On September 29th on Countdown Eric Burns, president of Media Matters, said of Fox News, "This is no longer a news organization, this is a political organization." Case in point; here's Mike Huckabee on his own show on Fox, and also on Greta Van Susteren's propaganda hour, asking viewers to go to something called balancecutsave.com and sign a petition calling on Congress to "balance the budget, cut their spending, and save American families." Watch:
What the Huckster failed to mention, just an oversight I'm sure, is that balancecutsave.com is not an actual web site. Type in those words and you are re-directed to HuckPAC.com. Once you fill in the information and submit the petition, this video pops up, former Governor Huckabee begging for money:
Also on HuckPAC is this mission statement:
"Huck PAC is committed to helping Republicans regain control of the House and Senate, regain a majority of governorships and supporting conservative principles around the country.
Huck PAC will support Republican candidates who are passionate advocates for tax reform, a strong national defense, real border security, life, the family, less government, and individual liberty."
Oh, one more minor detail that the former pastor and past president of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention omitted:
"Huck PAC Federal Election Commission disclosure form lists Sarah Huckabee as an employee. A July 2009 Federal Election Commission document for Huck PAC lists Sarah Huckabee -- Mike Huckabee's daughter as the recipient of $4,500 per month in funds; Sarah Huckabee is reportedly the executive director of Huck PAC."
What the Huckster failed to mention, just an oversight I'm sure, is that balancecutsave.com is not an actual web site. Type in those words and you are re-directed to HuckPAC.com. Once you fill in the information and submit the petition, this video pops up, former Governor Huckabee begging for money:
Also on HuckPAC is this mission statement:
"Huck PAC is committed to helping Republicans regain control of the House and Senate, regain a majority of governorships and supporting conservative principles around the country.
Huck PAC will support Republican candidates who are passionate advocates for tax reform, a strong national defense, real border security, life, the family, less government, and individual liberty."
Oh, one more minor detail that the former pastor and past president of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention omitted:
"Huck PAC Federal Election Commission disclosure form lists Sarah Huckabee as an employee. A July 2009 Federal Election Commission document for Huck PAC lists Sarah Huckabee -- Mike Huckabee's daughter as the recipient of $4,500 per month in funds; Sarah Huckabee is reportedly the executive director of Huck PAC."
guess the doc is not coming back for a real discussion. typical in my experience, when presented with facts people who believe in ideological fantasy based rhetoric flee the debate. adios doc.
Dear Editor,
Happiness and good health to all.
Doc.
PS - I will be gone for a few.
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dear doc,
with all due respect, "happiness and good health to all" in such a vague context is a total oxymoron. on the other hand i do so look forward to having you back "in a few" with a few straight answers to the comprehensive concepts that i took time to write for you, about why healthcare is BROKEN in this country.
ps, like glen beck i would be satisfied with 7 of the 9.
cheers, magic.
If so, you're in the wrong end of the industry, "doc". Your oath included the words "First, do no harm".
Why don't you go whore for the insurance companies some more?
doc, Are you actually asserting that Medicare is denying coverage? I doubt that. I have family members on Medicare who love it. I have a doctor friend who has had his rates dictated by large private insurance companies with a "take it or leave it" order. There is no negotiating.
You're afraid of the government taking over health care...I pray for that very thing every day.
Your notion that somehow private insurance companies are going to be forced to take people who are already sick is fantasy. Won't happen, no way, no how. The public option is the ONLY program that will work for them.
Doc, just a personal note. Thank you for pointing out comments you do not understand. A lot of us wouldn't care to be so public about things we don't grasp.
My point about honor is one you say you missed. Let me try again. It is unprincipled (you do grasp the meaning of that word, I presume) to say you are opposed to a public option, but then take personal income from Medicare. That is a dishonorable position. I suspect most readers of this blog get the point. Let us know if you don't understand and we will try to help you.
So...you are for the government option. I'm confused. There are millions of people in this condition where only a government option will work. Never seen a death panel? Every insurance company has one. My own brother has faced numerous death panels as they turned him down for coverage since he has cancer. That is the very definition of death panel. You obviously haven't practiced medicine very long if you've never been turned down by an insurance company. We fight the insurance company EVERY DAY at my company as they routinely deny coverage for my employees for covered procedures.
