Not the mainstream polls taken recently. I just heard a piece on NPR where McConnell kept saying that the American people don’t want health reform, and if Democrats pass it, reform will hurt their election chances in November. Not true.

According to a March 10, 2010 Benenson Strategy Group report, a large majority of Americans want reform, and if anything, they believe reform doesn’t go far enough.

He also said that “forcing” the bill through reconciliation is unprecedented and it denies the “majority” in the Senate the right to vote on the bill. Last time I checked, 59 out of 100 votes is a big majority. If McConnell has such a problem with reconciliation, why did he vote yea on reconciliation bills 13 times in the past? There have been 21 reconciliation bills over about the past 30 years. Sixteen were Republican bills. It’s not an unprecedented procedure at all.

Me thinks he dost protest too much. I believe the Republicans are obstructing, lying and posturing so much because they realize if health care reform passes, their asses are grass in the coming November mid-term election, and Democrats and Independents are the lawn mower.

One GOP talking point is that the Democrats will be in big trouble and lose their majorities in the House and/or Senate. Why would they give this legislation so much time and energy? Since when did the GOP care how the Democrats will do in an upcoming election as long as it’s worse than GOP candidates? It’s because they are terrified at how much passing health reform will boost Democrats in the mid-term election. If they believed their own rhetoric, they would get out of the way and let health reform pass, and reap the benefits of extremely poor Democratic policy.

Another talking point is health care reform will increase the budget deficit substantially. Also not true. According to the CBO, it will decrease the budget deficit substantially:

This bill isn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination. I would like to see a lot of changes, and I believe over time, all the fixes, including a public option or single-payer system, will become part of the legislation. The problems will be fixed as needed in the future just like Medicare has been amended since it first passed. One thing is certain. Doing nothing is not an option.

What do you think?

Technorati Tags: budget reconciliation, federal budget, health care reform, public opinion on health care reform, Senate health reform bill of 2009

Check this video out. It’s a two-segment section with Rachel Maddow on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon after her bought with swine flu.

If you’re sick in bed, what do you do when you don’t have TV? Rachel reads non-fiction graphic novels, watches movies based on classic literature, oh and sleeps a lot. If you want titles, Rachel can hook you up. She posted the websites where you can find such graphic novels: Blame Joe Sacco: http://is.gd/2KEMO and AD: http://is.gd/2KF0t.

Rachel and Susan have a TV and cable (including internet) at their apartment in New York, but don’t have TV at their home in Massachusetts. Cable doesn’t reach to where they live, and they don’t want two satellite dishes on the house. They already have one for high speed internet access. Susan can watch Rachel’s show in the city, and they can watch Red Sox games when they can’t go to them in Boston. They don’t really watch TV when they have it.

Part of the reason they don’t get TV at the house is they want to get away from it all on the weekends (and they both have a TV phobia that they’ll become addicted if they watch it more than a few shows once in awhile). Getting away from TV for Rachel means getting away from work at MSNBC. Even if you don’t really watch TV, if you work in TV you watch some of it.

Getting away from TV gets you away from quite a lot, I have found. When our cable has been out after hurricanes for weeks until the company can fix it, life is very different. We spend a lot of time when the TV is out working around the house, talking, cooking, reading and watching DVDs. The peace and quiet, change in activities and interpersonal communication are so relaxing. Even turning on talk radio doesn’t glue you to the machine like TV does.

After such experiences, I have been tempted to turn off the cable TV service and just leave the cable internet service on. I had two packages removed from our digital plan last week because we really don’t watch much more than 6 channels, and only 2-3 most of the time.

I want a TV option where you choose only the channels you want to watch and don’t get any of the others. Would it be cheaper or more expensive? Probably more expensive. I can think of a bunch of equipment and computer stuff that would have to happen to bring such a service to us.

Anyway, being sick with the flu (Influenza A, strain H1N1 in this case) puts you in bed. You don’t get up except to eat and go to the bathroom. You have to drink lots of fluids or the fever will dehydrate you, but you have to do that in bed. Believe me, you aren’t well enough to be out of bed for long. Not being distracted from dozing off is probably a much faster way to get well than lying around like a lump watching TV.

I had pneumonia my senior year in high school and had to stay in my room where the vaporizers were to keep my lungs open. I didn’t have a TV in my room, so I read, did homework and slept a lot. I don’t know that I got well faster, but I got a lot of required reading done for English literature class. I was ahead when I got back to school and caught up on everything else. It’s amazing what you can get done without TV. No wonder we never watched it in college, even though every dorm had a huge TV in the lobby.

Tamiflu is a fantastic drug. I was on it the last time I caught the flu and I got well much faster. It shortened the illness from two weeks to 5-6 days, and after that time I was completely back to normal, not just dragging around like I would usually be after a bought with the flu. As you can see in the video, Rachel is back up to snuff after one week. She was well enough to do one show at the end of the week she was sick from a studio in Massachusetts close to home. She sounded horrible, but was nonetheless on TV hosting her show.

Get your flu shot. If you get the flu, go to the doctor early and get one of the flu antiviral drugs. You will get better much faster. Then have a White Lady after you get well to celebrate your recovery! Watch the video to learn how to make it.

Reference: rachel.msnbc.com

Technorati Tags: guns, H1N1 flu virus, health care reform, Jimmy Fallon, Late Night, NBC, Rachel Maddow, swine flu, White Lady cocktail

This metaphor describes exactly what is going on with the GOP and health care reform:

GOP dudes want pizza but without any of the ingredients, including sauce and cheese. I wonder if they even want crust?

It’s time to forget the Republicans and for the Democrats to go it alone.

Those of you who don’t want health care reform are saying you want the insurance companies to make 35 cents out of every dollar in profits. You’re paying for it, and you are at risk of losing your insurance because the costs keep going up. It will keep going up as fewer and fewer people are insured, and our delivery system is expensive.

If you have employer health insurance, look back at your pay stubs from at least a few years ago compared to today and see how much more you’re paying now compared to then.

What’s going on with people who don’t want a public option or even a co-op? What’s wrong with making it possible for the uninsured to be able to buy insurance and afford it? What’s wrong with increasing competition to make your insurer earn your business?

What would you do if your insurance tells you the emergency surgery you just had isn’t covered or is only covered 65/35 because you were out of town when it happened? You would have to pay 35% of an average $20,000 hospital bill. Can you fork that over right now?

Think back on recent and even not so recent lay-offs at your company. How many people who were laid off had a serious illness prior to being laid off? Get rid of those who get sick and get rid of their risk from your employer’s pool.

Are the insurance company executives in your pants (or your pockets) at your demand? They’re heavy into many GOP pockets. Prostitution, figurative or literal, is the only sane thing I can think of for wanting to pay those companies a 35% profit. The rest of the excuses are myths or outright lies too many people have started to believe.

Wake up and smell the coffee! Our health care system is unsustainable, and the GOP wants a “reformed system” that is even more unsustainable and more beneficial to the insurance industry.

It’s time for the Dems to dump the GOP obstructionists.

Sources:
TRMS
Countdown

Technorati Tags: Countdown, GOP fearmongering, GOP obstructs on purpose, health care reform, Keith Olbermann, Kent Jones, MSNBC, pizza parable, Rachel Maddow, The Rachel Maddow Show, TRMS, Wendell Potter