Political News Bits of the Day

[Dardedar]

Sweet:

***
Palin Crossed Border For Canadian Health Care

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin -- who has gone to great lengths to hype the supposed dangers of a big government takeover of American health care -- admitted over the weekend that she used to get her treatment in Canada's single-payer system.

"We used to hustle over the border for health care we received in Canada," Palin said in her first Canadian appearance since stepping down as governor of Alaska. "And I think now, isn't that ironic?"

The irony, one guesses, is that Palin now views Canada's health care system as revolting: with its government-run administration and 'death-panel'-like rationing. Clearly, however, she and her family once found it more alluring than, at the very least, the coverage available in rural Alaska. Up to the age of six, Palin lived in a remote town near the closest Canadian city, Whitehorse.

Huff Po

[Betsy]

say, did anyone else see the bit on Jon Stewart a couple of weeks ago about Hawaii having universal health care? and how wonderful it is for everyone? It was during the republican convention which happened to be in....Hawaii. None of the republicans interviewed realized hawaii had such a system, and were just bashing universal health care with the usual uninformed talking points. Pretty funny. Also, Dog the Bounty Hunter threw in a nice pitch for how wonderful Hawaii's health care system is and how whenever he or his family need health care, that's where they go. check it out.

[Dardedar]

When being a Birther just isn't crazy enough. We're from the government... and we've come to confiscate your seeds.

***
New Survival Seed Bank
Lets You Plant A
Full Acre Crisis Garden!



"Indestructible Survival Seed Bank Can Be Buried To Avoid Confiscation."

"Without A Long Term Food Solution Many Americans Could Starve."

So here's the deal: I'm trying to get the word out before the food crisis becomes too apparent to the general public and there is a run on these seed banks. I've decided to sell the Survival Seed Bank at a discounted price to our customers who use this website to order. For the general public, the price will be a fat $297.00 - no discounts... even to FEMA or military personnel. Take it or leave it. But for existing Solutions From Science customers, as long as you buy online from this site, I will send you everything for just...

$149 Until We Run Out!

That's less than half of what everyone else will have to pay when the Survival Seed Bank hits the street. I'm making this "extra" discounted offer because our current customers deserve "first dibs" on something this important.


***

Full pile of horseshit here.

[Tamara]

For $149 they had better come and plant the darn things too! Geesh!

[kwlyon]

So, if I burry this in my yard I will become immortal?

[tmiller51]

Quite a markup on that. $10 worth of seeds (I'm being generous) and a $2 container, sold for $149.

[Dardedar]

Why Are We Afraid to Tax the Super-Rich?

Excerpts:

"In the 1950s the marginal tax rate on those earning more than $3 million a year (in today's dollars) was 91 percent. By 1990 it was 28 percent. The IRS says that the top 400 richest tax filers actually paid a rate of just 16 percent in 2007 (the latest numbers we have). Yep, the richest earners -- people who took in an average of $343 million each -- probably paid a lower rate than you did.

...During the post-WWII boom we had one of the fairest income distributions in the world. Not anymore. Today the gap between rich and poor is wider than at any time in U.S. history. Here's a telling statistic: In 1970 the compensation ratio of the top 100 CEOs compared to the average worker was 45 to one. By 2008 it was 1,071 to one. You think they got that much smarter?

...By failing to tax the super-rich, we're burrowing even deeper into a billionaire bailout society in which the rich keep on gambling away our money, knowing that we will bail them out if they lose."

Why Are We Afraid to Tax the Super-Rich?.

[Dardedar]

Frank Rich kicking some major Rove behind:

Op-Ed Columnist
The New Rove-Cheney Assault on Reality

By FRANK RICH
Published: March 13, 2010

Excerpt:

"Now the revisionist floodgates have opened with the simultaneous arrival of Karl Rove’s memoir and Keep America Safe, a new right-wing noise machine invented by Dick Cheney’s daughter Liz and the inevitable William Kristol. This gang’s rewriting of history knows few bounds. To hear them tell it, 9/11 was so completely Bill Clinton’s fault that it retroactively happened while he was still in office. The Bush White House is equally blameless for the post-9/11 resurgence of the Taliban, Al Qaeda and Iran. Instead it’s President Obama who is endangering America by coddling terrorists and stopping torture.

Could any of this non-reality-based shtick stick? So far the answer is No. Rove’s book and Keep America Safe could be the best political news for the White House in some time. This new eruption of misinformation and rancor vividly reminds Americans why they couldn’t wait for Bush and Cheney to leave Washington.

But the old regime’s attack squads are relentless and shameless. The Obama administration, which put the brakes on any new investigations into Bush-Cheney national security malfeasance upon taking office, will sooner or later have to strike back. Once the Bush-Cheney failures in Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran again come home to roost, as they undoubtedly and explosively will, someone will have to remind our amnesia-prone nation who really enabled America’s enemies in the run-up to 9/11 and in its aftermath.

