Public Option Videos

No sooner had they voted to move the health debate forward, than Senators. Joe Lieberman, I/D-Conn., and Ben Nelson, D-Neb., threatened to stop it in its tracks. Both "indicated Sunday that they will not vote to pass the package if it includes a government-run insurance program," no matter what the people in their states actually want, no matter what positive difference it might make. Lieberman's state of Connecticut is overwhelmingly for a public option--68% overall, including 83% of Democrats and 73% of independents. He's against it. No matter what. Private insurers are Ben Nelson's biggest donors. Nelson's been against a public option from the start -- back in May he said it was because the public plan 'would be too attractive and would hurt the private insurance plans.? Yet 46% of the Nebraska Democrats asked in a new poll would be less likely to support Nelson in a primary if he filibusters health care. At least in the House, so called Blue Dog Democrats claimed their opposition was based on some semblance of political calculus. Big city liberals just don't understand what it's like "out there" in tenuously democratic Blue Dog districts with a mid term looming -- the argument, mostly unchallenged, led to concessions after concession by House leadership. Even that conventional calculus deserves a second look. Are all those Blue Dog seats really in so much danger? Michael Tomasky, writing in the New York Review of Books, said it's not necessarily true that the Blue Dogs are ham-strung by their districts. "All but a small number of these Democrats won their own races by a greater margin than McCain's over Obama in the district. Thirty of them beat their GOP opponents by 10 percentage points more than McCain beat Obama." Moreover, as Tomasky continues, "for the vast majority of members of Congress, once you've been elected and reelected once or twice, it takes either a pretty big scandal or a rare historical tidal wave (as in 1994) to produce defeat." The Blue Dogs' opposition to the public option never did make much sense. If their biggest concern is cost: there's no more effective cost-container on the table than a robust public option. And the Blue Dogs' districts tend to be poorer?where people could benefit from a public option the most. So what's playign out here? It's not substantive; it's not even political in voting-booth sense. What's playing out is pocket book politics - the legislator's pocket book. Lieberman's received over $4 million from health related business and private insurance companies over his career. It's not people politics, it's campaign contribution politics that are playing out in the Senate. The F Word is a regular commentary by Laura Flanders, the host of GRITtv which broadcasts weekdays on satellite TV (Dish Network Ch. 9415 Free Speech TV) on cable, and online at GRITtv.org and TheNation.com. Follow GRITtv or GRITlaura on Twitter.com.

Congress put on quite a show this weekend, passionately arguing on the Senate floor over whether or not to make the same lame arguments next week over a watered down healthcare bill that will neither provide true reform or control cost. The same con artists that have always protected the special interest groups against the very people they are charge with representing have bamboozled the citizenry again.

Rick Klein on the health care bill, and the president's plans for Afghanistan. Afghanistan - Asia - Government - Society and Culture - War in Afghanistan

U.S. Senate Republican Whip Jon Kyl explains to CNBC's Larry Kudlow why the key procedural vote to begin debate of the Democrats' $2.5 trillion Washington takeover of American health care system is equivalent to supporting the bill as it is written and what Democrat leaders had to do to keep all 60 of their votes in line. Aired on November 20, 2009.

Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich speaks with Nicole Sandler about the ersatz public option and the jobless recovery

Senator Bernie Sanders has been a leader in Congress in the movement for single-payer health care, or Medicare for all, but he's also working with the Senate leadership to ensure that the bill that does pass, while it won't be single-payer, will contain more positive steps than negative ones. In this segment from Brave New Films, Sanders lays out the good (more coverage, no preexisting conditions), the bad (proposed tax on existing benefits), and the ugly (the Stupak amendment) in the current House and Senate plans.

In a jaw dropper of a story in the NY Times yesterday, reportedly China is far more interested in the US deficit than Americans having universal healthcare. Considering the Chinese are the ones fronting the cash, it is within reason they'd want to have a say on what we can and can not afford. Perhaps this revelation explains why the president never came out full square for real healthcare reform. Knowing he'd be chided privately by our benefactors for spending too much, the president simply went along with the charade of letting Americans think they really had a choice.

President Obama and his team of surgeons (Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton) operate on the Health Care Bill with the help of "Dr. House" Nancy Pelosi.

On October 19, 2009 The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio presented the seventh-annual Frank Bryant Jr., M.D., Memorial Lecture in Medical Ethics titled Health Care is Broken: How Do We Fix It?.

Part 2: Panelists debate if Americans need a public health insurance option.

Part 1: Panelists debate if Americans need a public health insurance option.

Part 4: Panelists debate if Americans need a public health insurance option.

Part 3: Panelists debate if Americans need a public health insurance option.

***UPDATE***: The brave man is Edward Kimmel, 58, of Takoma Park, MD. He is a hero for speaking truth to idiocy! A brave man walks through the teabagger protest on the National Mall in Washington, DC, with a large sign that reads Public Option Now . If not for the cops that escorted him through the crowd, they probably would have eaten him alive.