24 Comments

1. eric  •  Aug 21, 2009 @3:57 pm
   

   You actually read it! Good job. Most of our Congress has not read it yet! And the drive by bloggers who are going to attack you haven’t. Let see how many are going to discuss facts for a change, or even your interpretation or simplification of its various section. How many are going to thank you for making it understandable for the English challenged?

2. eric  •  Aug 21, 2009 @3:59 pm
   

   By the way….yesterday around 10am, there was a title in Yahoo news stating that Obama’s health advisor was linked to healthcare interest and funneling money to them. By 11am it was gone and totally unreported again…even today!
   Can you spell Axelrod?

   “Axelrod’s ties targeted in health fight
   Kenneth P. Vogel – Wed Aug 19, 5:45 am ET
   Critics of President Obama’s health-care overhaul are zeroing in on his senior adviser David Axelrod, whose former partners at a Chicago-based firm are the beneficiaries of huge ad buys — now at $24 million and counting — by White House allies in the reform fight.
   The unwelcome scrutiny, largely from Republicans, comes at an inopportune time as Obama seeks to shore up support for health care reform. It revolves around two separate $12 million ad campaigns advocating Obama’s health care plan that were produced and placed partly by AKPD Message and Media, a firm founded by Axelrod that employs his son and still owes Axelrod $2 million.
   A separate firm, GMMB, is also handling the campaigns. Both AKPD and GMMB did millions of dollars of work on Obama’s presidential campaign, continue to tout their connections to the campaign and still maintain close ties to his inner circle.
   The two firms were hired to make the health-care ads by a pair of linked coalitions supporting Obama’s health-care overhaul proposal — Healthy Economy Now and a newer offshoot unveiled last week called Americans for Stable Quality Care.
   The Associated Press reported this month that Healthy Economy Now paid AKPD and GMMB to produce a $12 million national ad campaign echoing White House talking points supporting the health care overhaul.
   And a spokesman for Americans for Stable Quality Care, which essentially supplanted the now-defunct Healthy Economy Now, confirmed that it is using the two Obama-linked firms to produce and air a separate $12 million ad campaign launched Thursday designed to shore up support among the conservative House Blue Dog Democrats and to target swing senators. The ad, which is airing in a dozen states, is the opening salvo in a campaign planned for this fall that will cost tens of millions of dollars more.
   The coalitions are a strange-bedfellows mix of business, labor and health care groups including the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (better known as PhRMA), the American Medical Association, the Service Employees International Union and the liberal group FamiliesUSA.
   Neither coalition would reveal how much AKPD or GMMB was paid for its work on the ads. The firms will likely net only a fraction of the $24 million total campaign price tag, but — unlike with election campaign spending — there are no mandatory reporting requirements for such so-called issue advocacy. ”

   Nice

3. eric  •  Aug 21, 2009 @4:05 pm
   

   Also, disinformation at works, the local major paper published a lengthy report aiming at exposing the special goups and founders and $$$ behind the opposition to Obama’s healthcare plan….
   “Some behind health care reform opposition have financial stake
   ShareThis
   Buzz up!
   By Margaret Talev
   mtalev@mcclatchydc.com
   Published: Saturday, Aug. 15, 2009 - 12:00 am | Page 1A
   WASHINGTON – Much of the money and strategy behind groups organizing opposition to the Democrats’ health care plans comes from conservative political consultants, professional organizers and millionaires, some of whom hold financial stakes in the outcome.
   If President Barack Obama and Congress extend health coverage to millions of uninsured Americans, raise taxes on the wealthy to pay for it and limit insurers’ discretion on whom they cover and what they charge, that could pinch these opponents.
   Most of them say they oppose big government in principle. Despite Obama’s assurances to the contrary, many of them insist the Democrats’ legislation is but the first step toward creation of a single-payer system, where the federal government hires the doctors, approves treatments, sets the rules and imperils profit.
   These opposition groups appear to have spent at least $10 million so far on ads attacking the Democrats’ plans. blah, blah blah”

   After that came the groups and founders and amounts spent!Interestingly enough, a couple of lines in the middle of the article exposed the bias:”Still, supporters of a health care overhaul have outspent opponents by more than a 2-1 ratio, according to Evan Tracey of the Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks ad spending. Supporters include drug makers angling for their own protections, unions, the American Medical Association and AARP, the seniors’ lobby. Supporters said this week they intend to spend $150 million promoting an overhaul.”

