The Dick ArmeyTea Party Faction has been twisting its guns around and decided to knock off AARP for its unprincipled positions on health care reform.
The announcement received today in full:
The Tea Party Movement is initiating a nation-wide AARP Card Burning, on the first day of winter, December 21, 2009. This is in response to AARP’s duplicitous stance in support of Congress’ attempted thievery of ample health care away from the American people. This response is being called for due to the fact that Congress has turned a deaf ear to the will of the American people, one of the most vulnerable groups of our society, our American Seniors.
AARP’s quid pro quo, and subsequent complicity in the advancement of legislation that will ultimately limit the availability of appropriate health care to their membership, America’s seniors, is beyond reproach. Not only will this Health Care legislation make medical care a commodity, but it will create a repressive tax burden upon already cash strapped seniors in addition to all other segments of the nation’s population.
To add insult to injury, both houses of Congress as well as the present White House Administration continues to arrogantly ignore those who write their paychecks, the taxpaying citizens of the U.S.
Therefore, it is necessary for the grassroots Tea Party Movement to call upon American’s of all ages to gather together in visible defiance of Congress’s henchman, the AARP. With the strength of numbers, we must delineate our opposition to obvious, deceitful greed of the AARP that assaults the country’s wellness of being.
We must send a concrete message, not only to the AARP leadership, but also to Congress and the administration by taking to the streets and burning our AARP cards. We must then cancel our AARP memberships in numbers that will not and cannot be ignored any longer. We must demonstrate to the powers that be, that we will not tolerate this legislative abomination, which will plunge the entire country into a severe “Winter” of medical depravation.
Unless we act in solidarity, the AARP will assist Congress in bringing about scarcity in cutting edge technologies and medicines. Unless we act definitively we will see a lack of availability to timely and appropriate medical attention, delivered by competent medical staff, which will heartlessly strand frail infants, seniors and infirmed in the desolate cold of a medical winter.
On December 21, 2009, ….join your local Tea Partiers and Seniors in the 1st Tea Party Winter Fest for Health Care Freedom & AARP Card Burning. Don’t forget your lighters, AARP cards and any other AARP printed material/mailings; home made cards a/or signs…you could even dress up like Santa, or his elves, Scrooge, Tiny Tim, whatever your favorite Christmas character…don’t forget your cameras & video recorders! If YOU don’t send this message NOW, the die will be cast!
Joe Lieberman’s latest threat to block the Senate Democrats’ “compromise” reform bill is the health care news item of the day. As CNN reports it:
Lieberman has emerged as the main obstacle to Reid’s efforts to get a health care bill through the Senate before Christmas, if ever.
An independent from Connecticut who sits with the Democratic caucus, Lieberman ratcheted up his public opposition to the bill Sunday. On the CBS program “Face the Nation,” Lieberman said he would join a Republican filibuster if the bill contained either a government-run public health insurance option or a proposed alternative to the controversial provision — expanding Medicare to people as young as 55.
Lieberman also called for eliminating a provision to provide long-term home health care to the disabled while adding more cost containment measures to the $848 billion Democratic bill.
“We don’t need to keep adding on to the back of this horse until the horse breaks down and we get nothing done,” Lieberman said.
Lieberman, who ought to be quite familiar with the back ends of horses, has been making such threats for months. He does it every time something in the legislation fails to please him (and, presumably, his corporate donors in Connecticut, which is insurance industry central). By now it’s pretty clear that Lieberman is enjoying his little run of absolute power over the party that abandoned him three years ago. As Ezra Klein puts it, “At this point, Lieberman seems primarily motivated by torturing liberals.” And as I wrote earlier today, he’ll probably get his wish.
What I want to know, though, is precisely what Lieberman means when he says he’ll “join a Republican filibuster.” Does he just mean he’ll stand with the Republicans, thereby preventing Democrats from gaining the 60-vote majority they need for cloture? Or will Lieberman actually get up and talk? If it’s the latter, then I say let him do it.
The fact is, Joe Lieberman is one of the dullest and most anemic speakers ever to make it into the national spotlight. I’ve had the misfortune to cover him through two Democratic primary campaigns, and I can’t remember a single speech, even at a brief campaign stop, where I wasn’t struggling just to stay awake. Even when Lieberman tried to liven things up, he just made them worse: I still remember his performance in the final days before the 2004 New Hampshire primary, when he was running around telling everyone he had “Joe-mentum” (right up to the moment when he came in fifth).
