whuddya spoze? — DEAD BLOGGING THE HEALTHCARE SUMMIT

[click image]

.
Will I be a frizzy white-haired hopping and spinning maniac with foam bubbling from my lips, flames hopping out my nostrils, and thunderbolts issuing from my ears if I put myself through this, or will my Zen kick in?
.
.
.

Average amount spent on congressional lobbying, per day, by U.S. health-care companies in 2009 : $1,500,000
—January 2010 Harper's Index

.
.
.
A woman of iron constitution, I have embarked upon this civic suicide mission. Nearly two hours into it, I find I cannot discern whether this is Zen setting in... or nausea....
.

President S for B is talking about how it's okay for families to buy Acme Health Insurance [euphemism for cheap plan with high deductibles and no coverage] as though we're going to be relieved to hear that we can go from no coverage we're not paying for to no coverage we must pay for. Republicans are yelling about abuse and fraud, and the Democrats are agreeing that those are awful. Nobody has mentioned that there wouldn't be the abuse and fraud if there were not such an egregious "system". In fact, now in almost three hours of enduring this CRAP, no one has uttered a cogent sentence.

The instant something approximating a potential sound bite issues from whatever lips, there is an immediate interruption and everything quickly gets set back to complete official/officious gibberish.

For any of you around the world who feel like exasperating yourselves into helpless heaps on the floor, CSPAN has had to resort to YouTube for this, owing to the strain on their servers from too many citizens trying to tune in to hear this CRAP for themselves. So! Yer in luck! You are not blocked from viewing this shit.
.

I am having a great deal of difficulty figuring out how to express my hatred for these people. Abounding my baseline non-hatred of all sentient beings, there are flavors of hatred and I'm finding the Democratic flavor harder to bear, but that is because I have so many decades of getting used to bearing the Republican flavor. Nonetheless, they are different flavors... having to discern between rotten bitter and acidic putrid, it has occurred to me that, yes, this really is nausea and not Zen... at least thus far....
.

Are you stout-hearted? Wanna subject yerself to the afternoon session? Great difficulty organizing this community.
.

The good news is that they actually have begun to make some substantive points, now that they've had a couple martinis with their lunch. I can tell this is going nowhere, but anyone who wants to pay attention and still manage to shave some aggravation, could skip the morning session and go right into the afternoon session.

Not a word about Medicare for all, which would obviate ALL of this shit, and make everyone happy.

Not a word about cutting back on the military adventures—OR Wall Street giveaways—to pay for this either.

They're ALL psychopaths.
.

I made it.

My Zen kicked in.

Don't listen to me if you can't make these fucks give us universal coverage. If you can't do that, you will be stuck with mandatory insurance premiums, with very little in the way of encouragement for them to drop. Since it will be a boon to the insurance industry, we may see them decrease reasonably at the beginning, but it will not take long for a minimally regulated insurance exchange to produce almost no coverage for really fat premiums. The Democrats swear they are only talking about undoing the insurance company subsidies for Medicare Advantage, and it seems the coverage for those who can't afford it amounts to signing them onto Medicaid... which isn't much... but better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick... or so thinks Joe Liberal... except Medicaid is not really going to give those people ANYTHING they don't have right now. We ALL have the ability to walk into the ER and get service. That's pretty much the extent of what Medicaid buys most recipients right now. And this is the best case scenario for those of you who can't—or won't—muster the gonads to force them to give us universal health care.

If you have the moxie, then start using it. THIS BILL IS UTTERLY FASCIST-FRIENDLY CRAP, AND THE ONLY THING WORSE IS WHAT THE REPUBLICANS ARE PROPOSING. The ONLY thing I could agree with the Republicans on is that this bill should be scrapped. Much was made of the thousands of pages in the bill. Obama said he'd love to have a five-page bill, but that it is impossible to get it done in five pages. HE'S LYING. Giving Medicare to everyone would not require even five pages.

He's a fucking liar. All their sappy talk about the poor suffering families and kids who lost their mothers is completely disingenuous blather, slug foam. In a stroke, ONE stroke, everybody in America could be covered and it would cost RADICALLY less than any of this shit. THEY ALL KNOW IT.

This is THEATER. They're giving each other political cover for doing what the corporations want and the people don't.

Republicans got to convince their people we don't have the money for this and the Democrats are fudging the numbers... which is perfectly true.

Democrats got to convince their people that the Republicans are obstructionist assholes just playing politics... "The Party of No"... also perfectly true.

BFD

Now they can mandate premiums but not coverage, just as their masters have tasked them with, and you can fuck off and die for all any of them care... and whoever manages to keep living, you will now still vote for their side as blindly and as masochistically—no, SUICIDALLY—as you have for your whole life.

Big money—$1,500,000 a DAY—BEFORE the Citizens United decision took the lid off—tells them the people have to keep paying to make them more big money forever, and THAT is what they are enacting... BOTH "sides"... and all this we call our "government" is 100% pure THEATER.

Good night, and good luck.
.