Tweety Sez, “Why Not Dr. Dean?”

/144 Comments/in /by

You know, I really like Claire McCaskill–a heck of a lot more than I like Tweety.

But when you watch the way her jaw sets as Tweety keeps mentioning the reasons why Dean would be a natural choice for HHS: his work blazing the way for Obama and people like McCaskill herself, his medical background, I gotta say I’m with Tweety on this one.

Why not Howard Dean?

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144 replies
  2. Jkat says:

    it’s a good question .. dr. dean is somehow toxic within the party he led to victory .. whazzup wid dat democrats ??

    • victoria2dc says:

      Rahm is what’s up with that.

      Write to Barack and call the comment line. Ya’ never know… I asked him not to listen to Rahm and to make his own decision.

      Hopefuly Dr. Dean will be considered.

  3. tanbark says:

    The only possible reason I can think of would be that Obama might not want someone who has his own “base”…and if he didn’t want that, then why did he pick Clinton for SecState?

    Plus, Dean has long been a proponent of Universal Health Care. And he doesn’t fart around; he likes to see progress. If Obama picks him, it will be hard to put across-the-board health care very far away from the front burner. Which is just what we need. :o)

    • barbara says:

      Why in the world would Dean want this after the way he’s been side-stepped and generally ignored after crafting the foundation for 2008 wins?

  5. Hmmm says:

    drational a couple flights downstairs thinks Tweety is reading here. Don’t mind that we call you Tweety, Tweety. It used to be done totally disrespectfully, but ever since you started getting things right, a hint of affection’s crept in.

    • readerOfTeaLeaves says:

      Well, on the remote chance that Tweety (or one of his assistants) reads here, I just want to give a ‘hat tip’ on this one. It’s a great question: ‘why not Howard Dean?’

      And although it wasn’t ’statesmanship’, McCaskill’s fuming on the Senate floor about the Wall Street ‘idiots’, was very refreshing. Now, if Jim Webb, John Tester, Patty Murray, and the rest would like to follow in turn…

  6. MadDog says:

    I too think a lot of Dean’s talents, but…can you imagine the internecine scrums that would take place with Rahm, Hillary (though SoS, she still has a passion for Healthcare), and even Obama himself?

    For whatever reason, Dean is on all of their sh*tlists.

    And lastly, Dean is no DC Playah. The Grand Poohbahs of the Beltway consider him a turd in the punchbowl.

    As much as I like Dean, he’s made the wrong kind of friends (us) and the right kind of enemies (them).

    • MrWhy says:

      But wouldn’t it be satisfying to have someone with official insight say something relevant on the subject? As opposed to irrelevant.

      It does seem passing strange that a man with Dean’s qualifications is being ignored by a man (Obama) who claims to be reaching out in all directions to find the talents necessary to govern this country at this time.

    • ovals49 says:

      “As much as I like Dean, he’s made the wrong kind of friends (us) and the right kind of enemies (them).”

      Health care reform, particularly if it is to be a single payer system, needs the wrong kind of friends (us) to power the change. “They” will continue to protect their interests regarding health care (insurance). An insider will just dispense more of the same. Dr. Dean has a different prescription in mind, which is why “they” will have none of him.

    • Larue says:

      Dayam, she sure nails it! That was sweet, thanks for sharing.

      And in case, aside from my lol let me be perfectly clear about this (heh heh heh) . . . I too, would LOVE to see Dean as head of HHS, and Tweety (with a modicum of affection) called it well!! He continues to surprise, a bit, lately, don’t he . . .*G*

  9. chrisc says:

    Obama seems very partial to Senators and former Senators vs say, governors and former governors (with the exception of Richardson). McCaskill may view it as a “glass house” but I think congresscritters live in a Washington bubble where even the good guys rake in millions and forget to pay their taxes. They have these collegial sense of not holding each other accountable.

    I think Obama has dipped into the senatorial pool way too much. Those folks have long forgotten how real people live. Better to get someone like Dr Dean in there than another congresscritter.

