Glenn Beck and his sidekicks mocked a 6-year-old boy with asthma on his radio show on Friday. I guess the point was to show how stupid health care reform is, or how stupid kids are with asthma, or how stupid their parents are.

This isn’t a new low for Beck, but it’s pretty pathetic.

The Tea Partiers will fail because for them to succeed we would need to shred the US Constitution and start over. That would require a revolution, and that’s not going to happen.

You just have to examine what they stand for. They claim to be strict constitutionalists, but they can’t stop screaming that what Democrats are doing is unconstitutional – against the will of the people.

The Tea Partiers must have forgotten that Democrats won two elections – one in 2006 and another one in 2008.

Obama and Congressional Democrats campaigned on health care reform. So it’s disingenuous for the Tea Partiers to now claim that Democrats are defying the will of the people by pursuing the agenda that they campaigned on.

In a representative republic, the people’s will is determined by elections and not protests – just ask liberals who rallied by the tens of thousands to stop the Iraq war in 2003.

But if the Tea Partiers have their way, no matter who gets elected, a radical right-wing agenda must be adhered to. If not, bricks will be thrown, guns will be drawn, politicians spat on and death threats – thinly-veiled  and otherwise – will be hurled.

The problem with the Tea Party is that they have no faith or respect for our democracy. They seem to not realize that when liberals win elections, they have not only a right, but an obligation, to implement the agenda that they campaigned on.

I hate cable news. At least 99 percent of all cable news is a bag of throwaway garbage that serves no purpose other than to confuse, distract, misinform and stink up the room. The same can be said about talk radio. It’s not that broadcasting can’t be used to inform and educate the populous, sometimes it is, but the trend has been to simply chase ratings and fill airtime with whatever is cheap and easy.

And what’s the cheapest and easiest content to produce? Opinion masquerading as news, or as Glenn Beck likes to say ‘Truth.’

Take this story for example. It’s easy for me to sit here and blast out an opinion story bemoaning the horrors of cable news, but if I actually wanted to do an investigative piece about cable news and why it got this way, well, that would take time and money – none of which I have.

But I’m not Rupert Murdoch. He does have money. He could pay people to investigate stories and produce in-depth analysis segments on things like health care reform, the Iraq war or the nation’s struggling education system. So could GE’s MSNBC and CNN, but they don’t do that.

I know, I’m taking a long time getting to my lead, so let’s get down to it.

Today, Eric Boehlert of Media Matters for America, a liberal media watchdog organization, published a story detailing the conservative nervous breakdown we’re watching unravel across this once great nation. The thesis of Boehlert’s story is that conservatives believed their own hype, and now they’re freaking out that they weren’t able to kill health care reform. Now they’re worried about what else they won’t be able to stop the liberals from doing.

What happened was that Fox News, along with other right-wing media, convinced the Tea Partiers that they were winning. They believed Fox News when they said 2 million people rallied in the nation’s capitol last September, even though there might have been 100,000. They believed Fox News and Rush Limbaugh when they were assured that after the gun-touting town hall screamers had shouted down Democratic politicians that health care reform was dead.

I believed them too. Not more than a month ago, I was convinced that health care would not happen.

But what everyone forgot is that the people get to speak in the voting booth and that’s pretty much it. Anti-war protesters couldn’t stop the Iraq war no matter how many people rallied against it because George W. Bush was elected, well sort of, in 2000, and Congress was controlled by the GOP. In a republic, the people vote for their representatives in November and it’s up to those elected leaders to lead. And leading doesn’t mean changing your mind every time the New York Times or Fox News publishes a public opinion poll. Depending on your point of view, that’s either the upside or the downside of living in a republic.

And so now that health care reform has passed, conservatives are losing their shit.

Boehlert said:

After all, late last week the nation stood on the precipice, just three “days away from the United States of America being over as we’ve all known it,” according to Rush Limbaugh, who warned that reform would drive every private insurance company out of business. Glenn Beck also went full tilt, warning that the bill represented a “turning point,” like the Civil War and Peal Harbor, while colleague Sean Hannity pinpointed the health care vote as the ‘very hour’ that America turned ‘completely towards socialism.’

The Washington Times likened reform to the “Black Plague,” and the online reaction was somehow even more unhinged. It was “RIP USA,” because with the vote, America would become “occupied by a hostile foreign power.” Indeed, a “socialist putsch” had been sprung and “America’s Day of Wreckoning [sic]” was at hand. Why? Because the Democrats’ health care legislation “will make every American a POW, strip them of their Freedoms and Liberty and shove them in a meat cellar for cold storage.”

