Pre-existing condition? No problem. Guaranteed healthcare? Of course. Heartless insurance bureaucrats meddling in medical decisions? No way. A single standard of quality care? Nothing less will do.
Nurses are running ads about CheneyCare today in major newspapers across the country. As the Presidential race swings into high gear, it’s time for the pateints’ revolt to match it, and display the kind of intensity and organization that will force the politicians to listen to us-and not the insurance donors. It’s time for the patients’ revolt, and Dick Cheney, and the care he receives but we don’t, is the perfect symbol to make it happen. Take a look at the full ad, today in the New York Times, Wall St. Journal, and USA Today.
Vice President Dick Cheney would “probably be dead by now” if not for his federally funded health care, according to an eye-catching ad calling for universal health care that will run…in newspapers. The ad is union-funded by the California Nurses Association and its national arm, the National Nurses Organizing Committee, which represents 75,000 nurses.
You know you’ve succeeded when this happens:
The vice president’s office said the ad isn’t worth more than a no comment. “Something this outrageous does not warrant a response,” said Megan Mitchell, a spokeswoman for Cheney.
We are building a grand coalition.
And the insurance industry? Well, who really likes them except for the politicians whose pockets they line?
This may become the first get together of Northern AND Southern California Kossacks and progressive bloggers.
Navajo (of SF Kossacks and co-organizer) and I are trying to get a head count. This way we can get some group discounts going for room rates and function rooms.
In any case I will be there on Friday Feb 15 and stay until Feb 18.
If you plan to attend write me at shockwaveatinorbitdotcom
Tomorrow, Arnold Schwarzenegger, reminded that he’s the governor of California and not the governor of Time and Newsweek, will walk up to a dais in Sacramento and claim that now, four years after he was elected to enact reform, the time has come to reform the budget process. But it’s a curious use of the term “reform,” since it will be an attempt to resurrect a policy that was soundly defeated by voters in 2005.
Heading into a week in which he’s expected to deliver grim news about the state’s fiscal health, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is also preparing to propose changes to the budgeting process.
The Republican governor will offer a “budget reform” plan when he outlines his goals in his State of the State address Tuesday. Such a proposal, if successful, would likely give the executive office more authority in making cuts even after the Legislature has passed an annual spending plan.
First of all, California already gives the governor the ability, through the line-item veto, to make plenty of spending cuts. Schwarzenegger oughta know, he used it to terminate mentally ill homeless people from getting treatment. What Arnold really wants to do is something that Pete Wilson was denied as far back as 1992. He wants to be able to subvert the will of the voters through Prop. 98 (so much for “let the people decide”) and eliminate spending baselines for education, health care, and other government services. This is nothing but a wank, an effort to eliminate the revenue side of the budget equation and solely solve a $14 billion dollar problem with deep spending cuts. He’s also trying to essentially defund education right at the beginning of the already-D.O.A. “Year of Education”.
What this will also do is shield Schwarzenegger’s corporate buddies, who finance all of his travel, from the possibility of actually having to pay their fair share for access to the California market.
Considering that this is the third time Schwarzenegger has sought the ability to defund education and health care, I don’t know how you can see his legacy as anything but that. This has been the very public agenda from day one. Everything else is window dressing. Let’s hope the Legislature understands that, even if the media doesn’t.
Granted, he meant it as a joke to pump up partisan Hillary supporters at a campaign stop. But seriously. The guy is a jerk, and he simply can’t help being part of the story. When people ask me why I hate Hillary Clinton so much, I tell them that 85% is due to the fact that Bill Clinton betrayed everything the Democratic Party stands for.
I will go out on a limb and predict that Barack Obama will win the Democratic nomination. It is a big limb almost broken off from the weight of all of those who are on it. Still, I have not yet heard anyone give the rationale that made up my mind on this It is a matter of his choice of words.
If you listen to his speech in Des Moines when it had become clear that he had “won” the caucus selection there. It was filled with the word “we.”
This was the moment when we tore down barriers that have divided us for too long – when we rallied people of all parties and ages to a common cause; when we finally gave Americans who’d never participated in politics a reason to stand up and to do so.
This was the moment when we finally beat back the politics of fear, and doubt, and cynicism; the politics where we tear each other down instead of lifting this country up. This was the moment.
