Jason Altmire says he'll vote NO on health care reform

You pay for my family's health insurance.
Suckers!
From the web site of Rep. Jason Altmire (D Health Care/UPMC Lobby-PA). Read it and weep, folks:

"I ran for Congress in large part because I believe we need to find a way to bring down the cost of health care. I also ran for Congress with a simple promise: I would do my best to represent my district and to give western Pennsylvania a voice in Washington, not the other way around.

"I regret that this year-long process of debating health care reform has resulted in a final product that I cannot support. The cost of inaction on health care is great, but it would be an even bigger mistake to pass a bill that could compound the problem of skyrocketing health care costs.

"Simply moving money around within the existing system, rather than enacting real delivery system reform, might change who pays the bill, but it does not improve the quality of care or reduce costs for families, small businesses, or the federal government. It creates a system of winners and losers, rather than reforming the system in a way that lets everyone win. It is estimated that after passage of this bill, federal health care expenditures would likely increase above what they would under current law.

"It has become clear that the vast majority of my constituents want me to oppose this bill. Particularly hard hit would be western Pennsylvania’s Medicare beneficiaries, which many experts believe would experience dramatic premium increases with enactment of this bill.

"I am acutely aware that my decision to vote against the health care bill will disappoint some of my constituents and alienate supporters of the bill. The politically easy vote would have been to vote with my party. But I was not sent to Congress to take the easy way out or to vote the way they want me to vote in Washington. I was elected to represent my district and give western Pennsylvania a voice in Congress. I strongly believe that a vote in opposition to the health care bill is consistent with the views of the district I represent, and is the correct vote based on the impact of the bill on my constituents and the overall health care system."

He voted against HCR -- and for Stupak -- last time around.
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Health Care Reform Bill Passes in the House -- Blue Dogs, Republicans and Spineless Dems Throw Women Under the Bus

The Stupak Amendment to the Health Care Reform bill in the House of Representatives passed with 240 yeas, 194 nays and 1 present vote.

What does that mean?

It means that women have been singled out to be the only class of people to actually lose coverage under the HCR bill.

While Rep. Bart Stupak (D, He-Man-Women-Haters-Club) claimed that the his amendment would just ensure that no federal funds would pay for abortion, that is just a BIG FAT LIE. There is already the Hyde Amendment which says no Federal funds can be used to pay for abortions except in the case of rape, incest, or life of the woman.

What the Stupak Amendment does is ensure that no insurance will cover abortions in a regular plan -- even if the woman pays for the insurance totally with her own personal funds. (Currently about 85% of private-insurance plans cover abortion services.) With the passed Stupak Amendment, an insurer who participates in the Public Option Exchange cannot cover abortions except in the case of rape, incest, or life of the woman.

And, how did we get to a place where women actually will lose current coverage?

You can thank the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Apparently our Congress needed their seal of approval before they could pass HCR legislation.

How fitting that an institution which has an all male leadership has the most important voice in deciding which legal medical procedures can be covered for women. It's so peachy fucking keen. It's also swell that so many of our representatives have decided that we are all Catholic now. Perhaps the bill can also be amended to include "Magdalene laundries": virtual slave labor camps set up by the Catholic Church in Ireland for women of "low character". I'm betting Rep. Michele Bachmann would go for it.

Hell, maybe even Pittsburgh's own Rep. Mike Doyle the "point man to help strike a last-minute compromise on abortion language in the House of Representatives' health care bill" would like the laundries established here too seeing as how he lives in the "C Street" House with Stupak which is run by the ultra secretive and ultra creepy religious group know as "The Family." You know, the group who thinks that its members are destined to rule and aren't bound by conventional moral codes that the rest of us are supposed to follow (which is how they justify to themselves covering up their members' adulterous sexual affairs).

