Is NBC Actively Trolling for Sick Circus Ratings?

Grassley (4.00 / 2)

One of the three Republicans in Max Baucus' Corporate Caucus of bi-partisan healthcare experts is warning crowds about death panels.

Reid just looks weak.

Rahm and Obama look weak and stupid.

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by: elwood @ Thu Aug 13, 2009 at 01:25:27 AM UTC

Try to get over the fact that Republicans ALWAYS talk about (0.00 / 0)

what someone else thinks or does and stop wasting energy trying to refute unfair accusations.
Fact is SOMEBODY does have the concept of death panels in mind.  Indeed, if you bothered to read our own Senator's screed from 2000 about "Confronting an Aging World," you'd see that "advanced funding," another way of describing individual accounts, was motivated by a desire to be shut of public responsibility for retired and sick people.  Also, when you hear Johnny Isakson assert that people should be REQUIRED to complete end of life directives when they sign up for Medicare--i.e. as a condition of getting any health care provided--it's clear that there is a legitimate concern on the part of people who believe and agree with the proposition that the purpose of government is to make them do things.  They have reason to prefer that government just deal with criminals and invaders.  Texas, under Dubya, passed a law which immunizes health care providers who decide, and whose decision is reviewed by a panel, that further treatment is fruitless.

Democrats may be in favor of providing services with no strings attached, but that's not how Republicans do things.  Just look at NCLB.  In exchange for getting some money for public education, school administrators have to agree to meet some really stupid standards. How do we know that won't be true for professional participants in Medicare?  Or look at what Homeland Security Grants have done to local law enforcement.  Militarized it.

There are people who believe that the sick and aged should be left to die sooner rather than later so the young and healthy don't have to waste resources looking after them.  It's quite clear that Gregg is opposed to the premature termination of pregnancies because a falling birth rate means there aren't enough people to staff a strong military force--necessary to keep the "upper hand."

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by: hannah @ Thu Aug 13, 2009 at 10:27:20 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

OK (0.00 / 0)

But we still have to call Grassley to account. He's a United States senator.

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by: JimC @ Thu Aug 13, 2009 at 11:11:05 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

A preview of my LTE, sent to the Portsmouth Herald... (0.00 / 0)

I ask that everyone keep in mind that it wasn't originally meant to BE a a letter to the editor.

I had been contacted by one of their reporters, who wanted the skinny on why I was trolling craigslist for tickets to the President's town hall.

I responded a little too late to be included in her article, but when I offered up my reasoning in an e-mail, she said she'd send it to her editors any way.

Hi, Elizabeth.

I'm afraid I couldn't find a ticket after all.

I'm sure you probably have plenty of stories for your article by now, but as a political junkie, I'd be remiss if I didn't bore one more person with my rants.

I'm an Obama supporter, but since the election, he's done quite a bit to let me down. His Justice Department continues to support Bush-era
claims of 'executive privilege' in order to throw out court cases involving warrantless wiretaps of US civilians (al Haramain v. Obama, for instance). Likewise, the DoJ hasn't taken a very strong stance when it comes to the Bush Administration's justification and use of torture.

On other fronts, I feel that his administration has been FAR too friendly to the same corporate and banking interests that brought us the financial crisis (certainly, very little has been done to regulate the sort of activites that caused the sub-prime lending bubble to burst), I'm really not happy with his intention to ramp up military efforts in Afghanistan with no apparent goal in mind (the time for that war has come and gone), and much of the transparency in government that he promised us has failed to materialize.

That last point is particularly relevant when it comes to how he's let me down on the health care debate.

Initially, I liked what I heard. While I'd prefer a single-payer plan, I know that it would have an unrealistic chance of making it through the halls of Congress. A robust public option that could compete with the insurance companies, drive down the price of health care, and all but eliminate the heinous practice of rescission, sounded great. As an added bonus, the cost savings that the US Government would receive by eliminating current subsidies paid out to the health care industry, would help offset the costs of such a program.

But then, the President's tendency to put Beltway politics and "bipartisanship" before all else, reared its ugly head.

The GOP (and a fair number of Congressional Democrats) are indebted to the insurance industry. It's no surprise that the Senators who are making the largest amount of noise opposing health care reform, are the ones who received the most campaign contributions from said industry. They have no interest in reform; they wish only to maintain the status quo where insurance companies are making record profits.

In spite of this obvious conflict of interest, the Senate's health care reform bill has been tied up in the Senate Finance Committee, by three such Senators (Max Baucus, Mike Enzi, and Chuck Grassley). Thus far, the three have failed to come to terms on much of anything, and the news that HAS leaked out, indicates a watering down of the proposed legislation (replacing a public option with individual state-run co-ops, which most likely won't have the muscle to compete with the industry giants).

Rumors have suggested that the Baucus working group was allowed to take their time on the bill, specifically because the President wanted a bipartisan solution. Recently, he's even toned down his language when speaking on health care, suggesting that a public option might not be the only way to compete with the insurance industry (I didn't get to hear much of today's town hall speech, so I don't know whether he came out strongly for a public option again).

Add to this the on-again/off-again rumors coming out over the weekend that the White House had cut a backroom deal with the pharmacutical industry (arranged through Baucus), to limit the scope of cost reductions that would be requested for prescription drug purchases, and suddenly, it looks like the entire shape of health care reform is being decided by a small group of industry-friendly Senators, and the President's staff. It's the very antithesis of transparency, and the legislation will suffer as a result.

OK. That might've been a little too 'inside baseball'. But hopefully, I said something in all of that, that might be worth using.

Best of luck, and I look forward to reading your article!

Regards,
Corporate Dog

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by: Corporate Dog @ Thu Aug 13, 2009 at 14:26:17 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

And for what it's worth... (0.00 / 0)

This was written before Grassley took his predictably Judas-like turn.

Regards,
Corporate Dog

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by: Corporate Dog @ Thu Aug 13, 2009 at 14:29:46 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Apparently a summer is just one or two long news cycles. (0.00 / 0)

Remember Natalee Holloway?

--
Twitter: @DougLindner

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by: Douglas E. Lindner @ Thu Aug 13, 2009 at 03:12:28 AM UTC

"A media request" (0.00 / 0)

Far more common than we know, I'm afraid. Actually requesting that an event occur may be a new low, but for many years partial stagings (Let's take a few people from the protest and move them next to this good backdrop to ask questions) have been all too common.

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by: JimC @ Thu Aug 13, 2009 at 11:19:04 AM UTC