Netroots is a totally unique conference. This is an organized by big political players like the Democratic Party or by industry. This is organized by progressives. It is an outshoot of progressive blogs. I went last year when I was in Austin, Texas. This year it is in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, I couldn’t make it this year.
In the clip below, Digby explains how conservatives are using deficits to limit the possibilities that are available to progressives. If there is a lot of money around, progressives may do foolish things like investing in green energy, enacting universal health care and rebuilding our crumbling schools. Conservatives don’t really want to do any of those things. Those are all anti-free market. So, over the last 30 years, conservatives have run up huge deficits and George W. Bush was no exception. There was very little discussion about the deficit while we were invading Iraq. As the war dragged on into its third and fourth year, there was a little grumbling about deficits from progressives but not much from conservatives. Now we’re in the midst of the worst recession since the Great Depression and conservatives are howling about the deficit. Very ironic.
Did you see that black woman being led out of the room? Did you think that was odd? I did, too. Most of the protesters, those who are so angry they can spit (and some do) are middle-aged (and older) white people. So what happened?
Many of you may have seen the footage of an African American woman being removed from a town hall event held by Democratic Senator, Clarie McCaskill in St. Louis yesterday. What you didn’t see was the racist, white male who started the incident.
This is the only video of what actually happened at the event this afternoon. The news only showed the woman being escorted away by the police. What happened was the women walked in with signs, the crowd booed and yelled at the women. The women rolled up their posters and put them down. A photographer/reporter approached the woman on the end and wanted to see what the poster was. As the woman went to show the photographer/reporter what the poster was, a man from the bleachers stood up and snatched the poster from the woman and photographer/reporter. As the woman went to retrieve her poster the police stepped in and escorted the woman and the man from the building.
The poster was not of Obama, it was not pro health care, the poster that was taken from the woman and wrinkled up into a ball was of Rosa Parks. Read on…
UPDATE: Michael Bersin of Show Me Progress interviewed Maxine Johnson, the woman in the video. You can read the interview and get more on the story here.
This is so out of control. Death threats for supporting healthcare reform! Congressmen, white and black, being threatened. This is so wrong, so very wrong.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.) today released over 700 pages of on-the-record interview transcripts of Karl Rove and Harriet Miers on the U.S. attorney firings and the Bush administration’s politicization of the Department of Justice. Conyers also released over 5,400 pages of Bush White House and Republican National Committee e-mails on these subjects.
The released materials reveal that White House officials were deeply involved in the U.S. attorney firings and the administration made a concerted effort to hide that fact from the American people. “After all the delay and despite all the obfuscation, lies, and spin,” Conyers said, “this basic truth can no longer be denied: Karl Rove and his cohorts at the Bush White House were the driving force behind several of these firings, which were done for improper reasons. Under the Bush regime, honest and well-performing U.S. attorneys were fired for petty patronage, political horsetrading and, in the most egregious case of political abuse of the U.S. attorney corps – that of U.S. Attorney Iglesias – because he refused to use his office to help Republicans win elections. When Mr. Iglesias said his firing was a ‘political fragging,’ he was right.”