Basically what Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and the Tea Partiers want is to run the government regardless of whether or not they win elections. To them, it doesn’t matter who gets elected, what matters is that politicians do what they tell them to do. And because Fox News effectively created the illusion that they were winning the debate, right-wing fringers are now throwing a hissy fit.

When health care reform passed Congress, Boehlert wrote, “It was the sudden and rude realization that, instead, they’d spent the past few months trapped inside an echo chamber, I think, that created the volcanic and unhinged response we’ve seen play out in recent days. It’s the kind of childish and hysterical reaction I didn’t think we’d ever witness from a major political movement.”

So the Tea Partiers and other conservative groups out there need to understand that in order effect change in this country they’re going to have to organize into a political movement. It takes more than a few gun-touting fanatics to pass legislation, and most people would agree, that’s a good thing. So turn off Fox News and actually engage in the process or you’ll be left on the corner shouting to no one.

Read Boelhert’s story.

Huffington Post’s Paul Abrams is a “professional iconoclast” and co-founder breakupthebigbanks.com and had this to say about this historic week of Democracy in America.

While President Obama and Congress wrestled health care reform to a successful conclusion and tacked on Student Loan Reform, Secretary of State Clinton concluded a deal with Russia to reduce nuclear arsenals, and Russia and China signaled frustration with Iran that may result in their joining sanctions. The President, the Vice-President and the Secretary of State practiced ‘tough love’ to Israel, and stood firm when vehemently attacked, a requirement if the US is going to bring this 60-year conflict to the resolution about which everyone knows not only the general contours, but most of the details.

Read Abrams’ complete column on Huffington Post.

“Take Steve Driehaus, for example,” Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) said. “He may be a dead man. He can’t go home to the west side of Cincinnati.”

That was Boehner last week. Since then, Driehaus (D-OH) did vote for health care reform and he’s had several threats against his life. Photos of his children have been used in attack ads.

And over in Virginia Rep. Tom Perriello’s brother has been inadvertently targeted by right-wing extremists. A conservative blogger posted what he thought was the representative’s home address and told his followers to pay him a visit. It turned out to be Rep. Perriello’s brother’s address.

“Federal and local authorities are investigating a severed gas line at the home of U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello’s brother, discovered the day after Tea Party activists posted the address online so opponents could ‘drop by’ and ‘express their thanks’ for Perriello’s vote in favor of health care reform.”

When the blogger realized his mistake, he said, “Do you mean I posted his brother’s address on my Facebook? Oh well, collateral damage.”

Free speech has its limits. Inciting violence is not protected speech. Sooner or later someone is going to be injured or killed and these people will need to be held accountable for their recklessness.

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Boehner last week: Driehaus (D-OH) could be a “dead man”
FBI Investigating Severed Gas Line at Perriello’s Brother’s House
Palin puts rifle targets on Democrats

I know many Americans hate progress, change, liberals, equality and workers, but it still surprises me when I see so many regular folks fight so hard to protect wealthy executives and corporations.

I wonder if CEOs for big pharma and health insurance companies sit around drinking scotch and laughing their asses off watching YouTube videos of all the boobs rallying to protect their positions of power.

I mean think about it, the Tea Partiers fought tooth and nail to protect health insurance companies so they can deny them – the protesters – health care, to take away their health care when they need it and to bankrupt them when they get sick.

It makes no sense.

And who do we have to thank for this mind-boggling insanity? President Ronald Reagan. It wasn’t so much the man as it was the time. Reagan, like all presidents, don’t create movements but they ride them.

The 1980s was the “Me Decade.” It was a time when the Baby Boomers were coming of age and they wanted, not just their slice, but the entire American pie. It was a decade plagued with un-checked greed and individualism. Either you were a Gordon Gekko, you wanted to be him or at the very least respected his tenacity and ruthlessness.

The last thing we needed was government intervention and taxes to slow down our quest for all of the money in the world.

There’s no doubt that this anti-government sentiment was rooted in the 1960s and 1970s when the government was doing some pretty horrible things. We had the Vietnam war and we lost. We had Watergate and we lost again. We did get civil rights legislation and Medicare, but the GOP successfully leveraged that as part of its “southern strategy.”

