CC declines comment, but I didn't.

it's a class marker. non-elite women serve the "whore" function, it's how the elites define non-elites when not defining us "baby oven" or "handmaiden." elites can pay to have the real thing made, and it sets them apart, special. the semi-celebrity associated with the costume itself, and the social capital that creates, is reserved for elites. now, i don't define Con fans who do this as elite, as most of the time they do it themselves and it's almost an art these days, and surely a craft. but speaking simply as a status marker among the elite, it is on purpose that non-elite women rarely have access to the real costume, and frequently offered whore-esque "choices."

I'd like to start by saying i'm a longtime reader of graphic literature and speculative fiction of a wide range of genres.

The Patriarchy is hard at work here, employing a pretty wide range of tools here, tools which are literal pressures upon the shape of a woman, the way she shapes herself and is shaped.

I had thought I lost this video but I found it in the darned camera:

At the end of the blogger outreach on Saturday, September 26th, '09, I talked to Senator Dodd on the Kucinich Amendment Protecting States' Rights to move forward on Single Payer. Essentially, Dodd refers to Senator Bernie Sanders' efforts and Sanders legislation to deal with Erisa laws and allow Single Payer in States that want to start an SP system. Dodd makes no commitment to support it, but he will look at it. Sanders had previously introduced a partial fix to the system and it was rejected in the Senate HELP committee BUT if we can get him to reintroduce it, or even a stronger fix? One possibly more sympathetic and newly minted Chairperson may have the will to twist a few arms:

Angry Bear:

I can't believe this "Illegal Immigrants Could Not Buy Insurance on New ‘Exchange,’ White House Says"

So a rude idiot shouts "you lie" and Obama decides he has to punish undocumented aliens. This is not about subsidies which were clearly not on offer yesterday. This is about making it harder for them to pay the full price of insurance.

That way they won't give US citizens their infectious diseases. Uhm well but they are illegal so it's worth it.

You can't believe it?

On the one hand, I have whispering in my ear a little birdie who confides that approximately 225 members of the House of Representatives think that universal single payer national health insurance is the way to go. 225. Last I checked, the House is supposed to have 435 members [of whom 256 are Democrats], and last I checked, 225 was slightly more than half of 435.

Isn't there some kind of rule somewhere that says if we have more than half the votes, we get to pass the legislation? Seems to me I remember hearing about this concept somewhere.

Scienceblogger Zuska has recently been writing about her experience dealing with The Best Health Insurance System In The World!^TM

Zuska's mother resides in an assisted living facility, where a few weeks ago, her wallet was stolen, including her health insurance card. As a result, she was required to cancel her Blue Cross policy number and get a new card with a new number. In the meantime, it appeared to her health care providers that mom did not have health insurance. Merriment ensued.

The Obama administration is stunned by the angry reaction of liberal Democrats after Kathy Sebelius seemed to be walking away from demands of a public option. Apparently, the administration never intended the "public option" to be a major focus of their reform efforts.

Via the Washington Post:

[At] a time when the president had hoped to be selling middle-class voters on how insurance reforms would benefit them, the White House instead finds itself mired in a Democratic Party feud over an issue it never intended to spotlight.

A father's heartfelt open letter to Obama, as his health insurer will only pay for 4 of the 6 injections his diabetic daughter needs every day.

Until you tell me Mr. President what I am supporting I can not support you. I will not invest my energies to be taken for granted and dismissed or told to back off. I will not invest my energies in supporting bad legislation. I will support a strong public option. A platform you campaigned on.

via Mike the Mad Biologist

Could be.

The article links an interesting interview with Kenneth Arrow on the economics of health insurance. You may recall that Krugman has referred to Arrow's important 1963 paper when explaining why markets don't work for health insurance.

In the linked interview, Arrow discusses how his analysis would apply today and what he sees as having changed. Worth a read.

William K. Wolfrum has a wonderful, moving essay about the national sickness that is for-profit health insurance.

All I can say is that I know there is someone driving a new car, paid for by my Mom’s suffering. And that others are living in big houses with obscene bank accounts, all paid for by the sick and dying. It is obscene and inhuman.

via Shakesville

Love the title:

Vampire Blue Cross/Blue Shield

Dear Editor:

via masslib at Alegre's, the LA Times reports:

The Chicago doctor who treated President Obama for more than two decades has a prescription for healthcare reform: a British- or Canadian-style single-payer system.

Dr. David Scheiner, 70, will advocate such a plan at a rally Thursday on the National Mall.

[...]

Susie Madrak, an otherwise good liberal, as far as I know:

One of the things I’ve learned from my many years in journalism (and yes, even my short stint in politics) is that when legislation is first proposed, people throw a bunch of crap on the wall and duke it out over the details. You know why they say it’s like watching sausage being made? Because it’s stomach-churning.

Several other bloggers (Lambert, Avedon, Bruce Dixon) have linked to this [Kip Sullivan's essay on the public option] tonight. They’re taking the article in good faith and assume it’s accurate in its conclusions (that the public option has been gutted and the idea of “reform” amounts to a bait and switch), and I just don’t believe that.

