Talking to Wingnutz

You Tell 'em, Senator Franks!

This is how it should be done. If there were a Talking To Wingnutz Prize, Barney Frank would win it hands down for the line, "on what planet do you spend most of your time?" He would also be runner-up in the same category for the comparison of the questioner to a dining room table.

Honorable mention would go to Rep. Rick Larsen (D - WA) for his now-famous line, "I've got the facts on my side, you've got Glenn Beck."

The Democrats WON the last two elections handily. They should use their position of power to marginalize the wingnutz at every opportunity.
Frankly, I love this stuff!

This woman probably came away from this meeting complaining that Senator Frank didn't take her seriously. Not so. If someone is talking out of their ass, this is HOW you treat them seriously. I mean really, the woman is carrying a sign depicting Barack Obama as Hitler, and she starts her question off with "Why do you continue to support a Nazi policy?" To acknowledge such an approach as being anything but straight out of the loony bin is to hand the conversation over to those who came straight out of the loony bin.

TAGS:
Republican Idiocy, Comparing People To Furniture, Teabaggers
Senator Barney Frank

Rachel Maddow Has Already Taken Down 60Plus.org, but there's one more little nugget...

Rachel Maddow has already exposed 60Plus.org's affiliation to Jack Abramoff. But there's a motive and some connections of 60Plus.org, that I wanted to explore, so I did some more digging.

The Ad: In case you haven't seen it. Clearly senior scare mongering -



Rachel Maddow's Take Down and Tie to Abramoff:



The 60Plus.org website:

60Plus.org would like to be known as "the conservative alternative to AARP." It's president is Jim Martin which you wouldn't know from the website itself; you'd need to do an advanced google search to dig up this bio-page:

Now Mr. Martin serves as the President of the 60 Plus Association, which has been called an "increasingly influential lobbying group for the elderly--often viewed as the conservative alternative to the American Association of Retired Persons."

60 Plus is a hard hitting organization dedicated to protecting the tax rights of seniors, and to repealing the most confiscatory of all taxes--the inheritance or estate (death) tax. Jim Martin has been quoted as saying that while there are two certainties in life, taxes and death, now, thanks to the death tax, Jim adds a third certainty--taxes after death. 60 Plus presents a Benjamin Franklin Award to Members of Congress in both parties who sponsor legislation to abolish the third certainty, taxes after death. Original sponsors are Rep. Chris Cox (R-CA) and Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ).

Pretty classy, hiding the leadership bio page, yes? So who would do that? Well, the firm that provides the technology and registered the domain names, and appears to host 60Plus.org's email servers might do it. And who would that be? Generation X Strategies, GXS.net. And who is GXS.net?

Why it's none other than the recently former head of the VA Republican Party, Jeff Frederick!

Amongst the list of GXS clients which I'd like to highlight are Media Research Center (Bozell's outfit) as well as the RNC and the Texas Christian Coalition. And what else is supercool is that GXS has procured some Federal and State government contracts, as well as a Minority Owned Business status by the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Jeff Frederick was ousted as the VA Republican Party Chair in April of this year, but prior to that, since July 8 1996, and up to today runs GXS services
for 60Plus.org, and then therefore powers the contribution technology at 60Plus.org's website, which is what this is all about. Money.

Abramoff (Shill-ius Maximus), Martin (Astroturfius Nastius), Frederick (Republicanus, Head of VA Party), PhRMA (Tauzin, probably hired because he has a drug sounding name) - probably all legal relationships, but they seem way too cozy to me. And the poor saps who are scared by this fearmongering ad have no idea that PhARMA doesn't need their help to keep their drug prices high, but Jim Martin and Jeff Frederick are really happy to facilitate the money exchange for them.

The icing on the cake? 60Plus.org's National Spokesman is Pat Boone. Yep, No More Mr. Nice Guy Pat Boone - and when you think about it, none of them in this tale are nice guys at all if you ask me.

TAGS: Astroturf, Republican Crime Syndicate, Jerks, Scaremongering

Maddow Uses Racial Slur Against AstroTurfers

Here's an interesting angle on the disruptive Town Hall Protesters.

Is Rachel Maddow Accusing
Conservatives of Being Mafiosi ?!?

In this clip about the Astro-turfing of opposition to, well everything liberal but mostly public health care, Rachel speaks of "an organization that promotes itself as non-parmesan but appears to be anything but." Just listen.

Who's Behind Health Care Disinformation?

(Complete clip is HERE)
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Now we all know what the Right Wing Wind Machine is going to say about this; that Rachel was cryptically accusing the town hall disruptors of being Italian, which is of course code for Sicilian*, which is code for (cue dramatic riff on pipe organ) THE MOB!!

Obviously the Republican Party and all affiliates mentioned in Rachel's bit will be suing Rachel for defamation of character. Rumor has it that they've already retained the same attorney who's representing Kenneth Gladney, the man who was allegedly beaten by SEIU thugs at a town hall meeting in St. Louis. Good luck with that, Ken; it passes neither the laugh test nor the smell test.

In other news the Italian Anti-Defamation League have announced that they too will be suing Rachel for having associated them with Republicans. I personally think they've got a much stronger case going forward.. These days you ask most people and the Mafia seem downright benign next to the Repugnicants.