Animosity towards the government was strong on both sides of our political spectrum, and so when Reagan came in saying that it’s “morning in America,” people liked it.

Taxes for the wealthy were slashed and slashed and slashed again. Banking regulation was relegated to the garbage heap. We didn’t want to pay taxes, we wanted voodoo economics.

The idea behind voodoo economics was that by reducing government spending (that didn’t happen), reducing taxes (that did happen), reducing regulation (that happened) and controlling inflation (see Federal Reserve) the wealthy would get so rich some of that money would trickle down to the workers.

That’s called a top-down approach to economics – make the rich really rich and we all benefit. The problem is that it didn’t work.

What happened is that income inequality skyrocketed. While the rich were paying less in taxes, government spending wasn’t reduced and therefore deficits went up and the burden was placed squarely on the shoulders of the middle class. The money did trickle down. It trickled a little here and a little there, but unfortunately, trickle-down economics is just that – a trickle.

And so for the last 30 years, the rich got really rich and the rest of Americans were left with bailing out the Saving and Loans institutions that failed in the ’80s, the hedge fund debacle in the ’90s and the most recent Wall Street bankers who ushered in the Great Recession.

History should be our guide to economic and tax policy. When the rich don’t pay their fair share, like they didn’t in the “Roaring Twenties” which lead to the Great Depression. While we were under the spell of voodoo economics, we all suffered the consequences with the Great Recession. We can’t have an economic system that encourages economic inequality.

You see, one of the fundamental components of a tax system is to distribute the wealth. Either wealth goes up to the rich or down to the masses. Under Reaganomics it went up. Wealth redistribution is not socialism. It’s not communism. It’s how taxation works. And as a society we have to decide who should get the money – the wealthy or the rest of us.

A progressive taxation system is a bottom-up approach. It’s a belief that the real economic engine of this country isn’t the 1 percent of us who are wealthy, but the 99 percent who aren’t. If we have money, we buy a new car every couple of years. We buy new clothes. We go out to dinner. We go on a vacation with our family. The richest among us already do those things regardless of their tax burden, but the rest of us don’t.

It’s the workers of this nation that make this economy strong. When we have money, we spend it.

But the tide is changing. Americans have realized that slashing taxes on the wealthy doesn’t lead to economic prosperity but just the opposite. And when President Obama signed health care reform into law yesterday, he was saying that he supports the workers – the middle class. He said it’s time for the wealthy to start paying their fair share.

Now Obama needs to repeal the Bush tax cuts and then some. What America needs is a return to a progressive tax system and an end to laissez-faire government regulation of our financial system. Obama has a lot of work to do, because Americans don’t want voodoo economics anymore, but those who control the wealth and the GOP surely do, and they’ll stop at nothing to keep things as unfair as possible.

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In Health Care Bill, Obama Attacks Wealth Inequality

On his radio show today, Glenn Beck disagreed with a nun who said that Jesus would support the recently passed health care reform bill.

As is often the case with Beck’s radio show – it got racial and ignorant.

Read the entire story on Examiner

Last week on Fox News’ “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren,” former half-term Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin is “interviewed” by Van Susteren who clearly has arranged this setup question with Palin so she can use some of her “zingers” against President Obama and health care reform.

Read the entire story on Examiner

Barack Obama has been talking about health care reform since 2007. Back then he talked about single-payer and universal health care – and you elected Obama with a landslide victory. While you didn’t get universal health care or single-payer – you did get health care reform.

Last night’s vote in the House of Representatives to pass health care reform was historic. But what makes it so amazing is that the Democrats didn’t cave – they actually passed a huge piece of important legislation despite the lies and fear mongering spewing from the mouths of Republicans and so-called “conservatives.”

The campaign to misinform you about health care was quite effective. Support for health care reform did fall substantially as more and more Americans started to believe Republican liars. Sarah Palin kicked off the “death panel” lie. And who knows where all the crazy numbers about the cost of the bill came from – yesterday someone said the bill could cost $10 trillion. Abortion, the GOP’s old fallback position, became a central theme for the opposition. Some Republicans even said that this bill will not only fund abortions but it will “promote” them – as if you’re going to see ads on TV for abortions next to ads for Viagra.

The list of outright lies are too many to list but they’re irrelevant now.

What is relevant is that Democrats did what they needed to do and they didn’t cower in the face of the vicious hate-filled opposition to health care reform. They didn’t quit when they were called socialists, communists, niggers, faggots, baby killers and when they were spit on. So if you have a moment, send your member of Congress an e-mail or call them on the phone and say thank you.

