Push your co-workers. Push your fellow union members.
Push your shop steward.
As Jane Hamsher put it an hour ago about President Obama and the blue dogs like Sen. Mark Begich that are throwing liberals and progressives under one bus after another as they try to corner money from big pharma, the high-tech medical industry, insurance companies and bankers:
One of the ways that Obama has managed to navigate a course to appease Republicans and AIG and still retain his liberal "bona fides" is by keeping the liberal interest groups in a veal pen. Every Tuesday, they are given their instructions and are expected to toe the line. If the White House wants them to shut up about the banks, no problem. If Rahm shows up and pitches a shit fit telling them they are "fucking stupid" and that they shouldn't advertise against Blue Dogs, well -- everyone stops advertising against Blue Dogs.
Senator Begich thinks he can similarly control Alaska liberal interest groups. I'd like to find out why THIS list is "hidden at organizer's request." Why did Sen. Mark Begich have from Friday August 14th at 9:00 a.m. until Sunday, August 16th at 5:00 p.m. to raise bucks from "hidden" Great Land PAC contributors, including medical industry lobbyists, at the most swank destination in Alaska, but only had 75 minutes for Bethel's Native leaders, even less for other villages, and none for scores of villages facing fucking starvation and goddam cultural genocide?
Call him!
Call him five fucking times a day!
12 comments:
The little people will just have to take a backseat to Harry, Nancy and their friends now that Mark is a Junior Member of the Elites.
Phil,
I suggest you read Matt Taibbi's article in the current issue of Rolling Stone...The "Public Option" is ambiguous at best; meaningless at worst. It's completely fucked up. Begich ought to be cautious. What the senate finance committee has done is cater to Pharma and the insurance lobby. I wish you would go after Lisa half as fucking much as you go after Mark! WTF???
a fucking real estate agent as a progressive?
high schooler pimps for the next transaction not progressing society
he closed the largest recycler in Alaska for a fucking donation,
jesus get over it. he is a hooker for $$$
The truth is, the Indian Health Service clinics in rural Alaska have been acting like a Universal Health Care system for years. I am Anglo, and have been welcomed and treated for various minor things by Maniilaq Health Clinic in Kotzebue, the YKHC Hospital in Bethel, and by several of the Aleutian IHS clinics. In other words, I have been the beneficiary of a defacto "public option" in the IHS for years. The Aleutian clinics are explicitly set up to handle both Alaska Native and non-Native clients, regularly do so, especially during the fishing season. In Alaska, there is an easy way to implement a public option, which is simply to formalize the public option the IHS already performs, and make the payments back to IHS more simple.
I don't know if Mark Begich wakes up thinking he is a Blue Dog every morning, or not. I hope he wakes up just being proud of getting things done.
Ha ! Ha ! Seems like "Progressive Alalska" is starting to lose the plot ! Dropping the F-bomb all the time now ! Groovy ! As you liberals are so torn up about "vested interests" how come you never mention Tort reform when you whine about Obamacare ? Surely greedy malpractice lawyers are one of the biggest causes of expensive health care but y'all never mention them.....couldn't be because multi-million dollar trial lawyer firms are some of the biggest donors to the Dems could it ? I mean, you people couldn't really be that hypocritical could you ?
Medical errors are the leading cause of accidental death in the United States (see 'Dead by Mistake' http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=829319 ).
Now is not the time for tort reform. Quite the opposite, now is the time for uniform and accurate reporting of accidental deaths by hospitals and physicians. Removing the only protection families have from medical malpractice is not the answer in a malfunctioning system. Tort reform comes only when hospitals have adopted uniform reporting and uniformly good medical practice procedures. The bleeding stops when the bleeding stops, so to speak. The hospitals are perfectly capable of reducing tort costs by improving their own performance.
As for the F-bomb, Phillip is certainly capable of defending his own prose. I would rather see a few F-bombs of honest frustration than an increase in D-bombs from unaccountable and uncaring hospital systems, free of tort pressure.
Polarbear,
My friend Jane Hamsher came up with a rule a few years ago. It goes something like this:
"When writing, don't avoid using "fuck" when that's the best word. If you don't, you might regret it later."
As you might notice, Jane also thought "fuck" to be a choice word, in the quote from her article on this I cited above.
Jane Hamsher and yourself and many others hung it out in triplicate over the last few years. Why waste a compromise on a minority who does not respect nor appreciate it? Funny thing about Alaska is, off the road system, effectively there already is UHC, and with a public option, and it works, and nobody gives it a second thought, because it is right and proper and it works. Folks just went ahead and did it, actually some years ago. The UHC solution is clearly ripe on the vine. Once the national legislation is passed, a couple of months later, UHC will seem like it had always been there.