In other other news, there has been no response from the Pastafarians as to whether they plan to sue anybody. Most of them seem to be keeping their yearly vigil in keen anticipation of the Second Helping prophesied in their holiest of holy books, known only as the Dinner Menu. Unlike other religions that fast during such times, the Pastafarians keep vigil while eating basket upon delicious basket of fresh garlic bread.

~~~~~~~~~~~
* - Sicilian: (footnote) I realize that the town of Parma, from whence Parmighiani, is in the Italian province of Tuscany, not in Sicily. However, that is what is referred to as a "well-known fact," and as such has no place in any conservative or Republican argument.

TAGS: Rachel Maddow, Town Hall Protests, Astroturfing, Kenneth Gladney

No Real Public Option?

We still have a long way to go, but Congress looks like they have no problem handing the president a piece of trash and call it heal care reform.

If they do Mr. President, you have to throw that bill away.

You put a couple of big tin garbage cans out on the White House lawn. Take the garbage legislation Congress is about to give you, and drop it in there. Then tell the country that between now and November 2010, you'll be campaigning for members of and candidates for Congress that will pass a public option or single payer health care reform. Starting with Max Baucus, you show up in the districts and states of every Democrat and Republican that would not allow Americans the right of health insurance. We would rather wait two MORE years than allow the lobbyists to pass a "bi-partisan" piece of turd that does nothing but make this country even more unhealthy and even more economically unjust.

And if that doesn't work, roll out the trash can again and try to pass proper reform in 2012 and keep on pushing until it gets done right.

UPDATE: Ezra Klein has an opposing view.

UPDATE 2: Jane Hamsher says that Ohio's Sherrod Brown and the progressives in the Senate will not give up on the public option so easily.

TAGS: Health Care Reform, Public Option, Barack Obama, Election 2010

Call It "Medicare for Everyone" And Just Get Over It Already

If you take this whole health care legislation thing seriously these days like I do, you should take 35 minutes and watch this piece from Bill Moyers.

BILL MOYERS: So why are you speaking out now?

WENDELL POTTER: I didn't intend to, until it became really clear to me that the industry is resorting to the same tactics they've used over the years, and particularly back in the early '90s, when they were leading the effort to kill the Clinton plan.

BILL MOYERS: But during this 15 years you were there, did you go to them and say, "You know, I think we're on the wrong side. I think we're fighting the wrong people here."

WENDELL POTTER: You know, I didn't, because for most of the time I was there, I felt that what we were doing was the right thing. And that I was playing on a team that was honorable. I just didn't really get it all that much until toward the end of my tenure at Cigna.

BILL MOYERS: What did you see?

WENDELL POTTER: Well, I was beginning to question what I was doing as the industry shifted from selling primarily managed care plans, to what they refer to as consumer-driven plans. And they're really plans that have very high deductibles, meaning that they're shifting a lot of the cost off health care from employers and insurers, insurance companies, to individuals. And a lot of people can't even afford to make their co-payments when they go get care, as a result of this. But it really took a trip back home to Tennessee for me to see exactly what is happening to so many Americans. I--

BILL MOYERS: When was this?

WENDELL POTTER: This was in July of 2007.

BILL MOYERS: You were still working for Cigna?

WENDELL POTTER: I was. I went home, to visit relatives. And I picked up the local newspaper and I saw that a health care expedition was being held a few miles up the road, in Wise, Virginia. And I was intrigued.

BILL MOYERS: So you drove there?

WENDELL POTTER: I did. I borrowed my dad's car and drove up 50 miles up the road to Wise, Virginia. It was being held at a Wise County Fairground. I took my camera. I took some pictures. It was a very cloudy, misty day, it was raining that day, and I walked through the fairground gates. And I didn't know what to expect. I just assumed that it would be, you know, like a health-- booths set up and people just getting their blood pressure checked and things like that.

But what I saw were doctors who were set up to provide care in animal stalls. Or they'd erected tents, to care for people. I mean, there was no privacy. In some cases-- and I've got some pictures of people being treated on gurneys, on rain-soaked pavement.

And I saw people lined up, standing in line or sitting in these long, long lines, waiting to get care. People drove from South Carolina and Georgia and Kentucky, Tennessee-- all over the region, because they knew that this was being done. A lot of them heard about it from word of mouth.

There could have been people and probably were people that I had grown up with. They could have been people who grew up at the house down the road, in the house down the road from me. And that made it real to me.

BILL MOYERS: What did you think?

WENDELL POTTER: It was absolutely stunning. It was like being hit by lightning. It was almost-- what country am I in? I just it just didn't seem to be a possibility that I was in the United States. It was like a lightning bolt had hit me.

BILL MOYERS: People are going to say, "How can Wendell Potter sit here and say he was just finding out that there were a lot of Americans who didn't have adequate insurance and needed health care? He'd been in the industry for over 15 years."

WENDELL POTTER: And that was my problem. I had been in the industry and I'd risen up in the ranks. And I had a great job. And I had a terrific office in a high-rise building in Philadelphia. I was insulated. I didn't really see what was going on. I saw the data. I knew that 47 million people were uninsured, but I didn't put faces with that number.

Just a few weeks later though, I was back in Philadelphia and I would often fly on a corporate aircraft to go to meetings.

And I just thought that was a great way to travel. It is a great way to travel. You're sitting in a luxurious corporate jet, leather seats, very spacious. And I was served my lunch by a flight attendant who brought my lunch on a gold-rimmed plate. And she handed me gold-plated silverware to eat it with. And then I remembered the people that I had seen in Wise County. Undoubtedly, they had no idea that this went on, at the corporate levels of health insurance companies.

BILL MOYERS: But you had, all these years, seen premiums rising. People purged from the rolls, people who couldn't afford the health care that Cigna and other companies were offering. This is the first time you came face to face with it?