   Interest groups and lobbies pro-Obama and its Healthcare plan are OUTSPENDING opponents by 2 to 1 and intending more…

   Please fair and unbiased media…could you tell us who and what they are and what is their interest in spending hundreds of millions to push it?

   No our health for sure…lol

   20 years ago, schools, governements and businesses started to remove the brains of Americans, one base ball game, burger or beer, or tree hugging session at a time…here is the result for you!

4. Jerry Saxz  •  Aug 23, 2009 @1:34 am
   

   What about you Eric, did you read it? Or are you doing your usual FOXNews talking points like your friend, Georgy?

   Jerry Saxz
   Ohio

5. Jerry Saxz  •  Aug 23, 2009 @1:35 am
   

   “Fifteen years later I matured and outgrew liberalism.” Cut the crap, Georgy; we do not need you to give the impression that you were an intellectual.

   Jerry Saxz
   Ohio

6. Megan White  •  Aug 23, 2009 @1:39 am
   

   I’ve been horribly perplexed watching the right wing hysteria concerning health care reform. Apparently we’re all going to be living in collectives or reeducation camps, forced to grind granny into Soylent Green, while Obama sends the Sandmen after any oldster spry enough to escape the fryer. Thousands of amok running state funded abortion doctors will be selling baby parts wrapped in the Constitution, and millions of wise Latinas will be cloned from stem cells to oversee the Workers Paradise.

   Megan White

7. The Dragster  •  Aug 23, 2009 @1:40 am
   

   Holy crap! I don’t know ANYONE who is happy with their insurance. Mundane everyday claims denied, apparently just to see if they can get away with it (there’s easy money in just checking the “nope” box), getting dropped because you had the audacity to get sick, profit motivated leaches (not government bureaucrats) standing between you and your health care provider, and on and on and on.

   The Dragster

8. Thomas H  •  Aug 23, 2009 @1:42 am
   

   Hmmmm; this is going to be a hard road. I’d be interested in yours and Eric’s thoughts on why the Right can so successfully twist people to agitate/vote against their own self interest, and how to turn it around. You believe that the Left is that stupid?

   Thomas H

9. John Parsing  •  Aug 23, 2009 @1:50 am
   

   The huge difference between GOP and progressive messaging is the GOP’s hooks are most often lies, distortions or gross exaggerations. If you look at messages from the liberal side, they’re all based in fact. The facts don’t play to the emotions, but you can be darn sure the distortions do.

   For example, this is the opening of a viral email my mother received:

   The Obama administration has already admitted regarding budget and expenditures they believe the elderly are worth more to the government dead than alive. Saves money if we’re gone.

   This wasn’t written by some little old lady musing over her computer keyboard.

   I think viral emails were priming instruments for insurance company stooges. Several conservative relatives have sent them to my sister and parents knowing my parents are liberals (my sister is a little bit on the fence).

   One cousin sent a viral email with nothing but illustrations. The final illustration was one of a trillion dollar bill with Obama’s face on it. How do you refute a picture? It leaves a lasting impression on someone who’s uninformed and uncommitted on the issues.

   When Obama and his supporters make the case that people’s insurance premiums will triple if insurance companies are left unchecked, it falls flat. There’s no emotional connection. It doesn’t seem real. And it’s not to someone on Medicare. The notion that health care costs will bankrupt the nation is an abstraction for most people. Also, Obama’s analogies have been pathetically weak.

   Most of the people I’ve seen in photos of town halls seem older. I read that AARP has been bombarded with phone calls from panicked seniors worried that there will be cuts to their Medicare benefits and that they will be forced into end of life counseling. Those people were the target. They’re the ones who don’t want their security messed with. Many younger people deny things will worsen or simply resolve to adjust as the new paradigm emerges.

