a favorite color. I'm apt to follow wherever the wind blows me, just like Calico Jack Rackham, my namesake. Even though I'm not always the traditional swaggering gallant, my steadiness and planning make me a fine, reliable pirate."   Arrrrr Maties!

32. Last time you had an alcoholic drink? Yesterday

33. What songs do you sing in the shower? Same ones I sing in the bathtub

34. What did you fear was going to get you at night as a child? My teddy bear.

36. Last thing that made you laugh? I do not laugh.

37. Best bed sheets you had as a child? Dry ones.

38. Worst injury you’ve ever had? I fell on my head. (Yesterday).

40. How many TVs do you have in your house? Taking inventory? Or casing the joint?

41. Who is your loudest friend? Punk.

42. Who is your most silent friend? The Slurkers.

43. Does someone have a crush on you? Radar O'Reilly? Grape? (Or was that Nehi)?

44. Do you wish on stars? I said I was tall. I am not THAT tall.

45. What is your favorite book? The dictionary

46. What is your favorite candy? Sour hard balls

47. What song do/did you want played at your wedding? Amazing Grace

48. What song do you want played at your funeral? "Somebody's Watching Me"

49. What were you doing 12AM last night? Target practice

50. Do you love someone? Now that I can dance...

(Now where in the heck is #2)?!?

Hmm???  
OK...

• If you don't want to tag back and answer the questions,
  I s'pose y'all could come up with a #2 for me...

Is it time for blog cheese?

Detroit...(or Maury Povich)?

Rating:
Category:	Other

Hi All;
I might be giggling, but I cannot find it within myself to be giving this 5~Stars.

(Unless they are for the Laugh~Factor)...

********

The following are all replies that Detroit women have written on Child Support Agency Forms in the section for listing 'father's details'...
They are genuine excerpts from the forms.



1. Regarding the identity of the father of my twins, Makeeshia was fathered by Maclearndon McKinley. I am unsure as to the identity of the father of Marlinda, but I believe that she was conceived on the same night.



2. I am unsure, as to the identity of the father of my child, as I was being sick out of a window when taken unexpectedly from behind. I can provide you with a list of names of men that I think were at the party if this helps.



3. I do not know the name of the father of my little girl. She was conceived at a party at 3600 East Grand Boulevard where I had sex with a man I met that night.. I do remember that the sex was so good that I fainted. If you do manage to track down the father, can you please send me his phone number? Thanks.




4. I don't know the identity of the father of my daughter. He drives a BMW that now has a hole made by my stiletto in one of the door panels. Perhaps you can contact BMW service stations in this area and see f he's had it replaced.



5. I have never had sex with a man. I am still a Virginian. I am awaiting a letter from the Pope confirming that my son's conception was ejaculate and that he is the Saver risen again.



6. I cannot tell you the name of Alleshia dad as he Informs me that to do so would blow his cover and that would have cataclysmic implications for the economy. I am torn between doing right by you and right by the country. Please advise.



7. I do not know who the father of my child was as they all look the same to me .



8. Tyrone Hairston is the father of child A. If you do catch up with him, can you ask him what he did with my AC/DC CDs? Child B who was also borned at the same time.....well, I don't have clue.



9. From the dates it seems that my daughter was Conceived at Disney World; maybe it really is the Magic Kingdom .



10. So much about that night is a blur. The only Thing that I remember for sure is Delia Smith did a program about eggs earlier in the evening. If I had stayed at The party at 8956 Miller Ave , mine might have remained unfertilized.



11.. I am unsure as to the identity of the father of my baby, after all, like when you eat a can of beans you can't be sure which one made you fart.


*************

[Town Hall] Harassment Strategy Detailed In Memo

"Iron sharpens iron; scholar, the scholar."

My own thoughts are
Some people simply cannot be taught

**************************

Right-Wing Harassment Strategy Against Dems Detailed In Memo: ‘Yell,’ ‘Stand Up And Shout Out,’ ‘Rattle Him’

This morning, Politico reported that Democratic members of Congress are increasingly being harassed by “angry, sign-carrying mobs and disruptive behavior” at local town halls. For example, in one incident, right-wing protesters surrounded Rep. Tim Bishop (D-NY) and forced police officers to have to escort him to his car for safety.

This growing phenomenon is often marked by violence and absurdity. Recently, right-wing demonstrators hung Rep. Frank Kratovil (D-MD) in effigy outside of his office. Missing from the reporting of these stories is the fact that much of these protests are coordinated by public relations firms and lobbyists who have a stake in opposing President Obama’s reforms.

