The Doctor Is In

Awesome New Yorker cover.

Can we not let them do this crap again??

As Greg Sargent noted, Republicans will continue to talk about this stupid “tax” thing, because they know that ObamaCare is awesome and they have no intention to talk about all the goodies in it. “Tax” is the new “Death Panel”, and we can’t let this happen. The media will do as ordered by Koch, but we can fight back and we don’t have to play this game. For start, we can make sure that we show this video to someone at least once a day:

Yet another Republican is going to vote for Barack Obama. You know why? Because of #ObamaCare

I fully expect more and more stories like this:

I am a registered Republican, and never voted for a Democratic president. I am prepared to vote for President Obama for his reelection and here’s why.

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I support Obama in his efforts to change this about our healthcare system. I have had insurance, I have not had a period of time over the last 10 years where I have not had insurance. I have been with BCBS for at least two years, and now they are writing down that they will not cover “any disease or disorder relating to a thyroid gland”.

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“If Obama’s liberal critics paused, they would see the most liberal reforms in more than 40 years”

Good stuff from Bill Scher in the NYT, under the headline “How Liberals Win”:

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…Roosevelt may be remembered for his combativeness toward corporations; he famously said, “I welcome their hatred.” But he said that in 1936, only after key New Deal legislation had passed with the help of the United States Chamber of Commerce and the American Bankers Association.

Early on, Roosevelt was quite adept at bargaining with corporations. In his first 100 days, to attract corporate support for the National Industrial Recovery Act, he won collective bargaining, minimum wages and maximum hours in exchange for a temporary suspension of antitrust law, so businesses could fix prices. To establish the Securities and Exchange Commission in 1934, he made concessions to Wall Street that scrapped statutory requirements in favor of regulatory flexibility. The following year, to allow the Federal Reserve to better conduct monetary policy, he gave bankers representation on the policy committee.

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The necessity of forging coalitions with corporations is understandably difficult for progressives to accept. Every time it happens, corporations seem to quickly go back to their usual tricks. They lobby to weaken enforcement. They litigate to have rules overturned. They abandon politicians who risked compromise for them. Corporations are exasperating, irritating and untrustworthy partners.

But most of the time politics is exasperating and irritating, not euphoric and cathartic. As Roosevelt himself told a group of dissatisfied youth activists in 1940, “if you ever sit here you will learn that you cannot, just by shouting from the housetops, get what you want all the time.”

As much as Roosevelt enjoyed pugnacity, he also understood its limits. Because Mr. Obama heeded this lesson of liberal history, there was a health care law for the Supreme Court to uphold.

 

Dear Obama Campaign, please take this ad to the national TV

This is one of the less-watched and most-brilliant web ads that OFA produced until now. A long time Republican firefighter turned into a real, proud Obot. It is just too good to stay small. I’m sure that there are many many more Republicans like this guy out there, they just need to see the light. Let’s help them.

“The cornerstone of what could turn out to be one of the most extraordinary two-term presidencies in American history”

Super read from the NYT about the place of Barack Obama and Obamacare in our history.

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What the Supreme Court’s decision does do is preserve Mr. Obama’s status as the president who did more to expand the nation’s safety net than any since Johnson. It preserves a bill intended to push back against rapidly rising income inequality. And for a self-consciously historic figure, it allows Mr. Obama to argue that he has delivered on the most cherished goal of his 2008 campaign: “Change we can believe in.”

“Historians will compare this to F.D.R.’s Social Security and Lyndon Johnson’s Medicare,” said the historian Robert Dallek, who has written about both presidents. “This is another step in humanizing the American industrial system.”

In political terms, said Douglas G. Brinkley, a professor of history at Rice University, “It’s the cornerstone of what could turn out to be one of the most extraordinary two-term presidencies in American history.”

Beyond his legislative agenda — not just on health care, but on education and Wall Street regulation — Mr. Obama has sketched out a view of government as a force for good, a great leveler and a protector of the middle class. That view stands in stark contrast to the Republican mantra, articulated by Reagan, who headed in the opposite direction in his first inaugural address, saying that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

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Hope & Change best June ever

You may recall the media – Yea, those people who can’t even report the news straight – declaring June as the worst month of the Obama presidency. Looking back now, they were right: Endorsing same sax marriage (yes, that was still May, I think, but it was terrible for him too), activating the Dream Act and winning the fight over health care. Oh, and some pretty good poll numbers for desert. In short, this was easily the best hope & change month of this presidency, which means that  those who really had their worst June ever,  are on TV now, still trying to convince you how the Wisconsin recall was the end of Barack Obama.

“Yesterday the court saved my life”

Just one of the many great stories that I hope we’ll get to hear more and more now about the brilliance that is Obamacare. This is Spike Dolomite Ward ‘s story in today’s LA Times:

Not to be overly dramatic, but for me the Supreme Court decision on the Affordable Care Act was a matter of life and death. Because the law was largely upheld, I will be able to continue receiving treatment for breast cancer.
I was one of the early beneficiaries of the law. When I was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer late last year, I had no health insurance, which meant my options were extremely limited. No insurer would pick up someone in my circumstances. But luckily, the Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan had already kicked in, and it made it possible for me to purchase insurance under a government program.
I was uninsured not because I’m a lazy, freeloading deadbeat but because my husband and I are self-employed. We had been purchasing health insurance on the individual market along with 6% of the rest of the population. But after exhausting all of our resources trying to keep up with premiums of $1,500 a month, we had no choice but to cancel it.

I can tell you that “Obamacare” — at least the part I’ve participated in — works. A week ago, I had a double mastectomy after five months of chemotherapy. I have been receiving outstanding care in West Hills — no death panels, no rationing, no waiting, no government officials telling my doctors what to do, no denials of tests or treatments, none of the stuff that the plan’s critics said would happen.

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“For once in your god damned lives, Democrats, turn a win into a win!”

Excellent stuff from John Cole:

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For once in your god damned lives, put aside your fucking stupid beliefs about purity and how the public option was the bestest thing since sliced bread, accept the massive, game-changing victory you got today, and use it as a god damned bludgeon against the troglodytes whose health care plans are modeled after Ebeneezer Scrooge.  For once, focus your bloodlust on Republicans instead of the DLC/Firebaggers/ANYONE WITHOUT AN (R) AFTER THEIR NAME.  I’m begging you.

For once in your lives turn a win into a win, just like the Republicans were able to do when I was a wingnut (and half the time they were able to turn a loss into a win).  Don’t argue amongst yourselves about what would have been better- smash the Republicans around the head and neck with the cudgel you have been given.  We’re not debating which Democratic plan would have been better, we’re debating the reality of what we have now versus the 18th century version of what Republicans would replace it with.

Again, as a former wingnut and lifelong Republican until 2006 or 2007, I am fucking begging- treat a win like a win and use it to your advantage.  The most depressing thing about becoming a Democrat after being a Republican for so many years is just watching Democrats shit the bed whenever they win.  Press the fucking advantage.

Please?

AMEN.

 

Dear Mr President. Josh is 8 month old. And you saved his life.

Josh, my beautiful nephew, was born sick. He’ll probably be sick all his life. But now I know that at the very least he’ll get the care to keep him alive. Because now he can’t be discriminate against and his parents will not lose all they have. The richest country in the world, is finally acting as the moral power it should be.

And it’s all because of you.

You are already one of the greatest presidents this world ever saw, and I promise that we’ll keep you where you are for four more years. On behalf of myself, my family, and a precious 8 month old baby – Thank you.