There’s a good reason why Rove’s memoir is titled “Courage and Consequence,” not “Truth or Consequences.” Its spin is so uninhibited that even “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job!” is repackaged with an alibi."

New York Times

[Dardedar]

Christmas coming early this year?

***
The End of an Illusion

Robert Kuttner

"Are we at a turning point in the Obama presidency? It took far too long, but the president has belatedly grasped that when the other party is out to destroy you, the search for common ground is a fool's errand.

For over a year, Obama believed that reform required him to govern as a post-ideological bipartisan. Now, mercifully, he has learned that progressive leadership demands taking on the Republicans, just as it requires taking on the insurance and banking industries. There is little common ground on those fronts either.

Since early March, Obama has begun to sound more like the bold figure who won the hearts of voters during the campaign. The showdown is expected late next week. Speaker Nancy Pelosi seldom schedules a vote without having a majority in her pocket. With all the bill's deficiencies, winning its passage would be a triumph, not just for expansion of health coverage, but for Obama's capacity to learn and grow in office and defeat Republican obstruction.

Should he succeed, there will be little public sympathy for Republican caviling about the use of the reconciliation progress to, well, reconcile differences between the House and Senate bills. Technical parliamentary complaints will seem more like the bleating of sore losers. Obama can seize the high ground of majority rule."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-ku ... 98467.html

[Dardedar]

What's in the Bill for You, This Year

"...because conservatives are already pushing the false talking point that the bill would increase taxes now but won't produce benefits until later.

While it's true that the major reforms won't be implemented until 2014, it's not true that everyone pays higher taxes now.

Only singles earning at least $200,000 and families earning at least $250,000 will pay a slightly higher Medicare tax.

Meanwhile, there are $40 billion in small business tax CUTS that kick in right away.

More importantly, as far as messaging is concerned, it's also not true that there are no immediate benefits.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee succinctly listed 10 immediate benefits for supporters of the legislation to promote.

* Offer tax credits to small businesses to purchase coverage

* Prohibit pre-existing condition exclusions for children in all new plans

* Provide immediate access to insurance for uninsured Americans who are uninsured because of a pre-existing condition through a temporary high-risk pool

* Prohibit dropping people from coverage when they get sick in all individual plans

* End lifetime limits and restrictive annual limits on benefits in all plans

* Require premium rebates to enrollees from insurers with high administrative expenditures and require public disclosure of the percent of premiums applied to overhead costs

* Ensure consumers have access to an effective internal and external appeals process to appeal new insurance plan decisions

* Require plans to cover an enrollee's dependent children until age 26

* Require new plans to cover preventative services and immunizations without cost-sharing

* Relief on the Donut Hole

LINK

[Dardedar]

I'll be giving this lecture on Health care on Monday:

***
March 22nd Women's Club meeting

Written by Carole Westby
Thursday, 04 March 2010 12:57

The Benton County Democratic Women's Club will hold its monthly meeting on Monday, March 22nd at 11:30 at the Bentonville’s Clarion Hotel. The speaker will be Darrel Henschell, and his topic is: A Comparison of Canadian and U.S. Healthcare. He'll discuss the various components of both national health care systems including cost, deliverability, access, outcomes, efficiencies, etc.

Henschell, a Canadian, moved to the United States 23 years ago at age of 21. His familiarity with the Canadian health care system has been kept current through feedback from numerous friends and relatives over years. With the debate over health care reform in the U.S., Henschell conducted a semi-informal survey last summer while visiting there and will share these results during his speech.

Henschell started Henschell's Piano Service in 1990. He gives presentations on many subjects, and has appeared on Fayetteville’s public access television and been a guest on NPR’s local station, KUAF.

Please make reservations for the buffet lunch ($12) by calling 876-2178 or emailing westby@cox.net

The public is invited to attend.

Benton County Democrats

[Doug]

The House Democratic leader, Rep. Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, said that the nonpartisan budget office had determined that the package of legislation, which would cost about $940 billion over ten years, would produce “the largest deficit reduction of any bill we have adopted in Congress since 1993,” when it passed tax increases sought by President Clinton.

In the first ten years, the health legislation would reduce deficits by $138 billion,and the effect on deficits over the following decade would be much greater — Democrats said $1.2 trillion — although such long term forecasts are more speculative. The savings would come largely from reductions in the growth of Medicare spending, with new fees and tax increases also contributing.

See here.

[Dardedar]

Reason #492 for supporting the Health Care Bill:

***
Rescission--or the practice of dropping insurance policies at the time when customers need them, namely, when they become ill--is widespread and insurance companies are unapologetic for doing so.

An investigation by the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations showed that health insurers WellPoint Inc., UnitedHealth Group and Assurant Inc. canceled the coverage of more than 20,000 people, allowing the companies to avoid paying more than $300 million in medical claims over a five-year period.

It also found that policyholders with breast cancer, lymphoma and more than 1,000 other conditions were targeted for rescission and that employees were praised in performance reviews for terminating the policies of customers with expensive illnesses.

