I wonder what the difference is between the insurance lobbyists and the banksters?

Which seems like trying to figure out the difference between the bubonic plague and smallpox.

Morning all — coffee is brewing here. Yay.

I saw a really curious ad yesterday for a new bank that calls itself “Ally” that’s advertising that they tell you when you should be getting better terms on a loan or point out the fine print or whatever else.

You know the image has gotten bad when they use ethics as a selling point.

Good morning, Christy.

Thanks for the emphasis on preventative care. When that becomes the driving force for healthcare, we will know that we have won.

For those who haven’t seen it yet, I strongly recommend Prairie Sunshine’s diary on healthcare issues.

Sad but true — emphasizing preventative care would just make too much sense, wouldn’t it?

morning christy!

I wrote a diary mentioning a problem we are going to have to worry about with the public option;

just as social security had a surplus, there will be a surplus with this plan as well

obviously the republicans will use that surplus to fund tax gifts to the wealthy just as they did with social security

we really need to get some kind of locked box on public services that are paying for themselves, we need to get back the money taken from social security also

that by the way would be how a smart administration would frame funding this program;

“we will be reclaiming investments that used social security surplus that have do not demonstrated positive return”

that would be what a smart admistration would do, instead of “we are going to tax the wealthy”

btw, if anyone finds a reference to single-payer or a public option on the AHIP promotional website, let me know. I spent some serious time cruising around it and trying to find one and came up empty.

Just announced that Obama will be doing a prime time presser Wed night. He appears to be pushing but we need to be in the fight against the insurance vultures blood money.

“We’re honest! Honestly!”

if you have the google tool bar in your browser you can type in “public option” and then hit the pull down arrow, hit “search this site”

that should do the trick for you

You know the image has gotten bad when they use ethics as a selling point.

That’s a great line, and very true. If I could pull out my old copy of Lao-Tse, I think I’d find that he made that observation on the first page: You know things are going downhill when we find it necessary to say, “That’s virtuous, that’s beautiful, that’s excellent.”

By the way, if you want to target the very Blue Dogs and fake progs like Jared Polis that are betraying us on this and other issues, we’ve been told that they fear nothing like they fear letters to the editor in their hometown newspapers.

Write About What John Barrow Is Doing To Kill Health Reform

Write About What Mike Ross Is Doing To Kill Health Reform

Write About What Baron Hill Is Doing To Kill Health Reform

Write About What Bart Gordon Is Doing To Kill Health Reform

Write About What Jim Matheson Is Doing To Kill Health Reform

Write About What Charlie Melancon Is Doing To Kill Health Reform

Write About What Zachary Space Is Doing To Kill Health Reform

In 2008, Aetna, a big health insurance company, had about $30bn in total revenues. It paid out about $1.8bn in dividends and stock repurchases.

“… it’s clear that the [insurance industry] regards the space between your ears as one of its most important battlefields.”

That is so true — letters to the editor in their hometown papers drive politicians absolutely nutso. I heard that a LOT when we were doing our various FISA pushes from people on the Hill.

It’s an older post, but still a classic: Letter to the Editor Basics. Why not put it to good use? Especially since August recess is coming up and all your hometown neighbors could put your knowledge to use if they run into your Rep in the local supermarket line. *g*

It’s really a crazy way to advertise, isn’t it? “Look, we say we have some basic ethics.”

The WH says the presser will be at 9 pm ET. At least, at this point.

Thanks — I did that, actually and came up empty. But I don’t like to rely on just one search, and so I looked through various pages as well. But since I’m not always the most tech-savvy, I wondered if there was something else I might be missing.

It really is crazy. If you have to stand up and say something that ought to be a given as a huge selling point, then you really do suck, don’t you? *g*

As far as I know, Aetna is still a major medicare contractor. The House bill provides for the same type of deal for private insurance to administer the pubic option and this arrangement is considered by HCAN, for one, as acceptable in the definition of a robust public option. The HCAN definition of a robust public option has been endorsed by Jane Hamsher, et al.

