Tidbits
Posted by: madamab on: July 24, 2009
- In: Healthcare | Hillary Clinton | Tidbits
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The Dow Has Hit 9000: Recession is Over! Or, Is It?
NEW YORK – — The Dow Jones industrial average closed above 9000 Thursday for the first time since early January as favorable home sales data combined with another round of encouraging earnings reports to boost optimism about the economy.
Investors were buoyed by news that sales of previously owned homes rose 3.6 percent in June, more than expected and the third consecutive monthly improvement. Signs of a thaw in the housing market helped to relieve worries about debt-strapped consumers not being able to keep up their spending.
Several positive earnings reports from companies, including Ford Motor Co. and eBay Inc., also cemented the view that the recession is lifting and that corporate profits could improve the rest of the year.
Headlined by companies such as Goldman Sachs Group, second-quarter corporate profits have been stronger than expected, fueling a strong rally in the major averages over the last week and a half that has tacked more than 900 points onto the Dow.
(snip)
The willingness to buy a stock even amid a downbeat company forecast worries market watchers such as newsletter writer Tom O’Brien.
“UPS is basically saying, ‘We’re not getting goods that are transported around,’ and that’s a big indication that things aren’t getting better,” O’Brien said.
Other analysts warn that stocks won’t be able to hold their gains if companies can’t increase earnings by boosting revenue rather than slashing costs.
“It’s like going on a diet. You can only starve yourself for so long,” said Lawrence Creatura, portfolio manager at Federated Investors. “You cannot cost-cut your way to prosperity.”
Hillary to go on Meet The Press this Weekend
Hillary Rodham Clinton will appear on David Gregory’s Meet the Press this Sunday — for the full hour.
I guess I have to watch David Gregory now. Sigh.
Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said on Thursday afternoon that Republicans will have an alternative healthcare reform bill to offer but did not say when it would be ready.
He told reporters that Republicans will “make decisions at the appropriate time for how we’ll proceed,” but that they are “putting the final touches on [their] bill, just as Democrats” are doing.
The leader made the statement on a conference call Thursday afternoon.
Earlier in the day, House GOP leaders were peppered with questions after The Hill reported that Boehner’s healthcare point man, Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), said his party may not even need to put forward a plan.
Blunt, who is running for Senate, heads the House GOP Health Care Solutions Group. That body met weekly for months to produce an alternative healthcare reform plan acceptable to members of the GOP conference.
OPEN THREAD
37 Responses to "Tidbits"
July 24, 2009 at 1:28 PM
Heh. Ben Smith at Politico says Obama kind of regrets stepping into the Professor Gates arrest controversy. Obama thinks his remarks have become “a distraction.”
Ha! Of course they are a distraction from the fact that Obamacare is a massive fail. And Obama did it on purpose.
July 24, 2009 at 1:31 PM
DYB – I dunno. She went on Obamaman’s show too…maybe it’s because they offered her the whole hour? Maybe it’s to make Gregory look like the moron he is?
I don’t think any interviewer except Greta is ever that friendly to her, though. I’m not sure if any other outlet would have been an improvement.
July 24, 2009 at 1:58 PM
Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said on Thursday afternoon that Republicans will have an alternative healthcare reform bill to offer but did not say when it would be ready.
Will it be less than a thousand pages long? If so, maybe some of the congress critters would read it just for the hell of it! 
btw, MB: did you get your email I sent and send it along to 5 other women?
July 24, 2009 at 2:01 PM
I did, Fredster – I thought it was BRILLIANT!!! I will definitely pass it along to my friends.
I just cannot get my head around the idea that the GOP is NOW coming up with health care reform. Where were they for the last kajillion years? Nothing has been done since 1994, because of them, the “centrist” Dems, and the health insurance companies! Hypocritical b*stards!
July 24, 2009 at 2:16 PM
That email was from a woman friend of mine who is usually not so outspoken! Maybe she’s voicing it with the email. 