The lobbyist-run groups Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks, which orchestrated the anti-Obama tea parties earlier this year, are now pursuing an aggressive strategy to create an image of mass public opposition to health care and clean energy reform. A leaked memo from Bob MacGuffie, a volunteer with the FreedomWorks website Tea Party Patriots, details how members should be infiltrating town halls and harassing Democratic members of Congress:

Tea Bagger Memo

    – Artificially Inflate Your Numbers: “Spread out in the hall and try to be in the front half. The objective is to put the Rep on the defensive with your questions and follow-up. The Rep should be made to feel that a majority, and if not, a significant portion of at least the audience, opposes the socialist agenda of Washington.”

    – Be Disruptive Early And Often: “You need to rock-the-boat early in the Rep’s presentation, Watch for an opportunity to yell out and challenge the Rep’s statements early.”

    – Try To “Rattle Him,” Not Have An Intelligent Debate: “The goal is to rattle him, get him off his prepared script and agenda. If he says something outrageous, stand up and shout out and sit right back down. Look for these opportunities before he even takes questions.”

The memo above also resembles the talking points being distributed by FreedomWorks for pushing an anti-health reform assault all summer. Patients United, a front group maintained by Americans for Prosperity, is currently busing people all over the country for more protests against Democratic members. Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), chairman of the NRCC, has endorsed the strategy, telling the Politico the days of civil town halls are now “over.”

Meanwhile, AHIP, the trade group and lobbying juggernaut representing the health insurance industry is sending staffers to monitor town halls and other right-wing front groups are stepping up their ad campaign to smear reform efforts. The strategy for defeating reform — recently outlined by an influential lobbyist to the Hill newspaper as “delay” then “kill” — is becoming apparent. By delaying a vote until after the August recess, lobbyists are now seizing upon recess town halls as opportunities to ambush lawmakers and fool them into believing there is wide opposition to reform.

Update
Amy Menefee, communications director of Americans for Prosperity and its anti-health reform group Patients United, wrote to ThinkProgress regarding this post:

 "Several blogs have picked up your post: http://thinkprogress.org/ which mentions Americans for Prosperity's efforts next to your mention of Bob MacGuffie's memo about town hall meetings. Mr. MacGuffie's memo was his own work.  I would appreciate your help in correcting the erroneous rumor people have passed around that this memo came from AFP. We have encouraged our members to attend town halls, ask questions and register their opinions about issues including health care -- as all citizens should do. We always promote civil dialogue and do not condone disruptive behavior."


*** If you have made it this far, please pay attention to the authors response to the above note.


RESPONSE.
"As noted in the post, MacGuffie is a volunteer who actively posts and volunteers with the website Tea Party Patriots.

• A review of the sponsoring organizations reveals that both FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity are sponsors of the website as "Freedom Coalition" partners.
  
  
• A few months before joining Americans for Prosperity, Menefee herself worked for the medical device/pharmaceutical industry-funded "think-tank" called the Galen Institute. end quote...
  
  
  Of course she did. Go figure.
  
  
  XOXO
  Me
  

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Entire Town Hall Memo "Rocking the Town Halls---Best Practices" can be found here. CLICK HERE (or directly below).
http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/townhallactionmemo.pdf

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SICK HEIL: RACIAL PARANOIA, WHITE VICTIMOLOGY AND THE HITLERIZING OF OBAMA -by Tim Wise

Good Afternoon!
Yes, I have Mr. Wise express permission to reprint this within my blog.
XOXO
Anne

********

********

by Tim Wise August 12, 2009, 1:23 pm
Tim Wise is the author of four books on race.   His latest is, Between Barack and a Hard Place: Racism and White Denial in the Age of Obama (City Lights, 2009).  

http://www.redroom.com/author/tim-wise/

If you get a chance, today or perhaps tomorrow, do yourself a favor. Look up some file footage, perhaps on YouTube, of Adolf Hitler, addressing his followers. I know, it doesn't sound like the best way to spend your day, or even a few minutes of it, but trust me, there's a point to the recommendation. While you watch, notice the unhinged shouting, the wild eyes, the veins on his neck, the psychotic bodily gesticulations. Then, take a look at footage from yesterday's town hall meeting, called by President Obama in New Hampshire, in which he sought to lay out his case for health care reform to an audience that included supporters and opponents of his plan. Notice: no shouting, no wild eyes, no bulging jugular vein, no apparent sociopathy whatsoever. Indeed notice as the President actually seeks out questions from people who disagree with him, and then thanks them for making good points and raising legitimate concerns, even when the premises of their questions are dead wrong, and largely originated in crazy town.

