by Robert Reich
The health-insurance industry has finally revealed itself for what it is.
Background: The industry hates the idea that’s emerged from the Senate Finance Committee of lowering penalties on younger and healthier people who don’t buy insurance. Relying on an analysis by PricewaterhouseCoopers, insurers say this means new enrollees will be older and less healthy [...]

by Denis Campbell
Living abroad these last 12-years, I said I did not recognise my country after its reaction to 9-11. Now that has been surpassed. The real threats to the American Empire are not 9-11, Afghanistan or Iraq. They are: polarisation, isolationism, greed and fear.
The blind anger, racism and lack of human compassion in the [...]

UPDATED: The US healthcare debate is about cost. It should be about ensuring coverage for all. Commit, as the 22 other richest nations in the world have, to ensuring everyone is covered and you can then make tough “how-to” choices.
This is the real healthcare debate.
Not the big money ‘ginned’ death panels, pull the plug on Grandma, [...]

by Robert Reich
Last night, the so-called “gang of six” — three Republican and three Democratic senators on the Senate Finance Committee — met by conference call and, according to Senator Max Baucus, the committee’s chair, reaffirmed their commitment “toward a bipartisan health-care reform bill” (read: less coverage and no public insurance option). The Washington Post [...]

by Charley James
Pres. Lyndon Johnson had many tragic flaws but one thing he knew how to do is get his legislation passed. Members of Congress called it getting “the Johnson treatment” which ranged from flattery, promises of federal money for a pet project back in the district or even rides on Air Force One to [...]

 
by Charley James
In so-called “public service” ads appearing on TV and radio, or in print and on the intertubes, many health insurance companies urge people to stay healthy by quitting smoking. The company that provides a supplemental policy to me that covers things not paid by Canada’s national health even e-mailed a helpful PDF brochure [...]

The advert headline blared: “if he were anyone else he’d be dead.” He is Dick Cheney, age 67, Vice President of the United States, with a bionic reconstructed heart with built-in defribulator to maintain a regular heartbeat. The Vice President joined the government healthcare program in 2001 when he became a federal employee. Had he [...]