Years from now, you’ll look back and you’ll say that this was the moment – this was the place – where America remembered what it means to hope.
If you listen to Hillary Clinton’s speeches, they are filled with the word “I”. It is about what “I” have done or what “I” will do, always “for you” but it never it is never about “we”.
One time Republican spin meister, Frank Luntz, has a book out now with the title “Words that Work.” He makes the point that “It’s not what you say. It’s what people hear.” Luntz goes on to remind us just how he has been so successful.
Before you can create, and certainly before you judge, you have to listen to people and respect them for who they are and what they believe. Just because you may not ultimately accept or endorse someone’s subjective perceptions is no excuse for refusing to acknowledge that they exist
At a point in time when the voters of this country doubt the sincerity of politicians, when we believe to the core of our being that all politics is corrupted by the power of corporate money, Obama’s inclusive “we” makes it clear that the power is now coming back to the people. It is merely a rhetorical device, but one on which he can build a movement, pull in the people, get new voters to the polls.
Other candidates will ignore this to their peril. It is the reason that people flock to Obama and not to Edwards. It is the reason that Hillary will lose, because, with Hillary it is never about ‘we’.
As a teacher myself, from a family of teachers, I have never quite understood why so many people think the problem with education is bad teachers. Sure, I’ve had one or two along the way, but they were far outweighed by the good teachers. Teachers are the key to education. If they are happy and supported, and allowed to do their jobs, wonderful things can and often do happen. But if they are demoralized and attacked, well, teachers are human beings, and nobody does well in that kind of environment.
Arnold’s plan is all about punishment and attacks. It’s the idea that if we merely crack down and hurt people – hurt teachers in their wallet, hurt schools in their budgets – then suddenly they’ll improve. It’s a kind of shock doctrine approach to education. Although it defies logic that the solution to a school with low test scores is to close the school, that’s exactly what Arnold’s business allies are whispering in his ear – impose NCLB on California.
Nevermind that parents, teachers, and students all despise NCLB. One of Bush’s most damaging policies, it forces schools to teach to the test or face crippling cuts in funding. Even if there is improvement, schools might lose funding. Jonathan Kozol, one of America’s leading experts on education policy, was quoted by Julia Rosen this summer about the pernicious impact of the law:
The justification for this law was the presumptuous and ignorant determination by the White House that our urban schools are, for the most part, staffed by mediocre drones who will suddenly become terrific teachers if we place a sword of terror just above their heads and threaten them with penalties if they do not pump their students’ scores by using proto-military methods of instruction — scripted texts and hand-held timers — that will rescue them from doing any thinking of their own. There are some mediocre teachers in our schools (there are mediocre lawyers, mediocre senators, and mediocre presidents as well), but hopelessly dull and unimaginative teachers do not suddenly turn into classroom wizards under a regimen that transforms their classrooms into test-prep factories.
Kozol goes on to explain how the actual effect of test standards and business-imposed teaching methods on schools is to make the situation WORSE, not better:
When I ask them why they’ve grown demoralized, they routinely tell me it’s the feeling of continual anxiety, the sense of being in a kind of “state of siege,” as well as the pressure to conform to teaching methods that drain every bit of joy out of the hours that their children spend with them in school.
Here is where Arnold’s core attack on teachers is at its most pernicious. He relies on merit pay – the idea that we have bad teachers because they aren’t forced to compete with each other:
“Linking compensation to performance that would directly reward teachers for, among other factors, gains in student academic achievement … ” is a key recommendation in the draft report of the Governor’s Committee on Education Excellence obtained by The Chronicle….
Merit pay is an idea that teachers unions have battled for years, saying it pits teachers against one another.
“It’s so tiring to hear about failed schemes coming around again and again,” said Fred Glass, spokesman for the California Federation of Teachers, representing 120,000 education employees.
In city schools, for example, he has pursued greater centralization, stringent performance accountability measures and merit pay – the last of which has few adherents among Democratic candidates – while sharply increasing teacher salaries….Mr. Bloomberg has also presided over one of the largest expansions in the city budget in decades, increasing spending 23 percent, adjusted for inflation, since 2002. Early on, he also raised income taxes on upper brackets to help preserve government services during the post-9/11 recession, though the increase has since lapsed.
