The Health Care Bailout — How Big Insurance and Pharmaceuticals Are Taking Over Health Care Reform

If you remember the platforms of the 2008 campaign, Obama and other Democratic nominees endorsed health care reform centered around providing a low-cost public option, allowing quicker and wider distribution of generic pharmaceutical alternatives, and investing in America’s antiquated medical infrastructure. Obama went as far as to suggest in late 2007 that “The time has come for universal health care in America… I am absolutely determined that by the end of the first term of the next president, we should have universal health care in this country.” [source]

Public option health care plan is becoming more of a dream and less of a reality thanks to heavy lobbying of Congress by the health care industry. The estimated $1 to $2 trillion dollars in health care reform is starting to resemble a bailout that will solidify the monopolies of health care companies. The new health care reform bill championed by centrist Democrats encourages ‘free-market’ principles, or, for those unfamiliar, the active encouragement by the legislative branch of collusion between health care companies and exploitation of American consumers. Essentially, the health care reform bill has been transformed from a consumer-oriented reform package to a massive kick back to the health care industry, with a mere wrist-slap for their more unscrupulous practices.

Incidentally, this movement towards a health care industry, pharmaceutical-friendly coincided by very damning appearances by health care CEOs in front of congress. This included admissions by the CEO of Assurant and UnitedHealth that their companies colluded with providers to drive up prices, dropped coverage when consumers became sick, and rewarding employees for denying coverage to lower-class people. [source]

Unless there is significant action towards reclaiming health care reform, Americans will be facing another government-sponsored funneling of tax-payer money towards big business.

See Also: More on the public option, As Healthcare Flounders, Is Comprehensive Health Care Reform Dead?, Early Reviews Of House Health Care: Walking Back From The Ledge, Health Care Reform Could Save $1.82 Trillion, Memo to the President: What You Must Do To Save Universal Health Care, Death by Spreadsheet, Another Moderate Dem Likes Healthcare Co-Op Idea, Testing My PATIENTS, Someone Fax This To Congress, THE ‘HEAD-KNOCKING STYLE OF GOVERNANCE, And in a painful decade or three, healthcare changed, and Saving Universal Health Care.

[tags]health care reform, lobbying, health care industry, universal health care, barack obama, congress, senate, health care bailout, assurant, united health, pharmaceutical industry, lobbyists, free market, tax payer money[/tags]

Christian Extremism Is Undermining America

The death of Dr. George Tiller, while ghastly, comes as no surprise, as the past 28 years have seen an increase in ‘normalization’ of Christian extremism and a refusal by both the media and government to confront violent Christian fundamentalism. Yet a majority of the most horrific domestic terrorism and international war crimes committed by Americans have been done under the guise of Evangelical Christianity. An incomplete list:

• Eric Rudolph, who was motivated by his Catholicism to end the ‘abortion holocaust’, bombed the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, several abortion clinics, and a gay/lesbian club in Atlanta.

• The Oklahoma City Bombing, the largest act of domestic terrorism in America’s history, was executed by survivalist and right-wing militia member Timothy McVeigh.

• In 2003, while lobbying leaders to put together the Coalition of the Willing, President Bush spoke to France’s President Jacques Chirac. Bush wove a story about how the Biblical creatures Gog and Magog were at work in the Middle East and how they must be defeated. Bush told Chirac, “This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins”. [source]

• Then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld presented intelligence and defense reports on Iraq and Afghanistan to George W. Bush with cover pages dedicated to ‘militaristic passages of the Bible’:

Former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld routinely used militaristic passages from the Bible on the cover pages of White House intelligence documents, according to new revelations by GQ magazine….

One republished on the GQ website came from March 31, 2003, showing a US tank roaring through the desert about 10 days after the United States invaded Iraq to topple the regime of Saddam Hussein. Over the image was printed a verse from Ephesians: “Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.”

[source 1, 2]

• During the invasion of Iraq in 2003, President Bush told several people that “‘I am driven with a mission from God’. God would tell me, ‘George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan’. And I did. And then God would tell me ‘George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq’. And I did.” [source]

• Evangelical Christians in the military were caught distributing Bibles to Afghanis [source]

• All told, there have been over 600,000 civilians dead in Iraq and 80,000 civilians dead in Afghanistan, which have been viewed as little more than modern-day Christian crusades by the predominately Muslim victims [source]

And yet there has been a complete unwillingness to brand what a significant portion of Americans identify with as dangerous or extremist. But for American democracy to thrive as it was envisioned — equitable, just, and secular — the growing force of Christian radicalism must be confronted in American society.

See Also: Why It’s Religious Terrorism, The Last One?, Right-wing hate reacts to murder of Dr. George Tiller, Tiller Assassin’s Believed Some Homicide Justifiable, Some Americans Agree, Napolitano Justified…, We Were Warned, Wichita Is Familiar with the Insane, George Tiller, 1941-2009, Dr. Tiller’s murder: What you can do, Who Killed George Tiller?, Vilifying the victim, Republicans, Operation Rescue in Trouble, Socially conservative sickos, Terror Should Not Pay, If George Tiller doesn’t matter to you, does god?, Parallels and Priorities,
Exiting The Tent, How Should Congress Respond to George Tiller’s Murder?, Did Bill O’Reilly, Operation Rescue encourage violence against Kansas abortion doctor?, The War on The War on Abortion, Bill O’Reilly’s Jihad Against Dr. George Tiller, and Domestic terrorism.

[tags]Christianity, christian extremism, radicalism, Dr. George Tiller, george bush, christian radicalism, christian terrorism, domestic terrorism, american democracy, abortion, terrorism, christian terrorism, militias, right-wing radicalism[/tags]

I hope Dave Eggers dies of a prolapsed ego

Oh gawd, gag me with a severe case of French ennui — Dave Eggers, now print media swami for hyper-hysteric and chronically out of touch socialites who need other people to tell them how to be super witty on the critical issues of our day at cocktail parties:

Dave Eggers to Reassure Readers Personally about Print

Addendum: Fuck Harry Reid and the Senate Democrats

Witness todays cowardice of the Democratic Senate:

President Barack Obama’s allies in the Senate will not provide funds to close the Guantanamo Bay prison next January, a top Democratic official said Tuesday.

With Harry Reid’s explanation being aptly called ‘incoherent cowardice’ by Andrew Sullivan:

REID: I’m saying that the United States Senate, Democrats and Republicans, do not want terrorists to be released in the United States. That’s very clear.

QUESTION: No one’s talking about releasing them. We’re talking about putting them in prison somewhere in the United States.

REID: Can’t put them in prison unless you release them.

Harry Reid, ladies and gentleman, who has spent the past 9 years wavering between being a complete coward and an incomprehensible idiot.

See Also: Whre is Terry Nichols being held? Where is Theodore Kaczynski being held? Not at Gitmo…, Cowards, This Would Break My Heart, A Setback Of His Own, Coward, Every once in awhile I do need reminding that my party sucks, too, Guantanamo makes us less safe?, Reid Is A Moron, and The Trouble With Harry Reid.

[tags]harry reid is a complete coward, harry reid wears special mormon underwear while he shits himself thinking about republicans, senate democrats are pussies, cowards, democrats are cowards, torture, Guantanamo Bay[/tags]

Charles Krauthammer Or The Grinch?