The end result is going to end up being an amalgam of the House and Senate bills — always is. And from everything I’ve heard, administration is one of those issues that’s still up for serious debate between the two houses. But it’s just what I’ve heard lately — the situation has been seriously fluid on all of this.

hey they can hire Joe the Plumber and ex-guv Palin as their spokespeople!

Oh please, no. Imagine the joy of having to watch those two over and over again in a multi-million dollar ad buy.

No thank yew.

Insurance Industry Lobbying Group To Spend Seven Figures On First PR Campaign Salvo

well of course they are. It costs money to “serve” the public, ya know….

Well, you know what they say: you have to spend money to make money…erm…I mean, to serve the public. Yeah, that’s it. That’s the ticket.

Oh man, did I need that coffee this morning. Ahhhh…second cuppa, and the living is good…

Looking back, from a negotiating point of view, if our goal was having a public option, we should have kept single payer in play. The dynamics of this negotiation would have been much different.

all kidding aside? it is an interesting question how these ads will be positioned. Will they wrap themselves in American flags and cite the evils of socialism and the vague disloyalty of even having a functional government? Will they feature a cowboy and romantic on-the-range self-reliance citing the American way? Will they feature emotional imagery of a ragged child as a metaphor for what they allege to be fiscal irresponsibility? Will they do a dollars and sense approach, featuring accountants and number crunchers citing lying about the alleged threat to our country’s future financial viability? Will they bring out a model family citing abuses from… insurers… as evidence that a national system won’t work? oh wait, the last one wouldn’t work that well…

I want to send a link to send to my group to get them writing letters. Is there a link you created like you did for the whip on the public option?

On Friday Moyers, he did recap of 3 exec’s salaries…..O M’ God. The piece is probably on the website. His point was res ipsa loquitur…speaks for itself. He basically had to add nothing. Obscene. Including the Cigna’s guy, who, I think, is leaving. Their salaries could bail out the banks….ummmm.;))

Hell, their golden parachute deals could bail out most banks, let alone their salary and stock packages. It really is crazy on so many levels what executive compensation has become in most industries.

It’s like ARod for businesses. With even fewer homers.

So far nobody is asking the main question. “What is the for profit insurance industry doing to benefit the American People?”

Other than creating pools for patients, which a public plan can easily do, and negotiating with providers to contain some of the costs, also achievable with a public plan, what do they do?

Unlike manufactured products that have an infinite number of ways of competing with other similar products, and for which the free market system provides us with the best goods for the least cost, what does a piece of paper and a promise to pay have about its nature that makes the free market the way to go?

The only patient the insurance industry cares about is the insurance industry.

“We’re just Nice People.”

“With a Final um AMERICAN Solution!”

It all comes down to the conference committee stage, doesn’t it? I’ve wondered why the insurance industry has been micromanaging the process at these early stages.

I just got around to watching the Bill Moyers health care broadcast (thanks to my TiVo). It was really great, and if you haven’t seen it, it is well worth your time. And he ended with a recap of the WaPo “pay to play” scandal (which seems to have died down, but this show was last week’s) and really nailed them on it.

Since South Bend public TV broadcasts Moyers at odd times, I trust my TiVo to catch it.

yeah.. why not go for the honesty approach? – we’re just nice people.. the ads will be filmed in the family friendly setting, poolside, of a suburban Hartford country club, featuring industry fat cats lounging sybaritically with their smiling families (and a few hair-twirling mistresses thrown in for good measure). Joe and Hadassah can even make a cameo… such nice people…

As long as Joe is fully clothed and not in a speedo or something…ugh.

How could you ! So early in the morning. “g”

At least I didn’t include pictures. *g*

I saw one of their propaganda clips Saturday night while watching a film on TV. Claimed ‘gasp’ that the Administration wanted to introduce Canadian style health care! We should be so lucky.

The salaries of the people in health care are so damn high.

Last week the husband of the Chief Justice of the Iowa Supreme Court was arrested in connection with a beer party their son threw. Now, that caught people’s attention!