WENDELL POTTER: Yeah, it was. You know, certainly, I knew people, and I talked to people who were uninsured. But when you're in the executive offices, when you're getting prepared for a call with an analyst, in the financial medium, what you think about are the numbers. You don't think about individual people. You think about the numbers, and whether or not you're going to meet Wall Street's expectations. That's what you think about, at that level. And it helps to think that way. That's why you-- that enables you to stay there, if you don't really think that you're talking about and dealing with real human beings.

BILL MOYERS: Did you go back to corporate headquarters and tell them what you had seen?

WENDELL POTTER: I went back to corporate headquarters. I was trying to process all this, and trying to figure out what I should do. I did tell many of them about the experience I had. And the trip. I showed them some pictures I took while I was down there. But I didn't know exactly what I should do.

You know, I had bills of my own. And it was hard to just figure out. How do I step away from this? What do I do? And this was one of those things that made me decide, "Okay, I can't do this. I can't keep-- I can't." One of the books I read as I was trying to make up my mind here was President Kennedy's "Profiles in Courage."

And in the forward, Robert Kennedy said that one of the president's, one of his favorite quotes was a Dante quote that, "The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of moral crisis, maintain a neutrality." And when I read that, I said, "Oh, jeez, I-- you know. I'm headed for that hottest place in hell, unless I say something."

BILL MOYERS: Your own resume says, and I'm quoting. "With the chief medical officer and his staff, Potter developed rapid response mechanisms for handling media inquiries pertaining to complaints." Direct quote. "This was highly successful in keeping most such inquiries from becoming news stories, at a time when managed care horror stories abounded." I mean, you knew there were horror stories out there.

WENDELL POTTER: I did. I did.

BILL MOYERS: You put these techniques to work, representing Cigna doing the Nataline Sarkisyan case, right?

WENDELL POTTER: That's right.

BILL MOYERS: And that was a public relations nightmare, you called it. Right?

WENDELL POTTER: It was. It was just the most difficult. We call them high profile cases, when you have a case like that — a family or a patient goes to the news media and complains about having some coverage denied that a doctor had recommended. In this case, Nataline Sarkisyan's doctors at UCLA had recommended that she have a liver transplant. But when the coverage request was reviewed at Cigna, the decision was made to deny it.

It was around that time, also, that the family had gone to the media, had sought out help from the California Nurses Association and some others to really bring pressure to bear on Cigna. And they were very successful in getting a lot of media attention, and nothing like I had ever seen before.

[PROTESTERS: Shame on Cigna! Shame on Cigna!]

WENDELL POTTER: It got everyone's attention. Everyone was focused on that in the corporate offices.

BILL MOYERS: You were also involved in the campaign by the industry to discredit Michael Moore and his film "Sicko" in 2007. In that film Moore went to several countries around the world, and reported that their health care system was better than our health care system, in particular, Canada and England. Take a look at this.

[snip]

MICHAEL MOORE: Even with insurance, there's bound to be a bill somewhere. So where's the billing department?

BRITISH WOMAN #1: There isn't really a billing department.

BRITISH WOMAN #2: There's no such thing as a billing department.

MICHAEL MOORE: What did they charge you for that baby?

BRITISH WOMAN #3: Sorry?

MICHAEL MOORE: You've got to pay before you can get out of here, right?

BRITISH WOMAN #3: No.

BRITISH MAN #1: No, no, no. Everything's on NHS.

BRITISH WOMAN #3: This is NHS.

BRITISH MAN #1: You know, it's not America.

BILL MOYERS: So what did you think when you saw that film?

WENDELL POTTER: I thought that he hit the nail on the head with his movie. But the industry, from the moment that the industry learned that Michael Moore was taking on the health care industry, it was really concerned.

BILL MOYERS: What were they afraid of?

WENDELL POTTER: They were afraid that people would believe Michael Moore.

BILL MOYERS: We obtained a copy of the game plan that was adopted by the industry's trade association, AHIP. And it spells out the industry strategies in gold letters. It says, "Highlight horror stories of government-run systems." What was that about?

WENDELL POTTER: The industry has always tried to make Americans think that government-run systems are the worst thing that could possibly happen to them, that if you even consider that, you're heading down on the slippery slope towards socialism. So they have used scare tactics for years and years and years, to keep that from happening. If there were a broader program like our Medicare program, it could potentially reduce the profits of these big companies. So that is their biggest concern.

So let's do this:

Call it "Medicare for Everyone", which every American will understand instantly and not connect it with some dumb fuck idea of socialism, and let the HealthCareProvider CEOs pee their fucking pants.

Interview, Part One

Interview, Part Two

Bearing the Fruit of Fascist Theocracy

To protect citizen's health care rights, Washington state regulators ruled that pharmacists may not refuse to dispense any medication based on personal convictions. In Washington state, a pharmacy owner and two pharmacists sued the Washington State Department of Health because the ruling infringed on their right to deny any medication based on their personal beliefs.

In this case, the pharmacists have issues with "Plan B", the "morning after" birth control pill.

Plan B works by using high doses of common birth control medication to prevent implantation of a fertilized egg. Opponents regard it as a form of abortion. It is not the same as RU-486, the so called "abortion pill", and has no effect if a woman is already pregnant.

To my seemingly never ending irritation, these rogue pharmacists equate birth control with abortion, to which they seek to prevent access. I have already shared my views on abortion. Preventing access to legal birth control should be, in my view, illegal.

Last week a federal judge suspended the rule, to the delight of the rebel pharmacists who claimed it had violated their religious freedoms to obstruct women's ability to purchase critical medications in a safe and legal manner.

A preliminary injunction granted by U.S. District Judge Ronald B. Leighton prevents the state from disciplining pharmacists who refuse to dispense the medication, known as Plan B, as long as they immediately refer patients to nearby sources.