And remember that while it’s easy to say that there’s no difference between Democrats and Republicans – there is. Paul Krugman made a great point in his column today by highlighting a fundamental distinction between what Democrats and Republicans believe.

The day before Sunday’s health care vote, President Obama gave an unscripted talk to House Democrats. Near the end, he spoke about why his party should pass reform: “Every once in a while a moment comes where you have a chance to vindicate all those best hopes that you had about yourself, about this country, where you have a chance to make good on those promises that you made … And this is the time to make true on that promise. We are not bound to win, but we are bound to be true. We are not bound to succeed, but we are bound to let whatever light we have shine.”

And on the other side, here’s what Newt Gingrich, the Republican former speaker of the House — a man celebrated by many in his party as an intellectual leader — had to say: If Democrats pass health reform, “They will have destroyed their party much as Lyndon Johnson shattered the Democratic Party for 40 years” by passing civil rights legislation.

The GOP sees the world in purely cynical political terms. They don’t see you. They don’t see your family. They only see the next election and the next tax cut or war profit. And maybe Gingrich is right, maybe passing civil rights legislation was wrong politically, but who, besides racists, can argue that it wasn’t the right thing to do.

Looking back at our nation’s history, how many politically challenging decisions were still clearly the right choice? Civil rights, Medicare, Social Security, and let’s not forget that great Republican President Abraham Lincoln who ended slavery despite a nation that had yet to cleanse itself of overt racism. President Lincoln was murdered for that decision.

No, despite the cynicism of people like Gingrich and Karl Rove, politicians sometimes need to make unpopular decisions, even if that means they will lose their seat in Congress. That’s what a republic is. To paraphrase James Madison, a republic is virtuous men making virtuous decisions in spite of what an excited faction may want.

So please, call your members of Congress and tell them you’ve got their back. Tell them you will vote for them in November. While you’re at it, why not sign up to volunteer for them too?

Ralph Reed was the head of the Christian Coalition. He was a major player in the 1994 Republican took-over of Congress. Then the Jack Abramhoff scandal broke. Abramhoff went to prison and Reed went into hiding for his well-documented association with the corrupt lobbyist.

Now Reed is back to fight against health care reform.

Mother Jones’ Stephanie Mencimer has the story.

As the future of health care reform seems to be coming down to the very last wire, the high-stakes political battle seems to be drawing out of the woodwork long lost activists and groups once associated with the disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramhoff. Yesterday we noted the participation of the National Center for Public Policy Research, which has put out some slick new campaign materials for health care opponents. That group was accused of flacking for Abramhoff clients in exchange for big donations. Today comes none other than Ralph Reed, the former Christian Coalition leader who helped Republicans take over Congress in 1994 but then crashed and burned after revelations about his work for Abramhoff. (Reed famously took millions from an Indian tribe represented by Abramhoff to run a religious-based anti-gambling campaign that was actually designed to prevent a rival tribe from opening a competing casino.)

Read entire story on Mother Jones

New York Times columnist and economist Paul Krugman takes a stab at disproving three of the most popularly believed myths about Obama’s health care reform.

1. It’s a government takeover of health care.
2. ObamaCare will do nothing to reduce cost.
3. Health care reform is fiscally irresponsible.

Health reform is back from the dead. Many Democrats have realized that their electoral prospects will be better if they can point to a real accomplishment. Polling on reform — which was never as negative as portrayed — shows signs of improving. And I’ve been really impressed by the passion and energy of this guy Barack Obama. Where was he last year?

But reform still has to run a gantlet of misinformation and outright lies. So let me address three big myths about the proposed reform, myths that are believed by many people who consider themselves well-informed, but who have actually fallen for deceptive spin.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/12/opinion/12krugman.html

Here’s a video round-up of Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) from The Rachel Maddow Show explaining Stupak’s Stupak Amendment.

Once again Obama uses his Weekly Address to talk about health care reform. Here’s the video, but there is no transcript available yet.

Watching the conservative echo chamber in action is a frightening experience that most people don’t have to stomach on a daily basis.

The latest misinformation parroted by the rightwing machinery is that President Obama is buying votes on health care with judicial nominations.

As usual, it all starts with just a simple question. This time the ultra-conservative Weekly Standard got the ball rolling.

