Author: Doug Berger

Founder, visionary, and editor of Doug's Views. Need more info - see the About page linked below the masthead.
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Yes, another Health Care Reform post

It has been a bad week for those us supporting real reform in Health care insurance. We got stabbed in the back by the Senate and it looks like President Obama is getting the sell out he wanted. Instead of helping the most people – remember the 40 million who have no insurance – it is now a big wet kiss to the insurance industry. I feel used and I am not going to remain silent about it.

I have always known the health care insurance industry is broken. I use to work in the industry and knew first hand how broken and being a customer of health insurance I have experience in dealing with denied payments and tons of paperwork. You know something is wrong when a plan won’t pay to help you lose weight but will pay for you to be in the hospital if you get sick due to being overweight. Or how about knowing smoking is not healthy but your plan will not pay for anything related to quitting.

I am not alone knowing that the system is broken and needs reform – unless you are a congressional Republican or Democrat taking kick backs from the insurance industry that is.

Profit causes thousands of lives a year. Human life should never be a profit point on a ledger.

So I was happy to cast my vote for President Obama and any congress person campaigning to fix health care. I was not naive enough to think it would be easy. I knew some compromise would happen – it is Washington DC after all – and horse trading is the norm. But I was extremely disappointed after Senator Lieberman blew up a Senate version that was barely tolerable into now a bill that is a big blow job to the insurance industry.

It is telling when the White House condemns Howard Dean, who knows more about health care reform than most people, but sends Lieberman a note of thanks for playing Brutus.

The knife in the back hurts.

I really hoped that the Obama administration would be different but I see now that is not the case. They got the bill they wanted the whole time – a blow job for insurance and a kick in the gonads for the rest of us.

There is still a possibility things could change but the people who held my views like Senator Sherrod Brown and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have indicated they will accept the shell of the bill now in the Senate so it looks pretty good we will be stuck with mandates and no public option.

Why?

So Democrats can spin the lie “We passed Health Care reform, Yay us!” during the 2010 election cycle.

I’ll know the truth. Many of us will know the truth.

I could just sit out the election in protest but I probably won’t. I know I will not donate a single penny to anyone associated with stabbing us all in the back and accepting it. I will not volunteer. I am prepared to drop all web contact with Democratic associated groups and unsubscribe to any related groups e-mails. I will mark any US mail from them as “return to sender”.

If I have any opportunity to ask my Congress people why they did this to me I will ask the question and press them to answer it.

Every time they start to say “We passed Health Care Reform, Yay Us!” I will call shenanigans.

The fact is if this bad bill becomes the actual law it will not be “fixed” later. The Medicare expansion will not be added later. Just look at the so-called fixes to the Medicare Part D pharmacy plan that have either been defeated or not introduced since it was passed. The latest is trying to allow reimportation of medication.

Now I know how the religious right felt when President Reagan was elected and blew them off.

I feel used… don’t ask me to like it or be quiet about it.

The President is very lucky that the GOP are hobbled right now.

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Democrats reach for the anal lube again on health care reform

It would make a great episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Health care reform is currently being debated in the Senate and before yesterday it looked like something might be passed that was decent. The public option was pulled but a compromise was reached to lower Medicare age to 55. Now it seems the Democratic majority can’t do that either.

Basically due to the work of a few Senators we might have a bill that has a mandate – you must buy insurance – without any public option to encourage private plans to do better than they do now.

What we might get is Medicare Part D for health care.

We were told then it wasn’t what was needed but it will help seniors. It didn’t allow negotiation on med prices, didn’t allow importation of meds, has a trigger that never has been pulled, and gave a big bag of money to private insurance to provide crappy coverage. I mean when the generic medications at Walmart are cheaper than copays through Medicare Part D for same medication something is wrong.

There have been attempts to “fix” and none of them have even come close to passing.

So forgive me if I call the point of this blog post on Daily Kos is BS and will probably still be BS when the details come out.

I would rather have the best bill which would help all 40 million without insurance then settle for one where the insurance companies win and maybe it helps 150,000 people.

How hard is that to understand?

Democrats have long recent history of bending over and I know they will on this issue and we will never hear about Health care reform again if this bad bill is signed into law.

It’s that simple

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Failed CEO peddles book on economic policy on former investor’s TV channel

Bill Diffenderffer was CEO of SkyBus airlines that was based in Columbus in 2007. It was billed as a value no frills airline that had limited $10 tickets and cheap regular fares. The airline went belly up in 11 months. Now the same guy that couldn’t run an airline is pushing a book he wrote that complains about President Obama’s economic policy. The even funnier bit is he did an interview on Channel 10 whose parent company was an investor in the failed airline.

The problem, besides a failed CEO trying to lecture on economic policy, was that during the broadcast it wasn’t mentioned that Dispatch Printing Company, parent of WBNS 10TV was one of the investors. The article on the website does mention it.

Then there was this:

“I wanted a president that came in and said ‘We need to fix some things’ – health care needs to be fixed – that doesn’t mean government should manage a health care system; they don’t know how.”

Diffenderffer said the same holds true with the bailouts of automakers and the banking industry.

“They don’t know how to run a company, so why have a car czar? They don’t know how to run banks yet they all have these people now telling them how they should be run,” Diffenderffer said. “I think we have to let the big companies fail so the newer hungrier new models can come in a replace their old models that aren’t working.”

Skybus CEO Speaks On Why Airline Failed

It is understandable that some one who couldn’t run a successful airline might get the actual economic policy he is complaining about wrong. The government isn’t planning on managing the health care system or running the auto and banking industry.

Taking advice on economics from this guy is like taking relationship advice from Tiger Woods.

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President Obama works to undermine Christmas

Since we all “know” President Obama is a Muslim, it isn’t a stretch to see he is trying to undermine if not cancel Christmas. There is recent proof that has surfaced.

Arlington (TN) Mayor Russell Wiseman posted the statements on his Facebook page:

“Ok, so, this is total crap, we sit the kids down to watch ‘The Charlie Brown Christmas Special’ and our muslim president is there, what a load…..try to convince me that wasn’t done on purpose. Ask the man if he believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and he will give you a 10 minute disertation (sic) about it….when the answer should simply be ‘yes’….”

UPDATE: Mayor: Obama a Muslim and He Scuttled Xmas Special

There are many types of people in the US. Some are interesting, inspiring, and role models while others like Russell Wiseman are plain freaking ignorant and a cancer on humanity.

I really wish Evolution was instantaneous so we could be rid of ignorant people like Wiseman and the 52% of the readers of the local paper who agreed with his freaking ignorant comments.

My head hurts now….

*Update* After this story hit the intertubes the newspaper poll mentioned above now has a majority saying the mayor’s comments were stupid and only 40% agreed. That is a bit better but still…

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