But, it's all OK. If a woman wants insurance that will cover abortion, she can apparently buy supplemental insurance -- because it makes perfect sense to buy extra insurance ahead of time to cover a pregnancy that was unplanned to begin with. Kind of like how everyone should be forced to get supplemental insurance for cancer just in case they get it some day and want to be covered. (And, speaking of cancer, Texas Republican Pete Sessions compared being a woman to being a smoker as to why it's perfectly fine for women to pay more for insurance than men. Better quit that uterus now, girls!)

As I'm writing this the HCR reform bill just passed. I can't even begin to tell you how happy I am that we have a bill which forces women to buy insurance that prohibits coverage of a legal medical procedure at the behest of men who wear dresses (and not in a good way) and can't have sex with women or men -- well, not unless they're very, very young -- and whose leader is in the midst of conducting a witch hunt against his own nuns in the US.

And, while it's true that we really have Blue Dog Dems to thank for this travesty, House Rethuglicans have their own special ways of sticking it to the lil woman. This happened this morning and wasn't even about abortion, but the HCR bill in general:

As the Democratic Women’s Caucus took to the microphone on the House floor to offer their arguments for how the bill would benefit women, House Republicans — led by Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) — repeatedly talked over, screamed, and shouted objections. “I object, I object, I object, I object, I object,” Price interjected as Rep. Lois Capps (D-CA) tried to hold the floor.

What a great day for the women of this country (because it's always good to know exactly where you stand -- below men).

Woo-fucking-hoo
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Markos gets Tancredo to storm off MSNBC set

You see, while former congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO) has "talked to vets" about their health care, he may not have realized that Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitas actually is a veteran. A fact that Markos pointed out to Tancredo while reminding Tancredo that he had sought and received a deferment for the Vietnam War even though he was a supporter of the war at the time.


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Just when you thought they couldn't go any lower...

There's this sign from yesterday's GOP anti-health care rally:


If you can't tell, it reads: "National Socialist Health Care: Dachau, Germany – 1945."

Because trying to expand health care coverage for millions of uninsured Americans is exactly like the mass murder of Jews by Nazis. I mean anyone can see that, right?

One might be predisposed to assume that this banner was the work of someone with a long history of mental problems except for the fact that we know that many attending this rally have been fed a steady diet of outrageous propaganda warning them of death panels, government as the enemy, and a president who is supposedly an illegitimate foreign-born usurper and undercover Muslim terrorist bent on destroying the country.

You can thank Michele Bachmann, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbough and the rest of the sick, cynical pigs for signs like this one. They've wrapped themselves in hatred and fear and have grown rich and powerful in the process.

Sometimes I wish I believed in hell.
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Priorities and Framing

At one of the NetRoots Nation 09 sessions a panelist, speaking about spin, noted that while you always hear from the right that Medicare/Medicaid/SSI is about to run out of money as a reason for why the program needs to be massively reformed/ended, you never hear, say, that the Defense Department is running out of money...

This made me think about that:



(h/t to Daily Kos)
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Harry Reid: Public Option (with state opt-out) will be in Senate Bill

You can read his prepared remarks here.

UPDATE: FDL explains the opt-out here.
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Rape as a pre-existing condition to denying health insurance

If it wasn't bad enough that many insurance companies consider pregnancy and being a victim of domestic violence a pre-existing condition, we can now add being raped to that list.

From HuffPo:

A Florida woman, who is a victim of sexual abuse, claims that rape was called a "pre-existing condition" by several health insurance companies, which would have disqualified her for care.

In 2002, Chris Turner, a health insurance agent from Tampa, Florida, was drugged and raped during a business trip. When she conferred with a doctor after her assault, Turner was prescribed preventative anti-HIV drugs, and she later entered counseling to help deal with the residual psychological effects of her rape.

After she left that company she sought to buy health insurance on her own and has found out that she can't because...she's actually used health insurance in the past to treat medical conditions.

