Who Killed Single Payer?

Senator Sanders (I-Vermont) secretly inserts ACTUAL single payer provision in the health reform bill

MeanMesa notices something "just under the horizon" which might present a true nightmare for the "we hate America" neo-con crowd in 2010.


Now, granted, the GOP has "modernized" its traditional (medieval) domestic policy ideology just a smidgeon in its ongoing efforts to break free from the on going train wreck. The old paradigm was an awkward extraction from the Book of Genesis which was used to "prove" that man kind was created in the first place to lower taxes. The new adjustment? That old single track fraud is now accompanied by a new, probably also Biblical, commitment to deny health care to poor people.


After all, how else could the neo-cons "keep" all of their "hard earned money?" Among the neo-con horde, there are those who have been "fooled" into thinking that they are rich. With wages utterly stagnant amid constantly rising costs of living for decades, -- since Ronnie Rayguns exploded middle class taxes in the '80's -- the grotesquely rich have depended on a barrage of talking points (issues of ideology simplified so much that hill billies and bigots are attracted to them) to convince even the most "credit challenged" that a.) they are actually rich, and b.) that their "riches" are being purloined relentlessly by sinister socialist schemes cooked up by Democrats.


Of course, such a menu of "day-old cat food" can only be sold to the seriously uninformed. Should any of the neo-con "cannon fodder" class actually investigate what has actually been going on, they would most likely be a little less manageable. In fact, probably a lot less manageable. Should they ever become informed -- as opposed to uninformed -- these stalwart, hypnotized "grass roots" neo-cons would probably redefine themselves as something more akin to starving Bolshevik riot mobs from Moscow's 1900's.


Well, if you are a billionaire, you would have not wasted much of your "cabana martini" time worrying about this unpleasant possibility. You've done the elitist version of due diligence. You've purchased the media. You've seen to it that folks such as Rush Limbaugh -- you know, folks who can speak good old American plain English to your carefully groomed base -- recklessly reframe the daily news to reinforce you oligarchic wet dreams day after monotonous day. So what could be a problem?


Between your comb-over troop of dirty shirt preachers, Southern Senators and drug addled talk show hosts, these dumbies remain amazingly eager to stand around in "grass roots" tea parties acting stupid. ("Okay Billy Bob, jest carry thu sign an' act mad. An y'all 'member -- NO INTERVIEWS! Them liberral's gonna trah t' trick you inta' lookin' lahk yew cain't 'splain nuthin. Beers on me when we git dun!")

The Fly in the (Billionaire) Ointment

Enter Senator Sanders. Unlike far too many of the "Democratic" Senators who have toughed out the entire health care "debate" hiding under their desks in hushed cell phone calls to their PCCC's (pharmaceutical corporation campaign contributors), Senator Sanders actually threw down the gauntlet. He inserted an amendment to the otherwise agonizingly "half-inflated balloon boy" Senate bill which would direct $10 billion dollars to the construction of regional health centers all around the nation.


Now, MeanMesa visitors, this is not to be confused with the brazen Senate "buy-off's" such as , for example, the $300 million slipped to Ben Nelson ("D?" - Nebraska) so his state would never have to pay its part of Medicaid bills or the dough -- this time $100 million -- Mary Landrieu ("D?" - Louisiana) got for casting her vote in favor of the bill. Those million dollar checks were what is called "state specific." That means that all those dollars would be spent only by the states which successfully, uh, extorted them out of the national treasury.


Anyone living anywhere else besides Nebraska or Louisiana gets nothing -- except the bill to pay for these bribes, of course.


Not so with the Sanders amendment. Not so at all! His regional health centers will be just that -- regional! That means that they will be built all over the country, providing subsidized health care -- especially preventative medicine -- to literally millions of Americans who need it. That means that there might probably be a new regional health center in your neighborhood!


Naturally, the old white men in the GOP immediately tried to torpedo his idea. "Wha' this here's nothin' else but SOCIALISM! Ef us rich whaht folk gotta' pay fer somethin' lahk this, why, our chillen' gonna' be slaves to the government! This here's so 'spensive thet there's gonna' be nuthin' but debt fo mah granchillen!"

Right.

Now let's look at the money for a minute.


Sanders plan calls for 10,000 regional centers. When we divide $10 billion dollars by 10,000 regional centers we get -- ah, subtract seven from four, carry the two -- $1 million dollars per health center. Remember, these aren't hospitals! These are nice, sensible, regional health centers providing nice, sensible local health care and preventative medicine. A million dollars per copy seems pretty reasonable. (The price tag on the whole health reform bill is around $900 billion.)


