Republican mobs?

[irishbobcat]

Sestak Health Care Meeting: Will you let the nut jobs win?
Submitted by Dan U-A on Mon, 08/10/2009 - 2:43pm. health care Joe Sestak
Joe Sestak is going to hold a meeting on universal health care this Wednesday. Like every other town hall meeting on healthcare, insurance companies will partner with crazy, racist, nut jobs to try to disrupt any actual meeting from taking place. It is a holy alliance of the fringes of society, spurred on by Glen Beck, Sarah Palin, and a too compliant national media, with the power and money of the insurance companies goading them on. All to stop every American from getting to see a doctor.

For example, word got out that Sestak's meeting would actually be held in Philly, and so, there was this tweet:

CON SESTAK PA 7TH DISTRICT IS NOT HAVING MEETING IN AREA OF VOTERS THAT ELECTED HIM HE IS MAKING US GO 2 PHILLY WHERE THE BLACK PANTHERS R

Oh, where the black panthers are!?

And, if that was a little to subtle for you, it was followed by this one:

@glennbeck iTS A BLACK CHURCH IN ANOTHER DIS. SESTAK IS GOING TO SAND BAG US

Um, yeah. It is even directed at Glenn Beck. That is too, too, too perfect. That is who will be at the town hall, hoping to drown out any conversation from actually happening.

We can sit back and watch the carnage, or we can show up to these forums and make sure that the insurance companies and the birthers don't win. Here are the details:

Broad Street Ministry proudly presents an Avenue of the Arts Forum:

A Health Care Townhall Featuring Joe Sestak

This Wednesday, August 12th | 6:30 - 7:30pm

Location:
Broad Street Ministry
315 S. Broad St., Philadelphia, PA
b/t Spruce and Pine (across from UArts and Kimmel Center)

This event is FREE and OPEN to the Public. PLEASE COME and SPREAD the WORD!!

After being a guest of our "Vision of a Just Society" forum, Congressman Sestak returns for a candid conversation hosted by Rev. Bill Golderer to answer your questions about Health Care Reform.

Be there.

[Towntalk]

We can agree on one point ... neither the electronic or print media has given time to explain just what is and is not in the healthcare legislation itself absent the distractions of name calling and reporting on the protests both pro and con.

The electronic media can spend serious time on other issues, yet, to date, they haven't sat down with the chairs and ranking members of the involved committee in a serious discussion of the bills themselves absent extraneous matters.

Take one week with one hour specials going section by section ... title by title and address them.

[irishbobcat]

Truth-telling and Responsibility in Health Care

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I have said that one important moral principle for the health care debate is truth-telling. For decades, the physical health and well-being of our country has been a proxy battle for partisan politics. Industry interests and partisan fighting are once again threatening the current opportunity for a public dialogue about what is best for our health-care system. What we need is an honest and fair debate with good information, not sabotage of reform with half-truths and misinformation.

Yet in recent weeks, conservative radio ads have claimed that health-care reform will kill the elderly (it won't), that it will include federal funding for abortion (it doesn't), and that it is a socialist takeover of the health-care system (it isn't). The organizations promoting these claims, including some Religious Right groups, are either badly misinformed, or they are deliberately distorting reality.

A particularly egregious example is an ad that the Family Research Council has run in selected states. It depicts an elderly man and his wife sitting at their kitchen table. He turns to his wife and says, "They won't pay for my surgery. What are we going to do?" He continues, "and to think that Planned Parenthood is included in the government-run health care plan and spending tax dollars on abortion. They won't pay for my surgery, but we're forced to pay for abortion."

These kinds of ads should be stopped. They do not contribute to the debate that is needed to ensure that all Americans have access to quality, affordable health care. It is rather exactly the kind of misinformation campaign that could destroy needed reform. We should all denounce these ads and urge that the debate be about the real issues.

President Obama said, "I think we also have a tradition of, in this town, historically, of not financing abortions as part of government-funded health care. Rather than wade into that issue at this point, I think that it's appropriate for us to figure out how to just deliver on the cost savings, and not get distracted by the abortion debate at this station." There is growing agreement from both pro-life and pro-choice that health-care reform should not include funding for abortion, but should be abortion-neutral. We will continue monitoring the ongoing legislative process to maintain that principle.