Read the entire story on Examiner.com

President Obama announced today that it’s time to get health care reform done. He didn’t mention reconciliation directly, but that’s what Obama wants.

Here’s the complete transcript and video of Obama’s speech today. The video and transcript were provided by the White House.

Remarks by the President on Health Care Reform
East Room

1:50 P.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you so much, all of you, for joining us today. And I want to thank Julie, Barbara, Roland, Stephen, Renee, and Christopher, standing behind me — physicians, physicians assistants, and nurses who understand how important it is for us to make much needed changes in our health care system.

I want to thank all of you who are here today. I want to specially recognize two people who have been working tirelessly on that — on this effort, my Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius — (applause) — as well as our quarterback for health reform out of the White House, Nancy-Ann DeParle. (Applause.)

We began our push to reform health insurance last March, in this room, with doctors and nurses who know the system best. And so it’s fitting to be joined by all of you as we bring this journey to a close.

Last Thursday, I spent seven hours at a summit where Democrats and Republicans engaged in a public and very substantive discussion about health care. This meeting capped off a debate that began with a similar summit nearly one year ago. And since then, every idea has been put on the table. Every argument has been made. Everything there is to say about health care has been said — (laughter) — and just about everybody has said it. (Laughter.) So now is the time to make a decision about how to finally reform health care so that it works, not just for the insurance companies, but for America’s families and America’s businesses.

Now, where both sides say they agree is that the status quo is not working for the American people. Health insurance is becoming more expensive by the day. Families can’t afford it. Businesses can’t afford it. The federal government can’t afford it. Smaller businesses and individuals who don’t get coverage at work are squeezed especially hard. And insurance companies freely ration health care based on who’s sick and who’s healthy; who can pay and who can’t. That’s the status quo. That’s the system we have right now.

Democrats and Republicans agree that this is a serious problem for America. And we agree that if we do nothing -– if we throw up our hands and walk away -– it’s a problem that will only grow worse. Nobody disputes that. More Americans will lose their family’s health insurance if they switch jobs or lose their job. More small businesses will be forced to choose between health care and hiring. More insurance companies will deny people coverage who have preexisting conditions, or they’ll drop people’s coverage when they get sick and need it most. And the rising cost of Medicare and Medicaid will sink our government deeper and deeper and deeper into debt. On all of this we agree.
So the question is, what do we do about it?

On one end of the spectrum, there are some who’ve suggested scrapping our system of private insurance and replacing it with a government-run health care system. And though many other countries have such a system, in America it would be neither practical nor realistic.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are those, and this includes most Republicans in Congress, who believe the answer is to loosen regulations on the insurance industry — whether it’s state consumer protections or minimum standards for the kind of insurance they can sell. The argument is, is that that will somehow lower costs. I disagree with that approach. I’m concerned that this would only give the insurance industry even freer rein to raise premiums and deny care.

So I don’t believe we should give government bureaucrats or insurance company bureaucrats more control over health care in America. I believe it’s time to give the American people more control over their health care and their health insurance. I don’t believe we can afford to leave life-and-death decisions about health care to the discretion of insurance company executives alone. I believe that doctors and nurses and physician assistants like the ones in this room should be free to decide what’s best for their patients. (Applause.)

Now, the proposal I put forward gives Americans more control over their health insurance and their health care by holding insurance companies more accountable. It builds on the current system where most Americans get their health insurance from their employer. If you like your plan, you can keep your plan. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. I can tell you as the father of two young girls, I would not want any plan that interferes with the relationship between a family and their doctor.

Essentially, my proposal would change three things about the current health care system. First, it would end the worst practices of insurance companies. No longer would they be able to deny your coverage because of a preexisting condition. No longer would they be able to drop your coverage because you got sick. No longer would they be able to force you to pay unlimited amounts of money out of your own pocket. No longer would they be able to arbitrarily and massively raise premiums like Anthem Blue Cross recently tried to do in California — up to 39 percent increases in one year in the individual market. Those practices would end.

Second, my proposal would give uninsured individuals and small business owners the same kind of choice of private health insurance that members of Congress get for themselves — because if it’s good enough for members of Congress, it’s good enough for the people who pay their salaries. (Applause.)

