Chutzpah from Hamsher: Single payer crusade is "kabuki"
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Jane:
Scarecrow is the person I look to in order to tell me whether something is going to be workable or not. If he says “this won’t work,” I listen to him.
We want to get something we can build out and achieve single payer. The day that becomes unworkable, and it’s just a ton of money pumped in to reinforce a bad system, that’s when I’m ready to pull the plug.
Thinking that we can wave a magic wand or click our heels and achieve single payer in an instant are just unrealistic. It would take months and months of work (if not years) to iron out all the details of the impact that single payer would have on the largest industry in America. Nobody did that. It was kabuki and people who care about single payer should be upset that people led this crusade without doing that.
First off... Scarecrow may or may not have the credentials to declare single payer unworkable, or unworkable in a short time frame. I don't know, I haven't been following FDL's take on this all that closely. I would however, need to know what Scarecrow's credentials are [at a minimum] if I'm to accept this proposition.
Two... It would take months and months of work, if not years?! Uh, helloooooo, health insurance exchanges / public option not even available until 2013, and still only 95% of the population covered even six years after that?! Just for the sake of argument, let's assume for the moment that's true, that it would take years to get all of us into Medicare, why don't we start on the process now? Why spend the next 10 years going through an inferior intermediary step?
Three... The impact that single payer would have on our largest industry? Nobody looked at that? O rly? PNHP started thinking about that impact, and all our other industries too, way back in 1989. Nor has it been ignored in the two decades since then. Search for impact on the PNHP site and you get 425 Google hits.
But let's back up to point 2 for a moment, the time line.
Medicare took 9 months to implement, back in the Dark Ages of no computers, and that was to cover 20 million old folks. We've got 45 million uninsured to to take care of right away, on that time frame we could have them covered in less than 2 years. Probably way less than 2 years, seeing as how we wouldn't be starting from scratch, building an entirely new infrastructure [health insurance exchanges would be entirely new infrastructure, for instance]. We'd just be absorbing people into an existing system, one that's already been proven to work, and work well. And health insurance exchanges work... ?
And it's not like we'd have to worry about overloading a tiny system [the financing system] Medicare covers almost 45 million people already, and Medicaid covers another 50 million, give or take. That's roughly 1/3 of the population.
Let me propose an alternate time line: 2 years to convert Medicaid beneficiaries to Medicare while simultaneously enrolling the uninsured in Medicare, and that's probably being generous. Then three more years [to borrow from PNHP's 1989 proposal] to transfer the employer-insured over to Medicare. Voila! 5 years, start to finish.
My proposed time line doesn't take into account the 15 years to convert all for-profit hospitals etc to non-profit that's allowed for in HR 676, but this part is primarily a cost control measure and can be slower. Getting everybody into the system first is more important, though just removing the parasites insurance companies from the system and paying for everything at Medicare rates will be a nice start on cost control.
People who care about single payer should be upset that people fell for the public option kabuki without doing their homework.
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Comments
Pushback is good
Means they're feeling pressure. More like this, please!
And from the crusader for public option from "Day One," who got kicked in the teeth when HR3200 started in 2013? We're kabuki?
i don't like your headline any better than i liked mine
but i can't think of a better one so i'll leave yours.
i think people who are supporting the public option are mostly well-intentioned if wrong-headed, but that was too much.
The sound is more rhythmic...
and, dammit, it is chutzpah. My response....
push back is good
I just realized that the July 30 demonstration is just days away. I think this blogger conference call was in preparation for that. Look for more of the same.
that's a point i hadn't thought of
good catch.
Hip, you are far too kind.
Really, I don't have much more to add than that. You entertain a lot of pure ridiculousness that I'd not even give a single breath to. lol I mean, the silliness concerning the apologism of the time it'd take to work out single payer, the laser-eye focus on what this would mean for the current industry...it's all really kind of sadistic when you consider how unworkable the current system is for the most important component in the health care debate: the patient.