Key new facts revealed in the materials released today include:
2005 White House “Decision” to fire David Iglesias – It has previously been known that New Mexico Republicans pressed for Iglesias to be removed because they did not like his decisions on vote fraud cases. New White House documents show that Rove and his office were involved in this effort no later than May 2005 (months earlier than previously known) – for example, in May and June 2005, Rove aide Scott Jennings sent e-mails to Tim Griffin (also in Rove’s office) asking “what else I can do to move this process forward” and stressing that “I would really like to move forward with getting rid of NM US ATTY.” In June 2005, Harriet Miers e-mailed that a “decision” had been made to replace Iglesias. At this time, DOJ gave Iglesias top rankings, so this decision was clearly not just the result of the White House following the Department’s lead as Rove and Miers have maintained.1
Iglesias criticized by Rove aide for not “doing his job on” Democratic Congressional Candidate Patricia Madrid – An October 2006 e-mail chain begun by Representative Heather Wilson criticized David Iglesias for not bringing politically useful public corruption prosecutions in the run up to the 2006 elections. Scott Jennings forwarded Wilson’s email to Karl Rove and complained that Iglesias had been “shy about doing his job on Madrid,” Wilson’s opponent in the 2006 Congressional race. Just weeks after this e-mail, Iglesias’ name was placed on the final firing list.2
An “agitated” Rove pressed Harriet Miers to do something about Iglesias just weeks before Iglesias was placed on the removal list – Karl Rove phoned Harriet Miers during a visit to New Mexico in September 2006 – according to Miers’ testimony, Rove was “agitated” and told her that Iglesias was “a serious problem and he wanted something done about it.”3
Senator Domenici personally asked Bush’s Chief of Staff Josh Bolten to have Iglesias replaced –In October 2006, Senator Domenici stepped up his campaign to have Iglesias replaced. According to White House phone logs and emails, as well as Rove’s own testimony, Domenici spoke with President Bush’s Chief of Staff Josh Bolten about Iglesias on October 5, 2006, and during October 2006, Domenici or his staff spoke with Karl Rove at least four times.4
Gov. Mark Sanford will look back at 2009 and say, “What happened? I was in position to run for the presidency of the United States in 2008. McCain, Palin and Romney seemed to be out of the picture. It was just me and that guy from Minnesota. Then, Brazil, press conferences, C Street, the wife’s statement, and now travel expenses.”
South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, already under fire for an extramarital relationship, should be impeached for abusing state finances, a Republican state senator said Monday.
Sen. David Thomas, in a letter to leaders of the constitutional/administrative subcommittee of the South Carolina Senate Finance Committee, accused his fellow Republican of violating state regulations.
The allegations involve flights he took to London, England, and China in 2006 and 2007 on state business. South Carolina requires the governor to charge the state the lowest rate available unless there are overriding circumstances, such as emergency travel.
“The two flights by Gov. Sanford were in violation of the South Carolina Code of Regulations,” Thomas said in his letter. “The difference in price between the most economical and the more expensive price of the seats the governor chose is approximately $13,700.” (more…)
I would like to publicly thank the LA Times for doing some reporting. They have a nice article on some of the myths and misperceptions that are areas of confusion surrounding the healthcare debate. Kudos to them.
The White House would like to clear up some misperceptions also. They have launched a new website. (What has troubled me during most of this debate is how behind the White House is. Healthcare has been pummeled by Republicans, conservatives and other lobbyists for several weeks. Now they launch an offensive? Where was this four weeks ago?)
Many have tried to convince me of the righteousness of business. They have tried to tell me how great the free markets are. Continental Airlines has set another example of how business needs to be regulated. Leaving passengers stuck on the tarmac for nine hours is unforgivable. Watch the video below!
David Kurtz from TPM asked the question, where are all the physicians in the health care debate? I don’t know what I can do to be more visible. I have a radio show. I have a blog. I’ve talked about health care and health care reform for over three months. Maybe I should get my own television show?
A hold has been placed on Representative John McHugh’s nomination for Secretary of the Army by Senators Pat Roberts and Sam Brownback.
The autopsy of Michael Jackson has been completed but the results are sealed. This seems to be dragging on forever.
Army General Stanley McChrystal has asked for more civilian resources in Afghanistan. If someone can tell me exactly what we’re doing in Afghanistan and what we’re trying to accomplish, I would be most appreciative.
If you can’t get Sarah Palin, whom do you call? Chuck Heath, Sarah Palin’s father and Jim Palin, Todd Palin’s father will be campaigning in Idaho for Vaughn Ward, a Republican candidate for Congress. Well, that’s a creepy version of All in the Family!
The NFL is getting ready to crank up! Preseason action starts on Thursday.
The Democrats promise that a government health care system will reduce the cost of health care, but as the economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.
Today on his radio show, however, Glenn Beck said that he thinks she has a point. ” I believe it to be true, but that’s quite a statement,” said Beck, adding, “I believe she at least should be listened to and you should question, ‘Is it evil?’”