Even worse than advertising, since Congress has gone into its summer recess, organized protests are being mounted at local town hall meetings. The Washington Post reported this morning that Democrats have been met by taunts, jeers, and, in one case, an effigy. Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Tex.) was confronted by some 200 people holding signs calling him a "traitor to Texas" and a "devil to all people." And the Post cited a "'strategy memo,' issued by the Connecticut-based group Right Principles, which calls on conservatives to 'pack the hall' and 'yell out and challenge' lawmakers."

We must all say loudly and strongly that misinformation and angry mobs are not how democracy functions. While freedom of speech and freedom of assembly are certainly our rights, those rights must always be exercised with responsibility and accountability.

Health care reform that will provide quality, affordable health care for all Americans is essential. It is a moral imperative that in a nation as prosperous as ours, no American should go without health care, especially the poorest and most vulnerable among us. Reasonable people may differ on how best to accomplish this goal, and I welcome the rigorous policy debate currently under way in the House and Senate. But in the final analysis, it should be a moral priority for all of us.

I urge you to write your member of Congress, attend local town meetings in your communities, and respectfully but strongly make these points. It is our moral obligation as people of faith.

Follow Jim Wallis on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jimwallis

[Towntalk]

The New York Times is reporting that White House officials are tacitly acknowledging a difficult reality: they are suddenly at risk of losing control of the public debate over a signature issue for Mr. Obama and are now playing defense in a way they have not since last year's campaign.

Aides to Mr. Obama said the rapidly escalating threat to his health care plans had led him to order them to come up with a crisper message.

The debate has turned ugly and certainly doesn't help matters since neither Congressmen or Senators have personally read what is actually in the House version or the five Senate versions of the Healthcare Reform measure.

To compound matters, there are groups out there arguing issues that are not even in the bills under consideration both on the left and the right who are getting their information not from the legislation itself, but from web sites whose reliability is questionable or suspect.

Everyone both for and against the present plans under consideration agree that health care needs reform, that is not the issue, the issue is bound up in the versions of reform under consideration, and nothing more. We all know or should know that the end product will come out only after all six versions have been voted on and sent to House-Senate Conference and a final product is established.

The only question left for us to consider is will this bill be rushed through Congress like the Stimulus bill, and because of its seriousness, and long term consequences, and that should not be allowed to happen.

[Towntalk]

Dennis:

. EUTHANASIA

In a recent New York Post column, Betsy McCaughey, a former lieutenant governor of New York and health care expert, wrote:
"One troubling provision of the House bill compels seniors to submit to a counseling session every five years (and more often if they become sick or go into a nursing home) about alternatives for end-of-life care (House bill, p. 425-430). The sessions cover highly sensitive matters such as whether to receive antibiotics and 'the use of artificially administered nutrition and hydration.' This mandate invites abuse, and seniors could easily be pushed to refuse care."
Question for your Congressmen:  Will you oppose any healthcare reform bill that in any way promotes euthanasia?



You are aware of the fact that already family members in consultation with the attending physician can instruct "no extraordinary measures" measures in the case of a terminal patient, and those wishes will be carried out by the hospital.

My stepfather had untreatable cancer and we instructed the doctor not to put him on machines ... just keep him comfortable ... hydrated and feed IV.

[irishbobcat]

Talking points from the conservatives for community values E-mails.........

Ask some tough questions
Gary Bauer with Campaign for Working Families has proposed some questions for you to ask your Senators and Representative about the massive healthcare bill. Below are Gary's recommendations that were recently distributed by the American Family Association.
President Obama conceded that there probably won't be a vote on healthcare overhaul until "the end of September or the middle of October." That means you have August to attend townhall meetings, stop by their offices, write letters to the editor and educate your friends and family members about the dangers of socialized medicine.
Here is a short list of key concerns and questions. Please share this report with like-minded folks and those who may be undecided and willing to listen.
1. ABORTION

