Breaking: Eight Heroic Healthcare Activists Arrested at Baucus Hearing
Is this a turning point in the single-payer debate? Will the DC insiders be forced to listen to the public and healthcare activists--and not just big-money healthcare donors?
Both AP and Politico are reporting on the events at this morning's Senate Finance Committee, where brave healthcare activists, one after the other, stood up to protest the exclusion of single-payer reforms from the conversation.
Sen. Max Baucus - a favorite recipient of donations from the health insurance industry - has also been the key Democratic attack dog against single-payer healthcare.
He stated it's "off the table," and this morning convened a Senate Finance Committee hearing that included 15 expert witnesses on healthcare--NONE of them in support of a medicare-for-all or single-payer healthcare system.
UPDATED to correct number of arrested.
First of all, let's realize how limited Baucus and DC insiders have already made the debate. If you exclude healthcare economists and public policy experts who support Medicare-for-All, you're playing the B-team. The data from other countries is overwhelming: single-payer systems outperform American healthcare, and about half the cost. If you only talk to people blind to this fact, then you're not exactly bringing the best and brightest together.
Secondly, it's hard to see how healthcare reform can succeed if we continue to allow insurance companies to take their 30% off the top. Not politically feasible some might say? It seems far less politically wise to pass healthcare reform that fails. The American people need reform, want it, and are open to single-payer. {Not to mention single-payer is the choice of 59% of the nation's MDs and of the national nurses movement.} What's the matter with Baucus?
Politico's hard-working Carrie Budoff Brown provides more details:
As soon as police escorted one protester out of the room, another would stand up, criticizing the committee for convening a panel of 15 experts and excluding witnesses who support creating a Medicare system for all Americans. About eight were led out of the hearing.
"We need more police," Baucus said."Single-payer needs to be on the table," one of the protesters yelled. "This is political theater."
Here's a Donna Smith blog previewing the meeting
And here's A FAIR study about the media blackout on single-payer
WTF?
This custodian of the public's trust said "We need more police" when confronted by that public?
May 5, 2009 3:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
This shoulc only be the beginning of direct action. There is also still an important role for old-time politicing. Go to http://www.healthcare-now.org/ to sign on to the lead organized force for change.
May 5, 2009 3:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Guerrilla theater is all that's left when the debate is being systematically stifled like this. Good post and BTW, the last two links in the post aren't functioning.
May 5, 2009 5:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh good! I am glad this was up here already. Ignore my post. This post is straight from the horses mouth. :)
May 5, 2009 5:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yet another signal that the public is going to be totally screwed in the health-insurance-company-bailout bill. It's time we stopped kidding ourselves that it's got anything to do with healthCARE.
May 5, 2009 5:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think you're absolutely right on this and people need to understand the President is part of the problem here. He knows very well that single payer is what we need in this country yet his own proposal is nothing more than huge subsidies for the insurance industry and while more people would technically be covered, nothing would improve and our rotten healthcare system will continue to serve only the health of the insurance industry instead of the American people.
May 6, 2009 1:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm still hoping we can make an impact, but ultimately agree with you and bluebell. This is not what I envisioned when the catchphrase, 'Change we can believe in' hit the presses. If Obama doesn't step up to the plate on this one, to at minimum include a public option in the health care program, I imagine I'll be leaving the democratic party. After voting for Democratic presidential candidates for the last 30+ years, I finally got a candidate elected to office who seemed to have the best interests of the country and the people at heart. With a decided majority in both houses, if the democrats are unable to achieve this concession, which every non-industry sponsored, and all creditable health economists favor, then they are as much the party of 'No' as the Rs, and deserve to be thrown out on their ears.
May 6, 2009 12:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Max Baucus (D-Aetna)
May 5, 2009 6:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am shredding my latest DNC money request mailer and sending it back with a print of this article:
common dreams link
May 5, 2009 6:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
I printed the article and I'm sending one to the President, one to Baucus, and one to Senator Webb. I wrote at the end:
When faced with citizens asking why single-payer representatives don't have a seat at this table, DEMOCRATIC Senator Baucus (who is well-supplied with funds from insurance companies) replied:
"WE NEED MORE POLICE."
This is an outrage!
May 6, 2009 10:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Senate finance Committee members can be found on this page, links to their individual pages on also there:
link
Democratic members are:
MAX BAUCUS, MT
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, WV
KENT CONRAD, ND
JEFF BINGAMAN, NM
JOHN F. KERRY, MA
BLANCHE L. LINCOLN, AR
RON WYDEN, OR
CHARLES E. SCHUMER, NY
DEBBIE STABENOW, MI
MARIA CANTWELL, WA
BILL NELSON, FL
ROBERT MENENDEZ, NJ
THOMAS CARPER, DE
May 5, 2009 6:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm glad to see some direct actions.
In my ignorance of this particular hearing, I must ask whether the 15 "experts" were there to promote or inform? The point is that advocacy is not the same as information even if we do often have a mix in "infotainment" and the like.
May 5, 2009 6:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
They were there to obfuscate on behalf of Congress, Inc., a wholely owned subsidiary of Global Financials.
May 5, 2009 7:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dunno if that makes you jaded or just cynical! :-)
May 5, 2009 10:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
The '15 experts' were there because they paid to be there, if it is 'infotainment' it is a racket similar to organized crime bosses buying off city cops/politicians/or judges to get 'protection':
Health insurers and their employees contributed $2.2 million to the top 10 recipients in the House and Senate since 2005, while drug makers and their employees gave more than $3.3 million to top lawmakers during that period, according to an analysis of federal elections data by Consumer Watchdog..... beneficiaries in the Senate included John McCain (R-Ariz.), with $546,000; Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), with $425,000; and Max Baucus (D-Mont.), with $413,000, who as head of the Finance Committee will play a leading role in the debate over health-care reform.
May 5, 2009 8:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Said it before, and I'll say it again: Two words re: this loud, disruptive, and totally called for protest:
Every. Day.
May 5, 2009 9:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you for your ongoing updates on the single payer issue.
I think the direct action route makes a lot of sense. This is an area where using that tactic could yield high dividends.
Is your group or any other group calling for a giant protest in Washington to make the point in person in a way they would no longer be able to ignore? Seems to me if the issue isn't really going to be considered until after Labor Day then a mid September "Medicare for All" march on Washington would make sense.
May 6, 2009 1:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe we need several of them. We have to show that the people's will is there and then, if we can build momentum, show that as well. This is the issue of this Administration that most directly effects the Americn people and they need to be informed because then they will get involved. March now and we will have more marching in September. As the Donkey/RedSox fan so eloquently asserts, "Every. Day."
May 6, 2009 1:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
These senators forgot Lenny Bruce's admonition regarding the powerful's use of the police, to "Wait till I'm out of the room".
("But ya see, I can't do it cause I do business with these assholes, and it looks bad for me, you know, ah . . . so I want somebody to do it for me, you know? So I tell you what: Here's a stick and a gun and you do it -- but wait till I'm out of the room.)
May 6, 2009 1:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm all for several of them or many or as many as it takes.
May 6, 2009 3:33 PM | Reply | Permalink