    • Bluetoe2 says:

      He’s seems more partial to corporatists. Now that’s change we can believe in. As Nelson Buntz would say “Hah, Hah!”

  11. Bluetoe2 says:

    In the spirit of bipartanship, why not appoint another Republican. After all, Obama has appointed more opposition party members to his cabinet than any administration in history. Another Republican will just confirm that this is “change we can believe in!” Do you feel chumped yet?

      • Bluetoe2 says:

        I thought Obama was in charge. It would seem the shiv is in the back of the American people. Better to admit it sooner rather than later.

    • Diane says:

      Do I feel a Bill Frist nomination in the making? We would all tell him to take his bipartisanship & shove it.

  12. juslin says:

    i agree whole-heartedly with tweety on this one!!! he’d be awesome imho…

    and why’s OB picking gregg for commerce sec’y? a man who wanted to abolish the position… i dont understand OB on this…. jus sayin………..

  13. ratfood says:

    I have a suspicion Dean would not welcome a role in the Obama administration. Of course, being asked by the president to serve would place him under a lot of pressure to accept…

  14. amilius says:

    Dean supports Universal single-payer health care. Daschle would ‘co-operate’ with insurance companies and health-care corporations. Might that be the difference?

    • californiarealitycheck says:

      Bradley was a good choice for President too. Not sure he has the interest for this issue.

      • snowbird42 says:

        from Huffpost

        Noting that Bradley would never take a job in government that would require him to fundraise, Codey called the HHS spot a good fit for his friend. “When I say Bill’s an outsider, I say it in a good way. People all respected him in the Senate and there are still some of those people there — and who doesn’t know Bill Bradley? he is an American icon. He has been on Main Street, Wall Street and the Capitol as well. And he is strongly committed to pushing health care reform. He thinks it should be a right and not a privilege.”

        Or a former gov of Oregon
        http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..63667.html

    • TobyWollin says:

      Oh, I was hoping for Bradley for CIA or NSA – he was on the Senate Intelligence Committee; he’s majorly bright. Oh, and if Obama needed an extra to go one-on-one with, I think Bradley’s got some chops in B-ball..

      • nextstopchicago says:

        Bradley ain’t happenin’. You’re not gonna see MJ either. One of the rules is you can’t play better than the CinC.

  17. JohnLopresti says:

    I am sure there are numerous qualified people from state governments to fill the spot where Daschle’s nomination was canceled. One person whose resume is unknown to me, yet, who was in the news in 2004 in the midst of a political firestorm was Richard Foster, the author of the HHS suppressed* report showing the Republican plan to convert your Social Security to stockmarket based, had underestimated the cost of “privatization”. Imagine what extra cash Republicans would have now, and what diminished Social Security prospects some prospective retirees would envision, if the canceled Bush townhalls with preselected show audiences had succeeded in foisting that economic disaster upon congress. Even admiralty Jack Goldsmith wrote an opinion helping Bush justify the gag order to keep Foster from testifying.
    —-
    *Note: WaPo has redesigned their 2004 website; the link is to a crawler copy, scroll to third article, by Amy Goldstein, March 12 of that year, in this version, though my records show several different dates for her byline.

  18. LabDancer says:

    Don’t think this is going away. Sure would be fun to watch Booyah Howard draw fire for the president.

  19. phred says:

    Forget her jaw, what’s up with her eye-batting? Is it my imagination or are her eyelids about to take flight when Tweety brings up Dean? I do not get why Dean freaks people out so much.

  20. JLML says:

    I have no evidence but you have to wonder if McCaskill’s hissy fit on the floor wasn’t just so much kabuki. I found Marcy Kaptur’s position on the mortgage crisis to be much more convincing and informed.

  21. eCAHNomics says:

    I hear from an informed source that Dean has a big ego (who in high politics doesn’t), and that he exercises it by regularly pissing people off. Source: someone who interviewed with Dean as applicant for UVM.