By allowing pharmacists to delay medication, the injunction enables pharmacists to render the medication ineffective:

The injunction creates a system in which pharmacists can refuse to fill a request for Plan B if they refer customers to a nearby source. But that could effectively deny the drugs completely to residents in rural areas, said Jet Tilley, spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of the Inland Northwest. Advocates argue that women must have access to the medication as soon as possible for it to be effective.

Does this mean that rural women who are denied "Plan B" medication based on a pharmacist's personal conviction, are sent to look for legal medication elsewhere, try but are unable to obtain their legal medication in time for it to be effective, can sue the rogue pharmacist and pharmacy for 18 years of child support? I want to know the answer to that.

Fortunately, State Senator, Karen Keiser, D-Kent, is working to propose legislation that will prohibit pharmacists from denying access to legal medications.

As much as these events anger me, they fit right in with the "rampant sexism" that is institutionally supported by the Bush administration. Under Bush:

W. David Hager chairman of the FDA's Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee does not prescribe contraceptives for single women, does not do abortions, will not prescribe RU-486 and will not insert IUDs. Hager believes that headaches, PMS and eating disorders can be cured by reading Scripture.

Predictably, Bush's FDA has been up to some real monkey business thwarting the makers of Plan-B in their quest for over-the-counter approval:

David Muir's report on the "morning-after" pill, or Plan B, on ABC's World News Tonight, included a conservative group's claim that allowing sales of the pill without a prescription would be unsafe, but provided no scientific evidence to support the claim, while omitting the fact that Food and Drug Administration (FDA) staff scientists and outside advisory panels have recommended that the FDA approve allowing over-the-counter sales.

And articles that confuse the whole issue don't help either:

And because Plan B can now be sold over the counter to most women and men 18 or older, he said, most people can get it without a pharmacist.

Excuse me but...the drug has been approved for sale, without a prescription, behind the counter, by pharmacists, to women who can prove they are at least 18 years of age--approval that this injunction allows pharmacists to ignore.

Welcome to Bush's Fascist Theocracy; we're soaking in it.

---

Thanks to my friend, Green Libertarian, who passed this news story along to me. I won't even mention what Ellie passed along. With friends like these, the rage never ends... peace.

TAGS: Plan B, Abortion, Health Care, Birth Control, Access, Reproductive Rights, Women's Rights, Karen Keiser, Medication, Pharmacist Rights

Stark Ain't Apologizing

Or, What Exactly Is Bush Laughing At?

UPDATE: Stark apologized.
UPDATE 2: Jane Hamsher salutes Nancy Pelosi for making poor Pete Stark bow his head. The salute was with one finger. Guess which one.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued a statement Friday evening rebuking fellow San Francisco Bay-area Representative Pete Stark for comments he made about the President during a debate on children's health care Thursday.

Strak's statement is certainly strong political rhetoric. In the past Democrats have certainly apologized for less. Republicans have refused to apologize for more, so maybe we split the difference on this one.

Listen to what Stark said in full because as the update to this Mahablog post explains, there's some confusion



Stark's not apologizing no matter what Nancy Pelosi says. In fact he says that his critics should apologize and give children health care.

Certainly Stark asked for trouble by claiming President Bush is amused by sending soldiers to get their heads blown off. There's no proof of that. The President is always laughing, in that Beavis and Butthead way of his, but no one can substantiate what he's laughing at, so it was probably unwise for Stark to speculate.

Digby at Hullabaloo thinks that the right wing might be exaggerating their outrage a bit because they have the political equivalent of battered wife syndrome.

Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks has a message for Democrats--"Stop Apologizing".

TAGS: Pete Stark, Digby, Iraq War, S-CHIP

Chemical Love

Frankly, there is so much going on in the world to anger me, it really doesn't matter what topic I land on; I'm enraged. Here's another one:

Dangerous chemicals in personal care products compromise health. It's true. And the active ingredient in antibacterial soap is chemically similar to Agent Orange. (You're soaking in it...) That's right, you thought you bought a ticket to the Land Free of Germs, but you actually took a ride on the Nerve Damage Express. And it's not just antibac soap, but shampoo, too. But wait, there's more...

Mark Schapiro has written a book, Exposed: the Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products. It's on my reading list. From what I have read about the book so far, here's the thrust:

The argument advanced by U.S. industry that making products safer would destroy our economy is a big fat life. (I'M SHOCKED!) That many American and international companies produce two product lines--a hazard free product line for the EU, and a toxic line for the US and developing countries--is the roiling revelation. That the EU economy didn't collapse after such toxic chemicals were banned is the evidence "calling the bluff" of U.S. industry.

Investigative journalist Mark Schapiro discusses why companies that manufacture hazard-free products for the European Union often produce toxin-filled versions of the same items for America and developing countries.

Photo by AtomicMak

Great news. Yes, Democracy, our Democracy, allows us to buy this poison, in both senses of the phrase.

Why is that? Why does the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act allow the industry to police itself?

Why do we worry about toxic products from China, but give American toxic products a free pass?

Why are we (i.e., the Fraud and Drug Administration) willing to protect the public, but only if it doesn't impede the profit of our corporations?

Why do we keep letting American corporations get away with sacrificing our health and safety? (Read this list; it will kill you.)

Why do we do this when we know children are particularly vulnerable?

And congress is going to represent our interests? Ha! Like when the senate voted to protect drug companies' right to hold a monopoly?