What Death Panel? Where is that in any bill being discussed on Capital Hill?
Update: Keith Olbermann had a Special Comment on Sarah Palin tonight.
“The America I know and love,” the quitter governor of Alaska Sarah Palin began, “is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.”
Of course it is, Ms. Palin, and that is why it does not exist, has not existed, and would never, under this president, nor any other president, ever exist, in this country.
There is no ‘death panel.’ There is no judgment based on societal productivity. There is no worthiness test. But there is downright evil, and Ms. Palin, you just served its cause. You shouted “fire” in a crowded theater — a hot one — and then today tried to roll it back with “no, no, sorry, not fire, I meant flashlights.” (more…)
Watch the video:
Something is very wrong. No one just steps down to be with family. Is he sick? I mean, does he have cancer? Is someone in his family sick? Was he part of the C Street crowd? I don’t understand. He’s a first- term Senator! He has been in office about four years. This is very odd.
Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Florida, will announce that he is resigning his seat, three GOP sources tell CNN.
The sources said that Martinez will officially announce his intention to step down on Friday. The Florida Republican, first elected in 2004, announced in December of last year that he would retire in 2010.
Florida law states that Gov. Charlie Crist may temporarily appoint someone to the vacant seat until the next general election. As of Friday morning, it was unclear what Crist would do. Crist announced in May he would not seek another term as governor, and instead would run for Martinez’s seat. (more… )
Over the past week, we have seen your passionate protests and heard your concerns about Democratic proposals for health care reform. We have considered your insightful and well reasoned arguments, and on behalf of progressives everywhere, I am here to say: OK! We give up! We are willing to compromise on the proposals that concern you. You’ve won! Yay!
In accordance with your cogent and potent criticisms, these are the terms of our concession:
We will not euthanize your grandmother. This is the big one, and I really hope you guys appreciate how much of a concession this is on behalf of the progressive movement. Since the days of the Bull Moose Party, progressives have wanted nothing more than to slaughter old people by the millions. That much is obvious. After all, if we wanted senior citizens to have long and healthy lives, why would we have created Social Security and Medicare? Think about it. Death to grannies has long been the core of progressive policy, so it’s not without some consternation that we give it up. So there: no euthanizing old people. You’ve got it.
Rahm Emanuel’s brother will not kill Sarah Palin’s baby. While this will require us to gut HR 3200 “America’s Health Choices and Murder Sarah Palin’s Baby Act of 2009,” we’re currently working with Henry Waxman to remove the extensive Sarah Palin’s baby-killing provisions from the final bill. While this will probably cost us Andrew Sullivan’s support, we recognize that this is a necessary sacrifice for securing broad bipartisan support of health care reform.
The government will not nationalize hospitals and other health service providers. This is another big one. Though the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has correctly pointed out that current Democratic proposals involve adopting the British health care system, we now recognize that this is not politically viable. The final bill, accordingly, will not involve the nationalization of hospitals and other health service providers. This will be a major setback to Obama’s well known communist agenda, but again, we progressives agree with the Blue Dogs that we need to reach a broad national consensus by responding to Republican concerns.
We will make the health care reform bill available for all Americans to read as soon as possible. I know that conservatives and pundits have been eagerly anticipating an opportunity to read the final health care reform bill, and after extensive discussion, we have decided to comply with your request. While we would like to have unseen drafts languishing in committee forever, we have asked Senate Democrats like Max Baucus and Kent Conrad to deliver a bill as soon as possible in order to allow the public to read it. As you know, progressives wanted nothing more than to keep these drafts hidden for as long as possible, but in the interests of transparency and bipartisan consensus, we recognize that it’s vital to move the legislative process forward. In fact, it is our hope that Baucus and Conrad will return from the August recess early in order to ensure that the public has as much time as possible to inspect their work. [Read more →]
The battle was everything Tiger Woods expected. The finish was nothing anyone imagined, except for Woods hoisting another World Golf Championship trophy at Firestone.
