So, let’s start up with the forces lining up against health care:
A defector explains how the Insurance Companies have kept us from getting good health care
(Full interview with video here)
[Wendell Potter] (ex VP of PR at Cigna) literally wrote the talking-points memo that the anti-universal-health-care crowd uses. He had a conversion experience and has now come clean.
Question number one: Was Michael Moore right in Sicko? Answer: Absolutely.
This exchange is really interesting. It shows exactly how easily influenced and naive our representatives are. They don’t think for themselves, they’re willing to skim a memo, repeat what sticks in their head, and then it gets under their skin, becomes a meme and a soundbyte.
BILL MOYERS: I have a memo, from Frank Luntz. I have a memo written by Frank Luntz. He’s the Republican strategist who we discovered, in the spring, has written the script for opponents of health care reform. “First,” he says, “you have to pretend to support it. Then use phrases like, “government takeover,” “delayed care is denied care,” “consequences of rationing,” “bureaucrats, not doctors prescribing medicine.” That was a memo, by Frank Luntz, to the opponents of health care reform in this debate. Now watch this clip.
REP. JOHN BOEHNER: The forthcoming plan from Democratic leaders will make health care more expensive, limit treatments, ration care, and put bureaucrats in charge of medical decisions rather than patients and doctors.
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL: Americans need to realize that when someone says “government option,” what could really occur is a government takeover that soon could lead to government bureaucrats denying and delaying care, and telling Americans what kind of care they can have.
SEN. JON KYL: Washington run healthcare would diminish access to quality care, leading to denials, shortages and long delays for treatment.
REP. JOE WILSON: How will a government run health plan not lead to the same rationing of care that we have seen in other countries?
REP. TOM PRICE: We don’t want to put the government, we don’t want to put bureaucrats between a doctor and a patient.
BILL MOYERS: Why do politicians puppet messages like that?
WENDELL POTTER: Well, they are ideologically aligned with the industry. They want to believe that the free market system can and should work in this country, like it does in other industries. So they don’t understand from an insider’s perspective like I have, what that actually means, and the consequences of that to Americans.
They parrot those comments, without really realizing what the real situation is.
I was watching MSNBC one afternoon. And I saw Congressman Zach Wamp from Tennessee. He’s just down the road from where I grew up, in Chattanooga. And he was talking– he was asked a question about health care reform. I think it was just a day or two after the president’s first– health care reform summit. And he was one of the ones Republicans put on the tube.
And he was saying that, you know, the health care problem is not necessarily as bad as we think. That of the uninsured people, half of them are that way because they want to “go naked.”
REP. ZACH WAMP: Half the people that are uninsured today choose to remain uninsured. Half of them don’t have any choice but half of them choose to, what’s called, go naked, and just take the chance of getting sick. They end up in the emergency room costing you and me a whole lot more money.
WENDELL POTTER: He used the word naked. It’s an industry term for those who, presumably, choose not to buy insurance, because they don’t want to. They don’t want to pay the premiums. So he was saying that half… Well, first of all, it’s nothing like that. It was an absolutely ridiculous comment. But it’s an example of a member of Congress buying what the insurance industry is peddling.
Here’s what it comes down to, why insurance companies are afraid of the government option:
BILL MOYERS: You told Congress that the industry has hijacked our health care system and turned it into a giant ATM for Wall Street. You said, “I saw how they confuse their customers and dump the sick, all so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors.” How do they satisfy their Wall Street investors?
WENDELL POTTER: Well, there’s a measure of profitability that investors look to, and it’s called a medical loss ratio. And it’s unique to the health insurance industry. And by medical loss ratio, I mean that it’s a measure that tells investors or anyone else how much of a premium dollar is used by the insurance company to actually pay medical claims. And that has been shrinking, over the years, since the industry’s been dominated by, or become dominated by for-profit insurance companies. Back in the early ’90s, or back during the time that the Clinton plan was being debated, 95 cents out of every dollar was sent, you know, on average was used by the insurance companies to pay claims. Last year, it was down to just slightly above 80 percent.
So, investors want that to keep shrinking. And if they see that an insurance company has not done what they think meets their expectations with the medical loss ratio, they’ll punish them. Investors will start leaving in droves.
I’ve seen a company stock price fall 20 percent in a single day, when it did not meet Wall Street’s expectations with this medical loss ratio.
For example, if one company’s medical loss ratio was 77.9 percent, for example, in one quarter, and the next quarter, it was 78.2 percent. It seems like a small movement. But investors will think that’s ridiculous. And it’s horrible.
BILL MOYERS: That they’re spending more money for medical claims.
WENDELL POTTER: Yeah.
BILL MOYERS: And less money on profits?
WENDELL POTTER: Exactly. And they think that this company has not done a good job of managing medical expenses. It has not denied enough claims. It has not kicked enough people off the rolls. And that’s what– that is what happens, what these companies do, to make sure that they satisfy Wall Street’s expectations with the medical loss ratio.
Dennis Kucinich demolishes Dr. David Gratzer in testimony
Gratzer is one of the loudest figures claiming that Canada’s and other nationalized health systems are slow lumbering giants that deny or delay care and all the usual other B.S. Let’s see what happens when we put him on the stand with Dennis Kucnich and reality.
Obama to African Leaders: Pull your pants up
Obama has some pretty straightforward policies to follow if they want help from the U.S. End the Corruption, end the wars, have a real, legitimate government, and then we’ll talk.
Iranian Cleric splinter group calling election invalid
Now that protests have abated, political action is beginning to form.
CIA Surveillance went far beyond warrantless wiretaps
And so it began….
Dick Cheney kept CIA program from Congress
It was Dick Cheney in the oval office, with the dumb guy. That’s the conclusion of Detectives, or journalists on the story of the week. seems the CIA had a little top secret domestic surveillance program that wasn’t even disclosed to Congress. Whether or not the program was ever used is somewhat irrelevant, and they have not specified any details of the program, Cheney was the guy who kept it hidden.
Mass. Sues Federal Government over Defense of Marriage Act
Seems that the government is denying their legally wedded same-sex couples full rights under 1996’s Defense of Marriage act. While this may be a bit premature, I don’t think there’s enough states or public support at the national level to get the fed to repeal the law either legislatively or in the Supreme Court, this certainly adds to the pressure.
Newt vs. Fish who wins?
A fisherman takes down Newt in a press junket. If this is the best Republicans have to offer, I think “Regional Party” is just a little too strong for them.
Texas Board of Education gets a new chief, a newspaper publishing book banning chief
This is the most powerful board of education in the U.S., and has more influence on our text books and education than you probably guess.
Former director of Faith Based initiatives for Ohio Governor caught recommending 17 yr old prostitute on-line
This stuff just writes itself.
Not that this is a surprise, but Blago’s middle finger isn’t running again
Having raised $800 and some change, Roland Burris is calling it quits.
Tucker Carlson gives a Conservative interview with Jeb Bush
And Bush has to continually moderate Tucker’s radicalism. Question one: “Is Obama a Socialist?”