Everything looks good.  I’m in the pink.

On the way out the door, I got a couple of memos.  One had to do with what appears to be an already operational online medical link to VA.  What a concept! – I said to myself.  The helper at the primary care desk, a vet himself, said, “Please tell the American people we’re terribly sorry for taking the initiative on this.  We mean well, y’know?”

I told him I would try to say something good about it when I had the chance.

He cried and said thanks.

Boo hoo.

VA has been computerized in a number of important ways for some time.  The system was seriously upgraded during the Clinton era, which means that patients have had the benefit of doctor consults with their complete history a click away, in a clinic, in an operating suite, or at bedside for a good fifteen years or more.  And during this time it’s been easy as pie for a veteran to request a download to a CD of a complete medical file if he or she wants to move, say, from Boston to LA, or from Detroit to Dallas.

Can you say:  “Portability”?

So this online link is available now through VA; and soon, civilians may have the same cost-saving hi-tech fix, assuming the administration’s plans come to fruition.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/30/government-pushes-to-crea_n_340157.html

But of course, the dead-enders on health reform will cry, darkly, about that dastardly, really awful government takeover of health care.  Never mind that, according to the link above, it seems tech companies stand to make a bundle on government contracts which will allow them to expand the use of computers across the nation – like a cyber chicken in every pot, right in your home!

But dammit there must be some way to delete this whole idea from that humongus, 2,000 page health bill.  There’s gotta be a way!

This is  just terrible.  Right Nail in the Head?

Since David Gregory took over MTP his ratings have gone down to the point that two weeks ago the unheard of happened and ABC’s This Week won the ratings battle. So MTP is searching for ways to win the week to week battle which they won last week. In their promo for this morning’s show they put on their website:

A Special Edition: As anger reaches a boiling point at town halls across the country, health care reform takes center stage. We’ll take an in-depth look at the debate with some leading voices: Fmr. House Majority Leader Rep. Dick Armey (R-TX), now the head of FreedomWorks, an organizer of protesters at town hall meetings; Sen. Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK), Member of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions; Fmr. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD), an informal adviser to the White House and author of “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health Care Crisis”; & Rachel Maddow, Host of MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show. Plus we’ll get perspectives from around the country with Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY); Bruce Josten, Executive Vice President of the Chamber of Commerce; and Gov. Bill Ritter

Because of Maddow’s excellent research and reporting, Armey was forced to resign from his association with the the global law firm of DLA Piper. An Open Salon writer Michael Rodgers provided excellent background on the Maddow-Armey appearance if you are not familiar with it. He wrote, “Apparently DLA Piper didn’t like being associated with Armey’s FreedomWorks astroturfing campaign designed to misinform and encourage people to disrupt town hall meetings being held across the Country for the purpose of clarifying issues about health care reform.” The post also has a video clip from when Armey made an ass out of himself in a debate on Hardball between Salon’s Joan Walsh and Dick Armey where Armey tells Joan he’s glad she could never be his wife,

Armey tried to soften his firing by DLA Piper explaining to Politico’s David Mark, “The firm is busy with its business, and shouldn’t be asked to take time out from their work, to defend themselves of spurious allegations,” Armey said. “No client of this firm is going to be free to mind its own business without harassment as long as I’m associated with it.”

If MTP really wanted to inform the public as CBS Morning Show did one hour earlier, they would not have let Dick Armey obfuscate, confuse and waste valuable time just to have a shootout with Rachel. The absence of facts and truth is what is missing most from the debates and M$M coverage. Armey’s successful fight to kill Hillary health reform and his kill efforts now are disgusting in the extreme because of the suffering and huge economic problems created. Half of all personal bankruptcies and mortgage foreclosures are due to lost or inadequate health insurance coverage.

So NBC in its infinite wisdom, gives this scumbag and completely failed former congress critter their platform to continue to wreak damage just so their ratings will compete with ABC. They finally allow their best journalist to appear on MTP so Rachel can participate in a fight that was already over when Armey was fired. Where was NBC News when Rachel did her research behind the Town Hells and Armey’s Army marched and yelled so that the insurance and health industry can continue to screw this dupe Army and millions of senior citizens?