The reason federal employees get a good deal on health insurance is that we all participate in an insurance market where insurance companies give better coverage and better rates, because they get more customers. It’s an idea that many Republicans have embraced in the past, before politics intruded.
And my proposal says that if you still can’t afford the insurance in this new marketplace, even though it’s going to provide better deals for people than they can get right now in the individual marketplace, then we’ll offer you tax credits to do so — tax credits that add up to the largest middle-class tax cut for health care in history. After all, the wealthiest among us can already buy the best insurance there is, and the least well off are able to get coverage through Medicaid. So it’s the middle class that gets squeezed, and that’s who we have to help.
Now, it is absolutely true that all of this will cost some money — about $100 billion per year. But most of this comes from the nearly $2 trillion a year that America already spends on health care — but a lot of it is not spent wisely. A lot of that money is being wasted or spent badly. So within this plan, we’re going to make sure the dollars we spend go towards making insurance more affordable and more secure. We’re going to eliminate wasteful taxpayer subsidies that currently go to insurance and pharmaceutical companies; set a new fee on insurance companies that stand to gain a lot of money and a lot of profits as millions of Americans are able to buy insurance; and we’re going to make sure that the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share on Medicare.

The bottom line is our proposal is paid for. And all the new money generated in this plan goes back to small businesses and middle-class families who can’t afford health insurance. It would also lower prescription drug prices for seniors. And it would help train new doctors and nurses and physician assistants to provide care for American families.

Finally, my proposal would bring down the cost of health care for millions — families, businesses, and the federal government. We have now incorporated most of the serious ideas from across the political spectrum about how to contain the rising cost of health care — ideas that go after the waste and abuse in our system, especially in programs like Medicare. But we do this while protecting Medicare benefits, and extending the financial stability of the program by nearly a decade.

Our cost-cutting measures mirror most of the proposals in the current Senate bill, which reduces most people’s premiums and brings down our deficit by up to a trillion dollars over the next two decades — brings down our deficit. Those aren’t my numbers; those are the savings determined by the Congressional Budget Office, which is the Washington acronym for the nonpartisan, independent referee of Congress in terms of how much stuff costs. (Laughter.)

So that’s our proposal. This is where we’ve ended up. It’s an approach that has been debated and changed and I believe improved over the last year. It incorporates the best ideas from Democrats and Republicans — including some of the ideas that Republicans offered during the health care summit, like funding state grants on medical malpractice reform, and curbing waste and fraud and abuse in the health care system. My proposal also gets rid of many of the provisions that had no place in health care reform — provisions that were more about winning individual votes in Congress than improving health care for all Americans.

Now, despite all that we agree on and all the Republican ideas we’ve incorporated, many — probably most — Republicans in Congress just have a fundamental disagreement over whether we should have more or less oversight of insurance companies. And if they truly believe that less regulation would lead to higher quality, more affordable health insurance, then they should vote against the proposal I’ve put forward.

Now, some also believe that we should, instead of doing what I’m proposing, pursue a piecemeal approach to health insurance reform, where we tinker around the edges of this challenge for the next few years. Even those who acknowledge the problem of the uninsured say we just can’t afford to help them right now — which is why the Republican proposal only covers 3 million uninsured Americans while we cover over 31 million.

The problem with that approach is that unless everyone has access to affordable coverage, you can’t prevent insurance companies from denying coverage based on preexisting conditions; you can’t limit the amount families are forced to pay out of their own pockets. The insurance reforms rest on everybody having access to coverage. And you also don’t do anything about the fact that taxpayers currently end up subsidizing the uninsured when they’re forced to go to the emergency room for care, to the tune of about a thousand bucks per family. You can’t get those savings if those people are still going to the emergency room. So the fact is, health reform only works if you take care of all of these problems at once.

Now, both during and after last week’s summit, Republicans in Congress insisted that the only acceptable course on health care reform is to start over. But given these honest and substantial differences between the parties about the need to regulate the insurance industry and the need to help millions of middle-class families get insurance, I don’t see how another year of negotiations would help.

Moreover, the insurance companies aren’t starting over. They’re continuing to raise premiums and deny coverage as we speak. For us to start over now could simply lead to delay that could last for another decade, or even more. The American people, and the U.S. economy, just can’t wait that long. So, no matter which approach you favor, I believe the United States Congress owes the American people a final vote on health care reform. (Applause.)

We have debated this issue thoroughly, not just for the past year but for decades. Reform has already passed the House with a majority. It has already passed the Senate with a supermajority of 60 votes. And now it deserves the same kind of up or down vote that was cast on welfare reform, that was cast on the Children’s Health Insurance Program, that was used for COBRA health coverage for the unemployed, and, by the way, for both Bush tax cuts — all of which had to pass Congress with nothing more than a simple majority.