What could have prompted these 49 Senators to vote to protect the profits of drug companies? Follow the money and you'll find your answer. As it turns out, nearly every one of the 49 Senators who voted against drug reimportation has accepted money from drug companies.

Some helpful resources:

• Here's a nice overview (from the UK, btw) of some of the more problematic ingredients.

• Skin Deep Cosmetic Safety Database, by Environmental Working Group, lets you look up individual Cosmetic products and provides a hazard rating for ingredients, products, and companies. Try it; you will not be comforted.
  

• The Household Products Database, hosted by the US National Library of Medicine, can be used to look up the safety of individual chemical ingredients as well as that of products by brand.
  

• Delicious Organics shares tips for reducing exposures to industrial chemicals and safety information about a LONG list of chemicals.

• The Cancer Prevention Coalition has a succinct health-focused summary of cosmetics, industry, vulnerability, and ways to safeguard our health.

Things that make my soft skin crawl.

Lou knew...


TAGS: Health Care, Green, Consumer Safety, Toxic Chemicals, Personal Products, Lou Reed

Reality of the Working Poor vs. Mitt

This is going to be a bit of a raw post.

Go to The Washington Post's, 'The Trail' ("a daily diary of campaign 2008') and watch the video of a waitress at the Red Arrow in Manchester, NH, who managed to confront Mitt Romney regarding health care. She became a bit testy while Mitt was rambling on about how he envisioned 'the world looking to the U.S. for health care.' There was something about 'Muslim nations' he threw in as well that I'm not real sure about. At any rate, this working woman has health care. Both she & her husband work. What she illustrates are the costs of their health care. The cost of having insurance, the deductible, the copay for office visits, the copay for medications.

I was looking for some kind of explanation of certain points Romney made during his little foray to the Red Arrow diner, but there's little about his talking points in the article. For instance, he asserts this:

We found it cost us more money to be giving free care out at hospitals than to help people buy their own private care," Romney said, sweating a bit by this point.

So I began a bit of looking around the various tubes of 'The Internets' and ran across an opinion piece published in the Wall Street Journal. Sure enough Romney explains his program and its workings for residents where he is governor, Massachusetts. However within it, I found this little paragraph interesting.

When I took up Tom's challenge, I assembled a team from business, academia and government and asked them first to find out who was uninsured, and why. What they found was surprising. Some 20% of the state's uninsured population qualified for Medicaid but had never signed up. So we built and installed an Internet portal for our hospitals and clinics: When uninsured individuals show up for treatment, we enter their data online. If they qualify for Medicaid, they're enrolled. (My bold)

Moore Takes On Blitzer

"Why Don't You Tell the Truth to the American People?"

First I was going to blog about this, then I wasn't, because I saw Station Agent already had a piece up at his place, then I saw some points that other people had missed. You can watch the exchange between Michael Moore and Wolf Blitzer (on CNN's The Situation Room) at Ice Station Tango, but Alternet has a vid that includes the piece by Dr. Sanjay Gupta that led to Moore's ire, links to Moore's site where he defends SICKo against Gupta's attack, and follow up video with Moore and Gupta on Larry King. A fantastic job from Alternet, who had this to say,

He [Moore] has...been ahead of the curve on Walter Reed, the War in Iraq, gun violence, and a host of other issues and all these networks and talking heads can do is try to pick apart his work to "expose" how he's somehow "fudged the facts", always ignoring how incredibly right he has been and continues to be about our American condition. We all love to see Wolf Blitzer (who tirelessly defends CNN medical "expert" Sanjay Gupta) taken down a peg, but the video to your right is really about the whole mainstream media getting called out on their bullshit, which makes it so much more satisfying. Naturally smug bigots like Lou Dobbs act amused by what they consider Moore's "act".

So, if Alternet did such a fantastic job, what could yours truly possibly have to add? Just a couple points I'd like to highlight from the videos. First, from the 'reality check' of SICKo. Dr. Sanjay's voiceover says, "Moore presents a lot of facts throughout the movie. But do they all check out? Keeping them honest, we did some digging." I'd just like to restate MM's point again based on that quote. When, pray tell, has CNN or anyone else in the Corporate Owned Media (COM) ever done some digging to keep the Republican Administration honest? It seems that they have two sets of journalistic standards, one for the left and one for the right. Kind of a reflection of what the Bush 'Justice' system has become, with one standard for the administration and one for everyone else. It's about time that the media itself had someone keeping them honest on the airwaves. (They've always had it on the internet, at Media Matters.)

My second point is from the exchange between Moore and Blitzer, where MM finally gets the Wolf to admit out loud what CNN's standards have devolved to, "We have commercials, this is a business obviously." That's his best defense against Moore's criticism of CNN's coverage. He can't even claim that they are not biased, but offers this up as an explanation.For him to blatantly admit that the content of a news program is influenced by the will of the sponsors says a lot, none of it good.

Wolf Blitzer is nothing more than a spewing piehole, who says what ever he is paid to say, with less credibility than a sideshow barker at a cheap carnival inviting you into a tent to see a two-headed dog.*

My final point is that the Canadian health care system is a lot better than it is portrayed in the US, even by Moore. Wait times are high sometimes, but here is the critical difference. In Canada, the length of time you have to wait for a procedure is mainly based on how serious your condition is. If you need lifesaving surgery RIGHT NOW where I live, they will put you on a helicopter and fly you to Toronto if need be (about 100 miles) RIGHT NOW if the surgery can't be performed locally. And the government will pay for the whole thing, including the helicopter. If you've got a boil on your ass, the details of that story may change, it's true.

