THE PUBLIC OPTION IS DEAD. GET RID OF THE *SSHOLES WHO KILLED IT. by SignyM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

House of Representatives phone numbers here:

www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.shtml

NO EXCUSES!

CALL CALL CALL. RIGHT NOW!

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Friday, March 12, 2010 8:13 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Good sign!

I have dialed and redialed and redialed.

The number is always busy, or the connection gets broken bc of too many calls.

I intend to keep REdialing until I get through, or the day ends. I want my Rep's phone number to be SWAMPED.

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Friday, March 12, 2010 8:15 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Good sign!

I have dialed and redialed and redialed.

The number is always busy, or the connection gets broken bc of too many calls.

I intend to keep REdialing until I get through, or the day ends. I want my Rep's phone number to be SWAMPED.

Americans are calling to reject this healthcare bill.

All the atroturfing in the world won't change its demise.

Summer Glau can simply walk into Mordor

Bones: "Don't 'rawr' her!"
Booth: "What? she'rawred' me first."

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Friday, March 12, 2010 8:17 AM

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

I will, too...and I repeat: WHY are we hearing nothing about Grayson introducing the Medicare Buy-In on the House floor a few days back?? Is there something I don't know about this? As I said, I can find it on the internet, but no MSM seems to be reporting it. WTF???

Here's hoping...!

DAMN: Here's an update on the article you posted:

Quote:
UPDATE: Pelosi today again shut the door on the inclusion of a public option, nothing that the votes proved not to be there to support one in the Senate.

“It isn’t there because they don’t have the votes to have it in there,” said Pelosi, D-Calif. “We had it [in the House]. We wanted it. They didn’t want. It isn’t in reconciliation.”

Fuck 'em!!!

"I'm just right. Kinda like the sun rising in the east and the world being round...its not a need its just the way it is." The Delusional "Hero", 3/1/10

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Friday, March 12, 2010 8:26 AM

MINCINGBEAST

looks like we may join the industrialized, civilized world after all. rad.

i am preparing a snoopy dance in celebration.

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Friday, March 12, 2010 8:33 AM

KANEMAN

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Good sign!

I have dialed and redialed and redialed.

The number is always busy, or the connection gets broken bc of too many calls.

I intend to keep REdialing until I get through, or the day ends. I want my Rep's phone number to be SWAMPED.

I'm sure its swamped because people are against this. Surely you don't think people are calling to say..."I want you to spend all our grandchildren's money...thank you Rep. so and so". I think your excitement is misguided....

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Friday, March 12, 2010 8:37 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Progressive activist Adam Green, who's been leading an outside effort to reintroduce the public option into the debate, said that Pelosi's whip count is unconvincing. "When the Senate Whip says he will aggressively whip the House reconciliation bill through the Senate unamended and onto the President's desk, the Speaker doesn't get to say the Senate lacks the votes," said Green, a co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. "Mark Warner, Tom Harkin, Herb Kohl, Claire McCaskill, and other undeclared senators are not going to vote against the president's top priority, and if Speaker Pelosi refuses to even allow a vote on the public option, than she killed the public option. She needs to step up."

I called and got through. The House is taking a tally right now.
YES!
RIGHT NOW!
PUSH.

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Friday, March 12, 2010 8:57 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

CALL

CALL
CALL.

They took my name and address, yes they are REALLY taking a tally of phone calls.

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Friday, March 12, 2010 9:00 AM

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

They may be taking a tally of US, but will they do anything about it in CONGRESS?

What the hell, I'll call anyway...one can only hope.

Did call; got through twice. Once I said where I lived and they transferred me to the "Constitutent" line, I left the message. Called and got through a second time and they transferred me to a message machine when I said "public option" and I left the message THERE, too. Am now calling MY Congresswoman to do the same. Crossing fingers and toes--if I crossed everything else, I wouldn't be able to see :o)

Kane, a Medicare Buy-In would HELPL the debt; instead of raging health care costs and people who can't get health care going to emergency rooms (or aren't you aware you're paying for that NOW?), a buy-in would be AT COST, so economically it would be far more viable than letting things go on as they are. But you're certainly allowed your opinion...despite not thinking rationally about the FACTS.

Basically: A Medicare Buy-in is just that: People would PAY for insurance AT COST; the current bill would mandate we all buy from for-profit insurance companies, WITH SUBSIDIES for those who can't afford it. You'd rather subsidize them than let them BUY into health insurance?