The longest one-man filibuster on record is 24 hours (achieved by Strom Thurmond in 1957 to block Civil Rights legislation). Can you imagine Lieberman going on for even a fraction of that time? We wouldn’t need to talk about death panels any more, because we’d all die of boredom. The most famous filibuster scene of all time is fictional: Jimmy Stewart, in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, talks until he makes himself hoarse and eventually passes out from sheer exhaustion. But if Joe Lieberman were carrying the filibuster, it would be everybody else who’d pass out.
I predict that if Joe Lieberman engages in a filibuster, we will see Republicans defecting from their party to support cloture, just to shut him up. In other words, this just might be the one and only path that could lead to bipartisan health care reform.
It wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Harry Reid’s Medicare buy-in scheme would be DOA in the political mud of Washington. Still, that Rahm Emanuel would surface to order the Senate to cut a deal with perennial spoiler Joe Lieberman, as Politico this morning reports, just confirms the snake oil salesman has been at the heart of this entire creeped-out process. Politico reports:
Lieberman threw health care reform into doubt Sunday when he told Reid that he would filibuster the bill if it allowed Americans ages 55 to 64 to purchase coverage in Medicare. His comments on CBS’s “Face the Nation” set off a series of private meetings Sunday between the Senate leadership and top White House aides, including Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who encouraged Reid to cut the deal with Lieberman, the official said. The White House declined to comment.
The idea that Joe Lieberman could singlehandedly block the big health care reform bill with a filibuster announced on a Sunday morning talk show is pretty preposterous. Everyone knows Lieberman is a spoiler and that he will change his position at the drop of a hat—anything to enhance his political position. Emanuel is using him as a foil.
The political strategy for winning the timid health care reform now on the table has depended from the beginning on Obama encouraging liberals by signalling his backing for a public option or some co-op look-alike, thus laying out some raw red meat to be attacked by Dick Armey’s camp. Then as opposition mounts to rampant socialism, the Dems back down in seeming “compromise’’ or abject “defeat’’—take your pick–allowing the center right Democrats in the Senate to push ahead to victory with one or two Republicans in tow.
Remember, from the very beginning Obama never committed himself to any specific form of legislation; he only said that he wanted some kind of a health reform bill. And sooner or later, that’s what we’ll get.
Readers of Unsilent Generation know that I have a soft spot for old dogs, including but not limited to my own 15-year-old, Jenny. Every old dog deserves a safe home, a warm spot to lie in, and plenty of love and attention–in other words, pretty much the same things that old people need. But old dogs who end up homeless have an even harder time than other dogs, since they are often passed over for adoption; in some shelters, they are euthanized as soon as they arrive unless someone intervenes.
Dina, age 7
While there are hundreds of animal welfare organizations and rescue groups around the country, only a handful of groups have devoted themselves specifically to the needs of older dogs. As far as I can tell, all of them are staffed entirely by volunteers and survive on a shoestring, depending on small donations from ordinary people. If you love old dogs, too, you might want to keep this in mind if you’re planning on making some charitable contributions before the end of the year.
MacGregor, age 13
One group is the Sanctuary for Senior Dogs in Ohio, which rescues old dogs from shelters, finds adoptive homes, and keeps the ones they can’t place. They also train therapy dogs that visit old people. Last year a friend gave me their annual calendar, called Graying Muzzles: A Celebration of Old Dogs, with a canine geezer for every month of the year. These make great holiday gifts and support the Sanctuary’s work. (You can also enter your old dog in their photo contest for next year.) Or you can sponsor one of their permanent residents, like the ones pictured in this post, or just make a donation.
Other old dogs around the country who need adoption or foster homes, and organizations that rescue and support aging dogs, can be found at the Senior Dogs Project, which serves as a kind of information clearinghouse on old dogs.
“Our society must make it right and possible for old people not to fear the young or be deserted by them, for the test of a civilization is the way that it cares for its helpless members.” –Pearl S. Buck
“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” –Mahatma Gandhi
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It took a couple of days, but sure enough, the hospitals and doctors recovered their senses to see the Reid-proposed Medicare buy-in as, Oh My God, back-door socialism. In place of an enfeebled public option, now beaten to death in the back rooms of the Senate, the Dems are proposing to make the biggest single-payer medical enterprise in the United States even bigger. Never mind that the buy-in would cost more than most people could afford; it’s still a step down the slippery slope to socialized medicine. As the Washington Post writes Friday morning:
The 10 moderate and liberal Democratic senators who negotiated the tentative agreement regarded the buy-in as a compromise. They dropped the idea, central to the health-care bill adopted by the House, of a government-sponsored insurance system. Instead, the buy-in would provide a new public alternative to people within a 10-year age span.
