Mon, 06/15/2009 - 4:42pm — vastleft
Naturally, he wasn't talking directly to us "liberal bleeding hearts." Instead, he delivered the message to the AMA:
"What are not legitimate concerns are those being put forward claiming a public option is somehow a Trojan horse for a single-payer system," he said. I'll be honest. There are countries where a single-payer system may be working. But I believe -- and I've even taken some flak from members of my own party for this belief -- that it is important for us to build on our traditions here in the United States. So, when you hear the naysayers claim that I'm trying to bring about government-run health care, know this -- they are not telling the truth."
It would have been nice if he'd signaled that he wasn't being honest in 2003:
“[OBAMA] I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health care program.” (applause) “I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14 percent of its Gross National Product on health care cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that’s what Jim is talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out. A single payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that’s what I’d like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House.”
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Maybe it's time for will.i.am to cover this song
Since "change" and "yes we can" have been replaced with a new agenda:
"Tradition!"
god wants you to keep your
god wants you to keep your employer-sponsored insurance. anything else would be too disruptive, like oh... a fiddler falling off a roof.
If you are self-employed
You are expected to pretty much do without, unless you do very very well.
It's a way for the corporations to have a club to hold over everyone's heads, so they can make people do heinous things.
"A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. So is a lot." - Albert Einstein
The "tradition" of health care decisions made by call centers...
run by health insurance companies incentivized to deny care?
This is just pure bullshit.
How did we get from "hope" and "change" and "transformation" to "tradition" in less than six months? Oh, wait.... I think I know! Big Money got involved. Oh, well...
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
And where was Big Money before that? n/t
?
Tradition
Drop your pants as a national pass time.
KoshemBos
Build on our traditions?
What Obama himself actually knows about health care would fit on the head of a pin, with room left over; he knows talking points being fed to him, and he dutifully hacks them up when and where required.
There "may" be some countries where single-payer is working? I think that translates to: "Oh, never mind all of that - don't worry - I will save you from the little single-payer advocates, just as I am saving women from themselves, keeping the banksters fat and happy, killing those awful unions, and in my spare time, bringing my light and wisdom to the rest of the world."
Jesus Christ on a crutch.
He really thinks he is all things to all people, doesn't he?
During the campaign
I actually heard him say (after flubbing an answer) that he didn't really have to know the issues because he would have advisers who did.
He reminds me so much of a certain type of person that I encountered at work over the years. A person who took great pleasure in never mastering what he did, but learning just enough to fake it - as if to say, I'm so great I can do this job without knowing anything, not like the rest of you who actually have to work at it.
Very disappointing
Not just Obama's attitude, but the AMA's. Here's Hoping that this is one of those generational attitudes that will Change before it's too late. I said in my med school application essay that I was excited by the prospect of working in a universal healthcare system.
Then again, I didn't get in.
But I still believe
And I will rise up with fists!!
LOL
Nice punchline!
anyone who likes our "tradition"
of job-attached health insurance, should be following the current story arc on Rescue Me in which a FDNY hero, suffering from (probably) 9-11-related cancer, does not want to use his FDNY insurance to pay for treatment for fear of losing his job.
A catch-22 for our times. I don't know if it applies to FDNY, but I know more than one person unwilling to use employer-provider benefits for exactly this reason.
Job-attached benefits are epic FAIL. And I say this as someone with a strong union and pretty good union-negotiated benefits.
[Sorry. Not posting much. Currently with health issues of my own...]
---------------
We can't afford not to have single-payer!
Playing both sides
And, this is the man that accused the other candidates in the race of being hyper-political, hyper-calculating and without principle.
So, this is the man who was to transcend politics? The man who chastized his rival about the importance of language and words? The holier-than-thou that was to lift the world to a higher existential plain?
We're being forced to play the same ole game, again. My hope for Obama was low. My hope was that he the least he would do was stay out of the way, but he's actually been deliberately heading off and then beheading actual liberal movements that were on track to at least be able to get into the public forum, some for the first time ever. As I said in another thread, this kind of totally obliterates the belief by some that the president wants to be made to do anything. He wants to control every aspect of policy-making, despite him putting out there just the opposite implications.
But, we've always been at war with Eastasia...
I was thinking about this the other day. It's SO funny...
He's always saying things like, well, most Americans get their insurance through their employer...Like that's a reason to keep the most dysfunctional health payer regime in the developed world, particularly in the face of roughly 10% unemployment. It's like, yeah well, 15 years ago most people sent their correspondence by US postal, or at one time most people traveled by horse and buggy.
Medicare for All is Civil Rights