"I'm just right. Kinda like the sun rising in the east and the world being round...its not a need its just the way it is." The Delusional "Hero", 3/1/10

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Friday, March 12, 2010 10:33 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

So... the House will approve the Senate Bill. Required by procedure.

THEN they will work on a "fix it" bill.

That's what's being negotiated right now.

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Friday, March 12, 2010 10:37 AM

STORYMARK

Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Good sign!

I have dialed and redialed and redialed.

The number is always busy, or the connection gets broken bc of too many calls.

I intend to keep REdialing until I get through, or the day ends. I want my Rep's phone number to be SWAMPED.

Americans are calling to reject this healthcare bill.

All the atroturfing in the world won't change its demise.

Summer Glau can simply walk into Mordor

Bones: "Don't 'rawr' her!"
Booth: "What? she'rawred' me first."

Damned the wind is persistently annoying, as per usual.

"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."

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Friday, March 12, 2010 10:46 AM

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Nah, Story...poor thing's just like one of those little dust devils; goes around and around in a tiny confused circle, and does nothing but stir up a bit of dirt. Easily ignored.

Sig, I've always gotten confused: Why does NANCY PELOSI standing up for it affect the Senate? I don't get that one, but I hear over and over that she needs to call for this or that for it to go through the Senate...?

"I'm just right. Kinda like the sun rising in the east and the world being round...its not a need its just the way it is." The Delusional "Hero", 3/1/10

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Friday, March 12, 2010 1:49 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Oh, what she says is she won't even put it before the House if it doesn't have votes in the Senate.

WTF???

Seems like she should mind what's going on in the HOUSE, and let Reid take care of his shop.

Funny thing is... for as often as the public option has been declared dead, it keeps rising from the coffin where the politicians keep trying to stuff it.

Obama hasn't mentioned it since the State of the Union, and even then he was kinda weasely about it. The Senate declared it dead. Now Pelosi is saying that its dead (in the Senate).

Nobody is leading the charge (although Sanders has promised to bring it before the Senate, and Kucinich has promised to vote down any bill that DOESN'T have it)... but it keeps getting pushed by popular support. This is a case of the pols literally having their arms twisted by phone calls and letter-writing.

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Friday, March 12, 2010 2:04 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!

Nancy Pelosi Will Not Include Public Option In Final Bill

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said on Thursday that she would not include a public option in a health care reconciliation package that the House will send to the Senate.

"We're talking about something that is not going to be part of the legislation," Pelosi said, noting "with sadness" that the public insurance option won't be part of legislation. "I'm quite sad that the public option is not in there," she said.

Earlier Thursday, a spokesman to Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the Majority Whip, said Durbin would "aggressively whip" a health care bill that included a public option.

Pelosi, however, put the onus back on the Senate, saying that the chamber didn't have the votes needed for it.

"I'm not having the Senate, which didn't have a public option in its bill, put any of that on our doorstep," she said. "It did not prevail. What we will have in reconciliation will be something that is agreed upon, House and Senate, that they can pass and we can pass... It isn't in there because they don't have the votes."

Progressive activist Adam Green, who's been leading an outside effort to reintroduce the public option into the debate, said that Pelosi's whip count is unconvincing. "When the Senate Whip says he will aggressively whip the House reconciliation bill through the Senate unamended and onto the President's desk, the Speaker doesn't get to say the Senate lacks the votes," said Green, a co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. "Mark Warner, Tom Harkin, Herb Kohl, Claire McCaskill, and other undeclared senators are not going to vote against the president's top priority, and if Speaker Pelosi refuses to even allow a vote on the public option, then she killed the public option. She needs to step up."

Pelosi is correct that the Senate bill did not include a public option, but when the upper chamber passed its legislation, the vote threshold was at 60 and Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) vowed to filibuster it. But under reconciliation, only 50 votes are needed.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/12/pelosi-public-option_n_496559
.html

Commence shooting the messenger in 3,2,1.....

Summer Glau can simply walk into Mordor

Bones: "Don't 'rawr' her!"
Booth: "What? she'rawred' me first."

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Saturday, March 13, 2010 6:59 AM

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Yeah, Sig, it sucks. Big time. Sux little green apples and pisses me off something royal!

From what I'm hearing, tho' the Senators are publicly saying they'll vote for it IF THE HOUSE PASSES IT, privately they're pleading with Pelosi "PLEASE don't make us vote on this!!!" and she's going along.

She's throwing out bullshit that it's THEIR turn, that the House DID pass it, now it's up to the Senate, which is total bullshit. Politics as usual...but if she's getting pressure from the Senate, I could ALMOST forgive her.

