The Note: ‘He’s Beginning to Lead.’ But Where’s He Headed? — Can the Democrats Get ‘Trigger’ Happy?

He is leading us into bankruptcy of the country, and take over by a foreign power, financially.

This news report does not include information I obtained from Center for Responsive Politics. There are hidden reasons behind the proposals of the infamous “Gang of Six.
Mike Enzi’s top political contributor is Pharmaceutical industry. Health professionals get 2nd place, and lobbyists take 7th place. Some of his top individual contributors include Blue Cross, Amgen, Merck & Co, and Goldman Sachs.
The top 6 contributors for Charles Grassley include Blue Cross, 2nd place: Select Medical Group, 3rd place; and Amgen. Throughout Grassley’s career he has received two million dollars from the industries health insurance industry, health products, and pharmaceuticals.
Of the top 20 industries that contribute to Ben Nelson’s political campaigns, the insurance industry takes 2nd place; 3rd place securities and investments; 4th place lobbyists; 5th place health professionals; and 7th place pharmaceuticals and health products. Over his political career, Ben Nelson has received $610,000 from the health sector and $ 739,000 from lobbyists
Over his political career, Kent Conrad has received $ 1 million in political campaign contributions from the health sector. In fact, insurance industry is Conrad’s 2nd larger campaign contributor
Max Baucus has received about $ 2 million in campaign contributions from the health sector. The insurance industry, pharmaceutical, and health care professions are among the top 20 contributors. Individual contributors include Goldman Sachs, Aetna, Amgen, BlueCross/Blue Shield, and Altria
Can we trust politicians like this with a “trigger”? Health insurance companies will simply flood the Hill with lucrative campaign contributions and the “trigger” will be either delayed or forgotten.
In te meantime, 22,000 people a year will die because they do not have access to medical care. That’s 7 times more than the people who died in 9/11. But Congress does not care. They have their health insurance, and they don’t care if any one else gets medical care or not.
The trigger should have been pulled long ago. We need a public option NOW.

Very good post William Miller.

Foe all everyone who so against our current healthcare system, you had BEST take a very long look at where in these bad economic times that we do have REAL job growth!
It is indeed very interesting how the administration loves to thump its chest about the phantom number of saved jobs, yet they do not say a word when it come to promoting the fact the healthcare industry has been of the few areas of our economy to actually ADD jobs!!!
from last weeks
“Employment in health care continued to rise in August (28,000), with
gains in ambulatory care and in nursing and residential care. Employ-
ment in hospitals was little changed in August; job growth in the
industry slowed in early 2009 and employment has been flat since May.
Health care has added 544,000 jobs since the start of the recession.”

Wow. This health care debate is designed to keep attention away from the real headlines:
The dollar fell to its lowest level in 12 months Tuesday morning, the euro rallied to a new high for the year of $1.4507, the dollar also traded at 92.31 Japanese yen, down 0.8%. The British pound saw a big jump, meanwhile, rising 1.1% against the dollar to trade at $1.6528, as U.K. manufacturing output for July came in much stronger than forecast.
The United States has lost its place as the world’s most competitive economy, according to a survey released Wednesday, falling behind Switzerland mainly because of the financial crisis and accumulated fiscal deficits.
The unemployment rate jumped almost half a point to 9.7 percent in August, the highest since 1983, reflecting a poor job market that will make it hard for the economy to begin a sustained recovery.
It’s clear that the “stimulus” is not working. We need to be focused on getting people back to work, and getting manufacturing levels up.
Stop the smoke and mirrors here, and get busy on what really matters.

Public Option, please!

The best thing that can happen for this country in 2010 is for the Republicans to recapture Congress. Why? It would put in check the extremes of both the liberal Left and the far Right. The country would be government from the middle which would give us a shot of getting out economic house in order. This is what happened when Americans rejected the Clinton agenda in 1994. And look what happened. Welfare reform was passed and balanced budgets were enacted. A divided government may be our only salvation.

I have to agree with Mackie’s post. I’m a registered Democrat who is thrilled with President Obama, but the very left of the party is preventing him from really governing from the Center, which is where the country really is. The electorate “swings” from left of center to right of center, issue by issue. Too far left or too far right prevents you from effectively governing. Obama has to enact the Democratic party agenda, but he has to coalesce from center left to center right; otherwise, he’s Jimmy Carter redux.

Laura… since I rambled, allow me to let you respond.. Name something he has done that has caused you to be “thrilled” with him as president…

for all of you on here screaming for government run healthcare and the public option.. PLEASE .. do a little research.. England just announced this year that they were cutting the government allottment of cortizone shots from 130,000 to 30,000 to control expenses. That means that 100,000 needed shots to help people with chronic back, hip and other joint problems will not be available. In Canada, the average wait time for a simple MRI is 3 to 6 months. In Cuba ( where Michael Moore touted the benefits of public run healthcare) Medicinal items as common as aspirin are counted out and rationed. As far as the person who quoted that our healthcare ranks 37th.. thats true, but it is true primarily because we have a far higher incident of accidental trauma (ie car accidents, etc..)along with one of the worlds highest injury and death rates from violent crime. We also calculate infant mortality differently than most other countries. For example, a still birth counts against our infant mortality rate while in many countries it is not counted at all.
The public option will destroy the private sector as it has in every other country that it is employed in. What that means is that along with losing those high premiums that we all hate, we will also lose the ability to be on the cutting edge of research and development of new treatments and technologies. New and better drugs for what ails us will become (to a great extent) a thing of the past. Ask yourself this.. If the government can’t do a good job providing healthcare for our veterans (the VA is the primary source of healthcare for about 20% of teh population, then how can they hope to provide good healthcare for the entire population?