In the US, your wait time has little to do with the nature of your medical condition, and a lot to do with how much money you have, and how much you have invested in health insurance. If you are not covered, your wait time could be THE REST OF YOUR (short) LIFE. With over 45 million Americans having no insurance whatsoever, and over half of the rest being underinsured I would say that's a big difference. I told the tale of a Canadian friend of mine who had serious medical issues in A Personal Story back in January, and that was contrasted by this guest post from Kristen Hannum At Our Expense. Kristen's sad experience (her brother died, more from being uninsured than from his underlying condition, an inflamed appendix) led her to start Ave Cassandra, one of the best single-issue blogs there is. If you are interested in the issue of health care in America, bookmark that site.

* The real reason I had to put up this post. I came up with this great line, and I couldn't just use it in comments on another blog, now could I?

TAGS: Michael Moore, SICKo, Health Care, Media Bias, Wolf Blister

The Iraq News

Boxer on Troop Love, Cheney at AIPAC, Walter Reed Fallout, Pentagon Admits "Elements" of Civil War, More

Senator Barbara Boxer called on the Republicans to "love the troops" in her speech introducing the failed measure to remove troops from Iraq. Among other things, Boxer said:

[W]hen you love the troops, you don't send them back into combat with post-traumatic stress and a bottle of antidepressants. You don't do it. Tragically, we know this is happening.

Of course, Dick Cheney's despicable display at the AIPAC conference earlier this week shows that the GOP has no plans to stop trying to con the public into believing that the opposition party is the one who is against the troops, while the stark truth pours out of the rat's nest that is our veteran's health care system. It goes way beyond Walter Reed.

Here's some more Iraq News:

• The Pentagon finally admits that "elements" of a civil war exist in Iraq. Elements? Elements! You stupid twits! Why is it that we have these stupid, drawn out semantic arguments that always result in the administration eventually conceding the point months or even years later? Next year they'll blame the democrats for allowing the civil war to happen.
• The Japanese people no longer care to support the War in Iraq.
• The Senate shot down a proposal to end the war in one year.
• Are we headed for a trillion dollar defense budget? Give you fifty guesses.
• Taylor Marsh believes that Hillary Clinton's latest stance on Iraq is her actual belief about the war.

AUDIO: Minnesota Public Radio broadcast, "Beyond Walter Reed".
VIDEO: BBC reports on the Brits own veterans' health care issues.
VIDEO: Joe Biden gives a scathing speech on the floor of the Senate. Biden's plan to end the war works for me, yet the make believe Bush policy continues.
VIDEO: Joe Scarborough talks to Paul Rieckhoff, Executive Director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), about failures in the veteran care system.
VIDEO: Trailer for the film The Prisoner, or, How I Planned To Kill Tony Blair.


Crossposted at Ice Station Tango.

TAGS: Iraq War, Walter Reed, Dick Cheney, Health Care

On Our Knees: Paying and Waiting for Surgery

So again, what is it with the Canadians and knee surgery?

Their knee surgery rates are up 20 percent in 2005-2006 from the previous year.

Here in the United States, single-payer activists hear about Canadians’ waits for knee surgery on an almost daily basis. “Socialized medicine” critics offer up images of entire provinces of crippled Canadians languishing on decades-long waiting lists.

Don’t get me wrong. I understand that knee and hip surgeries are quality-of-life-savers.

My grandmother, who lived alone in the house she’d lived in since the 1930s, fell off her back porch on New Years Eve in the late 1980s. She came to with her foot next to her head. She dragged herself up the stairs, back into the house, through her kitchen and to the phone in the livingroom. But she was never the same afterwards — something that doctors say is often the case for seniors after breaking a hip.

When the actually-elected President Bush had his hip surgery, CNN quoted a doctor saying, “Some patients can't walk from a chair to a bed, but with surgery we can make them almost normal and take away their pain."

So for the sake of those who need it, I’m glad the Canadian prime minister and provincial premiers targeted hip and knee surgery as being two of the country’s five “priority” surgeries — reducing waiting times by increasing surgeries. But I’m also thankful because those waits gave ammunition to the enemies of equitable healthcare in the States — leaving people like me sputtering that no system can possibly be perfect, considering that humans are in charge, but that Canada is doing a lot better than we are.

CNN noted that the cost of a hip replacement was $25,000 in the U.S. in 2000:

A major study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1996 found the operation was cost effective. It found the average lifetime savings of a hip replacement is $117,000. The difference is largely due to savings in nursing care.

“Unless, of course,” muses the health insurance CEO, “you simply eliminate the nursing care...”

That increase in surgeries in Canada was part of a $41 billion agreement between the provinces and the national government that brought wait times down by 20 percent in Ontario, according to a Globe and Mail story.

Some Canadians travel abroad for surgery instead of waiting. Bob McDonnell, a high-school teacher, decided to have his surgery done in “the popular medical tourist destination” of Chennai, India.

He paid $7,000, plus $4,000 travel expenses.

The Ontario government reimbursed McDonnell for his surgery, but not for travel and lodging. Seems like he should have been reimbursed for that as well, since he was looking at a wait of two and a half years in Ontario.

However, waiting times vary widely, with the queue at St. Joseph's Health Care, London, being the shortest in the province, with 90 per cent of patients obtaining their hip-replacement surgery in 41 days. Compare that to Lakeridge Health Corporation in Oshawa, where Mr. McDonnell was queued: 90 per cent of patients had their surgery done in 370 days, during the same period.

SadButTrue, an Unruly Mobster who is also over at Friendly Neighbour, notes that it would be interesting to compare the out of pocket costs for hip-replacement patients on either side of the border.

It would also be interesting to learn how many Americans simply don't get the surgery because of costs. The biggest medical tourism company, MedRetreat, is U.S.-based. Don’t think those Indian surgeons do knee surgery only on Canadians — and other surgeries as well.

MedRetreat sends customers to Brazil, India, South Africa, Thailand, Malaysia, and Agentina. They say:

Incredible Savings Why do people travel abroad to undergo medical procedures? The answer is simple...Affordable healthcare. Not to mention a little peaceful relaxation in complete anonymity.