   Health care reformers need a hook. Then they need to lay the groundwork with an effective instrument like viral email. I would suggest footage like the town halls Rachel Maddow showed the other day. I saw it on HuffPost and was sickened by it. Very powerful stuff. Those would soften up the audience for the message. Which is…?

   John Parsing
   Illinois

10. Nelly Ross  •  Aug 23, 2009 @1:53 am
    

    Evidence from the Bush II era suggests the way to get people to vote against their own interest is to diminish that interest in favor of one that’s more emotionally compelling.

    For example, the economic policies of the Bush II administration favored the most wealthy individuals and corporations, but did nothing to enhance the quality of life for everyone else. Quality of life was, in fact, deteriorating for almost everyone.

    Why did people keep voting for him? The answer is abortion and gay marriage, issues that had virtually no impact on them whatsoever. With effective framing, those two issues obfuscated the administration’s abuses of power and hooked a population that found those issues easier to apprehend than the myriad, overwhelming corruption, incompetence and lack of accountability on display.

    I believe Obama’s health care proposal is the correct thing for ALL of America and not for ONLY the rich.

    Nelly Ross
    Myrtle Beach, NC

11. Mike  •  Aug 23, 2009 @1:54 am
    

    This is sort of the opposite side of the same coin. Get the “right to lifers” and “freedom of choicers” at each other’s throats and both will be diverted from the forces which oppress them both.

    Mike

12. Angela Montrose  •  Aug 23, 2009 @1:55 am
    

    George, I thought everyone lived in collectives. I mean I do. Don’t you?

    Angela

13. Orlando Nemoy  •  Aug 23, 2009 @2:31 am
    

    Soylent Green, one of my favorite movies. Edward G Robinson at the end watching his dream of what America used to be right. How prophetic and how wonderful that all the crazy and old and sick and annoying people, that drag us down, will now be used to feed the hungry masses. YEA!!! The only thing is, don’t let them use Sarah. She wouldn’t be very appetizing.

    Orlando Nemo
    Florida

14. Cosa Nostradamus  •  Aug 23, 2009 @2:32 am
    

    Definitely not Sarah or Newt: Both are toxic. They should, by rights, carry warning labels.

    Cosa Nostradamus

15. Jerry Saxz  •  Aug 23, 2009 @2:35 am
    

    Hey Orlanda/Cosa, I wouldn’t actually feed Republicans to a dog, even a dog I didn’t like. Sharks, though…

    Jerry Saxz
    Ohio

16. Miss Josephine  •  Aug 23, 2009 @2:39 am
    

    George, yours is a study of HR3200, the Pelosi/Obama health care proposal. It exposes a point by point description of those items in the “Bill” which affect every American especially the Senior population. This expose was authored by Dr. Stephen E Fraser and I have used his material to further explain the damaging effect this legislation will have on the elderly. People need to read and understand the HR3200 bill and then contact their federal legislators. This “Bill” will limit the resources that you can use in the event that you are in need of medical help.

    Ms. Josephine
    Oklohama

17. Agnes Ware  •  Aug 23, 2009 @2:42 am
    

    Soylent Green was a 1973 science/fiction movie about world wide food shortages which made it necessary to establish a end of life cycle for all humans. While it may be a stretch to compare the current Congress attempt to establish a health care system to Soylent Green as George did, those of you who may have read the Health care bill proposed by the Congress may recognize similarities. Read it.

    Agnes Ware

18. Vincent Rotondo  •  Aug 23, 2009 @2:46 am
    

    As a Senior I am very concerned about the lack of compassion shown by President Obama and the Liberal/leftist members of the congress. I am also concerned that the media has shown so little interest in the HC Bill which will, if passed, change the life of every American. We still have the power to stop this. Thank you, George, whoever you are.

