MoveOn’s Virtual March on Washington for health care reform and the Public Option is in full swing today, already over 811,000 people participating and climbing!

If you’re interested in adding your voice, here’s a link:  http://pol.moveon.org/virtualmarch10/action.html?rc=homepage

By adding your name, MoveOn will send a fax to Congress in your name and instantly provides a pop up of your Senators’ names and phone numbers so you can call their offices to further make a strong impression on them on how important it is to you to pass HCR and fight as hard as possible for a true Public Option.

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KhiradKQµårk 死神choiceladyKalimaboomer1949 Recent comment authors
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Chernynkaya
Member

I could give arguments for the PO, and also why in its present form it matters little. But what I really think is that symbolically it matters a great deal. That is not to say that whatever is passed w/o it is a completely Pyrrhic victory. But the PO is something Dem voters and others have decided they really want. For the Senate to brush that off like 59 Rahms telling us to go fuck ourselves is stupid politics if not stupid policy.

Seriously, I wonder if passing any HCR will save the public perception of the Senate at this point. It might come too late to rehabilitate their image, but not passing something will be the end of the Dems for the next few cycles.

escribacat
Member

The public option became the entirety of health care reform for many progressives. From my perspective, that is a perspective from a theoretical and political point of view. Getting the greedy insurance companies out of our health care is a worthy goal. I want it too. I want single-payer.

But from a practical and personal perspective, I just want some coverage because I can’t get it now. And I’m not even sick – I just have back problems. The refusal to insure people with any sort of pre-existing conditions — including things like high cholesterol or back problems — is the most egregious aspect of the current system.

KQµårk 死神
Member

That’s exactly the problem I’ve been bemoaning for months. The president was not lying to the people in September when he said the PO was not the only part of HCR that mattered. He’s the one reading letters from dozens of Americans like us who are asking for help. Most progressives are reading blogs written by ideologues.

The Netherlands, Singapore and Switzerland all have cheaper and better universal healthcare systems that are 100% private. They are all cheaper because the people who are well now cannot gain the system and have to buy insurance. It’s called risk sharing and it’s the only commonality in all universal healthcare systems.

The disconnect I don’t understand is that people like you and I who cannot get affordable coverage are not the ones set to kill the bill because it does not have the PO while progressives who have insurance and will not be eligible for the PO anyway are pushing it.

For us the philosophical point of view is a pure luxury.

choicelady
Member

Hi escat and KQ – As one of the covered progressives pushing the PO, it’s out of gut level fear that without that, you may be forced to buy insurance that, soon, you also may not be able to afford. That said, I do think the recent control plans – rate control especially – do help the individual’s safety. But without a PO and serious rate control, it will soon bankrupt us as a nation with the subsidies for individuals at the rate the rates are climbing. If it turns out to add to the deficit, the Reeps and Blue Dogs will kill the entire plan.

The immediate program for those desperately needing care (and I think, escat, your back qualifies as a chronic problem) will be into the pool within weeks to months. How it works and what it costs is unclear, but there is a percentage cap on what you would pay that is not wonderful but in line with what single payer would cost in CA. The gummint pays the difference, and that gives you some breathing room.

KQ – and now escat – I do my work and advocacy ALWAYS with you in mind. I discuss people living on the edge needing care they can’t get, and I think “such as KQ”. Mind you I don’t tell people – your privacy matters – but I think of you each time I train people, lead discussions, put out alerts to our members. You have become my focus. I evaluate everything in terms of ‘what’s good for KQ’ and what isn’t.

Yeah – I suppose we can get along for now without a PO, but it scares me that without it way may cover you for a few years then yank the program on the grounds of cost.

I am furious with the Dems over this. Boxer was quick to support the PO, but where are the intelligent folks to point out that support for reform declined when the Senate bill left OUT the PO, not when the House bill had it?

So the question discussed above is right on – are they ignorant of what voters really want, in the pocket of the insurance companies, or just stupid? I’m voting for C.

KQµårk 死神
Member

If the president’s reconciliation bill fails this is the only real alternative.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703510204575085970815851804.html#printMode

Of course Murdoch’s WSJ is releasing this article to poison the water even more before the president’s summit but if these two bills fail this is the outcome to expect.

Chernynkaya
Member

KQ– one minor point: Obama has not written a bill, but a set of items that are already points of agreement between the House and the Senate, which the Congress can then choose to fuck up.