I don't know, for me, this sideshow that places a premium on worrying about the powerful in the current system isn't just silly, but offensive, to me, and it's why I don't have anymore patience, anymore, for all of this crap coming from apologists and defeatists. They don't seem to understand that we've been having this same debate for decades. It's never more true, today, than before, but the time for talk is over. For me, there isn't another side. This kind of view will get you labeled an extremists, but the true extremism is the insanity of the apologists and defeatists. They literally don't have anything left to offer and it's time to cut them off before they destroy us with their philosophy of benign neglect (which also includes doing too little), again.
i'm sure henry ford worried about the buggy whip industry
not.
got to agree with you on all points, especially about time for talk being past. i don't actually want to spend any effort on dissuading jane and company from their misguidedness, i'm putting that energy into beating up on congresscritters, but i did feel like this needed calling out, or at least pointing out.
benign neglect would be preferable. this is siddown and stfu, from people who absolutely abhor, and probably fear, disruption. i think we're strong enough to handle a little disruption.
and yeah, i think my 5-year time frame is extremely generous.
patients?! we don't need no stinkin patients!
But why worry?
See, we've got a good compromise, and we can pay for it by making sure all those old people stop sucking up our health care dollars. Right?
you all know what's going on here
direct, Village style pressure on some supporters to...well, shut the fuck up and clap harder. access, you want it? then bash some progressives and slurp down whatever crap the staffers are pushing this week with a smile.
not trying to be too harsh on Jane, whom i like a lot and respect. but really, she's not alone and i've seen this kind of kabuki from a hell of a lot of A listers who get to be on conf calls with the man. i guess it's worth it.
It's those conference calls all right
The magical hypnotic field must be even more powerful at those dinners. Paul Krugman is just starting to shake off the effects.
(I keeed!)
But yeah, there is something abut having a powerfui person whom you sort of admire reach out to you personally. It's kind of a natural, unconscious response.
And, you know, I don't like thinking that the plans passing through Congress are full of FAIL. If I saw an opening to think differently about them, I would want to take it. It's just that, well, I don't see one. And I've read the damned things, the Senate version anyway.
paul krugman shaking off the effects of that dinner
i was thinking much the same thing, only without the j/k part.
jane has been one of my very favorites
for a very long time, but this was just too much.
access to versailles, it's probably a pretty heady thing [not that i would know], so i can understand how this would happen, and like you say, it's not like it's an isolated case. and i'm sure david axelrod is playing the bloggers for all they're worth, he's awfully good at what he does.
don't forget
that the "robust public option" served as a fundraising tool for OFA, front groups and bloggers alike.
sadly,
you are correct.
Yay! CD!
Sorry, just excited to see you here.
Yeah, it's depressing to see this shit coming from Jane (who is one of the better A-listers), but not surprising. It's not all that fun to be on the outside. And good political operatives, and the WH has plenty of those, can wrap your brain around so as to convince you that they're right even when they aren't. Plus, I think after the last administration, there is this desperate hope that remains - no matter the on-going fuck ups - that something will get better.
The irony is that I think the Dems are really fucking this one up and the A-listers are cheering them on. This ain't torture that happens somewhere else, far away to people nobody knows. This is people's lives here and their children's lives and when the Dems fuck this up, people are going to be pissed.
You know, there's such a gap between Versailles and the rest of the country and I've been wondering when the Village would do something so out of touch that people would get in their face and bring a little bit of American reality to their door. I think this just might be it.
I was also wondering if what would happen if we picked a state race - one where the media is relatively cheap - in 2010 and ran a third-party candidate for the National Healthcare Party. Bet they'd do better than expected.
But I'm not A-listers, while there are individual Dems (Grayson, Speier) I like, I've given up on the national party.
lost links, i haz dem
[or i don't...]
i was reading earlier that montana is a really cheap media market [no link]....
i have to say i've entertained ideas of moving there, since i have family in the region, just so i could run for office against max.
Hi, cd [waves]!
xoxo
And the poor schlubs of the unterbussen who call bullshit will no doubt be vilified...