Thing is, the House DID pass it once, now has the votes to do it again, so damn it woman: DO WHAT'S RIGHT and let the chips fall where they may! If the Senate chickened out, they'd sure show themselves for the hypocritical assholes they are apparently being behind the scenes, and I almost think they'd vote for it because of that, and the fact that it's never stopped being popular with the American people.

Now I wonder: Was Grayson's move a plan to move on it down the line by itself? His bill's gone to committee, will be a long time coming out...maybe it's being set up to tackle it alone eventually? Can't know, and of course if the Dems lose their majority this Fall, it'll be a wasted effort.

I don't understand these idjits, I truly don't. The ONE AND ONLY thing the American people have been behind is the public option; Medicare buy-in would solve the majority of the problems that exist now; the American people HATE the bill as it exists now...what is their fucking problem?!?!

Quote:
put any of that on our doorstep

is political bullshit, and they had the votes before, as far as I know nothing's changed, they still have them, so it's gamesmanship to say they don't.

A pox on both their houses...and more!

"I'm just right. Kinda like the sun rising in the east and the world being round...its not a need its just the way it is." The Delusional "Hero", 3/1/10

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Saturday, March 13, 2010 9:26 AM

FREMDFIRMA

Sanders-Kuchinich-Grayson, now that's an unholy alliance I could get to liking.

Pelosi on the other hand, *twitch*...

Funny note on politics, I got called the "Ghost of Huey Long" in a school paper editorial for local political maneuvering as well as stating that if you're gonna filibuster, well, FILIBUSTER, get up there and SAY something!

So I hadda look him up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huey_Long
Fascinating!

I think he went a little too far, mind you, but his concept was pretty damned sound, and I think Rue and Signym would be interested cause he was a staunch proponent of a lot of their own political beliefs, amazing that history has near forgotten him.

While I accept the editorials comment as a compliment (which it was not, one bit intended as) I don't think I could fill the Kingfishes shoes if I tried - the man was one in a million.

-F

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Tuesday, March 16, 2010 7:27 AM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

I like to get my information from many places. Here is one from the Obama pr group.

Please note how the the Obama administration is spinning the issue:

In 2008, voters in Washington's 8th congressional district voted to send President Obama to Washington to fight for change -- including for desperately needed HEALTH INSURANCE REFORM. They expected Republican Representative Dave Reichert to reach across the aisle to be a partner for change.

Unfortunately, last fall Rep. Reichert opposed reform and voted to let insurance companies continue jacking up premiums and denying care to sick people. But it's not too late for him to change his mind and put average Americans and the middle class ahead of corporate and special interests.

As I recall, what people THOUGHT they were getting was health CARE reform, not INSURANCE reform.

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

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Tuesday, March 16, 2010 7:42 AM

PIZMOBEACH

... fully loaded, safety off...

This is why I can't get all excited and fired up by the possibility of a Public Option. If we get one, who knows what it will be exactly? Can either side do anything right? Or is it just the nature of the beast? Count our blessings that it's not even worse?

Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.com

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Tuesday, March 16, 2010 8:06 AM

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Rue, how can you have HEALTH reform without health insurance reform, given they're the major fact standing in the way of better health care? I'd like to know more.

Seems to me a simple Medicare buy-in would just mean people could get Medicare--RIGHT NOW! This puppy won't go into effect for four YEARS, and given it's based mostly on regulation, I have full confidence the insurance companies will find ways around any regulation in it.

As to the public option, I think they're setting it up, actually. Grayson introducing it was the first step, now it's in committee. I've heard several politicians say that, like Social Security and Medicare, this is a first, less-than-perfect, step, and they'll go from here.

I'm up with that...neither of those cited was a truly "good" bill initially, it just kept being revised and amended better as time went on. I think our government is such that you can't PASS a "good" bill, only compromise it into something weak, then work on it.

Time will tell.

"I'm just right. Kinda like the sun rising in the east and the world being round...its not a need its just the way it is." The Delusional "Hero", 3/1/10

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Tuesday, March 16, 2010 8:36 AM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

I see health CARE reform as a more inclusive category, a changing of the basic system of health care in the country. I see health INSURANCE reform as a subset, and a more limited effort.

Health INSURANCE reform may or may not include Medicare for everyone. It may be limited to regulating private insurance practices (such as rescission) and to allowing across-state competition, two things that the administration has specifically backed. It has not backed even limited premium restrictions. His proposal didn't contain many – or perhaps any - of the things we were hoping to get.