Wow, a Polarbear defending the bloated trial lawyers industry ! What a joke. Britain's NHS has had a uniform system of Healtcare for 50 years now and STILL thousands of people needlessly die because of mistakes. Your fucking lame attempt to justify Democrat lawyers making hundreds of millions of dollars thru malpractice suits shows how fucking "progressive" you really are.
Anonymous 10:36 As usual, nothing but rantings from you, with no foundation in facts.
If you read my comments (imagine that) they were in defense of families suffering from the effects of malpractice, not the attorneys. Victims come first. Lawyers may benefit, but victims come first. Actually, I do not have any problems with attorneys, either. After all, attorneys practice in a free market system, an economic system which all true conservatives support - right?
By your comments, Anonymous, your belief is, screw the victims so we can get at the hated attorneys. I don't hate anyone, Anonymous - just bad choices made on worse data. Who else do you so hate that you are willing to penalize your own family and others?
Your comments about healthcare in the United Kingdom were factually incorrect. Of course, President Obama is not proposing a UK health care system, so I am not sure why you are extending your hate to the UK NHS. You can continue to bash the UK system all you want but 1) the UK NHS is doing well, and 2) the UK NHS is not being proposed in the USA. You are very confused, Anonymous.
The NHS has been operating for 61 years (not 50) in the United Kingdom (not just Britain).
As of 2007, as an annual percentage of GDP, total expenditures on health care in the United Kingdom were 8.3% (15.3% in the USA.)
Hospital death rates are published in the United Kingdom, along with hospital rankings. People are free to choose among hospitals for service.
•The NHS is paid for by tax revenues.
•Compared to the U.S., the cost is approximately half of what Americans pay per person.
•The government owns the hospitals and the doctors are salaried, government employees. Doctors earn bonuses for keeping their patients healthy.
•There are waiting lists for some medical services in the United Kingdom, particularly elective care. Wait times vary in length, but waiting lists have fallen signicantly in recent years. Waiting lists were an issue in 2001.
•There is no medical bankruptcy in the United Kingdom.
•Patients can choose which hospital they use, so the hospitals compete -- not to make a profit -- but to survive.
•People go to a General Practitioner (a family doctor) before going to a specialist (in other words, the UK has a "gatekeeper" system)
•90% of people who use the NHS think it is good or excellent.
•Primary care and emergency care are very good.
.Residents are free to purchase private insurance as they see fit. About 19% have private policies, primarily for covering procedures beyond basic care, and most of the policies are provided by employers.
•The UK is a world leader in preventive medicine.
You have some interesting opinions there, Anonymous - all hate and no facts.
"1) the UK NHS is doing well"
You're joking, of course.
"President Obama is not proposing a UK health care system,"
Please explain in under a 1,000 pages what exactly Obama is proposing because he seems to change it at will. Also explain where the money comes from ?
"•90% of people who use the NHS think it is good or excellent."
Who conducted that poll ? "Good" compared with what ?
"People are free to choose among hospitals for service."
Only in their Healthcare region and only if beds are available...do try and do your homework if you're going to bombard us with this kind of cherry-picked data.
"You have some interesting opinions there, Anonymous - all hate and no facts."
So are you denying the fact that thousands of NHS patients die each year either through diseases contracted in hospitals or medical malpractice ?
What has "hate" got to do with anything? Try and grow up and don't be so laughingly predictable. Pointing out the downside of a system is not "hate" ....I know it may be confusing for you but you just have to accept that your's isn't the only viewpoint in the world (a difficult concept for a "liberal").
Anonymous - In a discussion, if you have a point to make, it is incumbent on YOU to go get your own data. So far, all you have provided is an unsubstantiated, undocumented public fuss, based on hate of liberals, hate of attorneys, and hate of Obama. We can all but see you spit when you use those terms. All your display is doing is to convince readers to not take you seriously.
Last week, ASD School Superintendent Carol Comeau had a similar experience when she personally answered phonecalls in which a few Anchorage parents described President Obama's speech to American schools as equivalent to Nazi propaganda. We do not need that kind of dangerous far-right-wing extremism in our community. If you want to take a public stand similar to the extremists who telephoned Superintendant Comeau, then your hate will be confronted by the rest of the Anchorage community. All you can expect is continuing dissapproval by the majority of our community.
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