I, therefore, ask leaders in both houses of Congress to finish their work and schedule a vote in the next few weeks. From now until then, I will do everything in my power to make the case for reform. (Applause.) And I urge every American who wants this reform to make their voice heard as well — every family, every business, every patient, every doctor, every nurse, every physician’s assistant. Make your voice heard.

This has been a long and wrenching debate. It has stoked great passions among the American people and their representatives. And that’s because health care is a difficult issue. It is a complicated issue. If it was easy, it would have been solved long ago. As all of you know from experience, health care can literally be an issue of life or death. And as a result, it easily lends itself to demagoguery and political gamesmanship, and misrepresentation and misunderstanding.

But that’s not an excuse for those of us who were sent here to lead. That’s not an excuse for us to walk away. We can’t just give up because the politics are hard. I know there’s been a fascination, bordering on obsession, in this media town about what passing health insurance reform would mean for the next election and the one after that. How will this play? What will happen with the polls? I will leave it to others to sift through the politics, because that’s not what this is about. That’s not why we’re here.

This is about what reform would mean for the mother with breast cancer whose insurance company will finally have to pay for her chemotherapy. This is about what reform would mean for the small business owner who will no longer have to choose between hiring more workers or offering coverage to the employees she has. This is about what reform would mean for middle-class families who will be able to afford health insurance for the very first time in their lives and get a regular checkup once in a while, and have some security about their children if they get sick.

This is about what reform would mean for all those men and women I’ve met over the last few years who’ve been brave enough to share their stories. When we started our push for reform last year, I talked to a young mother in Wisconsin named Laura Klitzka. She has two young children. She thought she had beaten her breast cancer but then later discovered it had spread to her bones. She and her husband were working and had insurance, but their medical bills still landed them in debt. And now she spends time worrying about that debt when all she wants to do is spend time with her children and focus on getting well.

This should not happen in the United States of America. And it doesn’t have to. (Applause.)

In the end, that’s what this debate is about. It’s about what kind of country we want to be. It’s about the millions of lives that would be touched and, in some cases, saved by making private health insurance more secure and more affordable.

So at stake right now is not just our ability to solve this problem, but our ability to solve any problem. The American people want to know if it’s still possible for Washington to look out for their interests and their future. They are waiting for us to act. They are waiting for us to lead. And as long as I hold this office, I intend to provide that leadership. I do not know how this plays politically, but I know it’s right. (Applause.) And so I ask Congress to finish its work, and I look forward to signing this reform into law.

Thank you very much, everybody. Let’s get it done. (Applause.)

END
2:09 P.M. EST

Almost all politicians stretch the truth, or outright lie, to convince people that what they’re doing is for their benefit. But what’s happening right now regarding a possible parliamentary move by Senate Democrats to use reconciliation to pass health care reform is just too much.

There are so many Republican lies whizzing across the media landscape about reconciliation it’s hard to keep up. The two biggest whoppers that GOP Senators and Fox News are disseminating are that Republicans would never dream of using reconciliation to thwart a filibuster, and that the use of the existing reconciliation rule (created in 1974) is the so-called “nuclear option.”

Republicans and Fox News are counting on no one looking at the public record and uncovering their blatant fabrications. If you look, you’ll see that Republicans have used reconciliation way more often than Democrats have. In fact, in the more than 20 times it’s been used, Republicans are on record with using reconciliation 17 times.

Most recently the GOP chose reconciliation to pass the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003, the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 and the Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005.

And as far as the so-called “nuclear option” is concerned – that has absolutely nothing to do with reconciliation – nothing, nada, zip, zilch.

It was Republicans who coined the “nuclear option” phrase back in 2003 when they threatened to change Senate rules outlawing the filibuster. They were pissed at Democrats who were trying to filibuster judicial nominees. It had nothing to do with reconciliation.

Watch this video. Stop watching Fox News. Think. Read. Research. Be critical. The information is there. “The truth is out there.” — Fox Mulder

President Obama appears to have finally realized that Republicans will never support any effort to reform health care. On Wed., Obama is expected to release a plan to pass health care reform. According to Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, the president would like Republicans to not filibuster the bill in the Senate and allow a simple up-or-down vote, but that’s not going to happen.