KQµårk 死神
Member

I should have said plan. Pretty much what he did was lay out the compromises that Democratic leadership came up with during reconciliation talks and added a few new wrinkles but the main legislation was written in Congress.

escribacat
Member

That looks like poison to me.

escribacat
Member
Khirad
Member

KQµårk 死神
Member

😆 virtual walks are for real losers. What it takes two minutes to fill out an internet form? 100 teabaggers holding misspelled signs has more of an affect on legislators than this petition. Face it the real effort for HCR was never there from progressives because right away they jumped into the weeds rather than looking at the big picture. The worst part is to this day most progressives don’t understand how little the existing public option means in real policy terms versus a non profit insurance option like Federal employees get now. This is all about politics and progressives feeling like they “win” right now as opposed to supporting substantive differences in policy.

Again the rest of the industrialized world gets what the US does not.

A. If you want real change the citizens need to take it to the streets in huge numbers.

B. Universal healthcare is about giving as many people possible access to the healthcare system, putting controls on insurers, making almost everyone contribute to healthcare coverage and taking the decision whether people can get coverage out of insurers hands.

Rah rah yeah we have over 1,000,000 signatures. Now pass a the bill and start the process because now we are at ground zero. People on both ends of the spectrum act like we have a system that does not desperately need to be changed.

Sorry for my cynicism but I see now way a petition like this gets to the goal of universal healthcare any faster. Universal healthcare is a long shot now because the process has gone on too long already.

Kalima
Admin

Talking about progressives, I went to Kos last night, hadn’t been there in a while and was gobsmacked by all the negative and anti Obama comments. Some of them could have easily rivaled RW trolls on HP and I left there with a really bitter taste in my mouth wondering why some people continue to bite their own arses.

Chernynkaya
Member

Yeah, those people are on almost every prog site. Very negative energy there!

Kalima
Admin

Eye opener here, I really didn’t know things had become so self destructive. What’s the matter with these people, so much hate, they could start their own tea party with it.

escribacat
Member

I think they are more destructive than rightwing trolls. And every bit as vicious.

choicelady
Member

Hi everyone – thanks for posting this, and seeing that we have over 1 million voices for reform including the public option done through reconciliation.

BUT – the choicelady/churchlady is in a massive funk. Our national faith call today had discussions with Maura Vanderslice Deputy Director of the Office of Faith Based Initiatives. I asked her what about the public option, and she gave me a non-answer. I KNOW it can be created through reconciliation and that we now have 26 or more Senators who said they’d do that.

And then the mountain fell on me. The faith community tomorrow will have an ad in “The Hill”, the paper for the Capitol staffers (an online version exists) so I went online and saw yesterday’s version. The pronouncement from on high came down that there won’t be 51 senators and the WHITE HOUSE is “shutting down” (their words in The Hill) the movement for the public option.

I don’t what to believe. There were some rumblings tonight on Olbermann, and I was too depressed to watch.

There are several emotions ranging here. One is the feeling that, as in this earlier discussion about the Dems, they are wimps and just as tied to business as usual as some of the Republicans. The second is that the poll nosedive for health reform came with the Senate bill that left OUT the public option. People don’t hate health reform – they dislike anything that does not have a public option. The third emotion is that my work in CA is pretty pointless since both Boxer and Feinstein are on board with a PO, and most of the Congress (there are three Blue Dogs – Latinos no less – who’ve raised their ugly heads, but most of the Dems are on board.)

Most of all, it’s the feeling that what is good for the public, good for the nation, takes second spot to just getting something done.

Now the vote to remove the exemption on anti-trust from the insurance companies DID pass the House 406 to something!!! Within the Senate-cum-White House plan, there is a move to have national oversight of insurance rates which is equally great. In this cobbled-together plan, the individuals up to $88K (400% of the federal poverty level) would pay from 2-9.8 percent of income for their polcies, and they’d be subsidized for the rest.

And herein hangs the problem – if the federal government has to pay the difference between affordable health plans for families and what the slavering insurance corporations want, this nation WILL go bankrupt over health care costs. It’s lousy, no matter what. Not that bad for people, but REALLY bad for the government budget.

The chief staff person in CA for single payer (sponsored now by Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco) says we would not even have to talk about single payer IF we had serious rate control as they do in Germany and Switzerland. Single payer is not cheap. It costs an average of 8% of one’s pay, less for less well paid folks, more for some others. The rate for a family policy in Germany is about $750 per month – that ain’t hay since a family policy here is about $1000. BUT – the rates are predictable and reliable and do not include co-pays, deductibles, etc.