It turns out the Chief Justice’s husband is general counsel for a big health care provider in Des Moines. In the article concerning the late night arrest, his salary was noted. It is a cool $662,153. Nice work, if you can get it!
http://www.desmoinesregister.c…..0990717033

Woooo — talk about adverse publicity for a Chief Justice. Ouch! That’s going to be painful for a while.

Do you all elect or appoint your Sup. Ct.?

I think it’s pretty safe to assume Joe’s comfortably ensconced with the insurance industry’s pampered Hartford elite…

my favorite stereotype of a jovially corrupt Hartford health insurance exec is the grandpa on the Gilmore Girls….

Judges in Iowa are appointed. But, after appointment they are subject to a periodic retention election.

The fundies are all over this, because they are mad at Chief Justice Ternus for the recent gay marriage decision.

I think this statement from AHIP says it all
“We oppose a government-run plan”

Jane’s got a fresh post up featuring some back and forth with Kent Conrad.

Too bad Americans did not elect a populist President who was willing and able to tear up and off the myths and fables of current American healthcare regimes.

A great disappointment it has been to not see or hear President Obama denounce and condemn the current private,stock price/dividend ” for profit” regimes in American healthcare.

The numbers alone once known and better illustrated would be so very potent in destroying the falsehoods and outright lies being thrown by the current regime players to protect the profits and off the top rakings and skimoffs.

President Obama took Universal Single Payer off the table which surely was the worst thing to do as it represents the truest and most honest reform current American healthcare delivery debacle could undergo.

The money politics now flooding WashingtonDC when combined with a class of American carpetbagger types who pass themselves off as selfless public servants in Congress when they are anything but selfless is a full mockery of trying to frame this “healthcare reform’. This so called “reform” is a lobbyist holiday for buying off,bribing and putting money fixes in to destroy and sink any so called “reform” from ever seeing the light of day.

President Obama could have been a genuine profile in courage by taking on WashingtonDC ’s culture of broken money politics and lobbyist sought policy failure.

President Obama is not the American peoples champion in not having staked out a firm and profound transformation of current American healthcare headlong rush to ruin.

In not reaching far and high enough President Obama has betrayed the American people .

Not doing a viable Universal Single Payer makeover of current failed healthcare regime will only doom the bottom two thirds of American population to more social ,fiscal and healthcare outcomes of uncertainty,shortfall and needless suffering and premature death.

He’s got a press conference coming up on Wednesday — so maybe you’ll get your wish. I’m not holding my breath, but you never know…

I think he will also be making remarks on healthcare reform today at 1pm et.

I hope not…suddenly trying to change the system to complete single payer in one shot will not make it deficit neutral and will doom the entire thing.

Yes indeed. If we could get some kind of lock box system it could make all the difference in the world. Congress has spent social security taxes as soon as they could get their hands on it and now look where we are?
It was both parties doing the spending by the way. Politicians are like that.
The problem with the lock box system is the big spenders themselves would have to approve it.

Really? And not suddenly changing the “system” is going so well.

Any of these piecemeal,undermeasured fall short hybrid solutions where the current private for profit/stock price insurers are the gatekeepers and overseers are not going to move the ball far enough. See the HMO “solution” outcome for example. Much talk about cost control but the field ended up being merged and consolidated so much it just became another factor of failed outcomes in current regime.

A big comprehensive proposal similar to FDR’s Social Security of the 1930’s is what must take place. The Republicans surely would rather that not happen of course but this 21st century is going to be a tough slog for unwealthy Americans without a strong Single Payer Plan. Half solutions are just that.

Clearly the “public option” as currently being put forth is premised on doing too little–not enough or too much. In doing too little again this six decade old problem only lives on for another decade’s worth of kick the can outcomes.

I thought some Regooplican saint or another said, “Deficits don’t matter.”

“Insurance Industry Lobbying Group To Spend Seven Figures”…. THAT YOU PAID IN PREMIUMS.

Rather than paying that money out to further the health and well-being of their customers, these companies paid a lobbyist, because it’s a better ROI.

The Insurance Industry Association of America is probably very unhappy that you’ve figured that out.