Now Republicans know they have lost this battle and they’re freaking out. One can only hope there’s a special place in hell for these so-called Christians who lie through their teeth.

Whether Republicans like it or not, reconciliation has been used 22 times since President Carter was in office. Of those 22 times, 16 were Republican lead efforts to sidestep a filibuster. And contrary to what Republican hacks are saying, it has been used to pass big bills.

Watch this video mashup and you’ll get the gist of it.

Martha Maccallum of Fox News “debated” health care reform with Bob Beckel and Kate Obenshain today.

The segment is called “Health Care Countdown: Debating the Differences.”

Representing the left was Beckel, a professor of advanced political studies at George Washington University, and on the right was Obenshain, the vice president of the Young America’s Foundation.

Read the entire story on Examiner

Health care reform was the topic of President Obama’s Weekly Address on Feb. 27, 2010. The below transcript was provided by the White House and downloaded from WhiteHouse.gov on Feb. 28, 2010 at approximately 3:40 p.m. eastern.

Remarks of President Barack Obama
As Prepared for Delivery
Weekly Address
February 27, 2010

As the Winter Olympics draw to a close this weekend, I just want to take a minute to congratulate all the athletes who competed in these games. And I especially want to say how proud I am of all the American men and women have achieved over the last few weeks.

Whether it was the men’s hockey team’s stunning upset of the Canadians on their way to the gold-medal game, Lindsey Vonn’s heroic gold-medal comeback from a shin injury, or Apolo Ohno becoming the most decorated American winter Olympian of all time, you can’t help but be inspired by the sheer grit and athletic prowess on display in Vancouver.

And it’s not just the medal count that’s inspiring – though we’ve certainly done great on that score. What’s truly inspiring is the character of the men and women who have won those medals. The sacrifices they’ve made. The integrity they’ve shown. The indomitable Olympic spirit that says no matter who you are or where you come from or what difficulties you may face, you can work hard and train hard and still triumph in the end. That is why we watch. That is why we cheer. That is why in the middle of an extremely challenging time for America, we’ve been able to come together as one nation for a few weeks in February and swell with pride at what our citizens have achieved.

Now, when it comes to meeting the larger challenges we face as a nation, I realize that finding this unity is easier said than done – especially in Washington. But if we want to compete on the world stage as well as we’ve competed in the world’s games, we need to find common ground. We need to move past the bickering and the game-playing that holds us back and blocks progress for the American people.

We know it’s possible to do this. And we were reminded of that last week when Democrats and Republicans in the Senate came together to pass a jobs bill that will give small businesses tax credits to hire more workers. We also saw it when Democrats and Republicans in the House came together to pass a bill that will force insurance companies to abide by common-sense rules that prevent price-fixing and other practices that drive up health care costs.

We need that same spirit of cooperation and bipartisanship when it comes to finally passing reform that will bring down the cost of health care and give Americans more control over their insurance. On Thursday, we brought both parties together for a frank and productive discussion about this issue. In that discussion, we heard many areas of agreement. Both sides agreed that the rising cost of health care is a serious problem that plagues families, small businesses, and our federal budget. Many on both sides agreed that we should give small businesses and individuals the ability to participate in a new insurance marketplace – which members of Congress would also use – that would allow them to pool their purchasing power and get a better deal from insurance companies. And I heard some ideas from our Republican friends that I believe are very worthy of consideration.

But still, there were differences. We disagreed over whether insurance companies should be held accountable when they deny people care or arbitrarily raise premiums. I believe they should. We disagreed over giving tax credits to small businesses and individuals that would make health care affordable for those who don’t have it. This would be the largest middle class tax cut for health care in history, and I believe we should do it. And while we agreed that Americans with pre-existing conditions should be able to get coverage, we disagreed on how to do that.

Some of these disagreements we may be able to resolve. Some we may not. And no final bill will include everything that everyone wants. That’s what compromise is. I said at the end of Thursday’s summit that I am eager and willing to move forward with members of both parties on health care if the other side is serious about coming together to resolve our differences and get this done. But I also believe that we cannot lose the opportunity to meet this challenge. The tens of millions of men and women who cannot afford their health insurance cannot wait another generation for us to act. Small businesses cannot wait. Americans with pre-existing conditions cannot wait. State and federal budgets cannot sustain these rising costs.

It is time for us to come together. It is time for us to act. It is time for those of us in Washington to live up to our responsibilities to the American people and to future generations. So let’s get this done.

Thanks for listening.