I know plenty of people have been doing their version of the happy dance since the MNSC gave an undeniable victory to Franken with a 5-0 ruling in his favor. That's 5-0 from a Republican Court. And to top the Numberwäng! fun Franken breaks the magical, mythical and oft-discussed-by-bloated-brains-in-glass-boxes number of 60, which will allow socialism to seep into the minds of innocent children via dream osmosis promotion machines made by Amazon and Massive Dynamics. Plus 60 is the number of times WineRev contemplated bending himself into a ball that could be placed into a box and shipped to Coleman's office where he could smash a bottle of Beaujolais over his head and christen him the good ship S. S. Spoilers of War. WineRev decided against this plan because, in his own words, "It'd be a tremendous waste of wine, [Coleman] has such a barbaric palate incapable of enjoying the nuances of the particular vintage I had in mind."
As happy as I am, I'd also like to ask Senator Franken to become one of America's strongest proponents of the public option. I would be ecstatic if the bill that gets passed is named the Kennedy-Franken bill. That would just chap the asses of every single acid spewing hate enabler all across the reverse deep thinking cable circuit, wouldn't it?
http://pol.moveon.org/...
Today I received an email from MoveOn.Org asking me to sign their congratulations card to Senator Franken and that's how we can all easily send a quick thank you to him along with a message about how he could go down in history as one of the integral people who helped to make the public option part of America's history.
If you are reading this diary then you probably already know the most of the talking points regarding the public option. You know that the vast majority of Americans--from all corners of the country and all across the political spectrum--support a strong public option with the reputable polls placing support around the 65% to 75% range and those numbers will only go upwards when they realize it will mean savings for them when we cut the insurance companies obscene profit levels out of the equation. A two percent profit level is what Congress allows for their own personal health care plan providers so what is appropriate for them is appropriate for the rest of America. Or you can point out that private insurers gobble up anywhere from twenty to thirty percent of the money paid to them, which helps to explain why Americans pay twice as much for health care than any other nation on the planet, while federally managed plans like Medicare and Medicaid take a measly three percent leaving a massive ninety-seven percent to go towards actual health care. There is also the fact that preventative health care spending reaps huge rewards by lowering the number of absurdly expensive responses to untreated situations that eventually turn so bad they end up in the ER. Once in the ER medical care has to be provided by law but at that point the person is much worse off than when the situation first presented; for instance, there is the stupidity of not paying for insulin for everybody who needs it. If a diabetic cannot afford their medication they can end up with their kidneys ruined and in need of thrice weekly kidney dialysis, which is quite costly and to top that off the person can no longer work because they have to be at the hospital three times a week along with their weakened bodies making work difficult under the best circumstances. We could've paid a fraction of the cost by giving away the insulin or we can pay a mountain of money for the rest of the person's life to cover dialysis and disability benefits. (And as somebody on disability benefits, it's no picnic.) Or you can tell him how insurance companies are repeatedly taking money from clients for years and then when they actually have a tragic health care emergency the insurance company fights them tooth and nail over proper medical treatment, sapping much needed strength away from the debilitated person in the process, or worse voiding their policy leaving them with no insurance or even worse, denying the treatment via bureaucratic wrangling for a day or two with the hopes that temporary denial will kill many of the patients allowing them to keep their beautiful profit margins by strangling patients with red tape. And these are the corporations that the GOP say will magically fix the health care fiasco through the application of free market principles along with a few human sacrifices to get the mojo ball rolling. The lack of health care has ruined many lives and families in America all so insurance companies can maintain their profit margins!
Those reasons barely scratch the surface as we all have stories from our own lives about medical nightmares experienced by our selves, families, friends, and co-workers and it is those stories that I think would press Senator Franken in the direction of becoming the Champion of the Public Option. Plus a few notes to Senator Kennedy asking him to help persuade Senator Franken in our direction might be helpful too. And maybe some of you left brained math people can give him the numbers on how the public option will end up saving us money--all we have to do is redirect that massive stream of money we already spend on health care--twice as much as any other nation spends--and spend it on a government run health care system that will spend 97% of its premium on healing its clients as opposed to the care you get from a private insurer, which spends only 70-80% of its clients premiums on healing. I don't know about you but I'd much rather have the 97% option.
Let's tell Senator Franken that history has a great place already carved out for him and all he has to do is take up the mantle and become the Champion of the Public Option. If he makes himself instrumental in helping getting this passed the fact that he played Stuart Smalley and had to wait over half a year after he won his election to be seated will be the footnotes of his life while his passionate desire to see every American have access to proper medical care regardless of their ability to pay for it will be the centerpiece of his future biography. Let's draft Al!
http://pol.moveon.org/...