  23. hackworth says:

    McCaskell is lying about Daschle and Howard Dean. Since he left the Senate, Daschle scored $5 mil (that we know about) as a paid escort for corporations so that they could screw American citizens. Daschle’s wife is in the same business.

    And Dean is not in Obama’s good graces by any stretch of the imagination.

    IMHO, Tweety got his Dean for HHS bit from FDL.

    • Hmmm says:

      And Dean is not in Obama’s good graces by any stretch of the imagination.

      So everyone keeps saying. Why? Dean is, after all, the one who got him frickin’ elected as frickin’ POTUS.

      • eCAHNomics says:

        I don’t know why but suspect it’s Dean’s prickly personality, as I mentioned in 39, 40. As for getting Obama elected, I suspect that Obama would strongly disagree. I think he thinks his own staff did that single-handedly. It’s the normal hubris that comes with victory.

      • hackworth says:

        That is a good question. Judging from the way Dean has been extricated from the DNC after he had done a better job there than anyone in recent history, and that he has been excluded from every cabinet post thus far, it looks like Dean has been nudged out by Obama-Rahma-Sunstein, et al.

    • Evolute says:

      FDL or Thom Hartmann. I’ve been on the road with a radio lately and Hartmann has been tooting the Dean horn for daze. Whatever, I enjoy the dialogue. People, well, most folks voice their concern without their hard-on dangling like a flag pin pierced tongue.

  24. Nunki says:

    “it’s a good question .. dr. dean is somehow toxic within the party he led to victory .. whazzup wid dat democrats ??”

    Well, you know, it’s because he screamed that one time. And we just can’t have that! Tsk tsk!

    • Jkat says:

      well geeze nunski .. i’ve screamed at least once every day since lil’ georgie took office .. most sane and rational people have ..

      i think the much-ado about deans’ lil’ screamin’ fit was about nothing .. everyone can come a bit unhinged over passionate positions ..

      it’s talent and know-how we’re lookin’ for … no ??

  26. CalGeorge says:

    Howard, please tell us you’ve paid your taxes fully and on time!

    He would be a great choice.

    Feb. 2004:

    “Let’s start with something that matters to all of us. Two generations ago, Harry Truman told it straight: We need health care for every man, woman, and child in America. We still don’t have it. President Bush’s idea of health care is to take care of corporations in the health industry. And Washington Democrats have gone along.”

    “I know about health care, because my wife Judy and I delivered it, one patient at a time, as family doctors. Judy still does. And I delivered as Governor of Vermont. 99 percent of children, 92 percent of adults in Vermont have health care. We expanded prescription coverage for seniors. I can stand up to George Bush and say, I delivered results. Why haven’t you?”

  27. Hmmm says:

    eCAHNomics, Ian — That makes sense, thanks for explaining — but if that’s all there is, then maybe it’s time for PBO to (to coin a phrase) put aside the things of childhood, like jealousy, in order to actually get something done.

  28. Hmmm says:

    Hey guys, I just looked it up, and it turns out “fruitcake” when applied to a person is an ambiguous term, one of the possible meaning of which is an anti-gay slur! Hey wow!! Who knew?!

  30. Hmmm says:

    Ahem.

    TROLL IN THE HOUSE ON AISLE 71 (et al.).

    A DO-NOT-FEED WARNING IS IN EFFECT UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.

    Thank you, that is all.

  31. tanbark says:

    Larue…hello ‘dere! It’s getting Gilliardian…:o)

    And MadDog@6; good post! He HAS pissed off the beltway poohbahs, which is one more reason to lean on Obama/them to pick someone who’s outside the bidness-as-usual box. We’re seeing how THAT works. It’s about the kind of change that got Obama elected (with, as has been pointed out on here, some serious help from Dr. Dean…).

