Motley Moose – Archive

It’s 3:30 in the morning and I should be asleep. Instead, I’m reading about health insurance reform on the web. My late night reading may have been worth it. These are some of the best words I’ve read about health insurance reform. The whole speech is worth reading or watching, but I found the ending to be especially good.

From Barack Obama’s Weekly Radio Address:

…That’s why, under these reforms, insurance companies will no longer be able to deny coverage because of a previous illness or injury. And insurance companies will no longer be allowed to drop or water down coverage for someone who has become seriously ill. Your health insurance ought to be there for you when it counts – and reform will make sure it is.

With reform, insurance companies will also have to limit how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses.  And we will stop insurance companies from placing arbitrary caps on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or a lifetime because no one in America should go broke because of illness.

In the end, the debate about health insurance reform boils down to a choice between two approaches. The first is almost guaranteed to double health costs over the next decade, make millions more Americans uninsured, leave those with insurance vulnerable to arbitrary denials of coverage, and bankrupt state and federal governments. That’s the status quo. That’s the health care system we have right now. 

So, we can either continue this approach, or we can choose another one – one that will protect people against unfair insurance practices; provide quality, affordable insurance to every American; and bring down rising costs that are swamping families, businesses, and our budgets. That’s the health care system we can bring about with reform.

Thank you.

‘

Full transcript

Read, listen, discuss.

This is too good not to share. I know there are people that are mad about the financial situation and Goldman Sachs part in it, but this guy is really angry. At one point in the video he says that he blames GS for a personal loss of $10,000. Maybe that’s where his anger comes from, maybe it’s more than that.

This song pretty much sums it all up for me. The message in this song and the feelings it invokes are at the heart of my political beliefs.

Last night, in the wee, dark hours, I was doing what all good liberals do – examining my beliefs. I came to what I thought was an interesting insight about my political beliefs.

Almost every political discussion in this country eventually refers to the Founders. They left us a lot of wisdom. It would be foolish to ignore that wisdom or the history they left us. That’s where I started my search.

I have been remiss when it comes to writing diaries for the Moose. I have lots of ideas, but they all involve heavy research and lots of work. That is a serious drawback for someone like me who’s main character trait is laziness mixed with a strong flavor of procrastination. But that isn’t the whole problem.

A bigger problem is that I don’t really feel any inspiration for any of the diary subjects I have in mind. One was a look at the current state of conservatism in the US. Another was a scholarly look at the meaning of progressivism and its role in society. Income and wealth inequality in the US is another topic that interests me greatly. Other ideas have come from some books on my recent reading list, like Daniel Dennett’s Breaking the Spell and the biography of Benjamin Franklin I’m currently reading. All of these seem(ed) like great ideas, but they also seem like a lot of hard work for little reward.

While reading Andrew Sullivan’s blog I came across this link. The diary was a simple one sentence post. “A 47 year old homely matron shows up on Britain’s Got Talent … Seriously, I’m still choked up.”

I had to follow the link to see what he was talking about. I’m not choked up, but I must admit I was greatly affected by this. There are so many lessons to be learned here that I don’t really know where to start. The heck with it, I’ll let the moment speak for itself, just as Andrew did in the original post.

First they take our money and then they screw us.

From the NY Times

A.I.G. Planning $165 Million in Bonuses After Huge Bailout

WASHINGTON – The American International Group, which has received more than $170 billion in taxpayer bailout money from the Treasury and Federal Reserve, plans to pay about $165 million in bonuses by Sunday to executives in the same business unit that brought the company to the brink of collapse last year.

SAY WHAT?

Or, it’s all Obama’s fault.

The revisionists are already busy.

“WIRE: ‘Obama Bear Market’ Punishes Investors as Dow Tumbles 20%…” blares Drudge.

“Obama’s Radicalism Is Killing the Dow“, says a headline in the Wall Street Journal.

“This Is Obama’s Market, Good and Bad”, writes John Tamny of Real Clear Markets. His article finishes with the statement that, “Whatever direction he takes, it should be clear that today’s stock market is the Obama stock market, so it’s up to him to decide its basic direction.” This article was published on November 25, 2008.

These claims all have one thing in common. They hope to shift the blame for all bad economic news onto Obama so they can claim the market shows his policies are wrong. In order to achieve their goal, they cherry pick the data points and twist recent history to fit their argument.

While checking my usual daily news and opinion sources I came across a link to a forum thread on Sean Hannity’s site. They aren’t called wing nuts for nothing.

Most political junkies will recall Bill O’Reilly’s rants about posts he found on dkos that upset him. His rants became a joke among those on the Left. Well, now the Right has gone even further. This is truly scary stuff. Or absolutely hilarious, depending on your take of it.

It takes so little to set them off. The post, by a forum member named FreedomWorks wonders what would happen if a revolution came about in the U.S.A. The poster wasn’t really advocating revolution. He was simply speculating about what it would mean for this country. His belief was that it would mean total anarchy. It was the comments that followed that went off the deep end.

There was also a poll that has apparently been taken down that asked “What kind of revolution appeals most to you – Military Coup, armed rebellion, or war for secession?” I didn’t see the poll, but from this post on balloonjuice.com “Armed Rebellion” was the preferred choice of the wing nuts.

As of this writing, “Armed Rebellion” is ahead with 40%; less than one in four support a military coup. The rest (about 36%) support a war for secession. (85 votes total)

Here are a few samples from the comments:  

It was the headline that caught my attention.

7 Days: Franken on Franken, Air America, “Senator Maddow” & More

The article, found on Huffingtonpost.com, was the transcript of an interview with Al Franken. The interviewer, Mark Green, asked Franken who he thought would be the next Air America personality to become a senator. Franken’s answer was a bit of a surprise.

GREEN: Who do you predict might be the next U.S. Senator with an Air America pedigree? Reagan because of his somewhat recognizable last name or Bender, because he has the chops and the good looks?

FRANKEN: Yeah, Bender lost a lot of weight, huh? Is that what you’re talking about? Well, I think Rachel. So, I think when you’re talking about the next Air America senator, it would be Rachel Maddow.

When I saw the teaser my first thought was that she wasn’t ready for the senate. After reading Franken’s answer I realized that she might be ready in the not-too-distant future.

Something to consider. Would you like to see her go into politics someday?

Obama is right, as usual. Bi-partisanship is worth pursuing. Universal Health Care (UHC) will never be passed unless we get some help from the Republicans. I, for one, really, really want this country to get a health plan that covers everyone. I imagine most of the people reading this diary want the same thing. If we want help from the Republicans then we must make UHC seem the right choice.

(Each of the following subjects deserves its own diary.)

Most of the arguments from the Right can be rightly called fears. The biggest fear is the fear of Socialism. We need to show that UHC is not socialism. In the first place, it is an insurance plan not nationalization of the health care system. Doctors will still be private employees, except at public facilities and the VA. Hospitals that are private businesses now will remain private. We will hopefully have more publicly-owned clinics, but that’s a different program.

(Harry Truman looks on as President Lyndon Johnson signs the Medicare Bill)

This is not socialism in any way. We aren’t even proposing nationalizing the health insurance industry. Everyone will have the option of choosing a private plan or adding a supplemental one if they want to pay for it. The insurance companies will shrink, but they won’t go away.