Arkansas Blog

It's probably smart for Blank and Pryor to call their bosses over at big med to get the talking points before they concoct some reason not to support health care for the rest of us.

I'm walking over to HR next pay period and ending my insurance coverage. I'm thinking I'll spend the $180 a paycheck on massages and acupuncture and be much better off for it. Got an amazing massage at Wakarusa this weekend and realized how much more I could get for my money if I spent it myself.

Jokingly told the HR lady this earlier in the week and she hit me with the "but what if you get cancer or something really bad happens." I told her I'd get about what I get now, except I'd be less stressed after an hour of rubbing and needles hanging out of my ear. Plus I wouldn't be feeding this broken system every two weeks.

She just smiled.

I've contacted both their offices to support a public health option.

Insurance companies are perhaps the largest corporate welfare recipients there are. They owe their very existence to our government's refusal to put in place a more efficient system. They're nothing but parasites that add absolutely no value to our society. None.

Nothing like the statements of "Useless" and "Uselesser" to make you feel better about the future!? Right? The best Republican supporters money can buy!

smart calmwriter. You don't know if you really have insurance until a claim is filed. My friend and wife, both in their 50s learned that one the hard way. Paying $1200 month for play dough was bad enough until she got the big C then they maybe paid one fourth of it and canceled the policy.

Recieved an Email from Plantation Blanche today. She's calling for tax cuts on bidness to solve our health care problems. That's it, trickle down will do it every time.

Says Plantation Blanche:

"I have heard from many Arkansans who recently lost their job. I've spoken to others who are concerned about losing their health insurance. Still others are self-employed and anxious about the failing economy.

These are the people who inspired me to write "The Arkansas Plan", a series of tax cuts and tax code simplifications aimed at giving Arkansas working families and small business owners a chance to get ahead. Having grown up a farmer's daughter, I know that hard work and entrepreneurship have fueled the Arkansas economy for decades.

I want it to remain that way in the future and I have no doubt that the rest of America will benefit if these proposals become law."

Hey Blanche. Reagan is no longer in office. Neither is Bill Clinton. Bush is out too. Let's try another mantra. Yours is getting damned old, plus it doesn't work.
I know one or two of your hirelings read this blog so please click on eLwood for a little simplification.

.

I think you can forget any phantasy about Lincoln's supporting a real health insurance public option. Her saying that competition from a public option would give private insurance companies "...very little incentive to...be competitive" is a strong indicator. The opposite is the truth. Unless they have to prove the efficiency of private enterprise, insurance companies will have no incentive to get out of the health-care-denial business and settle for reasonable profits. It sounds like she is preparing to get behind the insurance industry strategy of supporting a public plan so watered down as to be worthless, so she can please her insurance-PAC contributors and still claim to have supported a public option. Robert Reich has had the following to say on the subject:

" A real public option or a public option in name only? Big Pharma and Big Insurance are dead against, and are pressuring lawmakers. Republicans are also opposed. The president said he wants a public option. But the real question is whether he'll be willing to allow the public option to be watered down into essentially nothing (broken up into regional or state-run plans, or required to charge the same as private insurance, or triggered only if private insurers and Pharma fail to bring down costs and extend coverage). If the president wants Republicans on board even though he doesn't need them (the bill requires only 51 Senate votes), he will have to buy a watered-down version."

Click on Snapback.

Call her email her send her a letter.
Call her email her send her a letter.
Call her email her send her a letter.
Please.

Dodging? Ha. As usual, they're simply avoiding accountability for sticking it to the average Arkansan...which they'll ultimately do when their corporate/insurance masters tell them to.

They don't give a dam* about us.
I will call her their offices tomorrow and I doubt it will make a difference but it will help me feel better.
Come on Arkansas, let's vote these SOBs out of office come time to do so. I can't wait!

I hate we don't have any true leadership. ::sigh::

Glad to see Max posted on the new dirty word of the week... "co-op"

We've been there and failed miserably at that.

it's much like the old non-profit Blue Cross Blue Shield model. Worked well for some, but...