Pro-choice groups, like NARAL and Planned Parenthood, are demanding that abortion be covered in any healthcare reform bill. In a recent interview with Politico, Laurie Rubiner, vice president for public policy and advocacy at Planned Parenthood, defends this demand by saying, "the alternative would be slashing benefits for millions of women who currently have [private] coverage for abortions..." In addition, key administration officials refuse to rule out abortion coverage. When asked on Fox News Sunday whether taxpayer money would go to pay for abortions, White House Budget Director Peter Orszag replied, "I am not prepared to say explicitly that right now. It's obviously a controversial issue, and it's one of the questions that is playing out in this debate."
Pro-life senators on the Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee forced a roll call vote on the issue when Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) attempted to add an amendment to the healthcare bill that would, in her words, "include women's health clinics that provide comprehensive services...deemed medically necessary or appropriate." She admitted that such "health clinics" would include Planned Parenthood.
On the other hand, a pro-life amendment to prohibit funding of abortion lost 11-to-12. Read what the Associated Press had to say about this vote:
"There was late-night drama in Waxman's committee as an anti-abortion amendment passed when conservative Democrats joined Republicans to support it—then failed less than two hours later when Waxman used a procedural maneuver to bring it up for a second vote.  In the intervening time, one conservative Democrat—Rep. Bart Gordon of Tennessee—changed his vote from 'yes' to 'no.'  And a second conservative Democrat who hadn't voted the first time—Rep. Zack Space of Ohio—voted 'no.' It was enough to take the amendment down on a vote of 29 to 30.  The measure would have specified that health care legislation moving through Congress may not impose requirements for coverage of abortion, except in limited cases."
Question for your Congressmen:  Will you oppose any healthcare reform bill that uses my tax dollars to pay for abortions?


2. EUTHANASIA

In a recent New York Post column, Betsy McCaughey, a former lieutenant governor of New York and health care expert, wrote:
"One troubling provision of the House bill compels seniors to submit to a counseling session every five years (and more often if they become sick or go into a nursing home) about alternatives for end-of-life care (House bill, p. 425-430). The sessions cover highly sensitive matters such as whether to receive antibiotics and 'the use of artificially administered nutrition and hydration.' This mandate invites abuse, and seniors could easily be pushed to refuse care."
Question for your Congressmen:  Will you oppose any healthcare reform bill that in any way promotes euthanasia?


3. COST


The United States faces a debt crisis. According to many analysts, including Senator Judd Gregg (who is so respected by President Obama that he offered Gregg the post of Secretary of Commerce), the Obama budget will give us $11 trillion of debt at the end of five years and $17 trillion of debt at the end of ten years. (Source: PolitiFact.com)
Question for your Congressmen:  Why is Congress and the President pushing through a healthcare bill that would cost another trillion dollars over the next ten years? Shouldn't we concentrate on getting the debt under control first?
4. RATIONING CARE


According to a July 15th report by The Hill, "The House bill would be paid for by roughly $500 billion in Medicare and Medicaid cuts..." These cuts would come as millions of Americans are retiring. Logic suggests that if we are "cutting" hundreds of billions of dollars, healthcare would have to be limited or rationed in someway to accommodate more people. And seniors would be most affected by Medicare cuts.
In addition, advisors to President Obama, such as Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, have suggested that healthcare should be rationed to certain individuals. Dr. Emanuel once wrote that "services provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens...should not be guaranteed. An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia."
(Source: http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/Where_Civic_Republicanism_and_Deliberative_Democracy_Meet.pdf)
Question for your Congressmen:  How can government promise to do more with less? Will you oppose any healthcare reform bill that in any way limits my access to healthcare or medicines recommended by my doctor?
5. MORE BURDENS ON SMALL BUSINESSES


Despite a 9.5% (and rising) unemployment rate, the healthcare bill in the House imposes a new 8% payroll tax on small businesses with payrolls of $400,000 or more that don't provide health insurance for their employees. This is in addition to the current 15% payroll tax. What this means is that any employer with a payroll of $400,000 dollars or higher will have to pay at least 25% above the salary just to hire someone. Common sense tells you that any struggling small business will likely lay off workers to avoid this additional tax. On the other hand, if the tax is cheaper than the cost of health insurance, larger businesses may opt to cancel their health insurance, forcing employees into the government's "public option," and simply pay the 8% fine. (Source: Wall Street Journal, July 15, 2009)
Question for your Congressmen:  Why are you imposing additional mandates and taxes on small businesses, which create the overwhelming majority of new jobs, in the middle of a severe recession?
6. QUALITY CARE