Then ask yourself, is this the man that much of right-wing talk radio would have us believe is a Nazi? The political reincarnation of Hitler--ya know, the lunatic I asked you to watch first? Really? Really? Wow. Sometimes, it's hard to know where to begin.

On the one hand, the comparisons seem literally bat-shit insane. Especially when considering that at the same time folks are comparing Obama to the world's most infamous right-wing fascist, they are at the same time calling him a Marxist, and a left-wing radical. Oh sure, they try and say that Hitler was really a leftist, ya know, because the Nazis were National Socialists. Of course. And hot dogs are made from puppies.

Anyway, it seems at first blush to make no sense. Any reading of the Nazi era makes it all too clear how far afield from the Third Reich the Obama administration is. After coming to power, the Nazis moved to outlaw all opposition parties, suspend the nation's constitution, round up and detain their political adversaries (or better yet, kill them), and destroy the trade unions. All this, well before initiating the murderous campaigns against Jews, Romany, homosexuals and others deemed "life unworthy of life." Needless to say, Obama has done none of this, has proposed none of this, and only the most truly unstable person could really believe such things were just around the corner. Although there are such persons to be found in the body politic, such as Ron Paul acolytes, Ayn Rand devotees and real estate agent/dentist/professional whack-a-doodle, Orly Taitz, surely even the most cynical would have to agree that the numbers of persons who seem to buy into this rhetoric far and away exceed the likely national percentages of the truly mentally ill.

And those propagating the comparisons--the Limbaughs and Becks and Savages, and Hannitys (who have the top four radio talk shows in the nation right now)--despite their fervent commitment to right-wing ideas, surely cannot believe that an American Reich is on the horizon. In short, they can't possibly be serious.

So why then, do they keep saying it? It is this question that I've been pondering for the past few days. What could possibly be the purpose of making an argument that has so little intellectual validity; so little indeed that it can be easily shot down by the average 12th grade European history student (who, it should be noted, would have as much education as either Limbaugh or Hannity)? What would be the value, symbolically speaking, of putting forth on protest signs this Obama=Hitler meme, and visually representing that meme, straight down to the little mustache, side-swept hairdo and swastika adornment?

And then it struck me. This analogy, as absurd as it is factually, and as offensive as it is historically, makes almost perfect sense politically, to a movement that is trying desperately to create a groundswell of support behind the notion that white people are the new victims of massive discrimination, the new victims of the Obama era: the ones who don't get picked first for the Supreme Court, and who can no longer take for granted their hegemonic power. And that is precisely the kind of movement they are trying to build, what with their equally facile rantings that white men, according to Limbaugh, are being sent to the "back of the bus" under Obama, because he literally hates white people, and that white men are now experiencing, to hear Pat Buchanan tell it, "exactly what black folks" experienced during the days of Jim Crow. Within a politics of white resentment and white victimology, the Hitler meme works. After all, Hitler was not just a fascist, but is understood to have been a racial fascist: one whose dictatorial and murderous schemes were directed at a distinctly racialized "other." So to make the black man atop the U.S. political system into Hitler, is to plant the idea in white minds that he too will be a racial fascist. And if that is the case, the question is quite obviously begged, which race will he be coming for? Ah yes, white man, see? Now are you scared?

By playing upon white fears--fears of a black President with a funny name, fears of a country that within about 30 years will no longer be majority white, fears of the inability to take for granted that our Leave-it-to-Beaver, Norman Rockwell, Boy Scout-approved national narrative will continue to predominate--the right hopes to prove resurgent, and the GOP hopes to remain a living entity. They have all but abandoned any hopes of attracting large numbers of people of color. The writing in that regard is on the wall and they seem to very much know it. So they have retreated into the laager--South African imagery very much intended here--and decided to go all in as the party of nostalgia, a white nationalist party, in effect, whose only hope is to claim that the nation has lost its greatness, and that everything that made America, well, America (ya know, back in the days of segregation) has been lost. And that such a transformation, from a formal white supremacist state, to a multicultural society, is of course a bad thing.

In addition to rallying the troops of white backlash, the Obama/Hitler analogies also serve another function, one that would be immediately recognizable to most any psychologist. That function is called projection: when someone recognizes a trait within themselves, and then, ashamed of that trait seeks it out in others and locates it there, displacing the shame and self-hatred that might otherwise manifest onto someone else.