To be clear
My little rant, above, isn't directed at anyone in particular, at all. I'm attacking the totally useless arguments that these defeatists and apologists continue to push knowing full well that they are flimsy and offensive to anyone with any level of critical thinking skills.
Here's my personal rule: if you know you don't agree with what the president is pushing, then simply get out the way/sit out the debate. That is, have the decency to sit this one out if you feel you don't have the power or gall to actively and overtly oppose a policy you know not to be good enough. But, I pray, please do not get in the way; don't have the audacity to go for whipping something you know to be beneath your own level of respectability.
What I find central the offensiveness of all of this is that (parasitical) power always worries about itself; power doesn't need help to worry for its own well-being. In fact, power often only worries about itself. At the very least, given this reality, we should have the same outlook given that all we have is ourselves to care for us.
We've been taught and conditioned for so long in this nation not to be selfish about anything; that very includes the idea of not being selfish about our own health and well-being, which in the end is the only thing that any of us truly have (or should have) any direct personal power over. This conditioning works directly into the hands of power; it's what allows power to perpetuate and validate itself over both space and time.
We can't and shouldn't worry about the survival of the powers-that-be in the health care debate, for it's literally killing us. How is it at all fair or moral that we have to bare all or even most of the risks and troubles in the debate on health care? Why is so much asked of us and so little of the powers? This kind of relationship has not ever been sustainable, and this health care example is not any different.
ha!
just now saw this at booman:
the impact that single payer would have on the largest industry in america, eh? yeah, it'd be a real economic disaster if patients got timely and hassle-free care and doctors and and hospitals were paid in a timely and hassle-free manner.
power doesn't need help to
power doesn't need help to worry for its own well-being
bingo.
i like both your rants here. keep up the good work.
But that study HAS been done....
on the effects of single payer on the existing health care industry, by the public policy arm of the Cal Nurses.
It's called the Single Payer Job Recovery, and it says that half a million insurance company folks will be out of work. On the other hand, 3.2 million new health care jobs will be created, so that is a net plus of 2. 6 million new jobs.
Not To Mention the Other Economic Benefits
Some, though not all, of those healthcare jobs - like more nurses - will be better paying than the administrative ones (my mother worked in an administrative position for years in a doctor's office, the pay was low and there were no health benefits). Plus, people stay in jobs when they could do things like start a business or do a different job because of health insurance. Small businesses go under when the owner gets sick. Employer-tied healthcare creates all kinds of economic disruptions.
job lock
meet your new overlords....
Hi Bruce!
[waves]
thanks for that link!
i'd lost track of the one i had. it's an important study.
[ps, you can steal from me anytime, like lambert, i'm in it for the propagation]
Oh my...
"Thinking that we can wave a magic wand or click our heels and achieve single payer in an instant are just unrealistic."
Gee, I didn't think ruby slippers were necessary to pass sound policy.
"It would take months and months of work (if not years) to iron out all the details of the impact that single payer would have on the largest industry in America."
Oh, Lawd! That's the Obama talking point about the health industry being a sixth of our economy.
Single payer is simple compared to the mess they are trying to shove down our throats. These people are unbelievable. They seem to be saying I support single payer thus I must support a massive private insurance system to someday get to single payer rather than support single payer. Very circular reasoning. Their poor heads must be spinning. I really don't give two figs what Scarecrow thinks. My Gawd, if Scarecrow thinks it, it must be so! Scarecrow's wrong if he thinks Medicare for All is harder to implement than the current congressional plans. Indeed, I don't see how anyone in their right mind can think that. We already have the infrastructure for Medicare for All because we already have national Medicare for the elderly.
You know, if they want to slow this down a bit, fine. Here's an idea, just pass Bill Clinton's old plan for allowing 55-65 year old's buy into Medicare. Expand Medicaid to families making 400% or less above poverty and, this is important, fund it. That would be a step toward single payer. Making people by private health insurance is not a step toward single payer. It's a clear step away from single payer.