American healthcare is better than that in European countries with socialized medicine. The German breast cancer mortality rate is 52% higher than in the United States. Prostate cancer mortality is 604% higher in the United Kingdom and 457% higher in Norway than in the United States. Canadian healthcare lags behind the United States too. Canadian patients wait twice as long to see a specialist for hip surgery or cancer than we do in the United States. Most Americans say they are satisfied with the U.S. health care system, but more than 70% of Germans, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders and Britons say that their systems need "fundamental change" or "complete rebuilding." (Source: National Center for Policy Analysis.)
In an editorial on July 26th, the Washington Post criticized President Obama for not "leveling about the consequences of change" when it comes to healthcare costs versus quality. Here's what the Post wrote: "The Congressional Budget Office estimates that new technology accounts for about half the increase in health-care costs over the past several decades. This, for the most part, is a good thing. Adjusted for inflation, health-care spending per person is six times what it was 40 years ago. But no one today would settle for 1960s-style medicine."
Question for your Congressmen: Why are you trying to force us in the direction of more government involvement in healthcare when everywhere government-run healthcare has been tried, quality declines and care is rationed?
7. THE PEOPLE ARE BEING IGNORED

According to a recent poll, just 23% of voters believe healthcare reform legislation will lower costs, while 53% believe it will lead to more expensive care. By a margin of 50% to 23%, voters believe that "reform" legislation will make the quality of care decline. And while voters believe they will get worse care at higher costs, 78% also believe that healthcare reform will result in middle class tax hikes. In addition, a recent Fox News poll found that 91% of those surveyed have health insurance, 84% said that the quality of their health insurance was either excellent or good and 83% said the quality of health care they receive from their private insurance is either good or excellent. And only 12% of those surveyed said reforming health care was the most important issue Congress should be working on right now. (Source: Rasmussen Reports, July 28, 2009 and Fox News poll July 23, 2009.)
Question for your Congressmen:  Why are you and the White House rushing this bill through Congress and ignoring the concerns of the American people?
8. LOSS OF FREEDOM


The healthcare reform legislation under consideration in the House will eventually force all Americans into a government-approved plan. After a five-year grace period, every new insurance policy will have to comply with government mandates, and any policy changes – "altering co-pays, deductibles, or even switching coverage for this or that drug" – invalidates your previous coverage and forces you to choose a government "qualified" plan. In addition, the House plan mandates coverage for every individual. If you are self-employed or choose not buy insurance for whatever reason, the bill imposes a "healthcare tax" of 2.5% of your income. (Source: CNNMoney.com, July 24, 2009 and Bloomberg.com, July 15, 2009)
Question for your Congressmen:  Why do you believe bureaucrats can make better decisions than me about what kind of health insurance I should have? And will you guarantee that any healthcare reform bill passed by Congress will always allow me to choose my own doctor?
9. RACIAL PREFERENCES


Do you care about the race of a doctor who is getting ready to operate on you? Of course not. Most Americans want their doctor to be the best professional available regardless of race or ethnic background. But congressional liberals have a different idea. On page 909 of the House bill, grants to medical schools will be awarded "to entities that have a demonstrated record of the following...training individuals who are from underrepresented minority groups or disadvantaged backgrounds." (Source: Investors Business Daily, July 27, 2009)
Question for your Congressmen:  Why are you throwing affirmative action/racial set asides into a healthcare reform bill?
10. PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS


President Obama has repeatedly said that "no insurance company will be allowed to deny you coverage because of a pre-existing medical condition." That sounds wonderful until you apply common sense, which is in short supply in Washington. What if we made a law that allowed you to buy car insurance after you got into an accident and that required the insurance company to pay for the damage? Wouldn't many people just wait for an accident before buying insurance? Why wouldn't many Americans wait until they were sick to buy health insurance?
Question for your Congressmen:  Isn't it clear that this provision would drive up the cost of health insurance for everyone?



Click the link below to log in and send your message:
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Again, the Conservatives willing to be the party of status quo on a faling health care system....even if it means spreading falsehoods and lies about the health care bill.....

[Towntalk]

Connie:

I couldn't agree with you more.

It's too bad that others couldn't have made their case as well as you did without resorting to name calling.

[connie254]

Health care reform is needed on so many levels.

Imagine you have a autistic child. You manage to make a decent living, therefore your child is not eligible for Social Security and therefore Medicaid/Medicare. Insurance does not cover the necessary therapies that could make your child live up to their potential, you pay for them yourself and drag yourself into bankruptcy paying for them.  You still have insurance-hopefully- that will cover their basic medical needs. Until you lose our job. If you're lucky, you can get another one, but now your child has a pre-existing condition and won't be covered at all-AT ALL.  I was taught by the therapists what to do and how do it, because I have the basic knowledge.