The only way we could get a more reasonable plan would be with a PO – so what the HELL is going wrong that we cannot move the DEMOCRATS to do this? The Republicans cannot drive this train – they want NO change, so why are the Dems handing the possibility of NO change to them? What happens tomorrow if they agree to nothing – do we have Dems with cajones to do what is RIGHT or do they capitulate TO the Right?

One thing is certain – if we do not have substantive health reform NOW, Dems will lose hugely in November. If they pass something that is really helpful, they will win. Why do they not see this?

So – someone talk me down. I have worked this stuff for four years, and I am at the end of my tether and my patience and my morale.

HELP!

escribacat
Member

It’s fascinating that there aren’t even 51 votes in the Senate for this! All this time we’ve been worried about Lieberman…and it turns out, he was just the Show-Monster?

I learned something interesting today — that MediCare actually contracts out to a private insurer. I already knew that our state Workman’s Comp is contracted out to Traveller’s — a private insurer. I always thought that was strange. In other words, our concept of “Public Option” or “MediCare” could be or is actually private insurance. I don’t know what kind of profit these contractors make.

I guess what I’m saying is that these definitions — “public” and “private” aren’t as clear cut as I thought they were. Since I no longer really understand what the “Public Option” was supposed to be, I’m not that upset about losing it.

For many months now, I’ve just hoped they pass something and I’ve been determined that I would reserve judgment until the moment I log on and sign up and find out what it’s going to cost me and what I’ll get for that. Until that moment, I don’t have it in me to be gung-ho for or against anything — especially when it might be just semantics. The only thing that would really upset me at this point is if nothing passes at all. I know the president’s plan has a high risk pool immediately available for uninsured self-employed types like me (with pre-existing condition). I just hope it’s a lot better than the state one, which was so bad it was a waste of money and not worth signing up for.

Kalima
Admin

I would be feeling the same in your position escribacat, just pass something and amend it down the road. I know for a fact that KQ feels the same, Don’t give up.

choicelady
Member

Thank you , all of you. Thank you for reminding me of Courage, Cher. Thank all of you for pointing out that some of what’s public is private anyway, so WTF?

At the bottom I know – I KNOW – the Senate bill alone is actually not awful. It will make a huge difference for millions, will expand Medicaid and raise provider rates adding 15 million people and stabilizing the rest. IMMEDIATE care for people with no insurance and chronic or life threatening problems – anothe 18 million. And people won’t go bankrupt because of it.

And I lost sight. You all helped put this “little engine that was fed up” back on the tracks. I will indeed keep on keepin’ on.

Thank you. You talked me down!!! Blessings, Cher – that post is beautiful! Thanks to all for such sensible words, thoughts, and deeds.

Kalima
Admin

United we stand devided we fall!

Keep the faith cl.

KQµårk 死神
Member

Reading the president’s reconciliation proposal, he took out the most egregious parts of the Senate bill like sweetening up the subsidies and lowering the out of pocket costs.

Not to mention more expressly setting up a Federal watchdog over policy hikes.

Progressives would all love a virtual single payer system but people act like there is not a huge gulf between the system we have now and single payer which is not a leap most Americans want to take in one step. Almost every country that has universal healthcare systems have hybrid systems with varying degrees of involvement from private, public, business and personal entities in paying premiums and providers. There is no best systems but what they all have in common is universal coverage of some type to share the risks. The best healthcare systems meld well with a countries culture. For example the French don’t have near the problem with having over twice the tax burden we do so doctors go to medical school paid for by the state. The UK prefers a true socialist style healthcare system. Singapore, the Swiss and the Dutch have no problem with 100% private systems as long as government controls the quality of plans and rates.

KQµårk 死神
Member

In the bastardized words of Father Ted ‘Just pass the fucking bill’.

Chernynkaya
Member

Hey KQ, did you ever see a little film called “In the Loop”? darkly hilarious. Father Ted reminded me.

KQµårk 死神
Member

I never saw “In the Loop” but I do have the whole Father Ted series on DVD so I should check it out. I love dark comedy especially when it challenges our traditional belief systems.

Another great series worth seeing is “John Safran vs God” where an Aussie comic examines all kinds of religious. It was on IFC or Sundance at one time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Safran_vs_God

Chernynkaya
Member

The trailer:

Chernynkaya
Member

KQ– I’ll have to rent that–anything that’s theme song is by “Mozart on Crack” bears checking out!

Khirad
Member

Ditto that on dark comedy.

And aha! The guy from the trailer I recognized from Torchwood.

