Help with the ongoing progressive takeover of the Democratic Party by joining your local DFA (Democracy for America, http://www.democracyforamerica.com/contact_messages/new) – we meet the first Wednesday of every month – that’s this coming Wednesday – at Karl Strauss Brewery near South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa -
or PDA (Progressive Democrats of America) write my friend Dr. Bill at drbillhonigman@gmail.com

It’s obviously going to be a long struggle.

paz,
`g

In respect to some of the comments you’ve made here, I’m seriously thinking about writing a more detailed piece pointing out how the “public option” gimmickry that Democratic Party politicians have been peddling not only will most likely have *zero* impact upon the current business practices of the private health insurance industry, but in all probability will help them substantially increase their profit margins.

For example, remember all this phony baloney rhetoric about how the “public option” was supposed to be a “low-cost alternative” to plans offered by private health insurers? The Congressional Budget Office posted a report online today pointing out insurance premiums charged by the “public option” will be *higher* than private plans because it would attract more enrollees who are sicker and require more intensive medical care.

The way I see it, the “public option” gimmickry was a strategy devised by the Democrats to trick the public into supporting legislation which in reality has little to do with providing better quality health care, but more to do with forcing millions of people to subsidize the profits of the multi-billion dollar health insurance industry both through taxes and mandates which require them buy their crappy, overpriced products.

I also appreciate the fact Art Pedroza extended an opportunity for me to blog for this site about two weeks ago. Blogging is something I’ve thought about doing for some time.

Although I probably won’t be posting stuff here every day, I guarantee that when I do, what I say will be interesting, thought-provoking, and maybe … controversial!

To bad our leaders are to beholden to the special interests to be even able to discuss possible options on many issues.

Duane, can you make heads or tails of the paragraph that was addressed to you? I can’t. The US postal service working efficiently, cheaply, and not for profit, side by side with Fed Ex and UPS for those who need to get things there in an extra hurry for extra cash, is a good comparison to the public option we want in healthcare. How is either a “dumping ground?” My mail always gets there.

A bailout that even the CBO says will inflate insurance premiums and lead to private insurance subsidies from the tax payers in the ball park of one trillion dollars.

Oh yeah that would be of course the sh*tty Baucus bill which contained an individual mandate with no public option, and a tax on existing generous insurance plans. If that’s how the final bill turns out, we’ll be pressuring progressive Congressmembers to join Republicans in filibustering it.

… if you are going to promote or vote do it for fiscal responsibility and people before profits, compassion before corporations.

Sound advice here, finally. Doesn’t sound like Republicans to me, but a lot of Democrats fit that description to a tee.

First let me take care of Terry, then my old friend Dr. Henry Duke, and then some of the substance in Duane’s article.

I was wondering when Terry would do his “Tenther” post; it’s one current rightwing hobbyhorse I hadn’t noticed him haul out yet. This is of course the ultrafundamentalist reading of the Tenth Amendment which would hold that nearly everything the federal government has ever done over 230 years to “promote the general welfare” is unconstitutional because it’s not specifically enumerated in the Constitution. Of course this argument is not worth taking seriously. It’s interesting he gets his first legal/constitutional argument from the renowned judicial body the Congressional Budget Office; obviously this was an offhand comment explaining why it would be a challenge to “score” the unprecedented individual mandate.

I would be doing Terry a disservice though, if I claimed that like most rightwingers he offers absolutely no ideas for healthcare reform. He does have the following which he’s repeated a few times:

Personally, I don’t understand why Democrats don’t do it nice and simple. Just pass a law mandating everyone buy insurance this year, paying for those who need subsidies with the funds from those who make more than $50,000 but don’t bother to buy and the youth who don’t care. Two thirds of the people who dont have insurance are that wealthy or already qualify and are too lazy to bother, so the numbers are there.

Assuming he offered this advice in good faith as opposed to “here’s something real stupid the Dems could do to shoot themselves in the foot,” let’s examine quickly why that wouldn’t work. Basically there is nothing here to prevent insurance companies to keep jacking up their premiums exponentially, as they do year after year and have promised to continue. If I were one of these young/healthy/over $50,000 fellows, I would certainly resent being mandated to hand over ever-growing chunks of my income to profit-making corporations, wouldn’t you? And just for the purpose of helping the poor and feeble, whom many Americans just resent – oh, I get it, this is Terry’s recipe for Democratic electoral catastrophe! No thank you, a good public option (if we can get one) will do just fine.

But of course Terry’s not serious about this idea, as he has just posted a comment above contending that the individual mandate is unconstitutional. Surprise, it was not a good-faith suggestion. Or is he just terrified of Emerson’s famed Hobgoblin of Consistency this Halloween season?

I noticed your comments about the democratic amendments. I saw a notice for the Weiner and the Kucinich amendments. Are those two ammendments attempts to put the public option back in the hands of government? Have any ideas about those amendments and wish to comment?

Here is a reference to the Weiner amendment: http://capwiz.com/pdamerica/callalert/index.tt?alertid=14249971

Thanks my friend. We are excited to have him on board – and look, already he has everyone riled up!

He makes a great point in this post too. Both of our major political parties are corrupt – and big money always wins out in the end, no matter who is in charge in DC.

I’ll be back tomorrow.