Whatever the Repubs throw together on health care will be a joke, whether intended or not. There certainly won’t be a public option, and that’s the only threat that will make the insurers try to behave (if that’s possible).
July 24, 2009 at 2:24 PM
There certainly won’t be a public option, and that’s the only threat that will make the insurers try to behave (if that’s possible).
*********
There is no “Public Option” in the Dem proposal either. The name may still exist in the HR bill, but all of the Insurance Industry “firewalls” put in to protect the insurance “bidness” have eliminated the Public Option as an option.
July 24, 2009 at 2:31 PM
SHV – what’s killing me is all the self-righteous emails I’m getting from Dem Congresscritters asking me to “stand with them” on the “public option.”
I’ll stand with people who have the g-d courage to go for single-payer. Everyone else can for-gawds-sake do the right thing or STFU!
July 24, 2009 at 2:39 PM
There is no “Public Option” in the Dem proposal either. The name may still exist in the HR bill, but all of the Insurance Industry “firewalls” put in to protect the insurance “bidness” have eliminated the Public Option as an option.
Well they keep mentioning one. However, I haven’t read all 1000 pages of the one plan I’ve seen in public.
July 24, 2009 at 2:42 PM
LOL Fredster! Why not? Do you, like, have a life or something?!
July 24, 2009 at 3:00 PM
MB: 2 reasons: The Momster and Chloe!
However I did read a discussion over at Corrente on the public option issue with a link to Physians for National Health Reform that seems to backup SHV’s contention.
corrente link: http://tinyurl.com/msxrqu
My two cents fwiw: The public option will have to offer higher payments to the docs/hospitals than Medicare because those rates aren’t high enough. On the other hand (how many hands is that now?) when I had my neck surgery I got the initial bill from the hospital and just about shit! Then I got the bill with the BC/BS preferred hospital junk tacked on and it was amazing how much they discounted. I assumed the hospital knew what it was doing when it negotiated with BC/BS and wouldn’t charge so little they couldn’t make a profit on their charges, so the “discount” had to be a legitimate, reasonable amount.
It’s all so damned complicated it makes my head hurt!
July 24, 2009 at 3:09 PM
Fredster, I think they are overcomplicating the issue because they don’t want us to realize that single-payer is the only viable option.
Apparently, even Dear Leader accidentally admitted that single-payer is the only way to ensure affordable, quality health care for all.
President Obama said on Tuesday night:
“Now, the truth is that, unless you have a — what’s called a single-payer system, in which everybody is automatically covered, then you’re probably not going to reach every single individual because there’s always going to be somebody out there who thinks they’re indestructible and doesn’t want to get health care, doesn’t bother getting health care, and then, unfortunately, when they get hit by a bus, end up in the emergency room and the rest of us have to pay for it.”
Another name for “what’s called a single-payer system” would be: healthcare as a human right, not a commodity to be purchased. Many humans have this right. They just aren’t Americans.
Obama’s mention of single-payer, in passing, as something that would be better than anything else, but something that mysteriously lies out of reach, is typical of the very few mentions of single-payer healthcare in the U.S. corporate media.
(snip)
Americans have consistently told pollsters for decades that they want single-payer. But America’s government refuses to provide it, and therefore America’s state media refuses to discuss it. Of the 197 records of the media mentioning single-payer in July, almost half were congressional records or press releases or otherwise not media reports at all. Others were articles in medical trade publications. Even so, those articles tended to mention single-payer very briefly and dismiss it — in the unfortunate phrase used by Kaiser Health News — as “dead on arrival.”
ARRRGGGGGHHHHH!
July 24, 2009 at 3:14 PM
However, I haven’t read all 1000 pages of the one plan I’ve seen in public.
**************
I have gone through ~1081 pages of the HR bill…don’t waste your time. It is written in legislative “mark-up” language, ie “in sec.122a change ‘and’ to ‘or’”…It’s like reading a foreign language after taking a two years High School course 40 years ago. You can recognize some words and phrases but the meaning is incomprehensible.