Did you catch the part where she was a health insurance agent? Since she knew how the system worked, she only addressed her situation hypothetically when she was calling companies about coverage because she knew that, "If you're rejected for coverage once it can put a black spot on your insurance record and keep you from getting health insurance in the future."

So, we have health insurance companies who will not cover you if you've ever been ill, who will drop you when you become ill, and who will refuse to cover you if another company won't cover you.

Here's a definition of insurance:

A promise of compensation for specific potential future losses in exchange for a periodic payment. Insurance is designed to protect the financial well-being of an individual, company or other entity in the case of unexpected loss.

Does it sound like these health "insurance" companies actually have anything to do with insurance? Yet these are the same companies who cry that a public option would create competition. Actually, a public option would hopefully be a real *insurance* plan and not just some gigantic money-sucking scam whose main goal is to *not* provide insurance to people.

Honestly, I'm tired of even thinking about how horiffic these companies are so I'm going to momentarily loudly tune this all out or I may spontaneously combust.

UPDATE: While checking my links, I noticed that the article that I pulled the quotes from at HuffPo is gone and has been replaced with a different article on this subject.
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Insurance Industry Makes The Case For A Public Option For Us

The Insurance Industry makes the argument for a public option for us:


Either that, or they are engaging in extortion.
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Mad as Hell Doctors Roadshow comes to Pittsburgh TODAY

From http://www.madashelldoctors.com:

10 DOCTORS - 28 CITIES - 18 STATES - 30 DAYS

1 MESSAGE: “SINGLE PAYER NOW!”

FROM OREGON TO PITTSBURGH AND THEN ON TO THE WHITE HOUSE!

THIS “CARE-A-VAN” OF DOCTORS IS TRAVELING ACROSS THE COUNTRY DEMANDING SINGLE-PAYER FROM THE PRESIDENT AND CONGRESS.
“We’re mad as hell because our health care system is run by people who profit from illness”, says Dr. Paul Hochfeld, “The rest of the civilized world has test driven single payer and it works. But elected officials in America won’t even allow a discussion.”

THE “MAD AS HELL DOCTORS” WILL BE IN PITTSBURGH FOR A TOWN HALL MEETING

WHAT: TOWN HALL MEETING
WHEN: TUESDAY, SEPT. 29TH, 7 PM
WHERE: At the Letter Carriers Union Hall, (Branch 84), 841 California Avenue, on the North Side.(On California Ave. between Brighton Rd. and the large Post Office Facility, parking lot plus off-street parking available.)

REFRESHMENTS WILL BE SERVED

http://www.madashelldoctors.com/

Sponsored in Pittsburgh by the Western Pennsylvania Coalition for Single Payer Healthcare

For more information: 412-371-6650
http://www.wpasinglepayer.org/

Get Mad. Stay Mad. Make History

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Your body is a battleground

Barbara Kruger, 1989

Health insurance companies say that victims of domestic violence have a "pre-existing condition" and deny coverage.

Republicans ensured that health insurance companies could continue the above practice.

Pregnancy is also considered a pre-existing condition.

Ever had a Caesarean-section pregnancy? This is also considered a pre-existing condition by many insurers who refuse to cover women who have ever had the procedure.

Anti-choicers boycott the Susan G. Komen's Race for the Cure (the largest breast cancer charity in the world) and call it a "menace to women," because SGK does not warn women about the (nonexistent) "abortion/breast cancer connection" and because SKG grants local Planned Parenthood clinics support for breast cancer screening for poor women.

The "Personhood" movement promoting constitutional rights for fertilized eggs gets a fresh shot in the arm with ballot initiatives gearing up in Florida and renewing efforts in Colorado and Montana.

Personhood amendments aim not to just ban all abortions, but also attempt to make many forms of contraception (including oral contraceptives and the morning after pill) illegal.

So ladies, DO NOT: survive abuse, get pregnant, try not to get pregnant, have a C-section, try to prevent breast cancer -- oh hell -- just don't be a woman.