For these right-wing louts to accuse President Obama of being a racist, let alone a potentially genocidal one at that, is the ultimate in projection. After all, it is the right whose authors regularly publish books with hateful and prejudicial comments about racialized others, not Obama, whose own writing reveals a deep and abiding love for his family--all of it, including the white half.

It is the right that channels Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebells, every time they spew lies about the health care bill's euthanasia provisions, or about how Obama is going to confiscate all the guns, or casting doubt on Obama's citizenship, or about how Mexicans are looking to "reconquer" the American southwest, or about how illegal immigrants are a major source of leprosy and disease. All of these things have been debunked, time and again, and yet they are repeated daily, as if facts don't matter. Because to anti-intellectual brownshirts, they don't.

It is the right channeling the thuggishness of the Nazi bullies by sending folks to public forums to shout and disrupt, and to intimidate people by carrying weapons.

It is the right that would like to smash the trade unions.

It is the right that stood by while the last president circumvented the Constitution on such matters as wiretaps, torture, the primacy of international treaties to which the U.S. is a party, and the suspension of habeas corpus for suspected "terrorists."

It is folks like Michael Savage--perhaps the most truly psychotic of the right-wing radio set--who has staked out positions of overt racism and even murderous intent. To wit, his comments of May 11 and 12, 2004, to the effect that Arab Muslims are "non humans," who should be either forcibly converted to Christianity or slaughtered. Or his statement of April 17, 2006, to the effect that the United States should kill 100 million Muslims. Or his more recent comment to the effect that he hopes "far extreme, violent motorcycle gangs" show up at the health care town hall meetings around the country. Or his statement about liberal advocacy groups, suggesting "they have no place in America," and that he would like to "round up every member of the ACLU and of the National Lawyers Guild and...put them in a prison in Guantanamo and...throw the key away" Or his pithy paraphrasing of a statement previously made by Nazi leader Hermann Goering, to the effect that when he "hears that someone is in the civil rights business," he "oils up (his) AR-15," and presumably not so as to have an intelligent conversation.

And speaking of Nazis, it was Pat Buchanan who said, in a 1977 column that the early Adolf Hitler--the one who suspended civil liberties, murdered his political opponents inside Germany, and set about to invade surrounding countries so as to broaden the boundaries of the Reich--was for all intent and purposes, a model leader. Prior to initiating the Holocaust of European Jewry, Hitler seems to have done little with which Buchanan could find fault, thus his claim: "If Hitler had died in 1937 on the fourth anniversary of his coming to power, he would undoubtedly have gone down as one of the greatest figures of German history." Hitler was, to hear Pat tell it, "an individual of great courage, a soldier's soldier in the Great War, a political organizer of the first rank" whose "genius" was in having such an "intuitive sense of the mushiness, the character flaws, the weakness masquerading as morality that was in the hearts of the statesmen who stood in his path."

Yet Pat Buchanan, who also called for the U.S. to annex parts of Canada back in a 1989 column, so as to expand the size of our nation's "white tribe"--an idea that Herr Hitler would have no doubt found exhilarating--remains a commentator in good standing on major networks. And so the right, which regularly espouses ideas resonant of the very fascism they would ascribe to Obama, gets a free pass, as they project their own darkest authoritarian desires onto others, with whom they cannot intellectually compete. And so they must bully. They must shout. They must drown out reason with volume.

And beneath it all, they hope that just enough people will listen. Just enough to build a movement rooted in white anger, white fear, white victimology, and the reassertion of white nationhood that they feel has been taken from them.

The question is--and it may be the only one that matters right now--what are we going to do about it, and by "we" I mean especially those of us called white? Are we going to let the hateful throngs define us, for us? Are we going to sit back while they seek to organize a politics of racial backlash in our name? Are we going to merely laugh at them and then move on, figuring that the threat they pose is minimal? Or will we stand up, demand that there are other ways to live in this skin, and choose to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our black and brown brothers and sisters who are, as they have long been, under such attack in this nation? Will we choose the road of antagonism or allyship?

Make no mistake, the future of the country may very well depend on how we answer.

Thank you Mr Wise.

The Pledge of Allegiance - A Short History

http://oldtimeislands.org/pledge/pledge.htm
The Pledge of Allegiance
A Short History
by Dr. John W. Baer

Copyright 1992 by Dr. John W. Baer
A Revised History and Analysis, 2007 by Dr. John W. Baer.
Copyright 2007 by John W. Baer



Francis Bellamy (1855 - 1931), a Baptist minister, wrote the original Pledge in August 1892. He was a Christian Socialist. In his Pledge, he is expressing the ideas of his first cousin, Edward Bellamy, author of the American socialist utopian novels, Looking Backward (1888) and Equality (1897).