Some critics characterize this approach as disingenuous. “This was in the context of an alternative to a public program, when [Medicare] is . . . perhaps the biggest public program in health care in the universe,” said Richard J. Pollack, executive vice president for advocacy and public policy for the American Hospital Association, which sent out an alert urging hospitals nationwide to complain to their members of Congress.
AARP, health insurance mogul and self proclaimed voice of the geezer, nixed the idea. From the same article:
“I just don’t see it being that popular,” said John Rother, executive vice president for policy and strategy for AARP, an enormous lobby for people 50 and older.
He and others said it remains unclear whether the program would be designed with the same health benefits, co-payments by patients, or access to private health plans and supplemental coverage as the rest of Medicare. Depending on such details, Rother said, “it’s not even Medicare, but that’s a brand name everyone likes.” Still, he said, AARP always has favored the creation of a buy-in, as long as it would not worsen the Medicare system’s already shaky finances.
Then came the kiss of death. Yesterday, Nancy Pelosi came out for the buy-in.
With the Senate wrangling over spending over the coming weekend, there isn’t likely to be much happening on the health care front until the first of the week. That provides a much needed breather from the Senate charade, and for junkies, an opportunity to decode Harry Reid’s description of his deal Tuesday night. Here, as recorded by the New York Times, is what he had to say:
Thanks everyone, for being patient and waiting for us. It goes without saying that this has been kind of a long journey. We have confronted many hurdles and had to take some big steps and a lot of little steps. But tonight we have overcome a real problem that we have had. I think it’s fair to say that the debate at this stage has been portrayed as a very divisive one and many have assumed that people of different perspectives can’t come together. But I think what we were able to work out the last few days, which culminated tonight belies that fact. We have a broad agreement. Now I know that people are going to ask to be given every detail of this.
I have talked 20 minutes ago to Doug Elmendorf. I told the head of the C.B.O. that we were going to send him something tomorrow that he would have to score and the reason I mention that to you, I also went over in some detail about what we were authorized to say about what we are going to send him. We know what we are going to send him, we have to write it up in legislative language. And he said the same as when you sent over your merged bill. We have had a rule here for 40 years or however long we have been in existence, if you start talking about the plan and start shipping it around, it will be made public. And we want not that to be the case because we want to know the score before we start giving all the details even to our own members.
So you are not going to get answers to those questions. I asked Senators Schumer and Pryor to work together with a group of moderates and progressives. Everyone thought it’s an impossible job. But these two fine senators have done an outstanding job of leading these two groups of people. Everyone knows who the 10 are; they have worked very hard for days now.
This is a consensus that will help ensure the American people win in a couple of different ways. One, insurance companies will certainly have more competition. And two, the American people will certainly have more choices. I already know all 60 senators in my caucus don’t agree on every piece of the merger. I know that we have sent over there to C.B.O., or will send to them tomorrow, not everyone is going to agree to every piece that we have sent over there. But that doesn’t mean we disagree on what we sent there.
I applaud and congratulate the 10 senators led by Schumer and Pryor. I think it’s important to mention their names, Brown, Carper, Feingold, Harkin, Landrieu, Lincoln, Nelson, Rockefeller. As I have indicated, we can’t disclose the details of what we have done, but believe me we have got something that is good and that I think is very, for us, it moves this bill way down the road.
Let me just say, we have seen all kinds of articles in newspapers that Senator Schumer, Senator Pryor, I have said things, other parts of the tent, as Elmendorf and I talked tonight, all the things you have read in the newspapers, all the things you have read in the newspapers. The public option is gone. It’s not true. O.K. Everyone understand that. So we are not going into detail. But you have heard to this point, you could be surprised what we’ve sent to CBO.
After the latest health care deal among Senate Democrats leaked, Howard Dean gave an interview to Plumline’s Greg Sargent. Dean said the compromise–which ditched the public option–nonetheless amounted to “real reform.” In case you missed it, here’s more of what Dean had to say:
* In one provision that liberals will dislike, Dean said he’d been told that the Medicare buy-in for people 55-64 would not have subsidies, potentially making the buy in unaffordable for many intended recipients. Dean said that if this isn’t fixed in conference negotiations, it could be a deal-breaker.
“That’s a huge problem that may tip this into being not real reform,” Dean said.