_________________________________________________________________
UPDATE: Welcome, Crooks And Liars readers.
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Oh, Maria!

Maria Bartiromo was just on MSNBC's Morning Joe. She made the claim that she wasn't talking about Medicare when she infamously asked a 44-year Congressman why, if he liked it so much, he wasn't on it. She claimed that she was talking about the insurance he did have.

Huh?

Oh, Maria! You have your own TV show. Surely you know that tape (and YouTube) exists.

So, let's roll the tape:


Sorry, you're still an idiot.
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Video of President Obama at AFL-CIO National Convention

From Pittsburgh today:

Part I


Part II


Part III


Part IV

* The end of Part II, all of Part III and the first minute of Part IV is about health care reform.

** The rest of Part IV speaks to this area's rich tradition of union organizing.

*** A copy of text as prepared for delivery here.
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Exclusive! How Rep. Joe Wilson Prepared for His Big Moment

Yeah, he practiced first:


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Tonight's Speech

While I thought that President Obama gave a very good speech to those who were undecided or fearful about health care insurance reform, and while many of the Congressional Republicans showed themselves to be nasty, tacky fools, what I got out of it is the following:

No guarantee of a public option, but a guaranteed windfall for insurance companies.

[sigh]
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Video Wake Up: Public Option Edition

[In case you haven't been paying attention, the final health care reform bill will undoubtedly contain an individual mandate. This means that if you don't currently have health insurance, you'll have to buy some (or pay a big fine). Without a public option, you'll be forced to buy insurance from the same health insurance companies that you can't afford to pay now. You'll naturally have to purchase the cheapest plan which means you'll have shitty coverage with high deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses. You'll therefore end up still paying for everything out-of-pocket, but with the added benefit of paying for insurance on top of that (which offers no real coverage). SWEET! As for a "trigger" -- hell, baby, you don't offer a trigger to someone who's already pistol whipping you now.]

The Public Option (Simple Explanation)


The Public Option (Humor)


The Public Option (REM Edition)

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ACTION ALERT: Call Your Member of Congress

From Firedoglake:

Do you have 3 minutes this morning?

I need you to call your member of Congress this morning and ask them to oppose any health care plan without a strong public option.

Call this number and ask to speak with your Representative: (202) 224-3121

Why is this so urgent?

Over the weekend, Max Baucus, the Senate "Democrat" holding up health care reform for the insurance industry, came out with his health care reform plan. Frankly, it's garbage - no public option, no big reforms.

Baucus's bill actually forces low- to middle-income American to buy "junk" insurance they can't afford to use, amounting to a giant transfer of wealth to the insurance industry.

Real health care reform must include a public option. Anything else is an insurance industry bailout.

With President Obama speaking to Congress tomorrow night, we need to make that message heard loud and clear.

Call your Representative now: (202) 224-3121

Thanks for all you do.

Take care,

Jane Hamsher

For those in Pittsburgh who are represented by Mike Doyle, call him and thank him for what he said last week:

"I will not vote for a bill that doesn't have a public option," Doyle said, drawing cheers from the crowd.

Make sure he know that we will hold him to this.
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Photos from MoveOn Health Care Reform Vigil

According to MoveOn, "On September 2, 2009, over 60,000 MoveOn members gathered at 350 vigils around the country with one message: We Can't Afford to Wait for health care reform that includes a real public option."

You can see photographs from these vigils here.

Here are some photos from the vigil held in Pittsburgh at Flagstaff Hill:








And, a couple of familiar faces to our blog readers: Georgia Blotzer (who was one of the speakers) and Sue from Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents.


Kudos to WPXI for covering the Pittsburgh vigil.

Also, I find it interesting that so many candidates whom I have supported in primary elections who lost their bids are now health care reform advocates (Howard Dean, Chuck Pennacchio, Georgia Berner and Georgia Blotzer). Guess I'm just drawn to the do-gooder, activist types.