So far, so good. But what about the "debt slavery" Senator McChinless is worried about for his grandchildren?


Maybe this is a good place for some MeanMesa perspective. Senator McChinless and his penny pinching conservative crime friends had no problem whatsoever pumping literally trillions of dollars into the W's oil war in Iraq.

$10 billion is 1% of a single one of those Iraqi trillions. The United States is currently spending $3 billion per week to sustain our military adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan.

So, after a little higher mathematics, the question becomes quite understandable -- even for the information challenged. Would you rather have a regional health care center or another three weeks of war in Iraq and Afghanistan?

MeanMesa's compliments to Senator Sanders.

About 2009 war costs ...
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/01/07/terror/main4704018.shtml

About Ben Nelson's "vote money" ...
http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thegaggle/archive/2009/12/21/who-s-really-to-blame-for-ben-nelson-s-medicaid-buy-off.aspx

About Mary Landrieu's "vote money" ...
http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2009/11/the-100-million-health-care-vote.html

A Note to MeanMesa From David Plouffe/OFA

By this time MeanMesa visitors have heard the Republican puppets of health insurance giants throw everything but the kitchen sink at the Senate health care reform legislation. For a brief moment, even MeanMesa was beginning to think that the whole shebang should just be thrown under the bus!

However, this is hardly the time to get pessimistic about what opportunities there actually are in what will be passed on the floor vote this Thursday morning. If you, kind visitor, have had a similar sinking feeling about "being screwed again," please look through the letter MeanMesa received from Organizing For America.

If there is any "straight talk" visible on the horizon amid the cacophony of lies and greed, this will probably be it. We support the passage of the Senate bill -- and we find MeanMesa in the admirable company of such men as Paul Krugman, Nobel winning economist, and Barney Sanders, independent Senator from Vermont. When we add Mr. Barack Obama to that already heady mix of forward thinking Americans, we're sold.

Count us in!

MeanMesa's compliments to the President.





Chad --

Any day now, health insurance reform will come up for a vote in the Senate.

We're hearing a lot about what's at stake with this vote for President Obama, the Democrats who are fighting alongside him, and the Republicans who have lined up in opposition.

But let's talk about what's really at stake for America. The Senate health reform bill will:

-- Extend coverage to 31 million Americans, the largest expansion of coverage since the creation of Medicare.

-- Ensure that you can choose your own doctor.

-- Finally stop insurance companies from denying coverage due to a pre-existing condition.

-- Make sure you will never be charged exorbitant premiums on the basis of your age, health, or gender.

-- Guarantee you will never lose your coverage just because you get sick or injured.

-- Protect you from outrageous out-of-pocket expenditures by establishing lifetime and annual limits.

-- Allow young people to stay on their parents' coverage until they're 26 years old.

-- Create health insurance exchanges, or "one-stop shops" for individuals purchasing insurance, where insurance companies are forced to compete for new customers.

-- Lower premiums for families, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office -- especially for struggling folks who will receive subsidies.

-- Help small businesses provide health care coverage to their employees with tax credits and by allowing them to purchase coverage through the exchanges.

-- Improve and strengthen Medicare by eliminating waste and fraud (without cutting basic benefits), beginning to close the Medicare Part D donut hole, and extending the life of the Medicare trust fund.

-- Create jobs by reining in costs -- fostering competition, reducing waste and inefficiency, and starting to reward doctors and hospitals for quality, not quantity, of care.

-- Cut the deficit by over $130 billion in the next 10 years.

It's a long list. But that's only because this bill represents the most significant health reform our nation has seen since the creation of Medicare.

And it's important that every American knows what's really at stake this holiday season.

So please pass this email along to friends, family, and neighbors today -- or click below to share this list on Facebook and Twitter, or print out a copy to share with others:

http://my.barackobama.com/SenateReformBill

We wouldn't be this close to enacting these powerful reforms without all your hard work. Now, we're in the final stretch -- let's keep it up.

Thank you,

David Plouffe

A New Idea: Talk To Me!

MeanMesa knows that there is no shortage of defeated resignation among citizens when they watch the Senate, time after time after time, debate matters which don't matter and then make deals with people who have no business dictating our lives. This situation will not be limited to what they have now successfully done to what used to be health care insurance reform -- it extends gleefully to banking regulation, cap and trade carbon legislation, Afghanistan, you name it.