Maybe Jane resents being outflanked on the Left. It's got to feel rather icky to be pushing a big boondoggle to private insurers. I mean, here's an industry making an average of 15% profits annually. That's outrageous. Hard to argue that giving them more customers is good policy.
Health exchange would be a new massive bureaucracy
to say nothing of these proposed boards to asses effectiveness (legitimize denial of care). Single payer would simply adopt the existing bureacracy, Medicare, to the national system. Very little increase. Yeah, the 1/6 economy talking point has Celinda Lake written all over it.
i'd like to see true
i'd like to see true comparative effectiveness research. the drug and device manufacturers have been selling us a lot of snake oil since they captured the fda.
of course, i'd rather we take back the fda first, and then maybe later set up cer. the fact that the administration and congress all want to do cer and can't be bothered to even address the problems with fda strongly suggests their priorities really are on limiting care.
and the massive new bureaucracy
will be allowed to charge us an added 4-5% of premiums for the privilege of using their services too.
1/6 of our economy
yeah. this just makes me dizzy:
not to mention this one:
even if their numbers are right, their priorities are fucked up.
i thought that too
about jane maybe feeling outflanked on the left, but then i saw this tonight, so i dunno...
she's certainly angry, whatever the cause.
Wow.
I just went over there to read her comment in context. It makes no more sense there. What on earth does she mean? (I saw your response also.)
Emotions are getting pretty high for a lot of people on this. (Personally, I get spitting mad* when I think about how these bills do absolutely nothing to address the problems that I and my friends and family have had with our insurers. And I've spent a bunch of years of my adult life without insurance, thank you very much, I do know how bad that is too. But having insurance has gotten to be its own special kind of hell for a lot of us who've actually, you know, had to use it... And when people respond to my saying this by repeating "Isn't it better to have insurance than not to have insurance?" I want to scream. When PalMD said that, I should have replied, "You won't work in an HMO because of the low payments they give you. Isn't it better to be paid something than not to be paid at all?" Bleh.) See, emotional!
* hence, for instance, my reply to Gillibrand.
i can think of a couple of possibilites
but i'd still just be guessing. yep, emotions everywhere. i liked your letter to gillibrand, it reflected my emotions pretty accurately. :)
i've been without insurance too, and been expensively sick while having good insurance and again with *bad insurance. hard to say at this point, it's possible i'd have gotten better care if i'd been uninsured and qualified for charity. i certainly expect to never get out of the financial hole i'm in, not if i work till i'm 92.
* the 'bad' insurance was a gold-plated policy, from one of the big
parasitescompanies, for which i paid a princely sum, but it was an individual policy, and once i became very, very sick [read: unable to fight back] they first went through all their denial schemes, then dumped me entirely. when i did finally start getting better and had some energy to deal with it all, i consulted a lawyer, but the outlook for any kind of redress was piss poor.i can well believe that the whatever-percentage-it-is that likes their insurance is mostly made up of people who have never had to use their insurance.
I guess Jane thinks the ruby slippers were around for LBJ? Who
signed Medicare legislation on July 30, 1965, and eleven months later seniors were using their new insurance. (Hip says nine months--average 10, OK?). Nine, ten, eleven months, Jane! How'd that happen?
Gee, must have been magic. Maybe bcz LBJ came right into office after Camelot and there was some of that magic left in the Oval Office? (I keed, bitterly, sadly.) I mean, everyone knows Dems can't accomplish anything that involves real change, right?
No, the "magic" LBJ had was courage to lead, courage to actually work for actual change On many fronts at once. And he even knew he was putting himself and his party in danger of the white backlash which did occur, but he did it. Not bcz it was easy or even bcz it was hard, but bcz it was the right thing to do.
Oh, it also helped that LBJ believed in his bones that FDR and the New Deal goals were good for the nation and the people.
Obama may believe he's doing the right thing, muddling, middling along between two points on the political spectrum, one of of which, the left side, he artificially foreshortened by refusing to let single payer come anywhere near the table. He really may beleive that. That would be sad also.
