WASHINGTON — After a half-day of animated debate, the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday rejected efforts by liberal Democrats to add a government-run health insurance plan to major health care legislation, dealing the first official setback to an idea that many Democrats, including President Obama, say they support.

There are more than enough sources on the internet that anyone can read that explain why the public option was possibly the most crucial element of health care reform.

Advocates of a public plan say it would provide crucial competition for private insurers and that the larger goals of the legislation, to extend coverage to more than 30 million uninsured Americans and to slow the steep rise in health care costs, cannot be achieved without it. I tend to agree with them—and I’ll go a step further. If there was indeed one part of the country that was turned into an actual socialized sector, health care is that one sector. Otherwise, 45,000 people will die each year, according to multiple sources. So I guess a congratulations are in order?

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soupsoup:

Universal Health Care Map

My favorite part is we are providing Iraq and Afghanistan with universal health care.

At the 9/12 Tea Party rally

“We came unarmed…this time.”

Seriously?

Meaningful Question

Finally, justice has been served. Watch Michele Bachmann get heckled at a town hall.

Who’s Paying to Kill Health Reform?

NEW YORK — Add this to President Barack Obama’s problems in selling his health care overhaul: A lot of the tech-savvy activists who helped put him in office are young, feeling indestructible and not all that into what they see as an old folks issue.

It’s a crucial gap in support and one the White House may have to correct if Obama is to regain the momentum and get Congress to act on his top domestic priority.

I am honestly curious—where the hell is everyone? Maybe we don’t care in today’s fast paced twitterific world, but health care will one day be important for us younger voters as well.

About a dozen people carrying guns, including one with an AR-15 assault rifle, milled among protesters outside an event where President Barack Obama was giving a speech Monday in Phoenix.

It’s the latest incident of gun-rights advocates visibly displaying firearms near the president.

Phoenix police say the people with guns, including a man carrying the assault rifle, didn’t need permits. No crimes were committed, and no one was arrested.

The man carrying the assault rifle declined to be identified, but told The Arizona Republic that he was carrying the weapon because he could, adding that he still has some freedoms.

Last week, during Obama’s town hall meeting in Portsmouth, N.H., a man stood outside with a gun strapped to his leg.

This is the third report in a week of someone bringing a gun to an event where the President was speaking. Last Tuesday a man was arrested before Obama’s New Hampshire health care town hall for carrying an unlicensed loaded gun. Also outside the New Hampshire town hall, a man was seen with a (legal) handgun strapped to his leg, holding a sign referencing the famous Jefferson quote: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

Have these people totally lost their minds? I can guaran-fucking-tee you that the famous Jefferson quote—especially the action of fulfilling it—goes against every patriotic and democratic belief that that person holds. There is nothing patriotic about killing your own elected leader. These people are far-off radicals who need to open their minds to something other than the bullshit they’ve been fed.

WATCH

[AP]

This is deeply misleading, for two reasons. First, what does it mean to say that you are satisfied with your health insurance? Consider homeowner’s insurance. Until you need it — your house burns down — you have no way of judging its quality. The same goes for health coverage; until you have a serious illness, the kind where your plan’s limits and exclusions may kick in, how do you know if your health coverage is any good?

For one thing, as the House Energy and Commerce Committee uncovered, some insurers go out of their way to revoke coverage for people with serious health problems by looking for mistakes on their original applications. For another, you could be underinsured, like 29 percent of all people with health insurance, according to Consumer Reports. The second problem is that the health coverage that most satisfied Americans have — employer-based coverage — is less secure than they think.

[Washington Post]

A must watch for anyone interested in the town hall bullshit that’s happening.