Here is a summary of what happened to the “Public Option”.
“Bait and switch: How the “public option” was sold
Posted by Andrew Coates, MD on Monday, Jul 20, 2009 ”
July 24, 2009 at 3:37 PM
It is bad enough that Obama and the Obamacrats pulled this bait and switch on us…but now, they’re trying to convince us that we should support them in it. The fauxgressives are mostly jumping on the bandwagon, trying to tell us that if we don’t want Obamacare, we’re Republicans and we hate America. Wow! Where have we heard that one before?!
I was thinking about this today. So many wingnuts are jumping on the “Obamacare sucks” train, but none of them are doing so because they want single-payer instead. Their plan, if there really is one, is going to be a total joke, much worse than the Dems. More than likely, they will try to tax benefits like McCain (which Obama has reportedly considered as well, but without the tax credit that made McCain’s “plan” slightly less horrible).
Once again, we are critiquing Obama from the left, where the wingnuts are critiquing him from the right. We have to be careful not to buy into their well-funded BS.
July 24, 2009 at 3:51 PM
I thought the article Latda linked the other day that quoted Kucinich was excellent. He said the only thing in the bill worth voting for was the amendment he added which allows each state to initiate their own single payor system. I guess he’ll vote for it based on that, but even that seems like a cop-out.
July 24, 2009 at 3:52 PM
SHV: Yeah, that’s the same article that corrente links to.
(sigh) As I’ve said previously, I don’t mind paying a “fair” amount to get health insurance, but I don’t need something that is outrageously priced and won’t cover pre-existing conditions for a year or so. The reason I need to have insurance is because of the pre-existing condition!
I’m doing all I can w/out ins. I take my meds and get most of those at a discount at Walgreens. I try my best to eat right. I’ve eat so much chicken I’m continually looking for the pin feathers to start coming out! 
July 24, 2009 at 3:53 PM
I thought the article Latda linked the other day that quoted Kucinich was excellent. He said the only thing in the bill worth voting for was the amendment he added which allows each state to initiate their own single payor system. I guess he’ll vote for it based on that, but even that seems like a cop-out.
After the Mass. example (although they didn’t have single-payer) I’d be afraid to see what the states come up with. Also, most of the states are so broke how could they offer this option?
July 24, 2009 at 3:55 PM
us that if we don’t want Obamacare, we’re Republicans and we hate America.
And it’s not even so much as Obamacare, but rather Congresscare; those are the s.o.b.’s coming up with this crap.
July 24, 2009 at 4:12 PM
Fredster- California had an excellent single payor system authored by the former mouseketeer, Sheila Kuehl. It actually saved everyone money and included everyone. Arnie vetoed it. It bore no resemblance to the Mass system.
July 24, 2009 at 4:14 PM
Fredster – Now, don’t you let Obama off the hook! You know if HRC were President, the Congresscritters would be following HER lead on health care. IMHO, Obama is being “hands-off” in order to pass the blame onto Congress for his failure to live up to his promises.
You are right, though, that the states are broke. But I’ll bet it would cost Obie a lot less to send billions in aid to the states to help subsidize single-payer, than it would to implement Obamacare.
That’s just a guess. Anyone have any facts and figures?
July 24, 2009 at 4:44 PM
On our handy dandy guide to transparency for the stimulus money:
(Good look digging around in there.)
Q: What’s the purpose of the new legislation?
A: The purpose of the Recovery Act is to create and save jobs, jumpstart our economy, and build the foundation for long-term economic growth. The Act includes measures to modernize the nation’s infrastructure, enhance America’s energy independence, expand educational opportunities, increase access to health care, provide tax relief, and protect those in greatest need.
———————
Meaning there is already tax payer dollars sitting in state funds for health care.
July 24, 2009 at 4:51 PM
“Anyone have any facts and figures?”