    Obama had choice in these matters. He could have picked people from academia who would have done a perfectly good job for him. If they were “inexperienced”, then just look what experience has given us. The power levers are not impossible to find, and most of the beltway dems are exchanging under-the-table gluterubs with the people who’ve dragged us to the edge of the cliff. Hell, some of them, like Hillary, helped with the dragging.

    Instead, we get a bunch of Clinton retreads who are already causing problems.

    Relative to Dean, Barbara@32 may be right. Dean might not want to fight all the “centrists” who don’t like him. All I can say to that is, Hillary was shonuff part of the problem, and I never heard Rahm Emanuel speak one public word about what bush was doing when he dragged us into the shitmire. If Dean’s downside is that he’s pissed off those two, then that’s another big plus on his resume’, by me.

    Dumping Daschle was a smart thing to do. Let’s see if Obama can be smart one more time.

    He needs to keep in mind that he wasn’t elected because the voters believed he would reach out to the republicans, and stay away from appointments that might indicate a real committment to change. It was the other way ’round. So far, I think he’s misjudged the difficulty of the job in front of him, and the kind of people he needs to help him salvage something from 8 years of stupidity, greed, and arrogance.

    Let’s see if he can do better.

  32. foothillsmike says:

    I left my Dean request at whitehouse.org it can’t hurt. Especially if their E=mail isn’t crashed again.

  33. Hmmm says:

    It’ll be a winner to staple health care reform to the EcStim. Change We Can Believe In, writ large. PBO just needs to find the right way to do it.

  34. tanbark says:

    I think there’s been too much “negotiating”. At this point, I have an idea that not just the progressives are getting fed up with negotiating (After all of the reaching out, what was that House vote? I77-0?) but so are a lot of dems and independents in the center.

    The repubs are going to be the loyal wrecking crew. We should send Limbaugh a thank-you note for copping to their plan. It opened up some eyes when he said he wanted Obama to fail. And when a repub conger called him on it, he got so much hatemail from the 28% mouthbreathers that he turned around and ate his shorts. It was fun to watch Churchillian courage like that. :o)

    And I’m not worried about that 28% They’re gonna be there no matter what. If we (and the new prez) stick to our progressive guns they can’t hurt us. Only if we begin to ooze and triangulate will we become vulnerable. Word.

  35. Hugh says:

    Dean may be prickly but he was quite effective with the 50 state strategy and that took a lot of coordination and working with people. So the idea he would be difficult to work with at HHS I don’t think holds. He might but his record shows he is capable of working effectively with diverse groups.

  37. pmorlan says:

    I’d like to see Howard Dean at HHS but judging by McCaskill’s reaction I’d say there isn’t a chance in hell of it happening.

    This is not on the subject but I wondered if anyone had any info on the group “Common Good” that was created back in 2002? This group has beltway people from both parties supposedly coming together for common sense solutions that serve the common good in the area of legal reform. I’ve been watching them for awhile now and it seems to me that they are not very progressive and offer up more status quo and right wing ideas than anything. Any one else know about them? The reason I ask is that they had this nugget on their home page:

    Common Good congratulates former Common Good Trustee Eric Holder on becoming the next U.S. Attorney General. Since 2002, when Common Good was founded, we have benefited from Eric’s commitment to the cause of reliable justice.

    I wonder what they mean by RELIABLE justice?

    Here’s their website

  40. scory says:

    I work at HHS, so I have a vested interest in this issue.

    I love Howard Dean. I contributed to DFA, to the DNC, and I support the man without reservation.

    Except for him being my boss.

    the Secretary for HHS has to be a consensus builder. The Directors of ACF, CDC, CMS, and NIH have a tremendous amount of power and independence. It’s the Secretary’s role to weave the organizations very different missions into a coherent whole piece of cloth.

    Dr. Dean may be a lot of things, but consensus builder he’s not.

    Bill Bradley or John Kitzhaber would be excellent choices. Both are great team players, and Kitzhaber’s medical education and practice in OR (which has some endemic health care issues similar to much of America) is a tremendous asset.