From HealthJustice:

The thrice-delayed Weiner amendment that will replace the House TriCommittee bill with the single payer bill HR 676 is finally coming to a vote tomorrow. We won on the Kucinich amendment for state single-payer. We can win on the Weiner amendment. But you have to call and fax. Not just call. Not just fax. Both.


Click here to send your free efax.

This new fax goes to all the Democrats who might vote yes.

Then pick up the phone and call tonight or tomorrow.  Read more…

Cross posted from The Economic Populist.

Suggestions to solve the financial crises by basically shutting down most of Wall Street are always shouted down by howls of "How are companies going to raise money?" or "How are people going to invest in companies?"

Well, take a good, long look at this graph, which shows the percentage of capital expenditures by U.S. non-financial companies that was raised in U.S. financial markets from 1952 to 2006.

A trivial but telling example

Example of what? Of the absurdity of the US health care system.

Today’s mail brought a letter from Princeton: all faculty members must supply copies of their marriage licenses and of their 2008 tax forms if they want to have their spouses continue to receive health benefits. I don’t know exactly what that’s about — are there a significant number of my colleagues just pretending to be married?

We’ve checked — we don’t know where our marriage certificate is. We’ve already sent to California for a copy — but given the state of that state, God knows when or whether it will actually be delivered.

I assume the university has some good reason for doing this; but from a social point of view it’s just bizarre.

The email:

hipparchia Dear Progressives --

As we speak, key committees in Congress are weighing options and making final decisions about how to tackle health care reform. This could be one of the last opportunities to shape the legislation before it's written.

Also a reminder that finance is the center of all things:

From Mike the Mad Biologist's post Will The Public Options Become Romneycare?

> There's no reason why healthcare must be privatized.

Of course there is [...]

Health care is one-sixth of the US economy. A third of that goes into the operational overhead of private insurance. That's 5% of the US GDP that would go away if a real public plan were available, and if you think the financial meltdown last year was bad just watch what happens when that river of money to Aetna and the rest dries up.

The first published part was not linked in our previous discussion; I am providing links via the Center for Policy Analysis.

The first part is (most of?) the body of the bill itself; some sections have not been filled in. I have not had time to go through this and see what is here and what is not here. (It does not include the sections describing the requirements for qualified health plans, the description of the Community Health plans, nor the setup of the Gateways, which were in the second part, below.)

First part [pdf]

The second part is what we were analyzing last week. It includes the three topics mentioned above, among others.

Awhile back I wrote, trying to figure out how my adopted parasite had managed to have a better-than-(Wall-Street)-expected first quarter:

I have tried, and failed, to understand or find out what "disciplined pricing and operating improvements in senior and local group businesses and more favorable prior-period claims development" means. I'm especially curious about that "more favorable prior-period claims development" part. Sounds suspiciously like not paying old claims, to me. But you know how I am...

Dearie me, not suspicious enough, perhaps. Could this be part of what it means?

Why would any educated society rely on a health care system that has a stated fiduciary responsibility to extract as much money from its customers while giving them as little care as possible?

- Comment by Harry Mangalam on Paul Krugman's blog

from HealthJustice (Clark Newhall MD JD)

Health Insurance Horror Stories
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Congressmen Conyers and Kucinich need your health insurance horror story. They particularly need stories that show "keeping the health insurance you have " and the "Massachusetts plan" are bogus solutions. So if you are from Massachusetts or if you got screwed even though you were insured, write your story here. It will become a free fax to the White House but will also be used by single payer supporters in Congress to illustrate why the insurance companies do not belong in health care.

Last week Wellpoint (the parent company of my own adopted parasite, Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield) posted a first quarter net income which had gone down from the previous quarter, but not so much of a decline as Wall Street had expected.

WellPoint Inc.'s (WLP) first-quarter net income fell 1.3% Wednesday on sharply higher investment losses and amid continued enrollment declines, but the health insurer's strong operating performance offers further encouragement for the pressured industry.

I'm so relieved!

Should we be worried that Dodd wants the Treasury Department to loan it to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation when they usually have only a 30 Billion line of credit?

[update] In a banking version of an Imelda Marcos like closet explosion, BILLIONS of other shoes drop...

Wellpoint, parent of Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield, my own adopted health care parasite!*

Sorry I missed it at the time:

Executives of WellPoint Inc. are predicting a 1 percent to 3 percent increase in earnings per share for 2009, as compared to last year.

[...]

Braly said the 2009 guidance “assumes no future net realized investment gains or losses,” and assumes a further increase in unemployment rates in the states the insurer serves. The company expects layoffs at its client companies to reduce enrollment by 1 million members this year.

Good news all around!

[Nice to see PNHP at the table. Oh, wait... Heck, it would be nice to see HCAN at the table. Does anybody have the guest list? Is Conyers on one of the Congresscritters on it? --lambert]

We've all heard about Kathleen Sibelius being nominated for HHS Secretary, but did you know that Obama also has someone to replace Daschle as Healthcare Reform Czarina?

Nancy-Ann DeParle will be director of the White House Office of Health Reform ---