So many people are admitted to hospitals(can't deny care at all), and they know what to say when they are in the emergency rooms to get admitted, time and time again, get more than adequate testing which comes back negative, but in the meantime, they've been in the hospital several days. Doctors are doing open heart surgeries and other expensive procedures on people that are already on death's door, because they are afraid of getting sued or another doctor told the family that it will make their family member live longer-longer in pain and hooked up to expensive equipment, demanding time and money and the outcome will be the same, just prolonged and painful for everyone involved, but families are lead to believe that doing the procedure will somehow bring their loved back and better than ever.

I know about both because my son is the child in my first example and I am a nurse in a hospital.

Someone posted a comment on a autism forum and I am copying and pasting it here.
In the spirit of debate, here are my 2 cents on heathcare reform. What drives much of my opinion on subjects that involve possible 'bigger government' is this question:

Who do I want controlling things that affect my life, elected officials or corporations?

The government is not and never will be perfect, but I trust their motives way more than I trust corporations whose main goal is increasing profits for stockholders. To my knowledge it is corporations and corporate greed that are responsible for such things as:

-a food supply that is less nutritious and less tasty than it was 100 yrs ago, and sometimes harmful to your health. (a few examples: fruits and veggies are bred to travel long distances, not to contain more taste or nutrients; trans fat became widely used to increase shelf life, beef from grain-fed cattle have more bad fats that their grass-fed counterparts. )

-outsourcing american jobs (The governement sat by and did nothing, but wasn't it the corporations who decided they could make more money using foreign labor??)

-marketing unhealthy food to children (is this part of the reason for the high obesity rate we have which drives up our health care costs??)

Right now my family has health insurance which is decent enough such that I could be complacent about health care reform, but I also know that I have had private health insurance in the past that has denied me necessary treatment, and that the private insurance companies would not be there for me and my family if we lost our jobs. I also know that my insurance company denies coverage for autism treatment. Even if it means slightly higher taxes, I am willing to take my chances with a system that is trying to be designed to be more equitable to all and focus on preventative care.

Unless you have seen what I've seen and experienced what I have experienced, you don't have a clue that reform is needed.

[Towntalk]

Here are your talking points for when you attend events:

        Talking Points

1    I oppose the President's socialized healthcare plan.

2    Don't take my health care hostage. I want to make the best choices concerning my healthcare.

3    Eighty-four percent of Americans say they don't want Obamacare or any form of socialized healthcare.

4    I do not want the government to have more control and influence over my health care. That is why I reject the so called "public option" which is really socialized health care and will destroy private options.

5    Americans cannot afford the $1.5 trillion price tag of socialized health care during these difficult economic times. I flatly reject any health care proposal that increases costs or imposes new taxes on any American.

6    The keys to a consumer-centered health care system:
a.    Competition
b.    Market Incentives to Control Cost and Improve Services
c.    Price, Quality, and Value

7    America's healthcare system is in desperate need of substantial reform. Policy makers should take decisive steps to move today's bureaucracy driven, heavily regulated third-party payment system to a new patient-centered system of consumer choice and real free-market competition.

8   Look at the evidence: the TennCare plan in Tennessee and the government run health care plans from Hawaii and Massachusetts were deeply flawed and have failed. Universal healthcare is a bad idea that will end up devastating our nation.

9    What is exactly covered under Obamacare? Please be specific.

10  Have you ever been treated in a Veteran's hospital? Ask a veteran if they are happy with government run health programs, they wait months for substandard, low quality service. Our veterans and citizens deserve better.

How to Debate Effectively Techniques for Prevailing in a Debate

Reference Facts Accurately During the Debate

Facts support your points. They should be well-researched and correctly stated and they should come from irrefutable sources. Don't quote an individual and expect those in opposition to automatically take your word on this matter. Better to incorporate statistics and generally accepted facts than to use anecdotal evidence which can be easily dismissed.

Make Your Points in the Debate Clearly

Don't use terms that are ambiguous, open to interpretation or that require specialized knowledge to understand. When speaking to like-minded people you can assume with relative comfort that they will understand your meaning. In an open forum, however, this is not always the case. Use of vernacular sets you up to be misunderstood and that is precisely the opposite of your goal in any debate.

Set Aside Your Ego and Emotion During the Debate

Emotionally charged words may knock your opponent off his or her game, but that type of rhetoric will only backfire as cooler heads see through the flash and find no substance. Racial, ethnic, or religious slurs have no place in a rational debate, nor do personal attacks. Attention should be focused instead on the problem or problems in question.

