*

What this means is that the health care industry realizes that supporting Republicans is only going to irritate the winners.

Will Hillary turn around and make nice to an industry who spent one billion dollars in 1993 to destroy her health care plan?

Don't bet on it.

"they might just get what they paid for" . Heh!

"Will Hillary turn around and make nice to an industry who spent one billion dollars in 1993 to destroy her health care plan?
Don't bet on it." . Bwahaahaa!!

Jay boilswater makes a good point.

[Hawk is banned from this site.]

So, I guess we will never have universal health care in the U.S. then? How disappointing, as I approach retirement age in ten years or so. If the Dems are in the pocket of the health care lobby too, nothing will change....

I think that Health Care is being confused with Health Insurance. Health care encompasses Doctors, Nurses, Lab Professionals, EMT's, midwives, hospitals, clinics, imaging centers, - virtually all professions and free-standing facilities, as well as insurers and big pharma. Also counted would the unions that represent nurses and the allied health professionals. Health Insurance is a component of the larger whole - and has the deepest pockets - but there are a lot of professional organizations and unions that are talking openly about the need for universal coverage, and backing candidates accordingly.

Al - Insurance companies don't provide squat other than pooled risk.

When was the last time an insurance company saved someone's life?

Um, isn't -which- candidates are getting the money kinda important, too?

Of Pennsylvania's 10 largest employers, Wal-Mart has the highest percentage of employees enrolled in the state medical assistance program for the poor and disabled. About one in six of Wal-Mart's 48,000 employees [2006] are enrolled in the Medicaid insurance program, at a total cost to the state of more than $15 million a year, according to state data.

Hrrrmmmm....

If you have the stomach for it, you might want to read this guy’s account of his homosexual encounter with toe tappin’ Larry Craig. That Larry isn’t much of a tipper, it seems!

Uhhh, Blue Girl & def - read the article. The stated donations are from ALL parts of the health care field, including insurance companies. Obviously they all are buying influence.

g - read the article. Clinton = $2.7 mil: Obama = $2.2 m; Romney = $1.6 m; Guiliani = $1.4 m; Mc Cain = $880 k.
]
Al - . . . (don't feed the trolls, bob.) fergidit

I did read the article. I was responding to those commenting. Perhaps I misunderstood, but from the tone of the comments, I had the impression that the people commenting were conflating the two entities.

The Democrats have never shown any sign of being willing to vote against the big money. So yes, this is probably a bad thing if you want to see anything resembling Single Payer in your lifetime.

I miss The Flying Nun. But in today’s remake on Fox, Sister Batreal would be flying over Iran dropping “Jesus Bringing Peace Through Nukes�.

craigie,

I first read that you wrote 'single prayer' and thought that you had jumped the shark. Good to see you are still in fine form and the universe has a sense of humor.

Clearly, I need a nightcap and then head upstairs to bed.

Good to see you and GC and TCD. It's been a while.

The Conservative Deflator on October 28, 2007 at 10:15 PM

[URL-Craig]Yukkk.

No one has mentioned the elephant in the room. The US healthcare/insurance industry is grossly inefficient when compared to those of all the other advanced economies. The "industry" would like to keep it that way. Real reform would decrease the percentage of GDP going to their industry. Instead what we are likely to get is an expansion of coverage, without a corresponding improvement in efficiency.

Does AL even know how retarded and out of tough with the rest of this country he is? Seriously, he's not even a good troll. He's like a walking fucking straw man. someone must be paying this guy.

I saw in the NYT last week that $2 trillion of the total $2.6 trillion national healthcare bill is paid for by the government. The private healthcare industry, which makes so much noise and purports to have such control over the debate, is in fact a bit player.

What serves the health care industry the best is to have Republicans in office. There are two ways of achieving this end: Support Republicans or Undermine Democrats.

How do you undermine Democrats buy donating money to them? During the pre-primary and primary phase of the election you donate money to the Democrat least likely to win a general election. In this day and age, simply generating more money than your competition makes you the leader so Health Care gives until it hurts to the Dems that are truly unelectable. What if they win... health care now owns them too. Win win for health care.

The creative use of money gives health care... or even all of big business control of the conversation. Backing the other team's losers could be a winning strategy.

Democrats who are intent on reform of health care financing will loudly and publicly return the bribes, er, donations that the health insurers are offering to keep reform from happening.

def: Al - Insurance companies don't provide squat other than pooled risk.

When was the last time an insurance company saved someone's life?

Good point. Insurance companies are not in the health business, they are in the money business, like banks and stock brokers. They take money in and pay it out, and in between they invest it in real estate, bonds, etc.

The Democrats are the new Republicans. Put another way, the Democrats and the Republicans are Republicrats.