Chernynkaya
Member

Hi Khirad! It seems we are on different shifts here. 🙂 I was just about to sign off for the evening. But hello/goodbye!

Kalima
Admin

Exactly, that was hilarious.

escribacat
Member

Okay, who is Father Ted?

OKay. Thank you.

KQµårk 死神
Member

The problem is not Medicare contracting out so much as Bush having them contract out to profit making entities with Medicare Advantage. Contracting out to non-profit NGOs is quite different and is the type of coverage many Federal employees pay into now. In fact a big part of the president’s reconciliation bill is taking Medicare out of the hands of for profit insurers reversing much of what Bush did.

SueInCa
Member

Don’t give up yet. That lady probably did not have an inside track. Let’s see what happens tomorrow. They cannot turn a blind ear to the rumblings. Some in DC are getting backbone.

Chernynkaya
Member

My dear friend– I was in the same place yesterday that you are tonight. In despair and demoralized. I tried to stay away from most of the blogs, didn’t watch MSNBC. I composed a “brilliant” letter in my head, one which I was going to send to Michael Moore, begging him to help organize progressives. And I would send it to my Reps and to Rachel because– in my head— it would be so powerful and heartfelt, they would all be moved to read it and it would became a rallying cry. (~snort~)

But then I thought about what exactly I would write. I thoughtr about how painful it is too feel so discouraged. And then I thought of something an older, wiser woman once told me: If you are afraid of pain, you will not change.

I thought of the word ‘discouraged’ and how it really means to lose heart, because the word courage, as you I am sure know, comes from the word coeur– heart. It takes courage–heart–to face the pain of our own lives, but I think the same can be applied to the courage we need to face some hard facts about this country and our political system and our leaders.

Unless I am brave enough to see things as I believe they are, instead of how I want them to be– without becoming too cynical– they will not change. I will become too discouraged to fight. I will lose heart as I see so many of my fellow progressives have done, and then I will be a coward and shut down, stay home, go back to sleep. Yes, I said coward, and that’s harsh and judgmental, but also means I understand that they are in pain, and cannot face it. Been there!!I am not brave and I get discouraged, but at the same time, I know that will change nothing.

And things in this country MUST change, if not for us, for our kids. C’Lady– this is a dark night of the soul– so to speak –for you. And you know this, but I’ll remind you: There is no faith without doubt.

I don’t know if you are in the mood, but I posted a video of Bill Clinton, that made me feel better. It’s early on the Knee jerk thread.

Courage,Choice Lady!!

Kalima
Admin

“that there won

escribacat
Member

Yes. I want to hear it from their mouths.

Kalima
Admin

I would pay for a front seat or would hold the mike for free to use it to clobber them over the head with if their explanation was just pure, selfish BS.

escribacat
Member

Excellent link describing how reconciliation has been used in the past on health care issues such as COBRA.

“The correct name is continuation benefits. And the only reason it’s called COBRA is because it was contained in the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985; and that is how we came up with the name COBRA,” she says.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124009985

Chernynkaya
Member

Thanks e’cat! Mind if I put into the TrollBusters! thread?

escribacat
Member

Go for it! Can’t think why I didn’t.

Kalima
Admin

Well I suppose that I could always start knitting again, I have no Senator. 🙁 *sniff*

bito
Member

I will gladly give you both of mine: Kyl & MCCain. You can trade them to N.Korea for a bag of rice.

Kalima
Admin

I may be a bloody furriner but I’m not that daft. 🙂

Chernynkaya
Member

“We did it! 1,124,457 Voices for Real Health Care Reform!”

HOORAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PatsyT
Member

They are not Done Yet !
I had to try over and over but I got through to call both Senators Boxer and Feinstein
The office staff seems to be having fun with this !

Chernynkaya
Member

They are probably pinch-drunk and giddy with all the faxes and calls! Imagine how often they had to add more paper to the fax.

PatsyT
Member

I should have saved my comments
I think I left dozens
My favorite
I’m marching because. . . .
This is what Jesus would do !

SueInCa
Member

It is up to 1.114mm

Chernynkaya
Member

Well, it seems that we won’t find out about the MoveOn campaign on MSNBC tonight because programming is preempted by CURLING!

I tried to watch curling last night, and it’s one of those things that make no sense — and cannot be figured out — unless you know what the hell is going on. Plus, those sweepers just make me laugh!

SueInCa
Member

Have you ever played bocce ball or lawn bowling? The premise is similar to those. I watched it last week Sweden v. USA

correction it was Switzerland. big diff, huh?

