President Barack Obama – Page 10

December 17, 2009April 18, 2020

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.

December 15, 2009April 18, 2020

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

December 4, 2009April 18, 2020

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…

October 25, 2009April 18, 2020

So-called “war” between Fox News and White House is war in name only

Any rational human knows that Fox News isn’t a real news network. They blur the line between opinion and news reporting to the point that it all seems the same to them. The White House was only expressing the consensus of the rational people in pointing it out in public and on the record. Like any other right wing group Fox now claims to be a victim. The facts just don’t support Fox News.

Those of us who watch mainstream news programs and the cable networks have known for years that Fox News has been the mouth piece of the Republican Party. The media watch dog site Media Matters even has a video clip showing how Fox opinion bleeds into its news reports:

Fox and other conservatives have come back and said well President Obama and the Democrats have MSNBC as their official voice. The problem with that false equivalency is that a rational person can see a distinct difference between MSNBC’s news reports and their opinion programs. The other proof against such a charge by Fox is that on some of the shows like Hardball and Countdown the hosts and guests disagree with the current administration and say so but that doesn’t get passed on in the news reports like we see time and time again with Fox News.

A more recent dust up involved a reported exclusion of Fox to interview a Treasury official. Fox was crying all day about censorship and then claiming the other networks came to its defense and refused to interview the guy unless Fox was included.

Like most everything coming out the mouths at Fox, the incident didn’t happen the way it claims.

The version Fox has pushed all day is that the network was excluded from an interview roundtable with Feinberg yesterday, and that bureau chiefs from ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN came to Fox’s defense.
TPMDC dug into it, and here’s what happened.
Feinberg did a pen and pad with reporters to brief them on cutting executive compensation. TV correspondents, as they do with everything, asked to get the comments on camera. Treasury officials agreed and made a list of the networks who asked (Fox was not among them).
But logistically, all of the cameras could not get set up in time or with ease for the Feinberg interview, so they opted for a round robin where the networks use one pool camera. Treasury called the White House pool crew and gave them the list of the networks who’d asked for the interview.
The network pool crew noticed Fox wasn’t on the list, was told that they hadn’t asked and the crew said they needed to be included. Treasury called the White House and asked top Obama adviser Anita Dunn. Dunn said yes and Fox’s Major Garrett was among the correspondents to interview Feinberg last night.
Simple as that, we’re told, and the networks don’t want to be seen as heroes for Fox.
WH: We’re Happy To Exclude Fox, But Didn’t Yesterday With Feinberg Interview

But this is also why a news network with only about 3 million viewers can have an effect, good or bad, on a national discussion.

The other networks live inside the same beltway bubble and so when Fox harps a story for many days the others think there is a story there and end up picking it up too – even when it is false or not what it seems.

Take the above incident with the Feinberg interview. Even though it wasn’t a case of the White House saying “No Fox” the CBS Evening News had a story about the non-story and used Fox’s view of it.

(CBS) After months of taking incoming fire from the prime-time stars of Fox News, the Obama White House is firing back, charging that FOX News is different from all other news.
“FOX News often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican party,” said Anita Dunn, White House communications director.
“If media is operating basically as a talk radio format, then that’s one thing, and if it’s operating as a news outlet, then that’s another,” Mr. Obama said.
And the White House has gone beyond words, reports CBS News senior political correspondent Jeff Greenfield. Last Sept. 20, the president went on every Sunday news show – except Chris Wallace’s show on FOX. And on Thursday, the Treasury Department tried to exclude FOX News from pool coverage of interviews with a key official. It backed down after strong protests from the press.
“All the networks said, that’s it, you’ve crossed the line,” said CBS News White House correspondent Chip Reid.
President Obama’s Feud with FOX News

It also needs to be pointed out that the White House has never tried to censor Fox or prevent it from covering the White House, it just hasn’t favored it on equal footing to NBC, CBS, or ABC.

Its not like an administration has never tried to freeze out or isolate a network before. In the last administration the Bush Whit House went after MSNBC and NBC while holding meetings with only right wing talk show hosts:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Again the problem with Fox is that it is more a talk radio style program rather than a real journalistic news organization. They pass off lies, rumors, and smears as facts and it bleeds into their “news” reports. The other news programs thinking they are missing a story then report on those lies, rumors, and smears which give them a “creditability” it couldn’t gain on its own just by being “reported” by Fox.

That’s what Fox does – blow up lies, rumors, and smears into stories that don’t deserve to be stories and wouldn’t be if real journalism was being practiced in this country.

October 12, 2009April 18, 2020

Politicians should stop sucking Corporate nards

John Harwood of NBC gave a quote from anonymous White House source that was disparaging toward progressive bloggers. Those bloggers have been giving the current administration heat for some of their actions and policies that were opposite of what was promised during the 2008 campaign. My response to that quote is in the title of this post.

Progressive bloggers were in an uproar Sunday night after a White House “adviser,” speaking on condition of anonymity, urged them to “take off their pajamas” and get serious about politics.
NBC White House correspondent John Harwood relayed the quote during a segment he shot for Nightly News following a massive gay rights rally in Washington.
Bloggers Furious At White House For Anonymous Ridicule