Alain Enthoven, senior fellow at the Center for Health Policy in Stanford, Calif., tells The Christian Science Monitor that "Global healthcare is coming and American healthcare, which is pricing itself out of reach, needs to know there are alternatives…"

The number of Americans heading overseas for care is just part of the country's healthcare crisis. The National Coalition on Health Care (NCHC) says that employers' health insurance premiums have risen 73 percent and average employee contributions have risen 143 percent since 2000. I've seen higher numbers, more than 85 percent for employers. The Monitor reports that rising costs stem from poor management, inefficiences, waste, fraud, and lack of competition — or at least that's true according to "critics."

(And what do "fans" of U.S. healthcare say? And why do mainstream reporters always feel they have to coach truths in terms of what "critics" say?)

Going overseas for expensive medical services, such as heart bypass surgery, cuts into U.S. hospitals profit centers - such as heart units - that underwrite emergency rooms and indigent care. "[Global healthcare] will limit the amount of money that's available for everybody else to have access to the system and starts to jeopardize access to healthcare for everybody in the community," says Don Dalton, a spokesman for the North Carolina Hospital Association.

The Americans oblivious to this are still the politicians, many of whom — ex-presidents and Indiana lawmakers, for instance — enjoy gold-plated coverage for life. Now if it's good enough for public servants, wouldn't it be good enough for average citizens too?

Kristen Hannum blogs regularly on health care issues at Ave Cassandra

TAGS: Canadian Health Care, US Health Care, Knee Surgery, Medical Travel

Charity Rejects Donation from Strippers

Breast Cancer Society of Canada Says Money Not Good Enough

Out of the goodness of their hearts, a group of strippers in Vancouver B.C. called Exotic Dancers for Cancer have put on a special show at the Drake Hotel in Vancouver for the past few years to raise money to fight breast cancer. Only thing is, the recipient Breast Cancer Society of Canada has turned down the money, even though they accepted a $3,000 donation last year. As The Vancouver Sun explains,

" 'Our bottom line was that any woman can get breast cancer. It doesn't matter what they do, what their profession is,' Rany Xanthopoulo, the executive director of the BCSC, said at the time."

So what's different this year? This from (The Vancouver) Courier.com:

"In a letter to [organizer Trina] Ricketts, the society's executive director Rany Xanthopoulo, wrote: 'Unfortunately we will have to decline your kind offer as we have certain major donors that are not in favour of this connection. This decision came as a result of donor disgruntlement and together with the board of directors we have decided not to accept any donations from what donors consider controversial sources.' "

As it happens, I used to work as a musician in the very kind of bars that hire strippers, and often had them living across the hall. They are not, as some people assume, turning tricks on the side, and in my personal experience they are no less 'moral' than any other women. Quite often they are single mothers trying to raise their children, or students raising tuition for their university education. Just ordinary people who happen to look very good naked. And is there anything wrong with that?

Should you doubt their sincerity, they have another organization called Naked Truth, and discussed this issue on their Forum Page. They also do shows to raise funds for Prostitution Alternatives Counseling and Education (PACE) Society, a sex worker advocacy group in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. So they are actively working to get women out of the sex trade and away from the drug addiction and exploitation that often accompanies it. Good for them.

As for the BCSC, I have to agree with the Sun on this one,

"Shame on them and shame on the Breast Cancer Society for caving to this prejudice against these women who are as vulnerable to the disease as anyone else and who are trying to do some good.. ..Last year the Breast Cancer Society got it right. Breast cancer does not discriminate. Neither should it."

TAGS: Strippers, Charity, Pole Dancers

At Our Expense

Through a Mirror Darkly

SadButTrue's story about the much-maligned Canadian health care system saving the life of a friend with lymphoma has its dark mirror in my brother Paul's story.

Paul died this past summer, one of more than 18,000 Americans who die every year whose deaths can be linked to their lack of health insurance. That makes it the sixth leading cause of death for people between the ages of 25 and 64 in the United States. That's the equivalent of six 9/11s every year. And it's just as senseless.
I've begun sharing Paul's story, and news regarding health care reform in the United States, at my blog, Ave Cassandra. I'm grateful for the opportunity to share it here at Les Enragés as well.

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It was the last Sunday in July, and Paul thought he'd eaten something bad. Or maybe it was the stomach flu.

The next day my other brother Curtis stopped by to find Paul curled up on the couch worrying about whether it would be less expensive in the long run to go to an emergency room or to a doctor.

Self-employed and with a baby on the way Paul could not afford decent health insurance for himself, although he made sure his pregnant fiancée and their baby were covered. The most recent numbers for California show that health insurance for a family of four averages about $11,860 annually.

Paul was a hard-working photographer, caterer, and film-maker — he played "Snake" in "The Real Old Testament," a mockumentary he created together with Curtis that won awards at film festivals around the world.

Tuesday at dawn, he and Sarah finally went in to the nearby UCLA Santa Monica Medical Center. Classic appendicitis. But when they gave him a CAT-scan the doctor decided it looked more like diverticulitis.

Although Paul had been vomiting for two days, they sent him home early in the afternoon with antibiotics he couldn't keep down and advice to follow up at the county hospital, in a far-away and unfamiliar part of town.

Standard procedure, we've been told, would have been to admit Paul, since diverticulitis and appendicitis are so easily misdiagnosed for one another, and because that mistake can be deadly.

Sarah brought Paul back to the Santa Monica medical center late Tuesday night.

They gave him another CAT-scan and talked some more about transferring him to county.

They evidently did not compare the two CAT-scans, which showed a dramatic and frightening disintegration of Paul's condition. If they had, the surgeon told us, surely he would have been rushed into surgery. Studies show that the uninsured do not get as good care in American hospitals as do insured people.

