PBS - BILL MOYERS JOURNAL
After discussions about Hillary, Corporate influence and free speech, some observations about health care and the leadership we don't have:
"...we're about to get health care reform that measures human beings only in corporate terms of a cost-benefit analysis. I mean this is topsy-turvy — we should be treating health as a condition, not a commodity.
As we speak, Pfizer, the world's largest drug maker, has been fined a record $2.3 billion dollars as a civil and criminal — yes, that's criminal, as in fraud — penalty for promoting prescription drugs with the subtlety of the Russian mafia. It's the fourth time in a decade Pfizer's been called on the carpet — and these are the people into whose tender mercies Congress and the White House would deliver us?
Come on, Mr. President. Show us America is more than a circus or a market. Remind us of our greatness as a democracy. When you speak to Congress next week, just come out and say it. We thought we heard you say during the campaign last year [2008] that you want a government run insurance plan alongside private insurance — mostly premium-based, with subsidies for low-and-moderate income people. Open to all individuals and employees who want to join and with everyone free to choose the doctors we want. We thought you said Uncle Sam would sign on as our tough, cost-minded negotiator standing up to the cartel of drug and insurance companies and Wall Street investors whose only interest is a company's share price and profits.
Here's a suggestion, Mr. President: ask Josh Marshall to draft your speech. Josh is the founder of the website talkingpointsmemo.com. He's a journalist and historian, not a politician. He doesn't split things down the middle and call it a victory for the masses. He's offered [(http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/08/adventures_in_the_rabbit_hole.php)] the simplest and most accurate description yet of a public insurance plan; one that essentially asks people: would you like the option — the voluntary option — of buying into Medicare before you're 65? Check it out, Mr. President.
This health care thing is make or break for your leadership, but for us, it's life and death. No more Mr. Nice Guy, Mr. President. We need a fighter."
America is dead. There will be no affordable health care for the masses..only death. Don't waste your breath Bill or Josh. No one in the white house is listening.
ReplyDeleteEnter the swine flu and shots to start 10/10/09.
So what...we just surrender to the Corporate State? All the various hysterias around are aimed to wear you down. So when they finally, actually, really do something- you'll just fall in line.
ReplyDeleteDon't give up your head space worrying about what isn't happening yet! We have just begun to fight.
Do you really think we will get single payer with this crowd in the white house and congress?
ReplyDeleteIf you do, what encouragement have you been given to think it will happen? I admit, I am more than pessimistic.
Congress & Obama are owned by big insurance and big pharma.. what can we peons do to overcome that particular obstacle? March in protest? Write more letters and send faxes? We have NO leverage.
Unless millions get out in the streets and demand it, it's not gonna happen by petition. They don't flippin' care.
Do I think Obama really cares about Single Payer? No. But he might change his tune when he realizes he's just a 'one trick pony' without it.....hum?
ReplyDeleteEven the Dumb-ocrats are ganging up on Bum-Boy Baucus and his Insurance Industry Dream Bill. This is no time to quit fighting.
Jersey and All
ReplyDeleteAgreed. This Congress is bought and paid for. The ONLY reason to push them is to expose them, quite frankly.
As an aside, got on TV in Minnesota yesterday, when the Mad As Hell Doctors were in St Paul, at the Capitol.
I was with the Mad As Hell Nurses.
//:-D>-------
Go figure.
Good job Irish! You and M are both da man! But my point is, why isn't that all over msm? Mad as hell doctors and nurses? That should be HUGE news. But we all know why it isn't.
ReplyDeleteWe also know elections are rigged. So whether Obama wins a second term or not is irrelevant. They will just install the next corporate shill to do their bidding.
We need ALL drs AND nurses AND their patients out in the streets is my point. Without an out and out revolution, nothing for the people will be done. The "corporation" holds all the cards. We need to take over the tv stations...ala V for Vendetta and wake up the still comatose, fluoride brained zombies. Has anyone here watched "the revolution will not be televised?" That documentary had a better ending than any suspense thriller I can think of. The military needs to wake the hell up and do their job of defending the constitution and we the people as well. If anyone can do it.. they can.
Remember the protests prior to the invasion of Iraq? I was there in Philly protesting on the frozen streets with the millions of concerned citizens worldwide. We all know how that turned out. MsM grossly underestimated the turnout and barely covered it on the teevee. That is my point. Now, does anyone know anyone in the television industry? We are in desperate need of a V or even a Howard Beale.
Mr M does a great job of calling in to CSpan in the morning. 9/11 truthers deluged Nosferatu(aka michael chertoff) with questions yesterday and the best he could do to answer them was call them "holocaust deniers" and deny he knew anything about the missing $$$ that Rumsfeld reported on publicly the day before.
Maybe we should ALL be dialing into CSpan. It seems that is where we need to start the revolution. It sounds like it may have already begun.
Listen: http://www.infowars.com/chertoff-gets-pounded-with-911-questions-by-c-span-callers/
Virtual voices are easy to ignor. Have we forgotten how to get bodies into the street??
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