Woods was in trouble in the trees on the famous par-5 16th hole, one shot behind Padraig Harrington, trying to figure out how he could squeeze out a victory Sunday in the Bridgestone Invitational.
He delivered another signature moment, this one an 8-iron from 178 that wound up a foot from the hole for birdie. Moments later, with an official timing his every shot, Padraig Harrington rushed his way into a stunning meltdown. He hit five straight shots without losing his turn, made triple bogey and became a mere bystander the final two holes as Woods won for the 70th time in his career. (more…)
I don’t think everyone who thinks President Barack Obama hasn’t been completely open with the American people with regards to his birth certificate is crazy or a loon. The problem is that the crazies have latched onto this topic and they will not let go. Also, the MSM cannot or will not do its job, which is to investigate. (We could get evidence of illegal wiretapping but not Obama’s BC.) It is the same people who believe that Clinton killed Vince Foster and 30 or 40 others, depending on which e-mail you read. In my mind, Obama should explain why he does or does not have the long form of his birth certificate. That’s it. He should announce it in Hawaii while standing in front of the hospital in which he was born. He should take one of those knuckleheads from Fox News to look at the document and be done with it.
On the other hand, this will not go away. I don’t believe that if Obama were to deliver his birth certificate (the long form) that the crazies would go away. They have a list of stuff (see the bottom of this post) that they want to see. The list is getting longer every day, like why did Hilliary Clinton go to Kenya? Was it to look for Obama’s “real” birth certificate?
BTW, although I believe that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii and that he should come clean, I don’t think that he will. This is disappointing, especially because I thought we were ushering in a new era of openness. How much information should we expect our president to give us before taking office. Birth certificate. What about medical records? McCain’s records were incomplete and viewed by a select number of reporters. Is that okay? How about school records and papers? Where does it end?
Myth 6: Obama traveled to Pakistan using an Indonesian passport
When the Birthers tire of arguing that Obama wasn’t born in the U.S., they take another tack. At some point during the time he spent in Indonesia growing up, they say, Obama must have taken Indonesian citizenship or renounced his American citizenship or both. As proof, they cite the trip he took to Pakistan in 1981 with a friend from college, and say the U.S. government had issued a ban on travel by its citizens to the country.
Thing is, there was no travel ban. “We have no record of any travel ban between America and Pakistan during that period or since,” a State Department spokesman told Weigel. And FactCheck.org’s Brooks Jackson notes that the New York Times printed an article about travel to Pakistan on June 14, 1981, which said Americans just needed a visa to travel there. Two months later, the U.S. consul general in Lahore, Pakistan, wrote to the Times to say he’d “welcome an influx of Americans.”
Myth 7: Obama hasn’t released his birth certificate
Here, we’ll admit, Uncle Floyd has a point — at least a limited one. Strictly speaking, what Obama’s campaign released wasn’t called a birth certificate; it’s a certification of live birth. But there’s no functional difference between the two: Ask Hawaii for your birth certificate, and you’ll get the certification of live birth back.
“Our Certificate of Live Birth is the standard form, which was modeled after national standards that are acceptable by federal agencies and organizations,” Okubo told the Honolulu Advertiser. “With that form, you can get your passport or your soccer registration or your driver’s license.”
There’s been some confusion about whether the original even still exists, but that’s now been cleared up. Okubo told the Advertiser that in 2001 the state’s paper documents were put into an electronic form, but “any paper data prior to that still exists … we have backups for all of our backups.”
Myth 8: If Obama would just release his birth certificate, he could end all this
So why hasn’t the state of Hawaii released the original paper document? By law, the state can’t release Obama’s birth records without his OK. State law says that the document can only be released to or “inspect[ed]” by someone with a “direct and tangible” interest. (Though, again, except for “permit[ting] inspection,” the law refers to the release of copies and certified copies, not the original record.)