Nevertheless, the judges involved in this case called Assurant/Fortis' actions in targeting specifically HIV patients "reprehensible." It is also a policy that will end with the health care reform bill.

Health Insurer Targets HIV Patients To Drop Them [And gets fined $10 million]

[Dardedar]

New CBO score gives Democrats big cover for the historic vote this weekend:

"The new CBO scores are out on the health-care bill, with good news for Democrats. The overall cost of health-care reform is estimated at $940 billion, but when compared to savings, the net deficit reduction in the first ten years is $130 billion, with an estimated $1.2 trillion saved in the second ten.

More significantly, CBO estimates that Medicare spending will drop by 1.4% per year, an estimated 32 million people will be covered, and would extend Medicare's solvency by an additional 10 years.

Republicans are in a bit of a bind now. Democrats can rightly characterize this legislation as a landmark "deficit reduction act" which also happens to extend health insurance coverage to 32 million people. That leaves Republicans having to argue against extending coverage to 32 million uninsured while strongly regulating private insurers, and saving money at the same time."

CBO: HCR knocks $130 billion from deficit, extends Medicare solvency

[Dardedar]

Obama talks to the House

30 minute video clip. Worth watching.

Excerpt:

"But it may also be possible that they realize after health reform passes and I sign that legislation into law, that it's going to be a little harder to mischaracterize what this effort has been all about.

Because this year, small businesses will start getting tax credits so that they can offer health insurance to employees who currently don't have it. (Applause.) Because this year, those same parents who are worried about getting coverage for their children with preexisting conditions now are assured that insurance companies have to give them coverage -- this year. (Applause.)

Because this year, insurance companies won't suddenly be able to drop your coverage when you get sick -- (applause) -- or impose lifetime limits or restrictive limits on the coverage that you have. Maybe they know that this year, for the first time, young people will be able to stay on their parents' health insurance until they're 26 years old and they're thinking that just might be popular all across the country. (Applause.)

And what they also know is what won't happen. They know that after this legislation passes and after I sign this bill, lo and behold nobody is pulling the plug on Granny. (Laughter.) It turns out that in fact people who like their health insurance are going to be able to keep their health insurance; that there's no government takeover. People will discover that if they like their doctor, they'll be keeping their doctor. In fact, they're more likely to keep their doctor because of a stronger system."

Transcript here

[Betsy]

APPLAUSE!

[Dardedar]

"In the ultimate irony of this entire [healthcare] debate, health care is worst precisely those states where Republicans poll best. The unhealthiest residents and worst health care systems can be found in those states (especially southern states) which most reliably back the GOP. And if health care reform passes, it will be blue state taxpayers who will fund the improved health care for their red state brethren.

The diagnosis isn't pretty for Republicans committed to denying the health care their constituents need most of all. A 2009 UnitedHealth Foundation analysis of 22 indicators revealed that nine of the top 10 healthiest states voted for Barack Obama in 2008. Conversely, 9 of the 10 cellar dwellers backed John McCain in 2008; four years earlier, the 15 unhealthiest states voted for George W. Bush for President."

PERRspectives

[Savonarola]

And if health care reform passes, it will be blue state taxpayers who will fund the improved health care for their red state brethren.

As has already been mentioned multiple times in these forums, that would make the state-by-state funding of other-state healthcare no different than state-by-state funding of other-state everything else. Generally speaking, blue states get much less than a dollar for every dollar they send to the federal government and red states get more than a dollar for every dollar they send to the government.
Why should we expect healthcare funding to be any different?

[kwlyon]

Who are the red states again? Are those the libertarians?

Kevin

[Dardedar]

A better list of

"...ten benefits which come online within six months of the President's signature on the health care bill:

1. Adult children may remain as dependents on their parents’ policy until their 27th birthday
2. Children under age 19 may not be excluded for pre-existing conditions
3. No more lifetime or annual caps on coverage
4. Free preventative care for all
5. Adults with pre-existing conditions may buy into a national high-risk pool until the exchanges come online. While these will not be cheap, they’re still better than total exclusion and get some benefit from a wider pool of insureds.
6. Small businesses will be entitled to a tax credit for 2009 and 2010, which could be as much as 50% of what they pay for employees’ health insurance.
7. The “donut hole” closes for Medicare patients, making prescription medications more affordable for seniors.
8. Requirement that all insurers must post their balance sheets on the Internet and fully disclose administrative costs, executive compensation packages, and benefit payments.
9. Authorizes early funding of community health centers in all 50 states (Bernie Sanders’ amendment). Community health centers provide primary, dental and vision services to people in the community, based on a sliding scale for payment according to ability to pay.
10. AND no more rescissions. Effective immediately, you can't lose your insurance because you get sick.

In our community - half-rural and half-suburb -- 50 community health centers will receive funding to provide health and preventive services to people with no access right now.

Link

And an even BETTER compilation of:

What’s In The Health Reform Bill For You Right Away?