The Senators are dancing on our check books. They are not embarrassed by their psychotic avarice. They care very little about what we might think of it. They have no intention to stop the practice.

They just keep looking at each other and, when there are no red faces or voices of Constitutional patriotism staring back, the mayhem gets even worse. More outrageous. More egregious. They have long since ceased considering what they might see on our faces.

In fact, all those far roaming, allegorical complaints about the absence of statesmanship among the denizens of that house of thieves grows more and more believable the longer we watch them. Is there no way to bring the Senate back to its far more noble tradition?

There might be.

We can begin by considering the popular definition of statesmanship. One ability included in the definition is debate. Statesmen should be persuasive debaters. For younger MeanMesa visitors who have never actually seen a debate, it runs like this. There is a proposition which is in contention between the sides of the debate, that is, an argument which has at least two possible conclusions.

The Traditional Meaning of Debate

The debate itself is an organized (there are rules and a structure which are enforced by a moderator...) chance for speakers from either side of the contended argument to try to persuade debate judges that they are "right" and the other guy, well, isn't. Of course, the debaters prepare for the session by studying all the information which might help them make their case and "cooking up" special parts of their arguments which they hope will be impressive to the judges.

One great benefit of debates when they are done this way is that everything comes out. The last thing one of the debaters wants is to be confronted by either some compelling information or something "cooked up" by his opponent. Because of this, debates are not solely decided on the validity of the information presented, but also on passion, the ability to think on one's feet (a feature which usually helps keep either side from outright lying...), confidence and speaking ability.

When all these traits are manifest on the floor of a debate, watch out because something interesting is about to happen.

The Senate's Meaning of Debate

Unhappily, there are debates and then, there are debates. When we see the grizzled face of a Senator on the News Hour, he will speak of "debate in the Senate." What he refers to is not very similar to what is described above. In the Senate, clerks and consultants have thrashed through every word of what will be said, fortressing the whole speech so not a single thing can become a "fish hook" for the other party. The resulting oration is usually a well greased, watered down mishmash with a couple of harmless "talking points" inserted here and there to satisfy the evening news.

All the really important communication does not rely on the "debate." It will be handled in back rooms with assistants and lobbyists. Lobbyists with checkbooks. The "floor debate" is intended for our consumption, even though no living human can endure much of what is offered. The only exception to this is that lobbyists can endure it. They will listen to see if their masters "got their money's worth."

Further, the Senators don't even speak to each other. They will all speak to a CHAIR which represents the President of the Senate. There is no "give and take" between Senators conducted anywhere that we might hear it. The "give and take" must be undertaken secretly -- usually in back rooms -- where bribery and corruption are not so embarrassing and no one outside the backroom can be certain about who was actually there.

That dismal picture is usually what is called "debate" in our United States Senate.

Other Interesting Senatorial Habits

When a Senator thinks about what we would ordinarily call a "debate judge," he will claim that his "debate" will be judged by the American citizens in his constituency. Now granted, any of us stupid enough to watch this old worm stagger through his prepared speech might emerge from the suffocating calamity with an opinion (about either the proposition or the Senator...), but there will be no "judging." The "judging" will be conducted when the Senate has a floor vote and all the other Senators -- who have also probably NOT listened to Old Senator Gas Bag's carefully crafted speech without "fish hooks" either -- will cast their ayes and nays as they have been instructed by their respective lobbyists.

When Senators appear on public media, they are allowed to say that a vast majority of the American people want precisely what the Senator wants them to want which usually turns out to be what their lobbyists want the Senator to want them to want. If that is a bit ponderous, then the theme has been accurately set!

For example, Senator McChinless from down south somewhere keeps saying that the American people don't want a public option in the health care insurance reform bill. Senator McChinless (he wears perfectly round eyeglasses...) knows that poll after poll says exactly the opposite, but he can continue to say over and over whatever he wants or whatever his lobbyists have told him to say.

And, Senator McChinless in the perfectly round glasses is not alone in this brazen prevaricating. Senator Botox Rat Face, also from down South somewhere, and Senator Happy Farmer from out in the midwest somewhere, all compete with each other to see who can say the most lies about "what the vast majority of Americans want." There are many others. The GOP has run out of any convincing ideas a decade ago, so these new "ideas" of theirs are presented over and over, even in the face of overwhelming contradicting evidence -- evidence that they are as unpopular with the electorate as unionized bed lice.