Our current Dems are acting like abused spouses; they're in deeply psychologically abused mode, walking on egg shells, fearful of setting the big bully off and getting whacked upside the head. Some in the Dem family have already become defenders of the big bullies and keep telling their more uppity siblings to get with the program and knuckle under. Life will easier for everyone that way.
(Except for the little people and eventually the entire country.)
Dems need therapy and they're totally resisting that. Plus, they now have Obama telling them that if they'd just be nicer to the big bullies, anticipate and meet the big bullies' needs, then they might not get the big bully angry at them and wouldn't get beaten.
Well, the big bullies the Congressional Dems are dealing with believe that force and abuse work for them, and they're not going to stop unless they're called on being bullies. Loudly and openly.
In California, the anti-tax big bullies, very much in the minority, have just succeeded in beating up the Dem majority and, under the Gropenator's guidance, have implemented the Grover Norquist "drown it in the bathtub" strategy to destroy social programs and good governance.
The minority still in power among the national big bullies are working toward that with the Federal government. At times they seem to have an ally in the WH, witting or unwitting.
a cunning plan
it is all a part of a cunning plan.
you are scary
that's a scary thought
LBJ's legendary "arm-twisting"
was far more effective than Obama's bobble-head doll act.
11 months, heck let's make it an even year!
i confess i never looked up the actual dates and went with the number i've seen cited most often around the web. sloppy writing [and research] on my part.
but the important point is that the infrastructure is in place [and easily expanded according to bryan, below], so no need to count the time it would take to start from scratch. i was generous with my 2+3 plan mostly to give people time to adjust to the idea. my personal preference is to make us all saskatchewanians [?] -- set a date not too far in the future and poof! now you're in medicare.
because it's the right thing to do. democrats haven't operated from that starting point for a lot of years now, have they? fucking depressing.
Can we declare progressive a FAIL yet?
So we can do something useful like build a liberal movement that is less about getting a sweet smile from the Kewl Kiz crowd?
Jane's comment epitomizes "progressivism" to me. Captiulation, candidate partisanship, lies and truthiness. "Progressivism" FAILed. We had the biggest mandate I'll ever see in my life, but progs are using that mandate to suck up to conservatives and bankster.
Then again, perhaps its a feature, not a FAIL. Either way, time to abandon it and its leaders, IMO.
While Jane has done a lot of good....
This nonsense about single payer advocates is of a piece with her take on the misogyny during the 2008 primary campaign. In other words, now that the fight is over, she takes the position that the whole thing is "regrettable", but she was AWOL when the shit was going down -- and the point at which she could have made an appreciable positive impact by criticizing Obama's approach is well passed.
Why bother with the "pie fights"?
Its not the capitulation that is most troublesome, not by a long shot. Its the lies/truthiness (e.g. no studies) that is a cancer on the *current* political environment. Either that was gross negligence or an outright dishonorable Limbaughian lie.
Liberalism is kept on the sidelines,IMO, only because of the lies in current discourse. Fuck the lies.
Not entirely sure I agree...
Both Digby and Jane conceded (no time for linky goodness) that they capitulated to their audiences in the 2008 primaries because of the comments sections. So, I think it makes sense to try to roll them a second time, since we know that tactic works. In a policy-driven and grass-rootsy kind of way, of course; no personalia. Capture the commanding heights of the A list comments section, as it were. Why not? Especially since we won't be fighting against CDS this time. All we're really fighting against is insiderism and Dear Leader-ism. The latter, at least, has been considerably attenuated, due to Obama's continued non-delivery ponies to anyone but the banksters.
IMO, the elephant in the
IMO, the elephant in the living room is Obama's skin color. A lot of people who should be critical of Obama simply aren't willing to go against our first black President. That "black equals liberal" is how Obama got the nomination, and with most black voters standing by their man (understandably but still unfortunately), to go against Obama means going against some of the most loyal voters in the Democratic Party. So it is also understandable (and unfortunate) that a lot of Dems refuse to go there. (A problem they wouldn't have if Hillary were in the White House; being thought of as sexist is much more acceptable than being thought of as racist.)