* Dean confirmed what I reported here yesterday: The Medicare buy-in will be available as early as 2010, a provision he hailed for substantive and political reasons. “They’re making government-run single payer available to people under 65,” he said. “That’s a step in the right direction.”
Dean added, however, that it was unclear as of yet whether the early buy-in applied to all those without insurance or just those at high-risk (I was told yesterday that the latter was true). He said that if it’s high-risk only, that could also be a provision that falls short of real reform, and noted that the early buy-in would have to be made available to everybody.
Asked to respond to progressives who decry the compromise for not making government-run insurance available to all age groups who need it, Dean said:
“The question is, Is there enough of a kernel of real reform in the bill to make it possible for progressives to vote for it? Given the details we know today, I think there is. The group at largest risk is being taken care of, those over 55. There really is reform. Is there enough reform? No. But significant reform matters.”
With the Senate Tuesday afternoon rejecting tough anti-abortion rules passed by the House with a 10 vote margin, and the public option withering away, Obama’s spindly- legged health care reform may have broken through the barriers set up by the right. Needless to say, this required abject unconditional surrender of the liberals. Reuters reports the abortion vote with a note on the public option:
The amendment would have blocked people who receive federal subsidies from buying insurance plans that cover abortions and prohibited a proposed government insurance plan from offering abortion coverage in most circumstances.
The issue of a government-run insurance plan might be moot as Senate negotiators worked on a deal to substitute a non-profit plan operated by private insurers but administered by the Office of Personnel Management, which supervises health coverage for federal workers.The abortion issue and the government-run insurance plan, which some moderates had opposed, are the two biggest stumbling blocks to passage of a sweeping healthcare overhaul that is President Barack Obama’s top domestic priority.
As I predicted some time ago, the interminable smoke and mirrors game going on in Congress will most likely end with the adoption a “public option” that isn’t public at all. In fact, it resembles the plan first proposed by the Heritage Foundation, premier architects of conservative policy, back in the 1980s under Reagan. Then, as now, the scheme essentially imitates the Federal Employees Health Benefits program, which gives people a choice of various private insurance company plans, sanctioned by an independent authorizing board. There is nothing really public about this program. In fact, it keeps access to health care firmly within the grip of the private insurance industry. And it isn’t cheap either: Some federal employees have opted out because they can’t afford their share of the costs.
This is the Democrats’ idea of a “compromise”–not with the Republicans, but with the so-called moderates within their own party. A group of ten Democratic senators (ten liberal, ten not) huddled over the weekend to work out plan that could get through the Senate, and President Obama paid a “rare Sunday trip” to Capitol Hill to drum up party unity. What came out of all this is a public option so weak that it seems more like a last-ditch piece of political face-saving than a genuine effort to improve access to health care. Here is how the Washington Post on Tuesday described the deal:
Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., said the idea is on the table as part of an emerging compromise under which liberals would back away from their demand for a new government health insurance plan to compete with private carriers. Instead of a so-called public plan, the compromise envisions private insurers operating under the auspices of the government agency that now manages the federal employee health plan–the same one that covers members of Congress.
There is a possible secondary piece to this compromise, also described by the Post, that involves opening Medicare to middle-aged people–say from 55-65, at which point they could formally join Medicare. But it’s not much of a threat to private insurers, either; in fact, it would probably attract the older, sicker people who presently can’t get private insurance at all. This option, too, would be far from cheap, as the Post reports: “A current buy-in available to those 65 and older who don’t qualify because of work history costs about $550 a month.” And it’s unlikely to stick anyway, since Olympia Snowe doesn’t seem to like it.
Some media accounts are depicting this FEHB model as a last-ditch, last resort position from an administration and Congress whose more liberal efforts have all been thwarted. But as I’ve noted in the past, Obama has been talking about the Federal Employee Health Benefits program since his campaign days, and it’s possible that this has been the White House’s back-burner strategy for a “public” option all along. Back in mid-March, Government Executive reported that ”the Obama administration is looking closely at the federal government’s health insurance program as it undertakes nationwide health care reform, a senior adviser to the president said.” In the same month, Senate Finance chair Max Baucus also hinted that the FEHB might provide the “compromise” that would allow bipartisan support, as consumer watchdog.org reported.
So we’ve ended up pretty much just where we should have expected: Liberals are set to back off their demands, showing them to be just so much hot air. Republicans, with a high level of gall even for them, are accusing the Democrats of abandoing bipartisanship. And any genuine, government run public option, which so many saw as the key to true health care reform, is nothing more than a corpse being dragged through the streets.
James Ridgeway
Jean Casella