  43. FrankProbst says:

    My impression is that nobody (and by nobody, I mean neither Obama nor Congress) wants to deal with health care reform right now. Daschle looks like he was bought and paid for by the health care industry–he’s the person you would choose if you had no interest in reforming the industry. Howard Dean is someone who’d be more than willing to knock heads to get a reform package through. That doesn’t appear to be what Obama’s looking for.

      • FrankProbst says:

        So: Make him do it. To coin a phrase.

        Not going to happen. As pressing as health care reform is, it’s not the country’s biggest problem right now.

        • FrankProbst says:

          EcStim is an opportunity to make health care reform happen.

          Only for relatively non-controversial things. Electronic medical records, yes. Health insurance reform, not so much.

        • Hmmm says:

          If all we get in HHS is someone unwilling to push for anything, then yes, this will be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Otherwise, maybe more is possible. Hence the desire for a Dean.

          Besides, who’s gonna stop it? The only resistance is Senate R’s, the House is not a problem. Get the people riled up enough and enough Senate R’s and the Blue Dogs will bend.

        • FrankProbst says:

          Besides, who’s gonna stop it?

          Um, did you watch the video? Claire McCaskill is a Democrat, and the blink-o-meter spiked the second Tweety mentioned Howard Dean’s name. The Republicans are obviously not the only ones who are resistant to this.

          BTW, was anyone else disappointed about her answer to the tax question? Yes, we all make mistakes, but Daschle didn’t just make a math error on his 1040. He owes more than $100K in taxes for his car and driver. There were aristocrats in “A Tale of Two Cities” who were less odious than this. (And before you even ask: Yes, I think Tim Geithner should have been bounced, too. To quote Claire McCaskill: “These people are idiots.”)

        • Hmmm says:

          Claire McCaskill is a Democrat, and the blink-o-meter spiked the second Tweety mentioned Howard Dean’s name.

          Sample size is kinda small there. Howard being out of style with some of the Dems does not concern me overmuch. Fixing badly broken shit in this country does concern me. The Dems have held themselves out to be rational, educable, and reality-based humans this time around; let’s test that.

        • randiego says:

          Agree with this – I didn’t know Daschle made THAT much money off the gravy train since he’s been out… these aren’t the types I want doing this stuff.

          I’m sure he would have been fine, but all the hand wringing is freaking annoying. There’s GOT to be someone qualified to do this job, let’s find them and this time, VET THEM properly.

          Wasn’t Janet Reno Bill Clinton’s THIRD choice for AG? She was actually a very good AG, no?

          I really liked Obama sucking it up and accepting blame. He better be BLASTING his “team” behind closed doors…

        • FrankProbst says:

          I really liked Obama sucking it up and accepting blame. He better be BLASTING his “team” behind closed doors…

          Agree wholeheartedly on your first point. As to your second, it looks like Daschle hid some of his problems from Obama’s vetters, so I’m not sure how much they deserve to be blasted. And if I had been one of the vetters, I would’ve probably assumed that the former Senate majority leader wouldn’t have been this stupid. (Although those glasses should’ve been a red flag to anyone who met with him.)

        • readerOfTeaLeaves says:

          But don’t you think that the bad economy is related to health care?
          And the more economic anxiety we see surface, the more heat will be on health care. Everyone will be, know, or live with someone who can’t afford health care.
          Pitchfork time?

          Hmmmm… interesting about the ‘capital strike’ (in which those with capital refuse to lend, in order to bring government to heel by showing that capital is more important than government). I think the sooner Obama, Biden, Dodd, and rest call bullshit the better.

          freep, excellent as ever.

        • FrankProbst says:

          But don’t you think that the bad economy is related to health care?

          Absolutely, but…

          And the more economic anxiety we see surface, the more heat will be on health care. Everyone will be, know, or live with someone who can’t afford health care.