Ah, Satan's Garden of Human Delights is crowded with under-informed voters. The circus's center ring is orchestrated by Ohio's Orange Tan (not orangutan...) who eagerly recaps the lies of the others on his masters' wholly owned "news" networks.

Normally, such a bad habit would "catch up" to these wormy ScrewTapes sooner or later, but their masters have taken the precaution of purchasing the media. Because of this, all these liars can just "roar on ahead" as long as they please. Public sentiments mean nothing. Lobbyist checks mean everything.

But, this MeanMesa post is not about campaign finance reform. It's about debating.

This discussion would be remiss indeed if it neglected to mention the most favored Senate habit of all -- cloture. Cloture is the bastion of the filibuster. Without cloture, there can be no "debate" on the floor of the Senate. Conveniently, 60 of the Senate's 100 votes must be cast in favor at cloture hearings for proposed bills to reach the floor of the Senate for their subsequent "debate."

For example, in the matter of the health care reform bill, it is precisely this "cloture" which has required everything including the "kitchen sink" to be quietly negotiated away in hopes of avoiding a filibuster. The sagging fragment of what is left is now being blocked by the imposition of yet more arcane "Senate rules." When "cloture" is blocked, there can be no "debate." But wait, there wasn't really ever going to be be any "debate" anyway!

Now, there are those among us who believe that simply forcing the obstructionists to physically filibuster -- in other words, actually perform their "threat" -- would embarrass the miscreants enough to somewhat rectify the situation. MeanMesa doubts this. Republicans have taken great efforts to have "extra thick skin" and uninformed constituencies.

But what's left?

MeanMesa's Solution: Real Debates Where We Are the Judges

How would something like this actually work?

In the Senate there are clearly two identifiable "sides" at play in every case of proposed legislation. If our basic ideas both about the Senate and about debate are reasonable, those Senators should be happy to have an opportunity to "debate" the matter. This means actually debate, not the toothless masquerade we're accustomed to seeing on the Senate floor.

The rules of the Senate would remain in the Senate. No Senate rules would prevail in our new public debates -- they would be controlled by debate rules. The "sides" would be forced to argue their positions in oratorical combat with their opponents. They would be forced to say what those positions were and defend them. Constituents could watch these Senators hash out their best plans and ideas in a transparency beyond anything we have seen in our lifetimes.

Once the "gauntlet had been cast down," refusing to debate would be political suicide.

The voters watching the debate would have a chance to set their own opinions about what had been debated. If the voters viewing the debates concluded that one proposition was persuasive and then watched as the Senate enacted the opposite into law, voting choices would become obvious. Extremely obvious. Hopefully, frighteningly obvious!

The "sides" could challenge each other with "I dare you to stand in a public debate with this position of yours." The "sides" could agree on the precise proposition to be debated. No more artsy, clever "Gotcha" questions from over paid pundits! Real debates aren't "prompted" by a string of cutesy, trick questions. They are the battlegrounds for settling the proposition both "sides" agreed to debate. The winner captures the support of the voters.

Senate campaign "war chests" are based on the idea that we will vote for someone -- anyone -- if he can just buy enough television commercials, hence the reprehensible effect of lobbyist money. We can replace that old technique with real debates! Senator versus Senator, no holds barred, right on our television sets debating proposed Senate legislation, not simply promoting ill defined, gaseous generalities about "Change," "Peace," "Family Values," "Prosperity" or some other nonsense.

Yup. We're talking blood soaked specifics here. Let the sides select their speakers and take on the public option or single payer! Let the chosen orators support or disclaim increasing troop strengths in Afghanistan, spending stimulus money, regulating banks, capping carbon emissions or changing education policy. The mind-numbing cordiality of the Senate would be left in the Senate. The debate would be for the hearts and minds of the voters!

Real time!

The debates would no longer be a confusing act perpetrated under the out-of-date protection of the Senate. They would be acts of transparent democracy. Voter opinion -- not back room deals -- would become the final authority on matters such as "cloture" and "floor debates."

Centuries ago, the earliest democracies in ancient Greece and Imperial Rome were directed by exactly this approach. It is a tradition to which we should return. The reason ancient Athens attacked Macedonia was because Demosthenes convinced the Assembly! His Phillipics were so famous that we now find them in the Harvard Classics.