Meanwhile Arnold is planning to hit education with a massive set of cuts, suspending Prop 98 and making schools do more with less.
And how will merit pay be determined? Likely by the same way NCLB compliance is – tests. Lots and lots of tests.
There are not many parents who want their kids to go to school to learn how to take tests. Parents want their kids to go to school to learn to read. To write. To be able to do math. To learn about science. To learn skills and knowledge that will enable them to succeed and thrive in life. Not to take tests.
But when you look at education as a way to balance a budget, as a way to score points with white suburbanites, with your business allies, then you’re going to turn to these pedagogically offensive “reforms.”
Whenever teachers themselves discuss education reform, the refrain is always the same: why don’t they just let us teach? Teachers are already experts at bringing parents and students together in and out of the classroom to achieve great things. Why is Arnold trying to make teachers the villains and scapegoats of his own failure to properly fund public education? Why must teachers, and by extension their students, have to indirectly subsidize low taxes for the wealthy?
Of course, the answers to that question are all about Funding, and that’s the subject of tomorrow’s article.
The reason we don’t have Universal Health Care today is because of Drug Companies, Insurance Companies and their Lobbyists, in Washington. They stand between you and the Health Care that you need.
We have to take this system on, we have to change it. We have to be willing to be honest about it.
…
You have to say NO to these People!
You have to say as President I represent the American People!
That’s the only way we’ll get the Change that we need in this Country.
John Edwards on Taking on Entrenched Special Interests
I want to say a quick word about this. You know, it is true that these entrenched interests — whether you’re talking about oil companies, drug companies, gas companies, whoever — these entrenched interests are literally stealing our children’s future. They have a stranglehold on this democracy and they are having an incredibly destructive force on the middle class, on families being able to do what my family has done and so many who are sitting here have been able to do.
And the problem is you can’t be with those people, take their money and then challenge them. It doesn’t work. You have to be willing to actually stand up and say no — no to lobbyist money, no to PAC money, no corporate lobbyists working for me in the White House. If you intend to take them on, and if it is personal for you — and this is extraordinarily personal for me — if it’s personal for you, then you can be successful bringing about the change.
Teddy Roosevelt — just one quick example — Teddy Roosevelt — Teddy Roosevelt, a great American president — he didn’t make deals with the monopolies and the trusts. Teddy Roosevelt took them on, busted the monopolies, busted the trusts. That’s what it’s going to take.
We have a battle in front of us. We do. I don’t think we have a problem with politicians in Washington spending enough time with lobbyists and going to cocktail parties. They do it all the time. They do it every single day, and I’ll tell you who’s paying the price for those cocktail parties: Natalie Sarkisian, every single American who doesn’t have health care coverage, everybody who’s going to the gas pump and paying so much money for their gas. When are we going to have a president who actually takes these people on? That’s what I’m going to do.
What you see happening in America today, if you’re president of the United States and you’re looking at this from altitude is you see a very few Americans getting wealthier and wealthier, you see the biggest corporations in America’s profits through the roof — ExxonMobil just made $40 billion, record profits — all of that happening at the same time that we have 47 million people with no health care, 37 million who will wake up in this country tomorrow worried about feeding and clothing their children. Tonight, 200,000 men and women who wore the uniform of the United States of America and served this country honorably will go to sleep under bridges and on grates.
It’s time for us to say and it’s time for the president to say enough is enough. This is a battle for the future of our children. This is a battle for the middle class.
Let’s take jobs, which we haven’t talked about. We’ve touched on a lot of other things, but we haven’t talked about jobs. We’ve had a trade and tax policy that is bleeding American jobs, and all it has done is pad the profits of the biggest multinational corporations in America. You talk about professors here at this college.
…
I saw a projection just a week or so ago suggesting that America could lose as many as 20 (million) to 30 million more jobs over the next decade. Think about that for a minute, 30 million. And who’s the most at-risk group? College graduates. This is not just people who are working in mills and working in factories — who have been devastated by this, completely devastated — these are middle-class families, these are college graduates and their jobs at risk.