Do Your Homework Before the Debate

Before entering into any debate there are two things you should understand: your position and that of your opponent. If you don't have a thorough understanding of your position you'll never be able to explain it to anyone else. The same goes with the holes you are attempting to poke in your opponent's logic. If you don't thoroughly understand all aspects (and subtle nuances) of his argument, you stand a good chance of proving his point instead of your own. One technique is to take the position with which you do not agree during a discussion with a colleague or friend as a way to grasp all sides of he issue. Its been said that if you can defend it you can break it down in a debate.

In addition avoid these common traps:

1. Attacking the arguer, not the argument.
2. Assuming an answer with the phraseology of the question.
3. Misunderstanding and/or misrepresenting statistics.
4. Confusing cause and effect.
5. Creating a caricature rather than presenting reality.

[irishbobcat]

What do Rupert Murdoch, Senator Jim DeMint, former House Majority
Leader Dick Armey, anti-choice zealot Randall Terry and health-care industry
executives
have in common? They all want to kill health-care reform.

But you knew that.

What you didn't know -- until AlterNet uncovered it in an explosive article
published today -- is the extremes to which they will go to achieve that aim.

I rarely send special reader alerts, but I'm making an exception today, because
this story is so important.

In a new article published today, AlterNet's Washington Bureau Chief Adele Stan
uncovers the links between establishment GOP figures and an extreme-right Web
network, Grassfire.org, that is an organizing hub for town-hall protesters.
While other astroturf organizations and Web sites, like Dick Armey's
"FreedomWorks", Tim Scott's "Americans for Prosperity" or Glenn Beck's "The 912
Project", marshal the anti-tax mob, Grassfire, through its sibling site,
ResistNet, rallies the most extreme of the paranoid right.

http://www.alternet.org/politics/141860/inside_story_on_town_hall_riots%3A_right-wing_shock_troops_do_corporate_america%27s_dirty_work/

In "Inside Story on Town Hall Riots: Right-Wing Shock Troops Do Corporate
America's Dirty Work", Stan chronicles the  ties between the Republican
establishment and ResistNet, where one finds not only the usual set
of conspiracy theories, but also threats of violence against the opposition, a
videoed racist
screed against President Obama and even a prayer for the death of the president.

The coup de grace is a slickly produced video posted on the site that uses Nazi
imagery
casting Obama as the Fuhrer. (The video is embedded in the AlterNet piece.)

Stan draws together the conflagration of corporate and GOP interests that have
coordinated
to unleash the unhinged fringe to disrupt the nation's civic dialogue, tracing
pieces of the
narrative back to Howard Phillips, one of the founders of the religious right,
who served in
the Nixon administration. She examines the tactics of the Republican right's
"inside-outside"
strategy, using as a model Phillips' theocratic Constitution Party, to which
Sarah Palin has
ties.

You knew it was bad. AlterNet's must-read article tells you just how bad it
really is.
http://www.alternet.org/politics/141860/inside_story_on_town_hall_riots%3A_right-wing_shock_troops_do_corporate_america%27s_dirty_work/

Don Hazen,
Executive Editor, Alternet.org

[irishbobcat]

Across the country, a small group of radical right-wingers are engaging in an all-out effort to stop real health care reform. There is little doubt that this increased level of coordinated activity is because we are closer to reform than we have been in more than 50 years.

While we are getting closer to real reform, we can't let up yet. We need to keep fighting to ensure that our voices are heard over the unruly mobs. More than 75 percent of America's workers support President Obama's plan for real health care reform, and we cannot allow a small band of angry zealots to stand in our way.

Currently, fringe right-wing opponents of health care reform are focused on disrupting congressional town hall meetings. To combat these disruptions, we need you to call your U.S. representative's district office today and remind him or her to support real health care reform this year.

Call your representative toll free: 1-877-702-0976

The progress Congress has made so far toward reform has come thanks in part to the more than 50,000 phone calls made last week by activists like you. As of today, four congressional committees have approved health care reform bills with a quality public health insurance option, a requirement for employers to pay their fair share and no taxation of workers' existing health care benefits.