    Vincent Rotondo

19. Nancy Mathis  •  Aug 23, 2009 @2:52 am
    

    Infanticide and euthanasia for less viable paying citizens will save costs. Twelve million illegal aliens will receive coverage. Restrictive compliance laws will eventually force private insurers out of business. Within five years everyone will be dependent on the federal government for their right to live (or, in some cases, their obligation to die). The administrative and expense burden will destroy small businesses. Doctors will be too snarled in red tape to deliver good service. Hospitals will also face a bureaucratic reporting nightmare. No one can refuse to enroll: the IRS will levy a 2.5% tax on personal gross income to pay their share. That’s the bottom line in Obama’s Hitleresque socialized health care plan, George.

    Nancy Mathis
    Phoenix

20. Caroline Joiner  •  Aug 23, 2009 @2:56 am
    

    Questions for George and Eric: Will this National “Health Care” Plan encourage our elderly to take their own lives rather than somehow become a “drain” on the rest of us? Will it withhold medical care from them based upon a bureaucrat’s decision regarding so called “quality of life” issues? Will it encourage the rationing of medical services? Will it counsel the withdrawal of nutrition and hydration in order to expedite their death? In short, is Euthanasia included in this National ‘Health Care’ Reform?

    The more I have looked at the proposals the more it seems not only possible, but probable. After all, when the foundational understanding of the dignity of every human person is removed from our approach to health care in the spring of life, with the acceptance of the killing of innocent children in the womb being considered as a “health service”, it is profanely consistent to see the same approach applied in the winter of life….

    Caroline Joiner

21. George  •  Aug 23, 2009 @5:24 am
    

    Eric… you were right on. The imbecilic liberals like jerry the Dunce have not read the bill and lack the critical thinking skills to ponder its eventual outcomes. The liberal post read like they were written by morons who flunked elementary school – the posts that indicate critical thinking skills and informed minds are obviously conservative.

22. George  •  Aug 23, 2009 @5:25 am
    

    Megan… a very draconian look into the future. You’re horribly perplexed because you either did not read the bill or don’t have the ability to understand it?? It seems obvious that you have not read Pelosi’s bill that the Marxist messiah is pushing. Here is something for you to think about… if the government is paying doctors to counsel the old in the twilight of their years And obama is professing he will pay for government run health care by cutting cost – how much of a stretch is it to speculate that counseling granny to end her life with save money or cut cost?

    Dragster… you have just illustrated you are ignorant on the issue… even liberal polls show 80% of Americans are HAPPY with their health insurance… that does not mean the current system is perfect… a few improvements will do just fine. Not the sadistic obama and Ezekiel Emanuel making the decision for you.

    Thomas H… Yes, I do believe the left is stupid and the posts on this blog by the left consistently provide the empirical evidence… for jerry the Dunce that means they prove it.

23. George  •  Aug 23, 2009 @5:27 am
    

    John… I have not seen one liberal comment based on fact. Yours is a perfect example. You conveniently failed to cite the authors of all these “emotional distortions.” Cite one distortion you claim I have made.

    So, What are your thoughts on Sec 163 (Sec 1173A) Standardize Electronic Administrative Transactions? Do you understand the implications of this? Did you know the senate bill mandates health care providers report to the IRS? Why do you think the government wants to mandate that?

    True… Medicare is a government run health care program for only senior citizens and it has failed miserably… it is bankrupt, many doctors opt out treating Medicare & Medicaid patients because of lack of reasonable pay for services and obamacare promoted by democrats will mandate Medicare for everyone… And you only need to look at the other countries with Socialized medicine to see how badly it has failed… no emotion just fact!

    Funny that you cite two of the most imbecilic and moronic liberals - Maddow and Huffington - as a source of information. That kind of explains your ignorance – it is only “powerful” stuff to the mentally deficient. I would suggest you read the bill.

24. George  •  Aug 23, 2009 @5:28 am
    

    Agnes… good for you. You at least recognize that I used a little exaggeration to make a point. Something lost on the liberals reading the article. During that time period the liberal fear mongering was world wide food shortages due to overpopulation and Hollywood advanced the agenda… And I liked the movie.

    Nancy… I agree. It seems like you read the bill. Good for you!

    Caroline… scary isn’t? And what is even scarier is the significant number of people who have not read the bill… represented by the brain dead liberals, like jerry the Dunce, who seem to enjoy advertising their ignorance every chance they get.

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