"The problem with the public health plan is that the federal government dictates prices and pushes them artificially lower and lower..." What the hell do you think the insurance companies are DOING RIGHT NOW? And its unregulated abuse by companies that have no government oversight.
"Analysis of the current proposed legislation indicates there will be a shift of approximately 20% of patients..." Yes. Analysis by opponents of reform. The plan specifically protects private insurance for those who want to keep it.
"As stated by the president, he prefers a single payer system..." I prefer single payer, also, but know that this is impossible in the US due to billions of lobbying dollars to bribe politicians to vote against their constituents. Single payer works well in dozens of developed countries around the world. France does it for HALF the cost we pay with better longevity and health statistics. Your argument is bullshit.
"If your are going to cut physician, nurse, PA, lab tech, xray tech, RT, etc. salaries, you will not have the best and brightest going into that field any longer." That's happened already under the current death panels and pricing monopolies of the private insurance companies.
"Take excellent care of patients. Make sure everyone has affordable, healthcare insurance." That is EXACTLY what the President is trying to accomplish. The insurance companies, who you are defending, are fighting it with billions of dollars.
Doc, As usual you are advocating a free market-based reform to a market that is not free and is certainly not reform. Your insistence on "NO GOVERNMENT OPTION" (your emphasis) takes away the only option for an entire class of citizens...those who are sick and can't buy insurance at any price. All of the noise about interstate competition and other such nonsense is just that. Nonsense. Do you actually believe that private insurance companies will compete to cover sick people? Of course not. No company would take on a client that is already getting medical bills. Will private insurance companies compete for people who can't afford it? Of course not, and you know it.
The public option is the ONLY SOLUTION (my emphasis) to a health care market that is dominated by a few players and their death panels who decide, based on profit, who lives and who dies.
No amount of your filibustering will change that set of facts.
Doc, I may have missed this, but do you take Medicare patients? If so, sir, where is your honor? And I will avoid the temptation to suggest it is where your head is.
Piss off, Doc.
You're a troll. You were a troll at the chron and you're a troll here also.
I agree with tragicmagic. Let the right wing troll go read the other blogs. Plenty of room on the Chron for that sort of nonsense.
I could care less if he is a doc or not. Wait, let me correct myself. I do care - and got one charlatan booted for claiming to be a doc when he was no such thing. But I digress - we can read this right wing uninformed claptrap anywhere. This blog was started, I thought, as a way to avoid that nonsense.
To the editor:?
"goddamned socialist parasite"
"your repulsive bedside manner"
To those of you who were so kind as to repond to me,
I have called for reform, and layed out what I think would be critical for reduction of health care costs, as well as insuring everyone in USA.
1 Portability
2 Affordability
3 No preexisting conditions
4 Insure the poor
5 Catastrophic insurance
6 Tort reform
7 True interstate insurance competition
8 NO GD GOVERNMENT OPTION
9 Un-Couple health insurance from employment
As to my bedside manner. My patients love mine, and I love my patients. I take care of all patients to the best of my ability, without regard to their ability to pay, always have, always will. The physicians I know are all that way. They are hard working decent kind caring people. It is too bad if you feel otherwise. Currently ~30% of my patients are on a public plan.
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doc you present a real puzzle to me, as i deal with two dozen or so doctors at any given time and your bedside manner has not been my experience. so i ask, one at a time:
1. your suggestion for portability, would this pertain to people moving company to company or state to state? work to work situation goes to your #9 of separating health coverage from employer. state to state goes to your #7, which i feel i have explained why this will never happen in such a state's rights, anti-govt climate.
2. affordability. do you subscribe to sliding fee scale payments direct from the uninsured, based upon federal poverty guidelines of 200, 300, 400 or 500% below poverty level? are your insured patients with the highest level deductibles told to pay or not be seen, or do you take what they can give and work out payment arrangements? are you forced to charge more to those who can afford more in order to keep the 30% public plan patients? are you affiliated with a federally qualified health center who receives stimulus funds to offset your losses and cover the uninsured who are indigent yet don't have public plans? if not do you have a plan not to run out of business and personally go broke?