There is probably a lot of this
Emotionally, most of us don't want to see the first Black president fail - and there is a tendency to confound "failing to get this one thing" with "being a failure" that's made worse by the rhetoric that's being used by people like DeMint.
Which is why that meme is so dangerous, dammit. we need to let it die.
Bill Clinton didn't get his big health care reform passed, and he OWNED it (unlike Obama, who's allowing Congress to craft the bill, deliberately doing that in fact), and it was by no means the end of his presidency - in fact, I think most of us here think of him as a great success. I didn't like a lot of things he did, but he did so much good.
But people have very short memories.
I hear people in the (heavily AA) neighborhood of my workplace saying things like "They want to blame this on Obama, they always want to blame the Black man" - about things that Obama himself is responsible for. It's gotta be hard. I wonder how I would have felt if there had been a Jewish president elected and he turned out to be, um, not someone whose policies I could support. (Joe Lieberman?) I don't think I would react quite the same way, because being Jewish isn't a signifier of incompetence to the bigots. The stereotype threat isn't the same. But, I dunno. I admit to getting choked up when Lieberman was named VP candidate, and I already knew then that there were things I didn't like about him.
If we can't do it now, then it's impossible, which is a lie
If FDR could pass transformative legislation in the midst of economic meltdown (and being at the white hot center of a rabid campaign by Wall Street) and LBJ could pass heaps of reforms in less trying times than the Great Depression, then we can certainly pass single payer now. This is the dream opening in American politics we've been waiting for and the "progressives" are telling us to be quiet and sit down. Unbelievable.
I'm now pushing for this bill to die in Congress. And with it all the belief that progressivism is a legitimate movement for the left.
EDIT: Also, did the "progressives" forget that the Democrats have a commanding majority in both houses of Congress, including a filibuster-proof Senate? Jesus.
i'm with you
i've started actively working against 'reform' too, rather than limiting myself to trying to make it better, or trying to talk people into supporting single payer. i've definitely crossed over to the camp of no bill is better than a bad bill.
Medicare Scales
I have been dealing with Medicare for 20 years because of my Mother. One point that people who don't deal with Medicare don't seem to know, it that there are very few government employees involved with running Medicare. The system is designed to scale, i.e. it can expand or contract quickly without any major problems.
Most of the actual work of Medicare, the claims processing, is done by contractors. Initially when I became involved it was Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Florida, and now a different company, CMS deals with it.
You want to double the size of Medicare? - you hire the top two bidders on the contracts, instead of just one. Where are all those insurance employees going to find a job? - with the Medicare contractors. But it will take so long - maybe six months to bid out the contracts.
I'm a systems analyst, systems is what I have done my entire working life beginning with the Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces for NSA, through the criminal justice system in law enforcement, to IT and business systems currently. Medicare is designed to deal with universal single payer with a minimum of additional government people, mostly to monitor the new contracts.
What Medicare doesn't have are megabuck executives, profits, marketing departments, denial specialists, bonuses, etc. that are at the core of the health insurance companies.
In 2006 the CBO put the administrative costs of traditional Medicare at 2%, while the HMO public/private version, Medicare Advantage, was tagged at 11%. Traditional Medicare, hands down, is the most efficient and effective method of paying for health care in the US. Being a fiscal conservative, I'm more than little tired of seeing tax dollars used to subsidize private corporations. If a corporation is unwilling or unable to compete it should fail, we call the concept capitalism. I really think we ought to try it.
capitalism, what a concept
yep, taking my tax dollars and giving them to an industry that wants me to die is not my idea of an economy.
i didn't really know the details of medicare's administration, thanks for the background. i was reading up on medicare's history and found a website [can't find the link now] that said cms [medicare + medicaid] has a total of something like 4000 employees.
MEDICARE/SINGLE-PAYER TYPE HEALTH CARE FOR ALL NOW!