..................................................................................................................................... Illustration by Roxanna Baer.

Francis Bellamy in his sermons and lectures and Edward Bellamy in his novels and articles described in detail how the middle class could create a planned economy with political, social and economic equality for all. The government would run a peace time economy similar to our present military industrial complex.

The Pledge was published in the September 8th issue of The Youth's Companion, the leading family magazine and the Reader's Digest of its day. Its owner and editor, Daniel Ford, had hired Francis in 1891 as his assistant when Francis was pressured into leaving his baptist church in Boston because of his socialist sermons. As a member of his congregation, Ford had enjoyed Francis's sermons. Ford later founded the liberal and often controversial Ford Hall Forum, located in downtown Boston.

In 1892 Francis Bellamy was also a chairman of a committee of state superintendents of education in the National Education Association. As its chairman, he prepared the program for the public schools' quadricentennial celebration for Columbus Day in 1892. He structured this public school program around a flag raising ceremony and a flag salute - his 'Pledge of Allegiance.'

His original Pledge read as follows: 'I pledge allegiance to my Flag and (to*) the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.' He considered placing the word, 'equality,' in his Pledge, but knew that the state superintendents of education on his committee were against equality for women and African Americans. [ * 'to' added in October, 1892. ]

Dr. Mortimer Adler, American philosopher and last living founder of the Great Books program at Saint John's College, has analyzed these ideas in his book, The Six Great Ideas. He argues that the three great ideas of the American political tradition are 'equality, liberty and justice for all.' 'Justice' mediates between the often conflicting goals of 'liberty' and 'equality.'

In 1923 and 1924 the National Flag Conference, under the 'leadership of the American Legion and the Daughters of the American Revolution, changed the Pledge's words, 'my Flag,' to 'the Flag of the United States of America.' Bellamy disliked this change, but his protest was ignored.

In 1954, Congress after a campaign by the Knights of Columbus, added the words, 'under God,' to the Pledge. The Pledge was now both a patriotic oath and a public prayer.

Bellamy's granddaughter said he also would have resented this second change. He had been pressured into leaving his church in 1891 because of his socialist sermons. In his retirement in Florida, he stopped attending church because he disliked the racial bigotry he found there.

What follows is Bellamy's own account of some of the thoughts that went through his mind in August, 1892, as he picked the words of his Pledge:

It began as an intensive communing with salient points of our national history, from the Declaration of Independence onwards; with the makings of the Constitution...with the meaning of the Civil War; with the aspiration of the people...

The true reason for allegiance to the Flag is the 'republic for which it stands.' ...And what does that vast thing, the Republic mean? It is the concise political word for the Nation - the One Nation which the Civil War was fought to prove. To make that One Nation idea clear, we must specify that it is indivisible, as Webster and Lincoln used to repeat in their great speeches. And its future?

Just here arose the temptation of the historic slogan of the French Revolution which meant so much to Jefferson and his friends, 'Liberty, equality, fraternity.' No, that would be too fanciful, too many thousands of years off in realization. But we as a nation do stand square on the doctrine of liberty and justice for all...

If the Pledge's historical pattern repeats, its words will be modified during this decade. Below are two possible changes.

Some prolife advocates recite the following slightly revised Pledge: 'I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all, born and unborn.'

A few liberals recite a slightly revised version of Bellamy's original Pledge: 'I pledge allegiance to my Flag, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with equality, liberty and justice for all.'

Bibliography:

Baer, John. The Pledge of Allegiance, A Revised History and Analysis, 2007, Annapolis, Md. Free State Press, Inc., 2007. Available on Amazon.com.
Miller, Margarette S. Twenty-Three Words, Portsmouth, Va. Printcraft Press, 1976.

For more information about the history of the Pledge, be sure to also read the other online chapters of The Pledge of Allegiance, A Revised History and Analysis, 2007 by Dr. Baer:

o The Youth's Companion's Pledge
http://oldtimeislands.org/pledge/pdgech2.htm

o American Socialists and Reformers
http://oldtimeislands.org/pledge/pdgech3.htm



Do you have other questions or comments about the "short history" or about the chapters shown above?
Please contact:
Dr. John W. Baer
10 Taney Ave.
Annapolis, MD 21401
(410) 268 - 1743

Flintville's Very Own "Garden of Weeden"

I am sure we have all read this one...
I received it in my email, along with a message that I was doing good work, and to "keep up the good work"...