The M$M blames Obama for losing his message on a program he didn’t create because even though he has thoroughly debunked all the myths and lies during his Town Halls they claim he hasn’t because of those Town Hells and the insurance paid ads and thugs that they give maximum coverage instead of ensuring they provide the truth and debate on issues that are justifiably contentious.

Even when ads opposing reform are prepared, deceit is the prime method. The Right Wing Health Care Group who created the anti-socialist medicine ads tricked British women into appearing in the ads.

The number one distortion that continues unabated is the simple fact that there is no such thing as Obamacare. The president chose, wisely or not, to let congress develop the reform plan. There are five bills, three in the House and two in the Senate that are a long ways from being completed into a final bill. Yet, the Repugs blame everything on Obama as if their part, which should be a major part, plays no role in the objections Americans have on all sides of the political spectrum.

During the MTP show this morning both Coburn and Armey claimed eureka the solution is to let anyone use any plan in any state. So in good ole capitalistic fashion, the states with the best insurance will cause all the others to improve. They totally ignore the fact as has been pointed out by Obama in his recent Town Halls, that those state programs who would have outsiders from around the country descend on them, would be overwhelmed and that mayhem and state economic disaster would result. This is typical Repug thinking that there is always a simple answer for the most complex problems and since it sells well, why care about the true consequences.

Those of us who want single payer want it done at the federal level so that each state can’t have a totally different version and moving to another state creates great difficulties. Obama said from the start of his presidential campaign that single payer is out. Some states have decided to go single payer on their own. Obama has pledged that any public option will not eventually lead to nationwide single payer. We are left with the public option as our only hope to rein in the insurance/health monopolies that rake in trillions that could be spent on actual health care. Now even that option is fading away.

The president said many times in his Town Halls that any public option would be self-sustaining and would not be able to use public funds if it got into financial trouble. It would have no government competitive advantage. The Repugs refuse to recognize that fact including the head of the American Chamber of Commerce on MTP this morning and make the false claim that a public option will ruin the insurance industry because of an unfair competitive advantage. The Repugs love the fact that Fedex and UPS have more than successfully competed with the US Postal Service, yet when Obama makes that point when defending his version of a public option, it is totally ignored.

This morning HuffPo reported that the Public Option is not the essential element according to Obama’s health secretary Sebelius who indicated to get Repug support that Sen. Conrad’s Co-Op idea may be necessary to get health reform passed. Many on the left shout that the Dems should get some balls and just use reconciliation and stop trying to woo the PON Repugs and the need for 60 votes in the Senate. Conrad has pointed out correctly that there are requirements to make reconciliation work such as paying for everything in the bill in six years that make this approach an unrealistic option.

I’m glad that all this grandstanding nonsense and distortion are happening now so these tactics will be old when more honest discussion can take place in the fall. I doubt that they have forced Obama to retreat because I suspect he already had that in his process thinking knowing that it would be very hard to get a true public option into a final bill. This distraction from the real debate has obscured many reforms that will get into the final bill and create a much better system than now exists.

That doesn’t mean I am at all happy for just getting any kind of bill passed or that I am backing down from the fact that by far the best solution is single payer. However, what Obama has pointed out and can’t be ignored, to crash our insurance based system too quickly would create economic crisis that would make the bank bailout puny in comparison. Any serious system changes will take considerable time and agony to implement.

For reform opponents to ignore Obama’s plea that to do nothing would be disastrous, is the utmost in hypocrisy and lunacy. It takes a lot to top Repug hypocrisy, but somehow they keep doing it. As their OWE, I suspect their tactics will backfire by the fall and many more Americans will see them for the hypocrites they are as happened in the last presidential election.

PS. As of this posting, I can’t find a link that would provide the video of this mornings’ MTP. When one is available, I will provide it.

Segments from this show were released at 1PM.

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