Blotzer was handing out leaflets from www.WPaSinglePayer.org .
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Jerry Bowyer on Night Talk

Watching the 10:00 rerun.

10:22pm

Jerry Bowyer thinks there ARE euthanasia issues found in the Health Care Bill.

Jerry said that Sarah Palin "was sort of on to something" on the "death panel" issue.

10:28

Jerry thinks that the solution is found in giving vouchers to the 5 million households that are chronically uninsured. There are really only 15 million uninsured in the US.

10:31

The rerun is half over. Some comments. Jerry said he invited Congressmen Altmire and Doyle to be on the show but they couldn't show. SO he had on two conservatives instead.

Unbelievably one sided.

Jerry asked the rhetorical question "why would anyone follow a leader who lies to them?" It would probably be too snarky to point out they weren't discussing Iraq's WMD.

10:33

Jerry just said that the Democratic Congressmen would not come on the air to defend the health care plan.

10:35

Only 10 or 15 million uninsured. The rest are illegal aliens or those who qualify for insurance but don't choose to get it.

10:37

Now they're dragging out the "it'll add $1 trillion to the deficit" meme.

10:39

Judging from Jerry's teaser, they're going to be discussing Dr Ezekiel Emanuel.

10:42

Dana Irey (one of Jerry's guests) just said you're definitely going to have death panels. Now Glenn Meakem (the other guest) is spreading the VA death book lie.

10:50

Now on the screen during the discussion: "Health Care Bill: Is Euthanasia Implied?"

10:53

The Health Care bill is questionable Constitutionally.

10:55

If you don't like the current health care system, you're going to hate Obamacare.

Show just ended. It's rare that so many myths and falsehoods (see above) could be found in such a short period of time.

Tomorrow is Health Care Reform Day in Pittsburgh! (Updated!)

UPDATE: There will also be a vigil outside of Rep. Altmire's office (see below)


Flagstaff Hill Becomes Health Care Reform Hill

There's both a rally and a vigil tomorrow for health care reform tomorrow.

"Health Insurance Reform Now" Bus Tour Stop
Where: Schenley Park (Flagstaff Hill), 4532 Schenley Drive, Pittsburgh, PA
When: Wednesday, September 2, 2009, Doors Open: 11:00 AM, Start Time: 12:00 PM

Speakers include Congressman Mike Doyle and Organizing for America Deputy Director Jeremy Bird -- and OfA will present thousands of Pennsylvanians' declarations of support for reform. RSVP here.


We Can't Afford to Wait Vigil
Where: Schenley Park (Flagstaff Hill), 1 Schenley Park, Pittsburgh, PA 15203
When: Wednesday, September 2, 2009, 7:30 PM

"We're organizing vigils across the country for everyone who is suffering under our broken health care system. We'll send our members of Congress back to Washington, D.C. with a somber reminder of what's at stake by reading the names and telling the stories of thousands of people who have been denied...(more) needed treatments, faced bankruptcy because of a sudden illness, and even died because they lacked coverage." RSVP here.

We Can't Afford to Wait Vigil (@ Atmire's Office)
Where: Outside of Rep. Altmire's Office, 2124 Freeport Rd, Natrona Heights, PA 15065
When: Wednesday, September 2, 2009, 7:30 PM

"We will read the names and tell the stories of thousands of people who have been denied needed treatments, faced bankruptcy because of a sudden illness, and even died because they lacked coverage. Bring your own stories too - let's remember that the REAL death panels are corporate insurance panels!" RSVP here.
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Well, isn't that special?

From the Post-Gazette:

Women, blacks and patients covered by Medicare with serious liver-related conditions are less likely to be referred and evaluated for a liver transplant, according to a University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine study.

The study, published in the September issue of the American Journal of Transplantation, says race, gender and insurance status influence decisions on who goes on to receive liver transplants.

But God forbid we in any way reform our Best Health Care System in the World^TM!
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