One day, the father of a very wealthy family took his son on a trip to the country with the express purpose of showing him how poor people live.
They spent a couple of days and nights on the farm of what would be considered a very poor family.

On their return from their trip, the father asked his son, 'How was the trip?'
'It was great, Dad.'
'Did you see how poor people live?' the father asked.
'Oh yeah,' said the son.

'So, tell me, what did you learn from the trip?' asked the father.
The son answered:

    * I saw that we have one dog and they had four..
    * We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden and they have a creek that has no end..
    * We have imported lanterns in our garden and they have the stars at night.
    * Our patio reaches to the front yard and they have the whole horizon.
    * We have a small piece of land to live on and they have fields that go beyond our sight.
    * We have servants who serve us, but they serve others.
    * We buy our food, but they grow theirs.
    * We have walls around our property to protect us, they have friends to protect them.'

The boy's father was speechless.
Then his son added , 'Thanks Dad for showing me how poor we are.'
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Good Afternoon Everyone;
The above picture representing still another thing I should probably not have been doing. (Not that I did much, but carry things back and forth), to build up that pile...

At about 6:30 yesterday morning, as I was changing, I heard a tractor.  never knowing if this represents my hope that the neglected fields will be finally tended to; or something else, I had to take a peek. (It was "something else"). hehehe
Neighbor Greg had his tractor and mower out there to take down some noxious growth around the fields.  He had already called work and told them he would be there by nine, so he was up early and working hard.

He offered to dispense with my "Garden of Weeden".
I happily accepted, but warned him that there were old 2 box springs out there, under those weeds. We had burned them last Fall, so all that remained was the spring apparatus within.
When Spring came and the workers came to the field, Kelli had dragged them to the garden, knowing that I was not going to be planting one this year.

So yesterday, we found one, and he pulled it free of its overgrowth.
We both searched for the other to no avail. Smiling, he said, "IOh, I'll find it", (as he pointed to his pull behind mower).

He sure did! And it shut the whole shebang down.
Thinking he could untwist and unwind it, he crawled under there. A few moments later, after freeing up most of it, he grabbed a large stick of wood from the woodpile by the grill.
And he began to pound... And pound. At that point, I'd come in and brought out a few hammers, and a few pliers and screwdrivers and a tin snips too.

Soon, all but one little piece of wire had been freed.
Wire, mind you, about an inch long, and about the width of a coat hanger.
And it was in-between the blade mechanisms and the deck.
Stuck.
No amount of leverage by screwdriver, or strength by pounding would free it.

Coffee break...

He backed it up under the willow then- Too late for him to be dry-  (The lawns all covered still with 60 degree dew). 
I too was wet- my shoes making that slursh~sloopie~ing noise as I walked. And clear up to my knees.
But unlike Greg, I had not been laying on the wet grass either.

We finally called Jim, (next door)- Greg drove it up there and was back mowing within about 20 minutes.  (About the time it had taken me to get redressed).
Enough excitement for one morning...

Casey came out... (She is now up to 101 pounds)!  YAY!
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She is currently at UWGB, getting her Student ID
Say "YAY!!!"

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At any rate, when she came yesterday, she had stopped at CVS, bringing my new meds with her.  (Which was a very good thing- since I had taken my last one at about 2 in the morning).

My appointment with the pain doctor went well. I will be receiving 2 injections in two different places in my back on the 8th. (I am not looking forward to those, by the way).
First up, I will be having an MRI at St. Marys Hospital next Friday.

Having one
heck of a time writing last night, ("finners" and brain not connecting right), I received this reply...
 "I take it the meds mixed with your dial up were too much for a blog?  Yup.

 

As Dr. Mario saw my xrays from this year and two years ago, he saw 4 or 5 bone spurs that definitely need attention too... (I would say so)!  So to keep my appointment mid next month with the "Spine"ologist.
Results from the MRI will then be in both places. (I love the digitized and shared capabilities of most hospitals and clinics)!

But we did stop at our own clinic before seeing him... Casey went in to pick up my xrays.
Punk and I played a bit of fetch.
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Looking East

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And toward the North

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Just before Casey came back outside we had gotten back in the car...

Punk dropped her ball...
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Oops.
So the "I" fetched too!
hehehe

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Later on, Casey, Kelli and Michelle packed up Miss Nadia, (one of Michelle's horses), and Miss Breezie and May, to go over to The Folkman's. Alan trims hooves.
I will leave Casey to put the rest of the pics on her blog... But just wanted to show you a few pics of the equipment involved.
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And the worried look on Miss Mays face!
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hehehe

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Walking outside with Punk the other morning-

...To be greeted by my Orange Blossom Bush-

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Which has morphed into a Morning Glory for now!

