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Look McCain, You Lost. So STFU!

Dec 13th, 2009
by Tom.
3 comments

Re: The GOP’s New Health-Care Hoax – Page 1 – The Daily Beast

The Bush twins

It’s no surprise that Republicans want to halt the march to historic health-care reform with any calumny they can muster. But their latest attack on the new Senate deal—the charge that allowing Americans aged 55 to 64 to buy into Medicare would lead the country to a single-payer system—is as laughable as it is misguided. It’s ironic that this shameful stone is being hurled by the nation’s most prominent life-long recipient of government-run health care: John McCain.

McCain’s invocation of the single-payer libel is particularly galling, since he’s been on government-run health care practically his entire adult life.

McCain is saying that the the Senate health compromise would lead to a single-payer system. I ask, what’s the downside to that? The health insurance industry should go away like the way cheap Chinese labor killed millions of American jobs. No one in congress screamed about that, did they? The health care industry has been a ruthless overlord of the people’s health for too long. It is time that we the people took control. We need single-payer now.

…Democrats have struggled to expand coverage, boost quality, and craft reforms that could bend the cost curve over time. In other words, Democrats have been struggling to govern. Republicans, by contrast, sit back and take pot shots at whatever emerges, giddy with the freedom that comes from having no responsibility for anything but their own thirst to return to power. A week ago, Republicans were against cutting Medicare, saying it would endanger senior citizens, and now they’re against expanding it. If you see no way to bridge these two views besides political opportunism, you’re beginning to understand modern GOP political philosophy.

Republicans offer nothing. They have nothing to offer except more of the same failed Bush policies that got us into this economic toilet flush in the first place. Republicans have obstructed, filibustered, more legislation since 2006 than any other time in US history. Theyfilibusters-1101.gif obstruct honest attempts to legislate without any honest debate and without any contribution of their own. They are more interested in spreading hate than doing what’s right.

It is time to change the filibuster rule. We must lower the number of votes for cloture to 55 instead of the 60 votes it takes now. Changing the rules only takes a majority vote.

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How Many Lies Can They Cram Into One Minute?

Nov 12th, 2009
by Tom.
5 comments

I meant to talk about this yesterday while it was fresh in my mind, but life got in the way of my blogging time so I put it off until today (always). Anyway, I was sitting on the sofa in front of my beautiful 46 inch Samsung Series 8000 LED TV watching Countdown two days ago when an advertisement came on blasting health care reform. I couldn’t believe my ears. Not only was this advertisement ranting against health care, it was outright lying about it, and worst of all, it was during Countdown! I wondered who was behind this and at the end they proudly claimed that an organization called the US Citizens Association sponsored the ad.

So I went to their website this morning just to see what I could see, and there it was – the ad. But first, a little snippet from their mission statement, just to let you know who they are.

The mission of the U.S. Citizens Association will be:

  1. To inform the public on the fallacies of the information being spread by the liberal socialist organizations and the facts on capitalism versus socialism;
  2. To promote conservative capitalist candidates for public office;
  3. To file lawsuits against unconstitutional laws and actions by government and counter-lawsuits to those lawsuits filed by the liberal socialist organizations; and
  4. To form grass root organizations to compete with ACORN.

The U.S. Citizens Association is a non-profit organization made up of U.S. citizens. U.S. Citizens Association Membership is free. Donations are optional. As a member, you will get a member kit, which will instruct you on how you can change the government to benefit you. And you will get continuous information on what is going on in government that affects you that you will not get in the leftist news media. You will be educated on how you can become an Empowered Citizen.

“Made up of US Citizens” means that it is not made up of non-citizens, I guess. When they tell me I will get continuous information that tells me how government affects me I can’t help but think that I will continuously be fed BS by right-wing jerk-offs who want me to help them push their agenda. Oh – and this is stuff that you will not get in leftist news media.

I wonder what channel that’s on because all the news I ever get from the Main Stream Media is slanted to the right. And further, they are claiming they can counter the misinformation being spread by “liberal socialist organizations” as if this is a big problem area that needs immediate attention.

Again, I wonder from where those particular messages emanate. They are special and specific, those messages, not just being “liberal”, but worse, “liberal socialist” as if that is a step below liberal. I wonder if the US Citizens Association is aware that there was actually a socialist political party since the early 1900’s and it split into two factions in 1976, one called the Socialist Party USA and Social Democrats USA? And I wonder if they know the Socialist Party ran a candidate for President in 2008?

According to their propaganda, it is these two organizations that draw their ire. I mean, it couldn’t possibly be Barack Obama, a political centrist. Is it possible that the US Citizens Association has their wires crossed? This, from an article on Huffington Post- well worth the time to read- is about Obama’s political centrism:

Some of the disappointment many progressives feel in the Obama presidency is because the Obama administration, in spite of its roots in progressive politics, has largely governed from the center.

The mission statement goes on to say that they are the biggest and most powerful organization designed for the purpose of countering the Obama socialist agenda (non-existent).