3. no pre-existing conditions. could you agree that doctors and patients are both victims in this as the insurance industry mafia dictates the terms? could you also agree this tactic is commonly used by insurance companies as a way to discriminate against chronically ill patients and dump them into the already over-crowded, county hospital system, where many fall through the cracks caught between state & federal govt AND some die as a result?
4. would you agree that "insure the poor" and the poor having access to quality health care services are two completely separate concepts? are you aware that people who cannot afford $20 copays exist in todays economy, that people like my parents cannot get all their meds, even at $2 to $10 per copay? what about medical homes, there's one across the street from me called "texas childrens piney point" yet this location does not take medicaid and refers me to the gulfton ghetto, 4 bus rides away? these slugs advertise the TCH logo, are linked to the TCH website but clearly don't want "our kind" in their office. so they lie and say gulfton would provide a better medical home, like i'm an idiot instead of a college graduate. i'm most interested in your plan to address this?
5. could you agree that part of catastrophic coverage is in direct opposition to citizens idea that "govt has no right in my business"! would you next agree that mandating seatbelts, motorcyle helmets, fines for cell use/texting, or something more extreme like parents mandated not to fill up the family sedan with clouds of cigarette smoke that causes children to choke, cough and develop asthma. what about govt mandated DWI checkpoints, say on the highways during holiday time or exiting the texans or rockets game? because catastrophic accidents requiring lifeflight to trauma centers cost more than precious lives, it costs ALL taxpayers what the families (often uninsured) cannot pay.
6. biggest corruption in progress needing tort reform: disability cases. my son, 23yrs old with incurable illness in & out of remission, chemo's, wasting syndrome. he maxed out at 1million on his dad's private insurance at age 8, placed on child medicaid. fast forward to age 18, child medicaid "expires" no warning, i'm told NO medicaid for sick adults, only pregnant women, under 18 and disabled. told to get state medicaid, son has to file a federal SSI case. case filed, fast forward 3yrs past denials and re-considerations to hearing date. md anderson referral to SSI attorney, they provide two boxes of medical records. attorney takes the case, says these things take time and hearing scheduled two years away while son depends on charity care to stay alive. hearing comes, lasts 5 minutes or less, and medicaid restored, same claim ID number! disability attorney receives $16,000 in fees, paid for by you, the taxpayer. i'm told fees are standard but cannot help but wonder why this process (SOP) is so corrupt and if all hearings cost $16,000 how could this money be better spent on healthcare? yet all the lawmakers i call, write and email ignore my tort reform question and story example. my son should have transitioned to adult medicaid and the $16,000? use your imagination.
7. true interstate insurance competition. keeping in mind that "across state lines" is in direct conflict with 10th amendment nuts who insist on NO state mandates or interference by federal govt. calling to your attention, that depending on each state gov & legislators ie "bootstrap" states like texas medicare/medicaid vary wildly from state to state.
8. No government option. don't know if you made 24mil last year like average insurance executive but doubt you'd be here if you did. how do you propose insurance companies who expect to write the very legislation our elected officials will consider, be forced to allow doctors or patients ANY say whatsoever? can't afford a car, no problem, i use public option (metro). can't afford st. thomas for my son, no problem there is a public option (lee). can't afford a country club, no problem, i can use city parks to swim and go to hermann park to play golf (public option). no money for that scenic private ranch vacation, no problem (the federally owned and operated national parks are lovely this time of year (public option). now i can skip the bus if i don't have fare, keep my kid home when i cannot afford the field trip, walk in the park if i cannot afford golf gear, and if i cannot get to a national park this year, there's always next year. but i can't EXIT my body (until i die) so trying to mandate insurance, charge fines and structure fees like auto, home, life insurance is a ludicrous comparison.