          …everyone’s also going to know someone who can’t pay their mortgage or their rent, and that’s going to seem more immediate to them. One of the big impediments to health care reform is simple human nature: Most people only think about health care when they’re sick. Healthy people don’t like thinking about it, in part because it reminds them of their own mortality. And right now, I think most healthy people are far more likely to be worried about losing their house or their job than about losing their health care plan.

        • readerOfTeaLeaves says:

          Thanks, FrankProbst.
          More penny-wise, pound foolish attitudes.

          But yes, a roof over one’s head definitely trumps a cough.

          BTW: I’d encourage anyone on this thread to see Bernie Sanders interviewed by Rachel Maddow tonight. He makes a really good point: some of the banks being bailed out are still charging over 20% interest on credit card loans.

          He also says that last weekend, more than 800 people showed up to his Town Meetings in Vermont, and they’re furious. I hope this is true across the nation in coming weeks.

        • randiego says:

          People ARE angry. I put up a facebook status bagging on Republicans for supporting tax dollars being buried in the sands of Iraq, but not tax dollars for jobs here.

          I got like ten angry comments (in agreement) in 30 minutes. I never get more than two on other topics!

        • bobschacht says:

          “But don’t you think that the bad economy is related to health care?”

          Absolutely! Remember what an issue health care was to the auto industry? Solve the health care thing, and you take a huge load off labor-business issues.

          Bob in HI

        • Diane says:

          Health care should be part of the safety net. What happens when people can’t afford their COBRA? Their medical conditions suddenly become pre-existing when they have a lapse in insurance coverage. Only makes business better for the insurers. When folks are re-hired their new plans don’t have to cover their chronic illness for years.

  44. freepatriot says:

    and if tweety IS reading, my use of the term “Tweety” is in NO WAY a term of endearment

    I despise tweety from his phony cackle to the thrill down his leg

    I’ve never seen a phonier piece of shit, blowin in the wind, mindless fucking idiot in my life

  45. FrankProbst says:

    Sort of off topic:

    Can someone explain the car and driver thing to me? He got hit for “personal” use, which makes it taxable, right? If the car and driver had just been driving him to and from work every day, that would qualify as a business expense, wouldn’t it?

  47. fahrender says:

    i have never been impressed with Dashle. Now it proves he’s just a weasel. Fuck Rahm. Go Howard (if he wants it). if Obama doesn’t see the worth of Howard Dean then i become more than a little skeptical of him. Obama is losing momentum when he needs it the most.

  48. rkilowatt says:

    Who wants a great schmoozer, with superb marketing skills and great congressional negotiations experience, to be a paid cheerleader for single-payer universal health coverage.

    I want a being with demonstrated medical competence who understands and really believes in it…like Howard Dean.

    No other qaualifications can lead us there and arrive?

  49. Blue says:

    Why not Howard Dean?

    I assume that’s a rhetorical question – the answer is obvious … Howard Dean would want to fight for truly universal health care not some watered down program of Obama’s vision that I predict will actually be worse for most people than the current shitty system. He adds access but doesn’t eliminate the insurance companies from the mix so the vast majority of monetary waste and exclusionary provisions (taking the decisions out of the hands of medical professionals) remain. Someone should have the guts to say the some things should not be for profit. Period. Education, health care and justice to name a few.

  50. randiego says:

    if Obama doesn’t see the worth of Howard Dean then i become more than a little skeptical of him. Obama is losing momentum when he needs it the most.

    This is the kind of stuff I’m talking about. It’s WEEK TWO. I feel like a little perspective is in order here. Obama deserves that we back him to the hilt, I think he’s earned it. If not Howard Dean, then someone else.

    What’s needed is someone competent enough to implement the policy that Obama wants.

  51. Cujo359 says:

    Well, way late to this thread, too, but I don’t see anything wrong with Dean at the moment. I need to review his positions on healthcare, but as others have indicated he seems to have the right attitude. I know what he’s been up to for the last few years, so it seems less likely we’d have a Tom Daschle-like surprise in store. And I’m referring to how he’s been earning the money he didn’t pay taxes on, not the problem with the taxes.