It is morally repugnant to profit off the misery or ill health of Americans. It's criminal that medical bills to the private for-profit MEDICAL/INSURANCE INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX make up 62% of all bankruptcies filed in the U.S. each year. Americans spend 2.5 Trillion Dollars a year on Health care. The overhead at the private for-profit MEDICAL/INSURANCE INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX is upwards of 35% of the health care dollar spent each year in the U.S. That is approximately $900 Billion a year the MEDICAL/INSURANCE INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX uses for BRIBING CONGRESS and their lavish lifestyles, huge salaries plus perks and bonuses. All the while milking the hard-working men/women of this great nation of their hard earned money.
On the other hand Medicare has an overhead of 2%, Canada's system is 1.5%, Europe's 2.5% on average. The money that could be saved by eliminating the private for-profit MEDICAL/INSURANCE INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX is estimated at $900 Billion a year. Enough money to help pay for putting all Americans on MEDICARE/SINGLE-PAYER TYPE HEALTH CARE SYSTEM.
We have to fight back and call, write e-mails, letters-to-editors, Congress and to the White House to let them know how Americans feel about the private for-profit MEDICAL/INSURANCE INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX that currently provides the health care in this country.
Here are some Senators and blue dog(dems) who are on the wrong side of Health Care reform. Give them a call and demand,
"MEDICARE/SINGLE-PAYER TYPE HEALTH CARE FOR ALL NOW!"
Thanks to Dateline_Molly for this chart that shows how much money was paid to Senators by the MEDICAL/INSURANCE INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX to OBSTRUCT health care reform. Link Now, when I call each member I can quote to them how much money they were PAID/BRIBED by the MEDICAL/INSURANCE INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX to throw their constituents under the bus and deny them SINGLE-PAYER HEALTH CARE.
(blue dogs)
Ross D-AR, Boucher D-VA, Kind D-WI, Pomeroy D-ND, Tanner D-TN
Polis (CO), Titus (NV) and Altmire (PA)
These are the problem Democrats on the Energy and Commerce Committee: John Barrow (GA-12), Bruce Braley (IA-01), Bart Gordon (TN-04), Baron Hill (IN-09), Jay Inslee (WA-01), Jim Matheson (UT-02), Charlie Melancon LA-03, Zack Space (OH-18) and Bart Stupak (MI-01).
Joe Lieberman I-CT, Chuck Grassley R-IA, Lindsey Graham R-SC,
Susan Collins R-ME, Olympia Snowe R-ME, David Vitter R-LA,
Saxby Chambliss R-GA, Tom Coburn R-OK, Jon Kyl R-AZ,
John Thune R-SD, Richard Lugar R-IN, Jim DeMint R-SC
Jeff Sessions R-AL, Richard Shelby R-AL, Mel Martinez R-FL,
John McCain R-AZ, Mitch McConnell R-KY, Jim Inhofe R-OK,
Lamar Alexander R-TN, Dick Burr R-NC, John Cornyn R-TX
Mark Pryor D-AR, Thomas Carper D-DE, Mary Landrieu D-LA,
Max Baucus D-MT, Kent Conrad D-ND, Ben Nelson D-NE,
Maria Cantwell D-WA, Kay Hagan D-NC, Blanche Lincoln D-AR,
Ron Wyden D-OR, Evan Bayh D-IN, Diane Feinstein D-CA,
Arlen Specter D-PA
Here are the toll-free numbers for the Capitol Hill Switchboard:
(House and Senate)
1-800-828-0498
1-866-338-1015
1-866-220-0044
1-800-473-6711
Also give the President a call or write an e-mail:
White House Comments Line:
1-202-456-1111 M-F 9:00-5:00 est. (NOT A TOLL-FREE #)
President Obama's e-mail: http://www.whitehouse.gov/...
Nothing rattles the Congress and White House more than informed CITIZEN/VOTERS ringing the phones off the hook for real health care reform. Call the House, Senate and the White House and demand,
"MEDICARE/SINGLE-PAYER TYPE HEALTH CARE FOR ALL NOW!"
SEMPER FI!