Dr. Samuel Metz tackles "the second biggest cause of bar fights in the country"--health care reform. Dr. Metz, who is a founding member of Mad as Hell Doctors and also works with Health Care for All Oregon, presents an easy-to-understand explanation of the health care crisis, the ins and outs of the current reform law, and why a universal single payer system is superior to both our current system and Obamacare, in a three-question, nine-answer format. This special live taping of "Populist Dialogues" was co-sponsored by the Portland (OR) chapter of the League of Women Voters.
If you'd like to share this show on your local community access station, please visit our video page for easy instructions.
Here's remarks by Governor Peter Shumlin, who this morning signed a bill to bring single payer health care to a state where where 40,000 have no coverage and one in four are underinsured. Shumlin thanked everyone who contributed to the passage of the bill, and singled out the state legislature, whose work on the on this bill was "a tribute to democracy in Vermont."
The Portland Chapter will be screening the first two editions of its new cable TV program, "Alliance for Democracy--Populist Dialogues," in early December. The schedule's at the end of this post.
The half-hour program features David Delk, AfD co-chair and Portland chapter president, as host, with chapter members as crew and tech support.
The program will be on a regular schedule on Portland community access cable starting in January, and will also screen in suburban communities.
If you're not in Portland, you can request a copy of the show to view locally or to screen at your local community access station. The programs will have some content specific to Portland or Oregon but will be general enough to be of interest around the nation.
You can also watch online on the Portland chapter website's Populist Dialogues video page, or on blip.tv. The single payer program with Samuel Metz is here and David talks to Barbara Dudley here.
We are all very excited about this project, so I hope everyone likes them. Your comments are welcome!
Republican Sue Lowden is currently holding a good lead over Sen. Harry Reid in Nevada's senatorial race. And although she's a casino owner, and odds are she's got enough money to keep a doctor under the kitchen sink, she's an old-fashioned girl when it comes to the rest of us, and our health insurance:
So, problem solved. The funniest coverage is in The Guardian. They love us over there.
Rockland, Maine was the site of a sidewalk summit this weekend, as protesters called on Maine Reps Chellie Pingree and Mike Michaud to take a step beyond the public option for single payer/Medicare for all. Organizer Jerry Call of Maine Health Care Reform sent the clip, which is online here, along with some interesting reader/viewer comments.
Now 20 senators have signed on to the Bennet letter to Harry Reid asking that a public option be passed in the Senate through reconciliation. On Thursday, Sen. Bernie Sanders talked to Rachel Maddow about the process.
Is an individual mandate taxation without representation? In a New Year's Day interview on MSNBC, Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake, described the individual mandate as "worse than a tax," adding the understatement that both right and left are "finding that our politicians in Washington DC are much too responsive to what the corporations want these days."
Hamsher points out that the individual mandate is a legally required 8% income turnover to private corporations--entities over which the public has no control. Where any of that 8% winds up is up to the discretion of the corporation to which it is paid. (She didn't go into detail, but think about it--some might, for instance, be used for lobbying Congress to eliminate pesky regulations on providing or expanding patient care. Some might be used, depending on the Citizens United v. FEC outcome, to buoy independent campaigns promoting candidates friendly to the needs of insurance companies.)
"That's not capitalism, it's not socialism," says Hamsher. "It's socializing the loss and privatizing the profits."
We saw the same thing with the bank bailout--a government forced to prop up but unable to reform corporations and a greedy elite gone off the rails. So if it's not socialism, or capitalism, what's left? Corporism is a good start, if we don't want to go all the way and quote Franklin D. Roosevelt: “The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it comes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group.”
Hyperbole and history have made fascism a kind of political "that which must not be named." At a recent conference in Boston, keynoted Frances Moore Lappe said that she feels uncomfortable using "the 'f-word'" without also citing Roosevelt's definition. But regardless of what we call it, we need to start naming it out loud, now, before we all become so used to the withering away of democratically determined public purpose that using government to ensure private, short-term gain for a few becomes not an outrage, but the norm, accepted with cynicism and resignation.
Please set aside some time this week to call your senators on behalf of Sen. Bernie Sanders' single payer bill, S 703. And ask your senators to support reinstating Rep. Dennis Kucinich's state single-payer amendment when the House and Senate versions of the health care reform bill go to conference committee.
Here's Sen. Sanders talking to Rachel Maddow about the Stupak Amendment, and cost containment in the absence of a public option to compete with private plans:
The bakesale option: Rep. Eric Cantor says nothing meaningful at all on what to do if you're middle-class, uninsured and seriously ill--write-up here.
Why so many Americans are limited to the bakesale option, c/o Senator Bernie Sanders, with a warning on public policy, big money, and Citizens United v. FEC.
More satire, pro-public option but otherwise dead-on, c/o FunnyorDie.com, and featuring Will Ferrell, Jon Hamm, Olivia Wilde, and others, produced by MoveOn.org.
Laugh all you want, but make the call for HR 676 and the Weiner amendment.
Tomorrow (Monday) morning Rep. Anthony Weiner returns to the "Morning Joe" show on MSNBC. We've posted video from his first visit here. Weiner made a strong, clear case for single payer, and was invited back by the show's host Joe Scarborough to speak more. Tune in at 8am on MSNBC. For late risers the video will be posted on MSNBC's website shortly after the interview at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036789 /.
If you missed it, here's Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films on the Ed Show, discussing United Health Care CEO Stephen Hemsley's bloated salary--$3.2 million last year with stock options of almost $750 million. And the profits that pay him come from denying care to people in need, and their stories are here as well.
This is not the free market at work, Greenwald says. "This is a manipulated market controlled by a few greedy profiteers who are literally making the money off of the backs of sick people."
Brave New Film's Sick for Profit site has more, while their War on Greed pages feature dispatches from the casino economy's payouts--the bailout, the bonuses, and resistance by labor and community groups. If you want to learn more about the economic consequences of massively subsidizing money-grubbing incompetents, this is a good place to start.
Rep. Weiner renders "Morning Joe" Scarborough speechless by asking what value insurance companies add to health care in America.
Take aways?
First, right now no one party or point of view has the votes to pass any proposal. Which means that now is the time for people to both wonk out--read as much as you can so you can speak clearly to the skeptical and confused--and speak out--to neighbors and Congress.
The second part of the interview is below, discussing Medicare funding (with a break for news in the middle). Medicare going broke? Private health care costs are rising too, and faster. Weiner also mentions the economic benefit, long-term, of providing universal health care.
Scarborough says they'll have Weiner back on Thursday to continue what he says is the clearest statement he's heard so far on expanding Medicare and the public option.
Drive the message home! Support constitutional rights for people, not corporations and show the big donors you're on to their game with these bumperstickers!