This is a remarkable achievement and the furthest we've come in 50 years toward providing affordable, secure and stable health care for all. We still have a ways to go, and while the media loves to highlight all the bumps in the road, it's important to remember two things: We have yet to lose a significant vote in Congress this year on health reform, and the president, his staff and leaders in Congress are all committed to enacting health care reform this year.

Call your representative toll free: 1-877-702-0976

If you have a chance to speak with your member of Congress or a staff member, here is a question and a few talking points you might find helpful. But personal stories are often the most powerful way to communicate the need for reform, so feel free to tell your own story.

Will you side with health insurers and vote for legislation that continues their control over health care like the tea party conservatives from Lowellville want, or vote for reform that puts patients and their doctors in charge of their health care?

[Towntalk]

Obama: Canadian health system wouldn't fly in US

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Obama-Canadian-health-system-apf-3773617092.html?x=0&.v=1

[sfc_oliver]

First the left called us Right wing radical extremists and now we are un-American. I wonder what the military full of liberals will look like? Something along the lines of a cub scout camp would be my bet. because they are certainly making me feel like I wasted my life protecting our freedoms just to see them thrown away. What happened to the first amendment?

Now be good little boys and girls and do exactly what Mr President says........BULL

[irishbobcat]

Everybody Hates Liars

Speaker Pelosi and House Maj. Leader Hoyer slam right-wing mob in USA Today oped: "These disruptions are occurring because opponents are afraid not just of differing views - but of the facts themselves. Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American. Drowning out the facts is how we failed at this task for decades."; USA Today and LA Times debunk right-wing lies. LA Times cites AMA and AARP support for advance care planning consultation that right-wingers smear as forced euthanasia. USA Today: "It's hard not to smile when critics warn darkly that health care reform means 'socialism' or a 'government takeover' of health care, since these same critics are usually staunch supporters of government-run Medicare..."; White House launches online "Reality Check" debunking charges of rationing, forced euthanasia, hurting small biz, harming veterans care and Medicare; The Atlantic's James Fallows returns from China, sees health care time warp: "Nearly fifteen years ago, after the collapse of the Clinton health-reform effort, I spent a lot of time working on ... how, exactly, the discussion of the bill had become so unmoored from reality and finally determined by slogans, stereotypes, and flat-out lies ... I have to say that it is striking to come back -- from the world of controlled media and not-always-accurate 'official truth' in China -- and see the world's most mature democracy, informed by the world's dominant media system, at a time of perceived economic crisis and under brand new political leadership, getting tied up by manufactured misinformation. No matter what party you belong to, you can't think this is a sign of health for the Republic." (via Brad DeLong); Speaking of lies, Newt Gingrich doubles down on Sarah Palin's "death panels" charge on ABC's This Week. Digby responds: "Why the Democrats haven't found a way to use the Schiavo mess to their advantage on this, I don't know. ... It's despicable that these people are using demagoguery on a matter such as living wills. Nothing is more difficult and important when you are dealing with a dying loved one and its despicable that they are actually going out of their way to make this more difficult than it should be for purely political reasons. They are actually trying to get old people to be scared of having a living will and it is going to result in horrifying suffering among them and their families." ThinkProgress: "GOP Rep. Kingston Separates Himself From Palin: There Are 'No Death Panels'"; Andrew Sullivan and David Frum criticize their fellow conservatives for lack of seriousness. Sullivan: "There's no way to get from spiraling debt to stable public finances without tackling the exponentially rising costs of healthcare. So this is a fiscally conservative issue ... If you have guaranteed emergency room care for the uninsured at public expense, you have already effectively socialized medicine. It makes no sense not to bring these people into the insurance system, and to offer less expensive, long-term preventive healthcare ... What do you want, GOP? A permanent populist culture-war? Or actual solutions to pressing problems? Let us know when you've matured enough to answer that question."

[Towntalk]

From the Senate Finance Committee:

Financing Comprehensive Health Care Reform:
Proposed Health System Savings and Revenue Options

http://finance.senate.gov/Roundtable/complete%20text%20of%20financing%20policy%20options.pdf


Expanding Health Care Coverage:
Proposals to Provide Affordable Coverage to All Americans

http://finance.senate.gov/Roundtable/complete%20text%20of%20coverage%20policy%20options.pdf

Transforming the Health Care Delivery System:
Proposals to Improve Patient Care and Reduce Health Care Costs

http://finance.senate.gov/Roundtable/complete%20text%20of%20delivery%20system%20reform%20policy%20options.pdf