“We need a different Tax Policy, a different Trade Policy,
where the first question, and this is what I WILL ask
when I’m President of the United States:
‘Is this Trade Proposal, Is this Tax Proposal,
IS it good for working Middle Class Americans?’
That’s the Question!”
John Edwards: This Week with George Stephanopoulos
John Edwards: The real question is What is Day One in the White House going to look like? “Day One, in my White House there will be NO Corporate Lobbyists, Nobody who Lobbied for Foreign Governments.”
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“Yes. There will be NO Lobbyists who have worked for Trial Lawyers, NO Lobbyists who have worked for Big Corporations in my White House — Period!”
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“I don’t think the Lobbyists are doing America any good! I think what they’re doing is, they’re standing up against working Middle Class families. And the Middle Class is struggling, and at risk as a result.”
…
This is the reason George, that the Voters here in NH, and all the future States, need an ‘unfiltered Debate’ between the two of us, about who can best bring about change.
George Stephanopoulos: You want a 2-person race?
John Edwards: I want a debate with — Listen I like Senator Obama very much. We do have a basic general view that is very similar. But I have a very view than he does, about how we bring about Change. I think we have an ‘epic fight’ on our hands, against these entrenched monied interests. And I think we’ll never be successful —
George Stephanopoulos: He led the fight for Lobbying Reform in the Senate, he says.
John Edwards: But he talks about this in a that suggests, you sit at a table and negotiate, with Drug Company Lobbyists, Insurance Company Lobbyists, and Oil Company Lobbyists, and you can somehow negotiate — they’ll negotiate their power away. That’s a fantasy, in my judgment! I don’t think it will ever happen! I’ve been these people my entire life. First for 20 years in court rooms. And then I did it in public life.
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What I am saying is these people have a disproportionate influence on the way the Government works, and they are stopping Progress. And let me be specific, we’re talking about this too generically:
Drug Companies and Insurance Companies have killed Health Care Reform in America.
Oil Companies have kept us from protecting the Environment, by attacking Global Warming.
The biggest multi-national corporations have set up, a set of Trade Systems and a set of Tax Laws that benefit them and profit them, but the Middle Class and working people are struggling as the result.
That is Wrong! I want to be the President that fights for the Middle Class, fights for working people, the kind of people I grew up with, George. I said this last night. This not abstract, or academic for me — it is PERSONAL! I see these people, going to these cocktail parties, having their receptions. You’ve been there George, you know how it works!
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I mentioned this last night, this young woman who lost her life Nataline Sarkisyan, just a few week ago. Because her insurance company, one of the largest in America would not pay for a liver transplant operation — even though she HAD insurance. They would NOT pay for it! And People say to me, as their President, they want me to sit at a table and negotiate with these people?
I mean, they’re the PROBLEM, they’re NOT the SOLUTION!
And my job is to stand up for the American People against them!
…
This Cause, of fighting for people like Nataline Sarkisyan, fighting for people like my own family, and for the Middle Class, and giving them a decent life. And making sure their kids have a better life — which is what this is ultimately about — this is ‘the Cause of my Life’!
And I have NO Intention of stopping!
I am in this, through the Convention — and to the White House.
George Stephanopoulos: through the Convention?
John Edwards: Absolutely!
… I am in this through the Convention — and to the White House.
SO … Who is Standing up for you and your family, and your Future?
Who is looking for just another way, that we can “all just get along” …
I’m sorry, “Playing Nice” just does NOT work, anymore!
That Ship has sailed!
Look what happens when you work hard and “play by the rules” — hard-working Americans “get played for fools”!
Iowa was a great start. Help keep the momentum going.
You can be a part of our movement in California, but you must be registered to vote. And your voter registration form must be received by the California Secretary of State’s office by January 21 — just two weeks away.
California is holding its primary on February 5, and a victory for Barack will be a major step toward winning the Democratic nomination.
This campaign has generated unprecedented enthusiasm all across the country. Hundreds of thousands of supporters have attended events, canvassed their neighborhoods, and volunteered in their communities.
With primary season in full swing, now’s the time to turn your enthusiasm into action.