Gus –homelessness and the increased numbers of uninsured in emergency rooms is staggering.
Get informed. The country needs a public plan now.
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Think that might have something to do with the “staggering” number of unemployed people who have lost their coverage along with their jobs.. But that “stimulus” is working right??
Current estimates based on the average cost of healthcare coverage (about $9,000 per year) and the average number of Americans who can’t afford coverage (approximately 20 million – once you factor out those whose incomes are high enough to allow them to afford their own coverage – 100K and up- and those whose incomes are low enough to allow them to be provided coverage under medicare or medicaid) and the total amount of money needed to BUY private coverage for the uninsured is @$180 billion per year.. yet we are going to spend 1 trillion in start up costs and 250 – 300 billion per year in running expenses for a plan that will force the 85% of americans WITH private healthcare to switch to a government run substandard plan… In what world does this make sense??

“…yet we are going to spend 1 trillion in start up costs and 250 – 300 billion per year in running expenses for a plan that will force the 85% of americans WITH private healthcare to switch to a government run substandard plan… In what world does this make sense??”
Posted by: arkie vet | Sep 8, 2009 5:09:56 PM
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It neither makes sense, nor is fact. If you’re a vet you probably have a set government plan. your argument is weak.
not everyone has to “switch”, nor will
the plan be socialized.
You are getting yourself excited with non-truths. Get informed.

Gus… have you even read the bill?
Are you aware that it DOES in fact provide coverage for non citizens (despite what the president said)..that it DOES establish end of life counselors who will provide counseling to the elderly when their health care options become cost prohibitive – I don’t like to refer to it as “death counseling” as many like to, but it is counseling geared to steer the senior toward end of life hospice care as opposed to dramatic treatments to prolong their life expectancy – call it what ever you like. The bill also forces an individual to swith from private insurance when they lose their job.. you can have private insurance through your employer, but if you lose the job, you lose the option for priovate insurance. The way the bill is written, the government will call all the shots on what is and is not covered, what does and does not constitute a valid plan and even grants them authority to set the levels of the fines for employers who do not comply. many feel that the fines will be prohibitively high, but i believe that they will be much lower.. and serve as an incentive to push employers to drop their provision of healthcare in favor of fines which cost less than the priceof covering their employees..this will serve 2 purposes.. first the fines will force companies to “subsidize” the price tag on the government plan, and it will force more people into the government option by causing their employer’s to drop coverage in lieu of the cheaper fines. Finally, the bill specifically identifies that the “gateways” which are like steering committes for the approved coverage plans will controlled by labor unions…
Read it and see if you still think its a good idea…

Obama has rescued the United States from almost complete political, diplomatic, and strategic isolation from Europe, Russia, and the Middle East. For that alone, I’m thrilled. He has to get the US out of Afghanistan however eventually, but I’m confident that after a year or so of futile incurson of even more troops with little results, he’ll wake up and get us out of there. In addition, though the stimulus wasn’t big enough nor strategic enough, Obama’s economic team saved us from a truly horrendous depression. And, Obama is tons smarter than Carter politically and once Republicans take control of Congress, Obama is smart enough and strategic enough to make that work. What you don’t understand about Obama is that at heart he’s a true liberal, but he admires Reagan’s political skills and process. He’ll read the tea leaves and determine that he’ll have to suppress his liberal leanings and govern incrementally. Obama won’t accept failure. Once the hard-core progressive wing of the Democratic party loses power, Obama will sigh relief. Trust me. That’s not to say he won’t try and implement a Democratic agenda, but he won’t be under the same kind of pressure to bang the elecorate over the head with it. Remember, I’m a registered Democrat who voted for Bush twice. I’m socially progressive and conservative on some issues. The Republican party is lost and truly xenophobic. They’ve decided to turn their backs on people who are not Southern white males and forget that the demographics of this country are changing, with the Latino population the fastest growing demographic. In addition, the Republican party has no domestic agenda to speak of and they’re such right-wing ideologues, they’ve managed to completely and totally isolate this country in every way imaginable. Bush wasn’t smart enough to adapt and listen. Obama is much, much smarter. Already, by the time healthcare reform gets passed, not only will Obama have the unions (maybe, maybe not), trial lawyers, Goldman Sachs, on his money list, he’ll have the insurance companies as well, and the US Chamber of Commerce (who approve by the way immigration reform). Remember, Obama plays chess, not checkers.

I’m sorry, only the loony RIGHT is “TRIGGER-HAPPY” Please keep your ‘DESCRIPTIONS’ in check!!! Thank you.