This reintroduction of active statesmanship would force the chosen Senators to present their arguments with clear statements, formal information and passion. The "majority of Americans want" crap would be instantly challenged if it were to be uttered in an active debate instead of the safe, painless isolation of a talk show interview. The statesmen would unavoidably emerge from the process. The hill billies, bigots, crooks and looters would be "sitting ducks" for the onslaught of the opposition, and we would have a chance to see all of it for ourselves.

Should this practice "catch on," even local elections would improve. Local candidates certainly would.

Cast in comparison with such great debaters as William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow, this Senate sucks. MeanMesa is "done" with the lot of them.

It's going to be up to us to fix it.

Articles about what's going on in our Senate:
From BeltWay Blips (quoting Huffington Post)
http://beltwayblips.dailyradar.com/story/read-it-gop-senator-pens-obstruction-manual-for-health/
and from Emory University, Stanton Abramson, The Emory Wheel:

http://www.emorywheel.com/detail.php?n=27774

MeanMesa Surrenders to the Rich

A heartfelt speech of sincere apology MeanMesa would like to make to Mr. Billy Joe Billionaire for all the bad stuff we done.

To set the stage, Billy Joe Billionaire's jest relaxin' with a mint julep on the veranda of his ranch house. MeanMesa approaches, barefoot and still dressed in coveralls from a hard day's work, head hung low and eyes fixed on the ground.

Billy Joe speaks, "Come on up he'ah onto the porch, boy. I heared yew got somethin' t' say t' me."

At first hesitating, the farm hand (MeanMesa) slowly climbs the steps to the veranda and breathlessly begins to speak, holding his worn straw hat in his hands respectfully.

"Gosh, Mr. Billionaire, I jest don't know where to start. Whatever you may be thinkin' right now, I wanted to come up here and tell you how sorry we all was about things and to promise ya that we'll try t' do better in the future. You know, try t'stay in our place a little better so's we don't upset you so much.

Geewhiz, after you let us elect Obama, I reckon we all jest started thinkin' crazy. We kind 'a got swept away with the moment, and thet crazy thinkin' jest seemed to keep on goin'. Now that I kin look back at it, we started acting pretty damned uppity right about then. I want you t' know that acting like thet ain't really what we wanted to do t 'all. We was just excited, and we kind 'a lost our grip on whut we was doin'.

But once we got started, all excited and everything, stuff like thet health care thing just got out'a control. We sort'a got too big fer our britches. Damn! If any of us done had our heads screwed on right, we would have knowed better than to try somethin' stupid lahk thet. I don't know what got into us.

We were running around like little kids, electing majorities in your Congress and Senate -- thinking, somehow, that we could jest plow right on ahead and do any democratic thing whut come to mind. It really was jest the excitement and everything thet made us act like thet, you know, foolish and stubborn -- disrespectful.

We wasn't thinkin' about you t'all. We was jest roarin' forward with whut we wanted, ev'ybody else be damned. Most of us never even thought about how hurt you and your insurance company friends might git 'cuz of whut we was doin'.

We know thet we deserve to be punished. We can only plead for you to be as kind as ya' can. We unnerstand now why you and yer friends took all thet money out the economy. Actually, it was fer our own good, even though we didn't think so at the time. It sort of shocked us into realizin' how unreasonable we was behavin'.

Hell, some of us done thought after we ponied up all that bail out money that y'all might just relax a little and let us have some of the stuff we was want'n, but now we realize that we were jest bein' selfish. Now we know thet the bailout money was already yours anyways -- even before we gave it to you.

We also knew that you guys had already paid a darned pretty penny to set yourselves up with the Senate. I cain't imagine, now that I'm back to my right mind, why we was thinkin' we could jest elect a majority and railroad right over you to get what we wanted like health care or a climate bill or some oth'a crazy thing.

Thank God thet y'all was set up to handle stuff like this. Y'all know, make it right! I guess that once the possibility that some of our tax money might be directed somewheres else b'sides on over to y'all come up, we sort'a done went crazy. It was like sipping corn whiskey or something. We got all liquored up faster than we expected, and off we went, trying to change all sorts of stuff that we didn't have no business bothering with at all.

Once you and your helpers started spewing out the lies and stuff, we started to realize how important it was for us to do the right thing and keep everything jest like it was. Them lies didn't really bother us all thet much, but once we thought about why you was doing thet, it dawned on us that you was really gettin' upset. Later on, I figured out that you and your rich buddies were really having hurt feelin's.