Now, we’ll get back to the ad. It is too bad that they didn’t provide embed code or even a url for the ad so I can post it here.

The voice-over begins with a graphic in bold red font announcing “Senior Citizens Alert!” Then states:

Finally, after months of deception and empty promises, the true costs of social health care have been exposed and our seniors who rely on Medicare to survive are paying the highest price.

And the ad, which can be viewed here, makes the following hair-on-fire claims:

  1. Seniors will pay the most.
  2. Bills debated in Congress call for Medicare to be gutted by up to $500 billion.
  3. Medicare will be cut by 25%.
  4. 10 million illegal aliens could get free health care at the expense of our seniors.
  5. Seniors could see Medicare collapse and face severe health care rationing

The claim that health care will be rationed and that 10 million aliens could get free health care are lies that have been debunked. The claim that there will be a government take-over of health care and that it will subsequently be rationed is countered by FactCheck.org and the fact that health insurance companies do ration health care today is explained by Media Matters here. The claim that “10 million illegal aliens could get free health care” is explicitly denied in the language of the bill, and explained by Think Progress. And if you want to hear it from the horses mouth, so to speak, read what the President is telling the AARP about cuts to Medicare benefits.

There is an FCC policy against airing false and misleading advertisement. Whoever is responsible for airing the ad, either MSNBC or DishNet, my programming provider, is in violation of that FCC policy.

Others have noticed the US Citizen Association ads in the past.

This is via US Citizen Association | Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington
Submitted by CREW on 1 September 2009 – 8:02pm. US Citizen Association

Today, CREW sent a letter to Comcast, urging the cable provider to stop airing an ad sponsored by the U.S. Citizens Association. The ad, which ran at least once on August 27, 2009 during MSNBC’s Morning Joe, violates Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations regarding misleading ads.

Since the ad aired on MSNBC, CREW had sent a letter to MSNBC President Phil Griffin on August 27, 2009, urging the network to pull the ad. MSNBC has since informed CREW that the ad was not running nationally through its network, but rather through the local Washington, D.C. cable provider – Comcast.

As reported today in The Gainesville Times, several media outlets have outright rejected U.S. Citizens Association ads.

It seems that there is some money behind this organization as they keep buying air time. We need to complain about every instance of their misleading and illegal advertising. We need to send more letters. Email MSNBC, DishNet, Comcast.

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A Second Look | Let the Pigs Squeal

Oct 14th, 2009
by Tom.
9 comments

via Health Insurers Emerge as Obama’s Top Foe in Reform Effort – washingtonpost.com
By Ceci Connolly Washington Post Staff Writer,Wednesday, October 14, 2009

“The insurance industry has decided to lead the charge against health reform, and everyone recognizes their motives: profits,” said White House deputy communications director Dan Pfeiffer. “We are going to make sure they can’t sink this effort at the last minute.”

The loudness of their squeal is in direct correlation to the effect on their bottom line. If they are lashing out at Congress, claiming that the health reform legislation will harm Medicare recipients, then they are misdirecting the actual blow. It is a game. It’s called “let’s you and him fight”.

The insurers, however, showed no sign of being chastened. America’s Health Insurance Plans, an industry trade group, opened a fresh line of attack with a multistate advertising campaign warning that senior citizens enrolled in private Medicare plans could lose benefits under the legislation.

They want to pit the Democratic Party leaders against the senior demographic voting block to anger the seniors and hit the politicians where it will do the most political damage. But the real ones who are injured by reform legislation are the insurance companies represented by AHIP, not the seniors. They get the body blow, directly to their bottom line.

“We want to begin to build an awareness of the potential implications to seniors,” said AHIP President Karen Ignagni.

No. Actually she wants to pit seniors against their elected officials in Congress and the President, if it is possible.

She [Ignagni] declined to say how much money would be spent on the commercials airing in six states, but one advertising analyst said the industry has enough cash to pose a serious threat. “They can spend whatever they feel they need to influence this,” said Evan Tracey, president of the Campaign Media Analysis Group. “Seniors are a very important group politically.”

Whenever corporations get active in politics, something is going on that hurts their profits. They will spend a ton of money to get things back on track. In this case, the money the insurance industry is spending on this misdirection play against congress by using the elderly, is coming out of funds that they could be using to approve treatments they have heartlessly turned down. They will spend millions of our premium dollars to ensure that the glut of profit to which they have been accustomed, continues.

Meanwhile, the industry deserves discredit. Let’s give some where it is due. They hired, through AHIP, PricewaterhouseCoopers to report  only on certain portions of the Finance bill that would raise costs. PricewaterhouseCoopers was instructed to ignore the statutes that would lower costs. The report was a sham and a hatchet job.

Ignagni complained of a “major effort to discredit and silence” the industry and its allies. “That’s just wrong in a democracy.”

Squeal!

(NEW! Guest comments are welcome!)

 

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