  52. freepatriot says:

    so much for tweety seeing the light:

    blowing in the wind

    It all started with Mark Halperin’s brief note in Time Magazine, which stated “Poll: Obama Approval Rating Drops”. It goes on to say that Obama’s job approval level is 64%, “down from a pre-Inauguration high of 83%”.

    Chris Matthews on MSNBC and Anderson Cooper on CNN jumped on this information and promptly repeated it on each of their shows on Friday. What’s the problem? It combines information from two different polls that ask different questions and reaches an unsupported and erroneous conclusion.

    friday he was pimping phony polls, tuesday he’s pimping howard dean, on thursday he could be pimping dougie “stupidest fucking guy on the planet” feith

    tweety needs to see the wizard

    he’s got no heart, no brain, and no courage

    (and that phony cackle pisses me off so much I can’t watch much any more …)

  54. becca656 says:

    It is possible that, behind the scenes, both Bradley and Dean were already asked if they would serve. They might well have both said, no thanks.

    There are just some people who understand their limits and don’t want to be part of the brouhaha that universal health care, or any nationalized health care, program will create.

    I just know I’m paying, monthly, about half of what I’m paying for the mortgage on my house to cover my health insurance.

    It makes sense to me to have someone in charge who isn’t beholden to the insurance industry whose only interest is to keep those cards, letters and checks arriving on time. The abuses at the executive level of the health insurance industry make the garbage at the top of the auto industry look amateur.

    It is true that this is neither the time nor the place for putting health care reform on the front burner, but there isn’t much time left before the common laborer goes under on the issue of health care.

  55. wavpeac says:

    I would be willing to bet that the “common laborer” has already gone under. If you lost your job you lost your health care. All it takes is to have your back go out. Laborers often have lots of ‘those’ kind of health problems from using their bodies in a different way than you do jogging or on the racquetball court. I think I read that the number one cause of bankruptcy is medical bills, and that number two was unpaid child-support.

    The fix is going to require fixing the credit problems for the average American, (who has literally been screwed by the financial industry…where the wealthy got rich on the backs of the poorest Americans)getting the predatory lenders off their backs, and freeing people from health care bills created by the “new” high deductible plans. Literally everyone I know in my town was moved from a regular plan to a high deductible plan. Seems like a great idea until you have one injury or trip in for an emergency MRI. Suddenly, whalllahhh you are several thousand in the HOLE. If you just lost your job, you are not going to be able to make that house payment and that 1400.00$ bill. The high deductible plans mean you have to pay those bills out of pocket until you reach that magic deductible. My deductible for my family was 4800.00 before I lost my job. Now I don’t have that in my HSA. I get to put 216.00 away each month but that pays for my husbands meds.

    No, most Americans needs so much more than this administration seems able to see. I think the blinders are still on.

  56. rkilowatt says:

    Will this help? These are the 2009 Health plan rates for Postal Employees:

    Standard BlueCross/Shield-1 person- u pay $102/mo.[PO pays$396/mo]
    ditto————–self and family——–$252/———–$893/
    Basic BlueCross/Shield—-1 person———$50/———–$325/
    ditto—————self an family——–$118/———–$761/

    Standard deductible is $300/person yearly
    Basic deductible is $NONE
    [hope this posts clearly]

  57. Leen says:

    EW. I’ll put money on it that Matthews comes here to read. He repeats things you bring up here (specific terms) on his evening program. I swear. Really pushed your blog when I met him at the Libby Trial (told him that the MSM was being left in the dust on many issues at your site) and again at the Dem convention.

    Matthews is far more open minded than you think.

  58. shawnfassett says:

    There is a bad feeling in my gut that Friday Obama will announce his next choice as HHS Secretary will be Wa State governor Gregoire.

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