But let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that Obama could get the original paper document out of its undisclosed Hawaiian location and show it to reporters. Shouldn’t he? Maybe not. He’s already released a completely legal form of proof of his birthplace; to cave in to the Birthers’ demands now would legitimize them. It would also likely lead to a wave of stories asking why the change in stance had happened, and what had taken so long.
The truth is that it was the original release of the certification of live birth that kicked off the Birther movement to begin with. And some of its leaders wouldn’t cease their quest even if they were given the original birth certificate — along with a video showing Obama being born, lei already around his neck.
Conspiracy theorists cling to their theories in the face of all evidence, and in this case the groundwork for disputing an original birth certificate has already been laid. In October of 2008, Rush Limbaugh suggested that Obama’s trip to Hawaii to see his dying grandmother might really have been made in order to do some quick forgery. Limbaugh’s fellow talk radio host Michael Savage jumped on that bandwagon, too.
Plus, the Birthers have a long list of other demands. Here’s one sent out by Gary Kreep, who’s representing Alan Keyes in his lawsuit challenging Obama’s eligibility. Read it, and abandon all hope:
Actual long-form birth certificate (NOT an easily-forged electronic copy of a short-form document that is not even officially accepted in Hawaii)
Passport files
University of Chicago Law School scholarly articles
Harvard Law Review articles
Harvard Law School records
Columbia University records
Columbia University senior thesis, “Soviet Nuclear Disarmament”
Occidental College records, including financial aid that he may have received
Punahou School records, where Mr. Obama attended from the fifth grade until he finished high school
Noelani Elementary School records, where Barack Obama attended kindergarten (according to the Hawaii Department of Education, students must submit a birth certificate to register — but parents may bring a passport or student visa if the child is from a foreign country)
Complete files and schedules of his years as an Illinois state senator from 1997 to 2004
Obama’s client list from during his time in private practice with the Chicago law firm of Davis, Miner, Barnhill and Gallard
Last week, Politico asked the 11 House Republicans co-sponsoring the so-called “birther bill” — legislation requiring presidential candidates to prove they were born in the United States — to provide their own birth certificates. While a number of them complied, Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-TX) explicitly refused to show his proof of birth. His staff instead sent a one-line e-mail response: “Congressman Neugebauer will not be submitting a copy of his birth certificate.” Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) did not respond to the request at all.
I thought I’d say a few things about John Hughes who died this week. I like to consider myself a movie buff. I’m probably one of the few who can happily say that he is watched and laughed at Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! more than once. I’m one of the guys who stays after the movie’s over and watches the credits. (Although I watch the credits, I don’t memorize the credits. I don’t care who the key grip was.)
I only really knew John Hughes as a director. Now that I’ve done some reading, it looks as though I actually knew his writing just didn’t recognize it. He wrote National Lampoon’s Vacation in 1983. He also wrote Class Reunion in 1982. I was lukewarm on both of these films. He wrote Mr. Mom, also in 1983, which starred Teri Garr and Michael Keaton. I would give this movie a solid B. It is worth a rental.
John Hughes really made his mark on me and Hollywood with a series of films that he did in the mid-to-late ’80s. He managed to portray the good, the bad and the ugly of being a teenager or young college student in movies that were funny and sad. They were heartwarming without being sappy. The Breakfast Club, 16 Candles, Pretty in Pink, Weird Science and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (my personal favorite, a must see for anyone who likes this genre) were simply strokes of genius. The premises of his movies were simple, like The Breakfast Club, in which several teenagers have Saturday detention. How can you make an interesting movie out of that? Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was about a guy who skipped school. Big deal. Yet somehow John Hughes was able to make these ordinary occurrences extraordinary. He found the right combination of actors to make his stories engaging. Somehow the bad guys weren’t all that bad and the good guys weren’t all that good. Everyone was okay. His screenplays were written in such a way that the story unfolded the way teenagers and young adults would have wanted it to unfold and then to end. His movies hit a nerve, not in a bad way but in a good way.
He made the careers of Molly Ringwald, Matthew Broderick, Anthony Michael Hall, Judd Nelson and Ally Sheedy. (Remember her?) John Candy actually worked with Hughes in eight films.