My above post was a piece in answering your question, MB. I was looking at tax dollars that were already allotted to states via the stimulus. Therefore it would cost even less taxpayer $$ to add to those funds they have already sitting there. If you dig in around in the in the “handy dandy transparency guide”, I bet you could find how much each state has already gotten for health care. Maybe that could help answer your question if you want to go in that direction.
July 24, 2009 at 4:58 PM
Wow, thanks, LTD! You rock!
I knew that Obama’s original budget had allocated monies for health care. I also knew that Obama had cut a lot of those dollars in order to get those famous 80 votes on his budget, and that Nancy Pelosi had forced him to put the money back in. After that, I was kinda lost.
July 24, 2009 at 5:00 PM
Fredster- California had an excellent single payor system authored by the former mouseketeer, Sheila Kuehl
Lilliam, did it ever get implemented? That’s where the rubber meets the road and you can see how it actually works.
MB: Not letting him off the hook, but you know his hands-off approach. Nancy and Harry are the ones in charge in Congress (and I started to say they’ll shape whatever comes out). But, right now, it’s all coming apart. I don’t believe she had the numbers on votes anymore than my big butt can fly to the moon.
But I’ll bet it would cost Obie a lot less to send billions in aid to the states to help subsidize single-payer, than it would to implement Obamacare.
I don’t know. In Louisiana, they were broke and due to the constitution mandating so many programs could not be cut, the only areas left are education and healthcare. In Louisiana, public healthcare means medicaid and Jindal ripped it to the bone. Add in that in NOLA there is still no Charity Hospital since Katrina and there’s no place to get health care for the poor. Hospitals like Touro, Tulane Med Ctr, East and West Jefferson hospitals ( owned by Jefferson parish) are treating the poor and uninsured but are taking a financial beating with it. Touro just had to merge with Childrens Hospital because Childrens was sitting on a surplus in the millions. Why? Because the kids either have health insurance or are on LaChip.
It’s a shame with Touro because it’s one of the oldest hospitals in the city. The only one older was the precursor to Charity when the Daughters of Charity ran it.
http://www.touro.com/content/about.htm
Oh, and if something came up with me that I needed my chest cracked and a CABG done that I wouldn’t be arriving via ambulance at one of those places and just hope for the best, uninsured or not.
July 24, 2009 at 5:01 PM
Napolitano managed to keep our AZ health care system alive and even add some money to under 8 years of a Republican legislature. So I don’t want Dems to tell me it can’t be done. BS!
July 24, 2009 at 5:02 PM
increase access to health care,
Watcha wanna bet that will be for “community clinics” ?
July 24, 2009 at 5:04 PM
la-t-da: The problem in Louisiana is the damned state constitution. There are too many protected programs. They need to put a couple of amendments before the voters so that in financially bad times, more programs can be cut when/if needed.
July 24, 2009 at 5:10 PM
Oh hell, gotta go for awhile. I have a little doxie who is sitting up on her butt with the two front paws waving at me telling me it’s time for walkies. I turn my head back to the ‘puter and she makes this weird almost gurgling sound for attention. I turn around and the paws start waving!
July 24, 2009 at 5:11 PM
Fredster, it was never implemented, cuz Arnie vetoed it. The idea was to pool all of the Medicare and Medicaid funds, abolish private insurance, and place a surtax on payroll. No premiums or out of pocket cost to consumers, less money from employers, as they would have no premiums to match. Allocations were added to retrain claims adjustors and employees of insurance companies.
July 24, 2009 at 5:18 PM
Just checked out the recovery.gov website. The states were given $59 billion already for health care. (I agree with Fredster, it is probably going to faith-based “community clinics.”)
There is an interactive map that is supposed to let you see how much money from the $59 billion is being spent on health care in each state. Guess what – the link to that feature doesn’t work! Sooooo….there is no way to know if the money has even been given to the states yet. A lot of the dollars are not being handed out until 2010, “coincidentally” around the same time as the mid-term elections.