I see nothing in the wording that reassures me there is a basic change of direction from that plan.

What I have read is that there are many DEMOCRATS who are deeply conservative in terms of maintaining the status quo, will not vote for either a 'public option' as a general concept, or Medicare for everyone as a specific application. Just a few days ago there was a news article about a Senator (whose name I forgot) who was on the list of Senators calling for a public option who said he would vote AGAINST it. I mean really, WTF ???

This is one of those things that will have to be pushed from below, if it is ever going to happen.

I remain skeptical of the administration's intentions.

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

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Tuesday, March 16, 2010 9:08 AM

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Ah, I understand. Good point. But I don't believe any amount of "regulation" will work, having seen the efforts along those lines on other sectors of American life. Loopholes are something businesses are pros at finding and utilizing.

I am both skeptical of the intentions (given how much money goes into ALL our Congressmen and Senators) and skeptical of any effective change (see above), as well as skeptical of Obama and the Dems having enough balls to attain anything effective in the near term.

Nonetheless, I think it's a first step...as the other things I cited were. Call me a cockeyed optimist.

"I'm just right. Kinda like the sun rising in the east and the world being round...its not a need its just the way it is." The Delusional "Hero", 3/1/10

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Tuesday, March 16, 2010 9:21 AM

PIRATENEWS

John Lee, conspiracy therapist at Hollywood award-winner History Channel-mocked SNL-spoofed PirateNew.org wooHOO!!!!!!

The implanted MicroChip required in new Health Care Bill
http://weeksmd.com/?p=2548

Quote:
“Buried deep within the over 1,000 pages of the massive US Health Care Bill (PDF) in a “non-discussed” section titled: Subtitle C-11 Sec. 2521— National Medical Device Registry, and which states its purpose as:

“The Secretary shall establish a national medical device registry (in this subsection referred to as the ‘registry’) to facilitate analysis of postmarket safety and outcomes data on each device that—‘‘(A) is or has been used in or on a patient; and ‘‘(B) is a class III device; or ‘‘(ii) a class II device that is implantable.”

In “real world speak”, according to this report, this new law, when fully implemented, provides the framework for making the United States the first Nation in the World to require each and every one of its citizens to have implanted in them a radio-frequency identification (RFID) microchip for the purpose of controlling who is, or isn’t, allowed medical care in their country.

http://waysandmeans.house.gov/media/pdf/111/AAHCA09001xml.pdf

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Tuesday, March 16, 2010 9:22 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

What I heard today is that there are 52-54 Senators who would vote for a public option. (This is an independent head-count by journalists.) Now the problem is in the House, where staunch anti-abortionists and Blue Dogs would make it difficult to pass a bill. IF OBAMA were pushing for a public option, the House would be able to do the heavy lifting. But OBAMA has bailed from the concept. Remember, HE was the one who took single-payer off the table, right from the start.

And given his history of making backroom deals with pharmas and doctors, I'll bet he's made a backroom deal with the insurances. So he's going to go around ranting about the worst practices of insurance companies, but protecting their bottom line. And WTF do they care what he says about them, as long as... in the end... they still get to make tons o' bucks?

How can something so popular with the public (public option) be so unattractive in DC? How can something so unpopular with the public (being force-fed into the maw of insurances, with tax money) be such a shoe-in with Congress and the WH?? This reminds me of Clinton and NAFTA/ CAFTA/ WTO: We get sold down the river with sweet talk.

Hope and change?
Yes we can?
Bleh!

I think the Senate bill is a done deal. I have no idea what the fixit bill will look like, but I'm pretty sure it will NOT include the public option. Shit, I doubt it would even contain a "trigger" for the public option... which I thought was a weasely choice back then, but now I would prefer it so much over what we're facing.

So now the challenge is... GET THOSE REPUBS AND DEMS OUT OF OFFICE WHO KEEP SCREWING US. The 2010 primaries look like a good place to start, and Jane Harmon is a good person to start with.

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Tuesday, March 16, 2010 9:36 AM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

FR@K !

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Silence is consent.

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Tuesday, March 16, 2010 9:47 AM

RIVERLOVE

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Tuesday, March 16, 2010 9:53 AM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

Can you explain what this is supposed to mean ?

I'm betting myself a lot of money that you can't.

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Silence is consent.

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Tuesday, March 16, 2010 3:38 PM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

According to my bet, I can start collecting.

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Silence is consent.

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Wednesday, March 17, 2010 6:52 AM