Sometime in the early ’90s he stopped directing films and just wrote screenplays. He wrote Dennis the Menace, Flubber, 101 Dalmatians, Home Alone 3 and Home Alone 4, to name a few.
In my opinion, John Hughes told a generation of Americans (who are now between the ages of 35 and 50) that it’s okay to be different and that‘s a great legacy to leave.
Sonia Sotomayor was sworn in Saturday morning as the first Hispanic justice on the Supreme Court in a brief ceremony that completed a remarkable ascent for a Puerto Rican girl from the South Bronx.
Sotomayor, 55, rested her left hand on a Bible held by her mother and raised her right hand as Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. administered a pair of oaths that made her the 111th justice to serve on the nation’s highest court. She pledged to “administer justice without respect to persons and do equal right to the poor and to the rich.”
The chief justice had slightly flubbed the wording of the oath of office when he swore in President Obama in January; this time he held a piece of paper containing the oath for Sotomayor. Occasionally Roberts looked down as he recited the words. (more…)
I found this transcript of the second 1992 Presidential Debate between President George Bush, Bill Clinton and Ross Perot. (I have added the emphasis.) Please note that nothing has changed. Clinton, Bush and Perot were debating the exact same things that we are talking about today. The only thing that has changed is that we are spending more money today than we did back in 1992. Also, you will find a nice video from President Clinton’s Presidential Address.
AUDIENCE QUESTION: I’d like to ask Governor Clinton, do you attribute the rising costs of health care to the medical profession itself, or do you think the problem lies elsewhere? And what specific proposals do you have to tackle this problem?
CLINTON: I’ve had more people talk to me about their health care problems I guess than anything else, all across America — you know, people who’ve lost their jobs, lost their businesses, had to give up their jobs because of sick children. So let me try to answer you in this way. Let’s start with a premise. We spend 30% more of our income than any nation on earth on health care, and yet we insure fewer people. We have 35 million people without any insurance at all — and I see them all the time. A hundred thousand Americans a month have lost their health insurance just in the last 4 years.
So if you analyze where we’re out of line with other countries, you come up with the following conclusions. Number one, we spend at least $60 billion a year on insurance, administrative cost, bureaucracy, and government regulation that wouldn’t be spent in any other nation. So we have to have, in my judgment, a drastic simplification of the basic health insurance policies of this country, be very comprehensive for everybody.
Employers would cover their employees, government would cover the unemployed.
Number 2, I think you have to take on specifically the insurance companies and require them to make some significant change in the way they rate people in the big community pools. I think you have to tell the pharmaceutical companies they can’t keep raising drug prices at three times the rate of inflation. I think you have to take on medical fraud. I think you have to help doctors stop practicing defensive medicine. I’ve recommended that our doctors be given a set of national practice guidelines and that if they follow those guidelines that raises the presumption that they didn’t do anything wrong.
I think you have to have a system of primary and preventive clinics in our inner cities and our rural areas so people can have access to health care.
The key is to control the cost and maintain the quality. To do that you need a system of managed competition where all of us are covered in big groups and we can choose our doctors and our hospitals, a wide range, but there is an incentive to control costs. And I think there has to be — I think Mr. Perot and I agree on this, there has to be a national commission of health care providers and health care consumers that set ceilings to keep health costs in line with inflation, plus population growth.
Now, let me say, some people say we can’t do this but Hawaii does it. They cover 98% of their people and their insurance premiums are much cheaper than the rest of America, and so does Rochester, New York. They now have a plan to cover everybody and their premiums are two-thirds of the rest of the country.
This is very important. It’s a big human problem and a devastating economic problem for America, and I’m going to send a plan to do this within the first 100 days of my presidency. It’s terribly important.
SIMPSON: Thank you. Sorry to cut you short but President Bush, health care reform.
BUSH: I just have to say something. I don’t want to stampede. Ross was very articulate across the country. I don’t want anybody to stampede to cut the president’s salary off altogether. Barbara’s sitting over here and I — but what I have proposed, 10% cut, downsize the government, and we can get that done.