It was expensive enough small business couldn't afford it.
It did not take individuals.
For profits eventually killed it by cherry picking, creating large pools of healthy folks, excluding others, among other nefarious activities.
BC BS eventually became for profit too, iirc.

So thanks Blanche for trying to take us back down a dead end road.

Blanche and mark are both chairs of The Third Way

http://www.thirdway.org/leadership/senate_chairs

An organization which actually has the audacity to call itself a moderate progressive organization.

If you look into Third Way platform and staff on healthcare issues.. they actually begin with fear of Harold and Louise ads. They hired the same woman who works with the Blue Dogs.. developing the other dirty word "trigger".

Most importantly... both Mark and Blanche were wishy washy to the point one should only believe they both said NO in their comments above... they like Harold and Louise.. it's a fond memory they want to help insurance lobbyists bring back. They like "triggers" because it just like holding a gun to our heads. They are trying tio find a way to force you to support private for profit insurance first and foremost... not actual care for ALL, much less reasonable prices.

Osama could never terrorize tens of millions of us like Mark and Blanche (and all our congressmen) do while lying to our face.

Mark and Blanche.. they are killing us.

Here is an easy, fool proof way to know how Mark & Blanche will vote on this issue. I borrow liberally from Rotary International:

* Is it the truth?
* Is it fair to all concerned?
* Will it build good will and better friendships?
* Will it be beneficial to all concerned?

Any bill that comes before them that fits the above will get a NO vote from Mark & Blanche. Why? Because their corporate owners, most Republican, leak fecal matter from their puckered assholes instantly when they encounter anything that is true, fair, a builder of good will among all people, or especially could be said to be beneficial to ALL.........that word ALL really FK's them up. Corporate owners only understand the LUCKY FEW, ALL is foreign to them....."What iss diss ALL you speak of?" So these fat cat owners of our 2 US Senators skin the shiny finish off their iPhones calling Mark & Blanche and ordering them to vote NO NO NO NO NO NO, when they see anything containing this Commie Rotary crap in it.

Any health care plan that allows any segment of the population to receive much needed medical care WITHOUT paying through the nose will rob the billionaires who own our Senators. Mark & Blanche can't have that! They're future depends on keeping their corporate owners happy. FK us......and really, I can't type that often enough....in their opinion we can just FK'ing die. They send us that message every single time they vote. Something good for us little people? Hell no! Go FK yourself!

Remember this easy formula:

* Is it the truth?
* Is it fair to all concerned?
* Will it build good will and better friendships?
* Will it be beneficial to all concerned?

Mark & Blanche will not vote for any bill that fits this criteria.

Eureka and DBI -

As you know, I'm not from here. But I love living in The Rock now. Still, why does Arkansas continually vote for people like Lincoln and Pryor? I can't believe Arkansans as a whole are that willfully ignorant and uninformed. Or are they?

Worse: are Lincoln and Pryor the BEST Arkansas can muster for voters?

Be sure to tell Blanche and Mark that the biggest and best tax CUT for small businesses would be starting single-payer health coverage. If you look at the premiums and administrative costs in a business's expenses, you'll see that they are more burdensome than taxes. Getting rid of the private health insurance companies would stimulate the economy.

The shear stupidity of proposing tax cuts as a way for people who have no insurance now to get is so Republican. Cut individual taxes and people will use the money to buy stuff and pay bills. I would be shocked if a tax cut for someone making less than 50k per year would get them to sign up and pay the high premiums health insurance costs.

I was born in Arkansas and went to high school and college in Arkansas. Fond memories, but I moved away and tended to think of the state as too religious, too naive, too poor and too poorly educated to take the reins and change the state for the better. After reading these comments above, I'm so-o-o thrilled that there are informed people trying to fight the bought and paid for senators who are opposed to a public option, which could be so beneficial to so many Arkansans. For god's sake, get rid of Blanche Linclon in 2010. Get a real progressive elected and help your fellow citizens. Power to the people!