If you’re certain that you’re registered, take a minute and encourage five of your friends to register so they can participate in the California primary:
X-posted from Dailykos by permission of author edgery
A California family reaches out to John Edwards and goes to New Hampshire to support his campaign. MSNBC First Read
A little background: On Thursday, the night of the Iowa caucuses, Nataline’s mother was watching MSNBC and heard John Edwards speech and describe their family’s tragic loss.
Friday morning, Hilda reached out to the Armenian National Committee of America. seeking to connect with the campaign but didn’t know how. Representatives from the Armenian National Committee of America called Edwards’ Chapel Hill’s headquarter and spoke to the front desk.
Nataline Sarkisyan’s father said today that there is a hole in his heart since losing his daughter. “Cigna killed my daughter,” he said. “Vote for this man; vote for John Edwards.”
“They tried negotiating with the insurance company,” John Edwards responded. “If negotiating worked, we’d have universal health care already.”
Senator Edwards also laid out three clear criteria for people to ask candidates to evaluate who should be our next president:
Are you for fundamental change in Washington or continuing the status quo?
If you are for fundamental change, will you fight for it?
Is this change personal for you?
Fresh off the debate last night, John and Elizabeth Edwards held a health care forum in Manchester, NH. Accompanying them today were people who understand why it is critical to pass universal health care as soon as possible and why John Edwards is the right person to accomplish this, James Lowe and his wife Cindy, Sandy Lakey, and the Sarkisyan family.
Three separate stories, three separate situations, all part of the narrative of our country’s cruel indifference to people over profits:
James Lowe – virtually mute until he was 50 years old because lacking health insurance,.he had no opportunity for a simple procedure to correct a cleft palate.
Valerie Lakey – a happy young child brutally eviscerated because of the known design flaws in a swimming pool drain cover, known that is by the corporation producing the product that chose profits over the children across the country being horribly injured and killed.
Nataline Sarkisyan – a young woman with a lifetime of promise denied a critical liver transplant by Cigna Insurance Company over the demands of her doctors and nurses, and the uprising of hundreds of thousands supporters on the ground and on the internet.
By now, you know the stories of James Lowe, Valerie Lakey, and Nataline Sarkisyan. John Edwards talks about their stories in explaining both why he is so passionate about fundamental change and universal health care, and why he is equally determined to take the corporate interests standing against change head on.
Last night in the Democratic debate, John Edwards highlighted his work on the Patient’s Bill of Rights as well as Nataline’s story to demonstrate why the issue of corporate interests is personal:
A powerful moment at today’s health care forum was when Nataline Sarkisyan’s family stood up for John Edwards:
“My heart is a hole. This isn’t just about Nataline; it’s about all of us,” Hilda Sarkisyan, Nataline’s mother said. “We fought them, but what about the families who don’t have a voice?”
Fighting back tears, Sarkisyan’s brother Bedig said he promised his dying sister everyone would know her story and thanked Edwards for helping in the fight against insurance companies.
“This is not right. Not in America,” Sarkisyan’s father Grigort said.
Thank you to NCDem Amy for providing the following videos of today’s Health Care Forum in Manchester:
Introduction by Elizabeth Edwards and introductory remarks by John Edwards:
Remarks by Hilda and Bedig Sarkisyan, Nataline’s mother and brother:
Remarks by Grigort Sarkisyan, Nataline’s father:
Remarks by James Lowe and Sandy Lakey:
When we look at the three leading Democratic candidates against the back drop of universal health care and the middle class, John Edwards is the one candidate who is (1) FOR fundamental change in the way Washington operates–he is stood against corporate interests before and won, and he is ready to do it again; (2) WILL fight for the change needed to make this country work for its people again; and (3) TAKES this fight very personally–this isn’t political to him, this isn’t academic to him, this is personal because he knows and understands the problems facing all Americans.
“We have an epic fight ahead of us with these entrenched, powerful, monied interests that stand between you and a democracy that works for everybody. We better be ready, we better be ready for that battle. You better be ready to send someone into the arena that has what it takes inside for this fight.”
Background on Nataline, her struggle and her death:
California Nurses produced a powerful video featuring Nataline’s family and the many people who protested outside of the Cigna’s offices in their effort to turn the Murder by Spreadsheet company’s decision around. Cigna did ultimately relent, but it was too late; Nataline died because the insurance company cared more about its profits than her life.