Paul finally went into surgery Wednesday mid-morning. His ruptured appendix was the worst the surgeon had ever seen. Paul died, at age 45, a little after midnight, on Thursday, August 3, 2006.

I cannot explain how much we miss him. We were not ready to say good-bye.

His baby daughter was born this autumn.

We so need universal health care in this country. Paul shouldn't have died.

Paul's widow has spent months beating herself up about why she didn't insist, in the face of his balking, on him going to the hospital. But how could she have known? We've all learned to turn away from those what ifs. When my husband reported to me — calling from visiting L.A. from Denver — that Paul and Sarah had canceled dinner due to some kind of food poisoning or something, why didn't I call? Maybe I would have realized it was more than something he ate. My husband kept saying after Paul died that he should have insisted on going over, that he might have realized it was appendicitis, seeing as he'd had it himself a few years back. Paul's symptoms were classic.

And all the if onlys in the world won't bring Paul back.

Americans need health care reform. Our lives depend on it. We deserve to join the rest of the developed world and provide our citizens affordable, basic health care. We're already paying for it, after all.

Every other industrialized country in the world spends far less per person on health care than we do in the United States. And they cover everyone. Their outcomes for many medical conditions are better than ours. Their life expectancy is longer and infant mortality rates are lower. Their people see doctors more frequently. Waits for surgery, depending upon the country, are less than ours. They are more likely to have had the same doctor for more than five years. Far greater percentages of them are satisfied with their national health care.

Even the supposedly beleaguered Canadians, with their under-funded system, say they're more satisfied. Only 8 percent say they’d trade theirs for ours.

The time is right for the United States to legislate universal health care. We can't allow ourselves to be swayed by the expensive television ads designed to frighten us. The health care industry is the single biggest lobbyist on Capital Hill. In the years leading up to 2003, the ten top pharmaceutical companies made more in profits than the other 490 Fortune 500 companies combined. There’s a lot of money at stake.

But a look at Sweden, France, Italy, Germany, and every other industrialized country should reassure us. Universal healthcare isn’t frightening.

The scary thing is already here. And it's at our expense.

Here's an excerpt from the song that a friend composed and sang at Paul's memorial:

Someone's having fun and it seems at our expense...

the things you don't need, you can always hold and touch
and the ones that disappear are the ones that mean so much
and its so funny we're in tears
and will be for years and years
no lesson learned, no wisdom gained
it's so funny that we're in pain

though every story is a treasure, and every memory gold
we'd trade them all away to watch our friend grow old
so he could laugh once again at the absurdity of life
and be a father and a husband to his daughter and his wife...

TAGS: Health Care, Reform, Urgent, Vital

A Personal Story

This piece is in response to a must-read Paul Krugman article in the New York Times, available at Jurassic Pork's site (he who cuts the velvet rope of NYT select - thanks.)

"The U.S. health care system is a scandal and a disgrace. But maybe, just maybe, 2007 will be the year we start the move toward universal coverage.

In 2005, almost 47 million Americans — including more than 8 million children — were uninsured, and many more had inadequate insurance."

Up here in Canada we have a universal, single payer health care system that puts the needs of ordinary citizens above the desires of a few insurance executives to become obscenely wealthy. I have seen the Canadian system criticized harshly in various American forums or rather, I've seen our system misrepresented and the misrepresentation harshly criticized. Conservatives love using the straw man argument, don't they?

Here's my personal story. My best friend was diagnosed with lymphoma in 1997 and told the odds were he wouldn't last a year. I'm happy to say he bucked those odds and is still alive now. He didn't know he had lymphoma until some time after his first medical crisis, when one of his lungs spontaneously collapsed. His wife decided not to wait for an ambulance, just bundled him into the car and broke every traffic law getting him to the emergency ward as fast as possible. Which, the doctors told her, saved his life. After reinflating his lung, the docs decided he should stay in the hospital for further observation. The next day his other lung collapsed. The doctors said that, had he not already been in the hospital, this second crisis would have been fatal. Later still his spleen ruptured. This time the doctors told him he was lucky it happened during the daytime, because the necessary staff that saved him were not available on the night shift. All in all, my friend is one very lucky person.

I don't tell this story to demonstrate the often unsung excellence of our system, though it does just that. The point is this. I was recently talking to his wife about this, and saying how much worse off they would have been had this happened in the USA. The financial burden would have destroyed them, they probably would have lost their home, as rising premiums and uncovered deductibles ate away at their livelihood. But she figures it would have been much worse than that. In America, the wealthiest country in the world, there would have been a 27% chance that she would not have taken her husband to the hospital immediately in the first place, out of concern for the expense. Or so one of the oncologists told her.

If you really need emergency medical treatment, you need it RIGHT NOW, dammit. Not after filling out a bunch of forms, not after confirming that your plan is paid up. What are the odds that an HMO would have quibbled over the cost of the medically necessary period of hospital observation that saved his life at least twice in the first week after his initial crisis? Or that some bean-counter vetoed a necessary aspect of treatment due to a lawyer's interpretation of paragraph 117, subsection 3 in the contract? In nine years, there have been dozens of times when my friend, had he lived in the USA, could have been killed by an accountant. This is unacceptable.

Consider health care reform a priority. Your life could very well depend on it.

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Update: A kind reader has consented to tell her brother's story, which is the direct corollary to this one, HERE.

Cross-posted at Ice Station Tango and Friendly Neighbour
TAGS: Health Care, Canada, HMO, Crisis