She asked a question, I think, is whether the health care profession was to blame. No. One thing to blame is these malpractice lawsuits. They’re breaking the system. It costs $20-25 billion a year, and I want to see those outrageous claims capped. Doctors don’t dare to deliver babies sometimes because they’re afraid that somebody’s going to sue them. People don’t dare — medical practitioners, to help somebody along the highway that are hurt because they’re afraid that some lawyer’s going to come along and get a big lawsuit. So you can’t blame the practitioners for the health problem.
And my program is this. Keep the government as far out of it as possible, make insurance available to the poorest of the poor, through vouchers, next range in the income bracket, through tax credits, and get on about the business of pooling insurance. A great big company can buy — Ross has got a good-sized company, been very successful. He can buy insurance cheaper than Mom and Pop’s store on the corner. But if those Mom and Pop stores all get together and pool, they too can bring the cost of insurance down.
So I want to keep the quality of health care. That means keep government out of it. I want to do — I don’t like this idea of these boards. It all sounds to me like you’re going to have some government setting price. I want competition and I want to pool the insurance and take care of it that way and have — oh, here’s the other point.
I think medical care should go with the person. If you leave a business, I think your insurance should go with you to some other business. You shouldn’t be worrying if you get a new job as to whether that’s gonna — and part of our plan is to make it what they call portable — big word, but that means if you’re working for the Jones Company and you go to the Smith Company, your insurance goes with you. I think it’s a good program. I’m really excited about getting it done, too.
SIMPSON: Mr. Perot.
PEROT:We have the most expensive health care system in the world. Twelve percent of our gross national product goes to health care. Our industrial competitors, who are beating us in competition, spend less and have better health care. Japan spends a little over 6% of its gross national product. Germany spends 8%.
It’s fascinating. You’ve bought a front row box seat and you’re not happy with your health care and you’re saying tonight we’ve got bad health care but very expensive health care. Folks, here’s why. Go home and look in the mirror.
You own this country but you have no voice in it the way it’s organized now, and if you want to have a high risk experience, comparable to bungee jumping, go into Congress some time when they’re working on this kind of legislation, when the lobbyists are running up and down the halls. Wear your safety toe shoes when you go. And as a private citizen, believe me, you are looked on as a major nuisance.
The facts are you now have a government that comes at you. You’re supposed to have a government that comes from you.
Now, there are all kinds of good ideas, brilliant ideas, terrific ideas on health care. None of them ever get implemented because — let me give you an example. A senator runs every 6 years. He’s got to raise 20,000 bucks a week to have enough money to run. Who’s he gonna listen to — us or the folks running up and down the aisles with money, the lobbyists, the PAC money? He listens to them. Who do they represent? Health care industry. Not us.
Now, you’ve got to have a government that comes from you again. You’ve got to reassert your ownership in this country and you’ve got to completely reform our government. And at that point they’ll just be like apples falling out of a tree. The programs will be good because the elected officials will be listening to — I said the other night I was all ears and I would listen to any good idea. I think we ought to do plastic surgery on a lot of these guys so that they’re all ears, too, and listen to you. Then you get what you want, and shouldn’t you? You paid for it. Why shouldn’t you get what you want, as opposed to what some lobbyist cuts a deal, writes a little piece in the law and he goes through. That’s the way the game’s played now. Till you change it you’re gonna be unhappy.
What else can be said about Will Smith? The guy is incredible. Yep, I’m sorry to say that he is one of my favorite rappers. I know that he was silly, but he was fun and he can act. Did you see Ali or Hancock?
Red State Update has always been very good (and funny) pointing out the craziness of politics especially the far right. Today, they realize that they are moderate in their beliefs. It is very funny. Enjoy.
Errington C. Thompson, MD, is a surgeon, scholar, full-time sports fan and part-time political activist. He is active in a number of community projects and initiatives. Through medicine, he strives to improve the physical health of all he treats...