Chernynkaya
Member

No Sue. The closest game I could relate it to was shuffle board.

SueInCa
Member

I played bocce ball in Martinez CA, in fact was on a championship team for one year. You roll a yellow ball(pingpong size) down a court of seashells(grated fine) then you take a red ball heavy and about the size of a large grapefruit and try to get closest to the yellow little ping pong ball. And let me tell you those players were worse than football or basketball pros. Do not get in their way and do not touch the ball! They played for keeps LOL

Chernynkaya
Member

So Sue, the curling team with the red rock tries to get close to the yellow rock?

SueInCa
Member

No, to the bullseye in the center. you knock out the other color if you can.

bito
Member

Closest to the center, Cher. Think of archery and bulls-eyes. This is quite popular to watch “up on the line.” Many blue-collar bars have bar shuffleboard and there are many similarities. I have personally and proudly wasted many an hour playing. 🙂

Chernynkaya
Member

Thanks, Bito– you too Sue. I’ll try to see if i get it.

bito
Member

Sue i was “politely” informed by an Italian family that it is not bocce ball! it is bocce.

Well excuse me! 😆 I still won my match! 😉

boomer1949
Member

…and you had the balls to prove it! 😉

EDIT: have 😉 😉

SueInCa
Member

Well excuse the hell out of me bito, those Italians must have thought I was just illiterate in the great sport of bocce LMAO

bito
Member

SueInCa says:
02/24/2010 at 4:22 PM
Well excuse the hell out of me… 😆

I think that was my thought.

SueInCa
Member

LOL, you don’t have a patent on the phrase do you? Ha Ha

PatsyT
Member

That Curling cracks me up!
They scream at that granite as if that will speed it up or slow it down!

Keith and Rachel are to be on at the usual time on the West Coast 5 and 6

OK I have left nearly ten comments on the MoveOn thing and I keep seeing them !
Can Everyone see them ?

Chernynkaya
Member

They fly by, Patsy. Did you see me waving to you?

PatsyT
Member

I keep checking and leaving more comments . . .
Big Fun for me !
I will look for you..
I am such a healthcare nerd!

boomer1949
Member

But, but…they’re so serious! Are they allowed to blow on the stone or just sweep?

SueInCa
Member

I think just sweep. Hey you all, I thought it was interesting, my daughter thought I was around the bend on that one LOL.

Chernynkaya
Member

My husband does a hilarious pantomime of those sweepers! laughing now thinking about it.

SueInCa
Member

I know this is important to everyone so I looked it up, the sport was invented in late medieval Scotland around 1541. So now you all know LOL

Chernynkaya
Member

I figured it was invented anywhere the winters were long and boring and there was too much ice and a lot of rocks. So, Scotland seems appropriate, but I would have guessed Greenland.

PatsyT
Member

One of the other things that crack me up about this is that they have mikes.
Hearing all the Swedish takes me back.

bito
Member

Patsy,
“Hearing all the Swedish takes me back.”
that was my thought. At my G-Grand parents and church.

Kalima
Admin

No wonder, it gets so bloody cold up there they have to keep moving and who plays golf in the snow, oh, sorry a friend on mine said her husband used to paint his golf balls bright red when they lived in Belgium. That’s what I would call an obsession.

nellie
Member

That was fun.

javaz
Member

I’ve left at least six messages, because it lets you type in so many, plugging the site!

Plus, my husband did two, so maybe someone will see it!

Chernynkaya
Member

hehe, me too!

escribacat
Member

That counter has been whirring all day long. I started getting skeptical (too cynical) but I think it’s for real. I called my senators earlier today and got answering machines. Over 1.068 million now!

javaz
Member

This is exciting, isn’t it?
At least it makes us feel like we’re doing something.

Chernynkaya
Member

I just saw 1,049,000!!
EDIT: So cool to see my comment there signed PlanetPOV.com!

javaz
Member

Cher, tell us how to sign it PPOV!
Tell us where please.

bito
Member

DITTO

Chernynkaya
Member

Bito, did it work?

Chernynkaya
Member

Javaz, after you click “send email” a field comes up where you can add a comment. Then, add comment and put a — (dash) PlanetPOV.com.

javaz
Member

Thanks!

javaz
Member

1,000,000 + and counting!

PatsyT
Member

You can leave comment after comment
and sign it
PlanetPOV
if you like !!
MoveOn is Right On with this one !!

Chernynkaya
Member

GREAT idea–again–Patsy!

bito
Member

Help. Where do you leave a comment?

PatsyT
Member

Bito Did you find it ?