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I got to thinking about all the weeds in my pictures. 

Then I realized I would very much rather look at them than this...

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Yes, I already know that Daddy-Long-Legs are very beneficial.
They are also the ONLY spider I can stand to be near.

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Even so...  I would still rather look at my weeds.
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So there you have it! Another exciting rendition of my week so far.

Hoping you all have a "wunnaful" weekend!

XOXO
Me

Inaccurate Health Care Info? Send those emails and e~addresses and links on! "There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there. Since we can't keep track of all of them here at the White House, we're asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to FLAG@WHITEHOUSE.GOV ****** A bit Orwellian, but it is time to get rid of the BS. XOXO, Me

Five right-wing myths about healthcare reform, and the facts...

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/08/06/healthcare/print.html
Good Morning;
Here are a few more "goodies" for the uninformed...

PLEASE click the link above to read the whole story and to be able to bring up "more" on it all.

XOXO
Me

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Turning America socialist apparently wasn't enough for him -- now President Obama is trying to make old people kill themselves, callously deny important medical procedures, funnel tax dollars to abortion clinics and wiggle the government's way into every doctor's office in America.

At least, that's the sense you might have about the healthcare reform proposals Congress is considering from listening to opponents describe them. Already, conservative activists have erupted against the plan, with protesters hanging Democratic lawmakers in effigy and disrupting town hall meetings.

Here's a fact check of some of the more alarming claims that the right is making about healthcare reform, claims that are already hardening into myth.



Myth 1: Democrats want to kill your grandmother. This claim seems too outlandish on its face to get much traction, but Republicans actually made some headway on it recently. Two House GOP leaders put out a statement warning that the healthcare reform bill "may start us down a treacherous path toward government-encouraged euthanasia." To hear opponents of reform talk about it, the legislation would force seniors to go in for sessions once every five years -- and more frequently if they're sick -- where doctors will encourage them to end their lives. Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., summarized the scare tactic pretty well on the House floor last week, when she said the bill would "put seniors in a position of being put to death by their government," and therefore, wouldn't be pro-life. The GOP has pushed this line especially hard with some of the conservative groups behind the government's intervention in the Terri Schiavo case a few years ago, hoping to get antiabortion allies on board fighting reform. "Can you imagine the response of the American people when they find this out?" one-time GOP presidential candidate Fred Thompson asked about the alleged euthanasia scheme on his radio show last month. "They're going to counsel you on preparing you to die," Rush Limbaugh pronounced a few weeks ago. Proof of how far this attack has spread came last week, when a caller to an AARP forum asked Obama about it directly. (Probably unwisely, the president tried to make light of the question, saying there weren't enough government employees to go meet with old people to talk about end-of-life care.)

There is a kernel of truth at the root of this attack: The legislation would order Medicare to pay for consultations between patients and doctors on end-of-life decisions, which it currently doesn't cover. But the consultations wouldn't be mandatory; if your grandmother doesn't want to go talk to her doctor about end-of-life care, she won't have to. Because Medicare doesn't pay for this kind of planning now, only 40 percent of seniors who depend on the government insurance say they have an advance directive that tells healthcare providers what measures they do and don't want used to prolong their life, even though 75 percent say they think it's important. The lack of planning actually costs a lot of money. Medicare spends billions and billions of dollars annually on expensive treatment during the last year of a dying patient's life. Without allowing Medicare to pay for end-of-life consultations, it's hard to know whether patients even want to go to such expensive lengths.



Myth 2: The government -- i.e., you -- will have to pay for abortions. This is another way the GOP is stirring up antiabortion activists against healthcare reform -- by warning that your tax dollars will be used to pay for someone else's abortion. An ad by the Family Research Council dramatizes the issue about as creepily as possible. "To think that Planned Parenthood is included in the government-run healthcare plan and spending tax dollars on abortions," a distraught older man tells his wife, sitting at their kitchen table after opening a letter from the government. "They won't pay for my surgery, but we're forced to pay abortions." The narrator lays out what's going on: "Our greatest generation denied care, our future generations denied life." A House Republican aide says the GOP thinks this could be the most potent type of viral attack against reform, since antiabortion Democrats will have trouble voting for the legislation if it includes taxpayer funding for the procedure.