We are so, so sorry. We should'a been more grateful instead of jest bitchin' so much.

So far as trying to make things right, I don't think we can unelect the President now once we already voted him in, but that don't mean thet we cain't start over without pushin' back on our crazy plan to make all these changes. No sirree! We could for sure do thet alright!

We already have a plan to get on the phone'n call all yer Congressmen and Senators and tell 'em that we didn't mean it. We can tell 'em that it would be lots better if they just dumped the health care bill before any of you guys got hurt and we'd still be pleased -- no, honored -- to vote all of 'em in again. I think maybe thet might work.

Maybe we could talk them into passing a law thet made it illegal to change anythin' about the set up we have right now. If y'all gave 'em orders to do the same thing, I bet they would. Then, at least your money part would be set straight again. Then y'all could plan that the cash would start flowing in to you the way it is s'posed to.

That'd make yew feel better wouldn't it? Gettin' your money to start flowing just like it always done in the old days, right?

Yew could have yer Senators raise our taxes to pay back all the hard earned dollars we made yew spend to throw the vote. Even add in some extra! We could add a little extra taxes on top of thet to make up fer how bad we tried to treat you. Now that we're in our right minds again, none of us thinks it was fair fer yeu to have t' spend all thet money jest on account of our pig headedness. We cain't figure that you're goin' to believe how bad we feel if we leave without fixin' somethin' like that.

In fact, wh'ah don't y'all jest order up a nice big tax break to freshen up yer money bins? We kin go right along with ya' on somethin' like thet. Y'all deserve a nice present for taking'such good care of us and all. In fact, maybe we could get yer Senators to make a nice tax break for the hill billies and bigots yew had t' hire fer yer tea bag thangs. Thet might sweeten 'em up a little, too. I have to admit, we was purty hard on 'em while the fur was flyin'."

So, however yew decide t' punish us will be jest fine. We know we deserves more than just what ya' done to the economy. After all, if yew jest let this slip on by, we'll never learn.

Yup. Spare the rod, spoil the child."

”Free Market” Health Care

A Quick Review of Talking Points Guidelines

Neo-Con Rule Number One: Always say the opposite of everything as if it were the actual thing! If anyone starts to catch on, increase the speed of repetition. Remember, you own the media! Call Rupert Murdoch or Rush! Remember, you own the hill billies and bigots! The tea baggers'll listen to you and go to town hall meetings. Remember, you've made the "free market" a sacred principle like tectonic shifts, the Shroud of Turin and flouridated water. Remember, no tactic is too cheap or too sleazy. Keep it "trailer trash" for your religious base. Breathlessly pretend no one ever gets tired of it!

ALWAYS REMEMBER:

FACTS MEAN NOTHING!

federal death panels! dental coverage for illegal immigrants! . . . lots of abortions! . . . rationed care! . . . Stalinist nightmare! . . Kenya! . . . unplug grandma!. . . Canada . . . kitchen sink . . . Hitler . . . just keep going! 111

The last week has seen the “most promising” of all wholly owned Senators dive bravely into the swamp gas of his corporate masters. The Grassley (R-Iowa) closed the circle in a brave, although self-destructive, descent into the most desperate corporate tactics seen so far. The Grassley brazenly cited the carefully scripted “outrage” expressed by the corporate insurance thugs at town hall meetings as a foundational reason to oppose the “public option.”

Stumbling front stage on que, he just went ahead and said what we all expected would vomit forth sooner or later -- "Thet there's jest whut the, uh, constishuents was a shoutin' about in thu meetin'... Gotta listen to the, uh, voters..." By going “the last mile” with the scheme, our bravest neo-con Senator has successfully soiled himself beyond even the previously formidable DeLay/Abramhoff Reprehensibility Barrier (DARB).

Those skunks plied their corrupt loyalties with a thinly obscured, semi-subtlety consistent with what we had come to expect during the autocracy. The Grassley has no appetite for that whatsoever. A lingering shade of that famous, ancient emperor, he insists on a solitary march to Washington absent any clothes at all! After all, his corporate masters spent good money preparing for those “trailer park” dramas, and he, always the faithful servant, felt obliged to make one last breathless attempt to make the plan work.

Sorry.

Does anyone else remember the astounding warmth we felt when Barrack Obama got his start with those “imaginary” conservatives in Iowa?

