Wendell Potter got me thinking this morning.
Wendell is now a fellow at the Center for Public Integrity . He writes with great feeling about the Remote Area Medical Clinic being run in Nashville this weekend. Wendell says:
For a reminder, lawmakers might want to spend a few hours in Nashville this weekend. I’m betting they would behave differently when they got back to Washington on Monday.
If they arrived in Nashville by Friday afternoon, those legislators would see an ever-growing line of cars and trucks outside a locked gate at McGavock High School. At midnight, the gate will be opened, enabling the occupants of those cars and trucks to camp out in the parking lot for hours, maybe even days. Many of these folks will have driven hundreds of miles to receive care from doctors and nurses and other caregivers volunteering their time to treat as many people as possible before they all pack up and go home Sunday evening.
I love Wendell, but I don't agree with him on this point. The only way lawmakers will begin to recognize the profound hardship and suffering of millions of Americans, is to strip these lawmakers of their own deluxe, heavily taxpayer subsidized benefits.
Anthony Weiner is 1000% correct and deserves our unqualified support. He says it's time (long overdue) to defund Congressional health benefits. Take a look!
Read this about what it's like to fight for survival in the individual market.
It is wrong for members of Congress and the Senate to receive at taxpayer expense,the Federal Employee Benefit Plan. I don't think the political class in Washington DC will ever recognize their depraved indifference to the needs to the American people, until they, like so many of us, must attempt to purchase insurance in the individual market--at market rates!
Why the American people tolerate them receiving healthcare and paying 30% of the load, as the taxpayer pick up the 70% difference of the full cost of their coverage is beyond me. And then they dare to preach the glories of unfettered capitalism and the free market??!!
I've started a group on Daily Kos: PULL THEIR COVERAGE . Please join. LET'S HELP ANTHONY WEINER DEFUND CONGRESSIONAL HEALTHCARE. The Egyptian people toppled a dictator, surely we can make ourselves heard.
LINK TO FACEBOOK PAGE. PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION AND SEND TO EVERYONE
And on the subject of our friend Wendell Potter, I urge you to read what he has to say in the New York Times about the junk insurance his his former employers foist on unwitting Americans.
He's truly the best friend Americans could have, speaking out tirelessly about those responsible for our grotesque healthcare system.
He knows all the duplicitous posturing of the Murder By Spreadsheet health insurance industry. He says privately as well as publically, that he's positive the industry wants the Affordable Care Act implemented.
You have to remember, the health law is a huge boon to the industry. They are not fighting it — in fact, they are moving toward it. Whatever regulations and changes they may have to put up with, the fact remains that millions of uninsured Americans will now have to buy insurance. That represents massive new profits for the industry. So yes, big insurers are complying with the law.
This sets up a delicious problem for the SCOTUS and the Republican Party demanding its repeal. Don't doubt Wendell. He says the industry is moving toward implementation because it will benefit handsomely from 30 million new customers.
To add further immediacy to Wendell's warnings in the New York Times, in early December Kaiser Health News broke a story about the five largest insurers, Aetna, Cigna, Humana, UnitedHealthcare and Wellpoint shopping around Washington for a public relations firm to represent them. Bottom line is, these corporations need even more than AHIP can provide.
As the PPACA begins the long road to implementation, the insurers want to be sure that they get the 30 million new "covered lives", with minimal regulation. Insurers want the individual mandate, with no strings attached. This is what some of us would call business as usual. If you want to talk about "severability", I'd be way more concerned about the efforts underway to strip the ACA of all meaningful regulation. This is a way bigger issue than whether the SCOTUS will rule the individual mandate constitutional. If the insurers prevail, the result will be 30 million new victims, required to buy for profit junk insurance with only minimal regulation.
LINK TO FACEBOOK PAGE. PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION AND SEND TO EVERYONE
Updated by nyceve at Sun Feb 20, 2011, 01:18:13 PM
Here's a link to the Facebook Page. Please sign the petition and send to everyone you know.
http://www.facebook.com/...