Fredster, your pup sounds so adorable! I do love dogs so. When we move to a more rural area, we will definitely have at least one.
I love cats too, but I am VERY allergic. My husband often guilts me for it. What’s funny is, they always come up to me and curl around my leg, wanting attention. I can’t resist them, so I pet them anyway, then regret it later. Sigh!
July 24, 2009 at 5:39 PM
How ’bout LSU Medical Center in Shreveport, Fred. When I lived there they served a lot people, and they had a great trauma center to boot because it was the research hospital to LSU. I saw them on that show Trauma: Life in the ER a few times.
July 24, 2009 at 5:53 PM
Mad, get a cornish rex or a devon rex. They have no guard hairs, which is what traps dander. They are hypoallergenic kitties.
July 24, 2009 at 5:56 PM
Oh speaking of Louisiana and health care, to all the LA folks at the Widdershins, I will be coming home for a month, mid September to mid October. My mom (71) has to have back surgery because her L-4 is almost gone.
If she doesn’t get it done soon she risks severing her nerve. We thought she needed a hip replacement because that has been where her pain is, but it was those damn L-3 and L-4 pinching her nerves.
So anyway, I will be coming home for a month to help her. My mom and I get along fine, but I don’t do well with the rest of the family. (Massive bigots in all versions and fundies to boot.) It is always such a stressful trip for me.
July 24, 2009 at 8:54 PM
Wow, LTD! I feel very lucky that I don’t have that in my immediate family. I do have a lot of Obots, though.
Chatblu – I have never heard of those kitties. I will take note and do some searchin’ on the InterWebs.
July 24, 2009 at 9:30 PM
There is a reason I live half way across the country, MB. LOL
I was telling taggles a funny story that my mom was the one that told me that McCain picked Palin for VP. Mom is a Republican and evangelical (though she is starting to “backslide” as the Assembly of God Church says because she no longer judges her gay daughter as needing to be saved from going to hell).
Anyway, mom knew that I had been volunteering and working hard for Hillary. My mom heard that McCain picked Palin and she immediately called to tell me, then quickly followed with, “Well, that’s just a slap in the face to Hillary.”
She was so mad at McCain. She took it as he was using a women to get Hillary’s votes. My mother was so mad that she voted for Obama. So interesting: She perceived sexism (a man using a women) and did her own protest vote.
Now that I type that story out. I wonder how many other Republican women that saw it the same as my mom did also voted for Obama.
July 24, 2009 at 11:56 PM
la-t-da said: How ’bout LSU Medical Center in Shreveport, Fred. When I lived there they served a lot people, and they had a great trauma center to boot because it was the research hospital to LSU. I saw them on that show Trauma: Life in the ER a few times.
Don’t know much about that hospital. I know LSU officials and some state officials point to that as an example of how to build the “new” charity hosp in NOLA, official name: LSUMCNO (LSU Med Ctr of nola).
LSU is trying to get FEMA to condemn the old bldg. which was built in the 30s by Huey Long, and is a beautiful example of art deco. FEMA says nope it’s repairable. LSU sez it’s totaled and wants $450 million so they can build a new hospital hooked up to the new VA hospital being built. VA has the money for their hosp., LA doesn’t. LSU wants MCNO to be like Shreveport and it will draw in the poor *and* paying patients, they say. Also, Charity was the teaching hospital used by LSU’s med school and Tulane’s med school.
Currently LSU is using University Medical Center (small hosp) as MCNO but it’s not big enough. They are having to refer some patients up to Shreveport for procedures and that presents a difficulty to poor patients and their families.
In short, it’s typical of LA and the politics there: fucked up. 
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July 24, 2009 at 1:27 PM
Oh, dear… I think Hillary would have been better off on CBS, frankly. Even ABC. Why would she talk to the swamp that is NBC?