9. un-couple healthcare from employment. YES YES YES! my last job i had no benefits and i managed a large property for a wealthy out of town investor group. i was told that america took on this lunacy after WW2 while at the same time, england took up a single pay system because their infrastructure was destroyed and they had to get back to business asap taking care of their nation. when i first started working (70's) ALL jobs came with benefits, now the benefit is "be glad you have the job & if you don't like it, someone else will. this is just another sign of sorely needed regulation, free reign of corporate greed combined with corporate welfare (subsidies, bonus expectation on top of accepting federal bail-outs, sweeteners, whatever you wanna call it) complete corruption and we need oversight. i say on this let all the lawmakers who are on the dole be exposed, both R & D, chips fall where they may. so portability probably will only truly be achieved with single pay, something like medicare for all or VA care, which could eliminate chips and medicaid but would take you doctors standing up to insurers and big pharma to achieve. are we really supposed to believe crap about getting worried about a bureaucrat getting between me and my doctor when the insurance bureaucrat needs right now to be surgically removed? look doc, if your part of the solution i'm listening, i just took offense to your attack of des because this is not supposed to be like the Chon, seedy. ps where are you hiding these kind, caring, devoted doctors who are about patients and accept a practice based upon ability to pay with 30% on a public plan? sorry i deal with so many doctors in over 14 specialties and the ones you describe (yourself included) exist for me in a norman rockwell painting.
Durned lib'rul !
*gasp* HOTMAIL!!!!
It's one of them durn socialist thingies!
Yeah, where were these eejits during the last THIRTY years when the budget was spiraling out of control? Especially during the last 9 when their man spent money like a drunken sailor, running up billions in a war fought on false premises? Where was their outrage? WHERE? Where were their f'n teagagging parties then?
Huckabee has two major things that make him smell in my opinion: he's a Republican and he's Southern Baptist.
Probably like those "friends whores" at the chron. They'll do anything to collect "friends", er, "contacts".
Doubt if it's patients. They're probably all dead thanks to the insurance company death panels.
The Right Rev. Thorpe -- well said!
Scott, you and me, my dear -- you and me!
and I used to like mike huckabee... Mark that down as a huge error in judgement.
IMO, the entire Huckabee family are sanctimonious hypocrites. Anyone that abuses animals has a rotten core at the very center of their souls.
signed:
The Right Rev. Thorpe
"Balance the budget" is one of the most meaningless gimmicks the GOP has promoted. They know full well they have no intention of balancing the budget, didn't even make the slightest effort to do so during the six years the GOP had control of both houses of Congress and the White House.
It's pure unmitigated bullshit. Fact is, Americans like a deficit. We like passing the bill on to our children. What we wouldn't like is the massive cuts in education, environmental protection, public safety and our military spending that a balanced budge would require. Any Republican who voted for those massive cuts (since tax hikes are out of the question) would be out of office in the next election.
The GOP leadership knows this - but keeping a base of ignorant voters is how they stay in office.
BallanceCutSave American families... so they can die in Iraq or from lack of health insurance.
I'm so there. I am sick to death of it all and ready to sign a petition to get rid of every last one of them -- vultures!
That's ridiculous,
It's all game playing. I'm tired of the incessant bs...
Obama will start cutting back probably soon, now that economic indicators are looking up. Republicans, as stupid as they are, have to know that. They are getting in their cheap shots while they can...it's ridiculous.
100,000 names.
Can't the Dems mount a counter move. Why don't they start a petition to get a million names on the damn thing. Anybody?
This is the 21st Century version of the crying televangelist crying for forgiveness after he's screwed the church secretary and asking you for money so he can be rehabilitated by Jesus in the temple of money.
Didn't ol' Mike try to excuse his sorry piece of shit son by saying something like "boys will be boys?"
In the case of his dumbass son who tortured dogs, I'd be willing to say "boys who harm will be eunuchs".
Hand me the knife.....
About time for Chuck Norris to leave his huckstering gig and go back on the road for his Huck gig.
Who the heck is Mike Huckabee? Oh yeah, washed up old ex-gov who couldn't get elected president. Go back to preachin to the conserative so called Christians guv. And btw, your show on Fox stinks. Who told you that you had any talent for TV?
Behind the curtain, the smoke and mirrors of so called patriotism and conservatism, you get the simple truth: money and partisan politics.
Artemusg, don't let Huckabee's nutty son within a country miles of Molly. That Satan's spawn likes to torture dogs. There's a special place in hell for that P.O.S.
God must surely love a good con man, because he sure made enough of them. Funny, ain't it, how so many turn out to be conservative Christians?
Nothing wrong with people willingly having their pockets picked. Give 'til it hurts. My black lab has as much chance of being elected president as does Mike Huckleberry. And I'm pretty sure Molly's never been down to the courthouse to register to vote.