The debate is well populated with frightening innuendos of an attack on the “free market system," so, let's “dive right in.” After all, this is MeanMesa!

The “free market” idea suggests that the role of the optimal decider of value is always best left in the hands of the informed consumer. The vast herds of credit card holding purchasers, under this practice, will inevitably “ferret out” the values they believe represent the best exchange for their dollars.

Health care enjoys no automatic exclusion from this simple principle. Yearly cost totals of all delivered health care in the country amounts to around $2.5 to $3 trillion dollars. However, more than a few Americans have seen that exchange compared to other examples of similar purchases elsewhere. Based on those informed comparisons, these same Americans now understand that although the price of this purchase might be $2 or $3 trillion, the value of it is, at best, around $1.5 trillion. In this sense, this group of American purchasers has evolved itself into “informed consumers,” a nightmarish development for those currently enjoying the task of spending the other $1 trillion flowing through the system into their corporate profits.

Now, normally, one would expect a simple correction to the purchasing practices of all the American consumers. The “free market” idea implies that, when confronted with an opportunity to make alternate purchases with more value, these American shoppers would simply “cross the street” to a more competitive market. The overpriced product would simply “whither and die.” It has happened over and over in our past, and each time the astonishing efficiency of the American “free market” is once again validated.

Are these “trillion dollar numbers” an exaggeration? Not really. The costs of what we are presently purchasing are not competitive with the alternatives. No grumbling horde of European/Canadian horror stories can accomplish the “character assassination” in the constant dream of their perpetrators. The old white men in the Senate, hoping to frighten everyone away from even so much as considering the prospect of “crossing the street,” have stopped at nothing in their relentless dream of frightening old people with ideas such as the now debunked “death panels,” unsupported claims of the misery of “rationed care” or inflammatory estimates of the cost of “non-free-market” options.

The facts are simple enough – with or without complicated study results. The price of the delivered product is twice as high as the competition. The health outcomes are equally non-competitive – a dismal, 19^th Century, Dickensonian medical system which leaves a tragic wake of its forced market consumers staggering in its path – a tale of the “quick and the dead,” carefully cast between the partially cured “walking wounded” and the bankrupt.

The “free market” conflict is equally transparent. The alternate purchases are not allowed. The “free market” idea of maximizing value for the cost of purchase has been conveniently buried under decidedly profitable, carefully fabricated, “non-free-market” legislative franchises. Even when confronted with clear theoretical opportunities to purchase better valued care, that is, both better priced and more successful care, the now traditional franchise emerges. The profit flow into the pockets of the “masters of the Senate” will not be interrupted. The non-competitive plan will be protected without reservation.

Absolutely anything goes.

At stake is one sixth of the dollars flowing through the premier world economy. Such a prize is easily worth the effort of these heretofore outrageously over fed insurance corporations. However, the theoretical metric for value in that premier world economy is well defined by traditional values of innovation, elimination of waste, invention and efficiency, all constantly lubricated with the optimizing possibilities presented in “free markets.” Happily, that traditionally successful system also fortunately excludes what are called “monopolies” and artificially imposed legislative picadellos designed to suspiciously protect cash flows which cannot really be defined as profits should they ever emerge into the light of day.

Suspicious cash flows which can only be defined as “non-free-market” extractions made possible and sustained by corrupted legislators. As consumers, we now realize that the price of such corruption pales in comparison to the scope of what can be extracted.

We also realize that those who profit in this “non-free-market” manner will not allow their “cash flow” to be placed in jeopardy. The price of corruption is the cost of eliminating the “free market” option, and it has proven to be a spectacularly profitable investment.

We know that the neo-con talking machine is at its very best when presenting precise opposites from what it implies that it is presenting. When we hear about urgently troubling “attacks” on the free market system by public health care options, what is actually at hand is a desperate effort to insinuate the idea that the present system is, actually, the “free market” alternative. It is not. The present system is little more than a Senatorial “protection racket.” The only feature which might differentiate it from the sleaziest door to door thuggery one might encounter in a run down suburb is its well equipped public relations machine intent on redefining its criminal nature at any price.

The inebriation of the “profit makers” with their horded billions has led them to the very practices they are now violently attempting to obfuscate and redefine with their million dollar a day self-preservation schemes. The consumer's insight will prevail, however. No public relations scheme can change that unpleasant feeling in a purchaser who, as he pays his premium bill, realizes that he has been screwed.