But only the most extreme antiabortion reading of the legislation would say it does that. The words "Planned Parenthood" and "abortion" don't appear anywhere in the text, despite conservative buzz that it would funnel millions of dollars to killing babies. (A proposal in the Senate version of the reform legislation would require insurance plans to cover preventive care and screening visits to community health providers, which could include Planned Parenthood.) Even an AP story that Matt Drudge was hyping on Wednesday as proof that the government would be funding abortions didn't go quite that far -- instead, the story detailed a fight over whether women who buy government-subsidized private insurance through a proposed exchange system should be able to have abortions covered by their plans. Pro-choice lawmakers are trying to craft a compromise that would require insurance companies to pay for abortions out of premiums paid by patients, not out of tax dollars. Pro-choice Rep. Lois Capps, D-Calif., amended the House version of the legislation to state that abortion is not part of an "essential benefits package" that all insurance plans must provide -- meaning someone could offer a special "pro-life health insurance" plan that doesn't cover abortions, even under the reforms.



Myth 3: Obama will ban all private health insurance. Allegedly, the House proposal for healthcare reform bans private insurance. This rumor comes complete with a citation: "Right there on Page 16 is a provision making individual private medical insurance illegal," the unflaggingly pro-business paper Investors Business Daily wrote in an editorial last month. Other right-wing blogs and news outlets picked up on the idea, as well. It fits in with a broader message Republicans have been using: The reform will lead to a total government takeover of healthcare.

The IBD line is literally true -- Section 102 of the House bill says insurance companies can't independently issue any new individual policies after the legislation takes effect (though existing policies are grandfathered in). But it misses the point. Private plans aren't banned, but rather shifted into the new health insurance exchange the legislation would set up. You can still get a private policy, but the way in which you buy it changes. If you wanted to buy your own insurance, you have to do it through the government-run insurance exchange. Your policy becomes part of broader risk pools, which makes the premiums cheaper and keeps insurance companies from dumping them once they get sick. PolitiFact looked into the claim and rated the IBD editorial "pants on fire," its lowest rating -- as in, "Liar, liar, pants on fire."



Myth 4: The government can't possibly run a healthcare program. Opponents of reform trot out comparisons to government services frequently when they try to argue against a public, government-funded healthcare plan. Republicans drew up a chart that purports to show how convoluted the bureaucracy involved in any government plan would be. This message doesn't make Obama the enemy, it makes government inefficiency the enemy. "If you like the Post Office and the Department of Motor Vehicles and you think they're run well, just wait till you see Medicare, Medicaid and healthcare done by the government," conservative economist Arthur Laffer told CNN this week.

If that doesn't quite make sense, there's a reason -- Medicare and Medicaid are, of course, government-run healthcare programs. Medicare in particular is quite popular; polling shows some seniors are anxious that the reform will affect the care they already get from the government. (In fact, Democratic pollster Celinda Lake says she frequently encounters voters who say they want to keep the government out of their Medicare.)

The Department of Veterans Administration also runs a healthcare system that experts praise for its well-developed health information technology network, which lets doctors see results of tests and procedures any patient has had anywhere in the network -- eliminating the wasteful duplication that Obama says he wants to cut out of the larger healthcare world, as well.



Myth 5: Unlike private insurance, government bureaucrats will ration care. This line also makes government the enemy. "You may want healthcare that your doctor has prescribed for you," Peter Ferrara, of the anti-tax, anti-government Institute for Policy Innovation, wrote on the National Review last month. "But the rationing bureaucracy in Washington that doesn’t even know you, or your doctor, may decide that your doctor doesn’t know what he’s talking about, or that you are too old for the government to pay for your hip replacement to stop the pain, or to get an expensive triple bypass or a pacemaker operation to save your life." Since the Obama administration keeps talking about encouraging doctors to shift to outcome-based pay scales and evidence-based guidelines for what treatments or procedures to use, opponents don't have much trouble painting a troubling picture of faceless government hacks denying the care you -- or your loved ones -- need.

***** Of course, there are already plenty of faceless hacks denying people care right now; they just work for private insurance companies, not the government, and they're denying care because that helps keep the insurers' profit margins up.

At a recent House hearing, just three insurance companies testified that they had "rescinded" -- or dropped -- coverage for nearly 20,000 patients between 2003 and 2007, often after patients had submitted claims they thought would be covered!!!

Even Republicans seem to know the insurance companies can be bad. "I would always rather the devil I know than the devil I don't know," House GOP boss John Boehner said last week, explaining why going after the government works even though private insurance companies would seem to be just as much of a villain.

-- By Mike Madden Aug. 06, 2009 |