Tag Archives: public option

Government, Health, Humor, Politics, Satire

Obama, Pelosi pay $2500 for $500 Dodge van – Plan summer Apology Tour

President Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi followed yesterday’s passage of federal health care reform legislation by purchasing a 1985 Dodge Astrovan for $2500. The van was put up for sale for $500 in the Washington Post classifieds by Ms. Ina Surance of Hartford, Connecticut.

Obama and Pelosi will use the van during a June nationwide Apology Tour — two weeks driving from Washington, DC to California, stopping along the way to apologize to the Democratic base for the health care overhaul, which:

  • lacks a public option
  • mandates Americans to buy health insurance from for-profit companies
  • subsidizes coverage by giving taxpayer dollars to insurance companies
  • fails to repeal antitrust immunity for insurance companies, and
  • does not bar preexisting conditions for group insurance plans, and
  • leaves intact the geographic disparity in Medicare reimbursement rates

This morning Obama and Pelosi went before the Washington press corps to celebrate the van deal. Obama described his negotiating strategy: “When I saw the van was $500, I immediately offered Ms. Surance $600. When she said $500 was all it was worth, I kept bidding it up until finally she agreed to accept five times her asking price,” Obama said.

The Speaker agreed it was a good compromise. “We could have taken the Amtrak public option, coast to coast for $524 in USA Rail Passes. Except Rahm Emanuel agreed with Mitch McConnell beforehand that we wouldn’t do that,” she said.

Government, Health, Kleptocracy

Giveaway To ‘Big Insurance’ Passes House

You can sum up the so-called “health bill” that passed the House last night in one sentence:

Mandatory insurance is NOT universal care!

…no matter what that asswipe Obama or the corporate cronies in the Democratic Party say.

This bill is a f*cking disaster.  It’s an enormous giveaway to Aetna, Cigna, and Wellpoint that will do little to improve the health situation for those 25 – 32 million people who’ll be forced to buy private insurance in public exchanges.  Did you see the part of the bill that details the quality of coverage in these ‘plans of last resort’?  No?  Probably because it’s not there!  Likewise, the ability to exclude based on pre-existing conditions isn’t gone.  It’s just been delayed in order to force more people into the exchanges where insurance companies can offer crap coverage with crippling deductibles at high rates.

About the only good thing in this bill are the industry targets for how much of premiums must be spent on actual care.  But that doesn’t go far toward mitigating the reality of this bill:  The party, that at every stage voiced their support for a ‘public option’, did everything in their power to ensure that no such option ever made it into this bill.

Long story short:  Obama, Pelosi, and Reid screwed us and gave the insurance industry more than it could ever have hoped for from the GOP.

Health, Humor, Politics, Satire, Sports

GOP declares itself March Madness favorite – “We are the maddest of all” says Bachmann

The Republican Party surprised the collegiate basketball world today, when it declared itself the favorite to win this month’s ‘March Madness.’

“If this is about who’s the most insane, it’s a slam dunk for Republicans because we are the maddest of all,” said Rep. Michele Bachmann, the party’s go-to person on derangement issues.

Bachmann touted head coach Michael Steele’s completely insane starting lineup, which has no forwards or center.

The squad’s chief playcaller is Sarah “Death Panels” Palin, who writes all the plays on her hand. She gave up her final year of eligibility at Alaska in order to be drafted in 2008.

Palin is joined in the back court by John “The Tan” Boehner, who once forgot that health care reform bills have passed both the House and Senate.

Then there’s the totally nuts Sen. Jim Bunning from Kentucky, who tried to cut off the unemployment and COBRA benefits of hundreds of thousands of registered voters. He is so popular fans mobbed him as he tried to enter his private elevator, which does not go all the way to the top.

Bunning often feeds the ball to Arizona’s John “Loopy” Kyl, who thinks unemployment benefits make people less likely to look for work.

Finally there is “Crazy Eyes” Bachmann herself, a second-term outpatient from Minnesota who has called for revolution, is suspicious of the Census, and is currently accusing the media of treason.

The GOP also thinks its bench gives it an advantage, deep with senators who play killer defense on health care reform, and House members who can’t bring themselves to call Joseph Stack a terrorist. New sixth man discovery Bob Marshall of Virginia — who says birth defects are God’s punishment for women who aborted their first pregnancies — adds extra delusion to Coach Steele’s playbook.

Assistant Coach Lamar Alexander also brings experience, handing clean sheets of paper to Steele for the hand-tooled leather and diamond-studded Gucci playbook.

The one question mark is veteran Ron Paul, a fan favorite who nonetheless is in Steele’s doghouse and seen his playing time dwindle to nothing.

The Democratic Party had expected to be highly seeded this year, but has seen its March Madness hopes disappear in the past three weeks after both James Traficant and Eric Massa quit the team. Head coach Barack “The Big O” Obama hopes health care reform with no public option is just insane enough to make Democrats this year’s Cinderella squad.

Health, Humor, Politics, Satire, Society

Journey rushed to hospitals after Democrats stop believin’

Current and past members of the 1970s-80s supergroup Journey were separately rushed to hospitals Friday after millions of Democrats stopped believin’. Doctors say supporters of President Obama stopped holding on to the feelin’ after Speaker Nancy Pelosi stated she would not insert the public option into health care reform reconciliation legislation now in the House.

In his Saturday weekly radio and internet address, President Obama urged streetlights, people hold on.

The end of believin’ sent shockwaves up and down the boulevard between the White House and Capitol Hill. Democrats, neighbors and strangers from coast to coast who have been waiting for real health care reform vented their displeasure at the White House and Democratic Congressional leaders, jamming switchboards of progressive talk radio and overloading servers of Daily Kos and Huffington Post.

Signs that Journey was being affected became public after former lead singer Steve Perry was admitted to South Detroit Medical Center suffering from extremely bad vibes. Shortly afterward reports circulated that guitarist Neil Schon, drummer Steve Smith and bassist Randy Jackson were in California emergency rooms suffering from similar symptoms.

“The acute musician senses picked up on Democratic disillusionment that is sweeping the country,” said Dr. Maya Ize of the National Institutes of Rock & Roll Health. “The increase in people not believin’ was too much negative energy for current and former Journey members, resulting in a rise of bad vibes to near-toxic levels,” Dr. Ize said.

Health care reform activists regretted the impact on Journey, but said Democrats have stopped believin’ in President Obama’s health care reform effort. “We were believin’ Obama when he campaigned on health care reform and the public option,” said Franklin Delano Frandle, spokesman for People for the Unethical Treatment of Insurance Companies, a group favoring a single payer system.

“But after more than a year of delay in Washington, we no longer have open arms for the Obama approach. We fear a deal has been made in a smokey room between Congress and insurance lobbyists,” he said, adding: “citizens facing escalating insurance rates can’t afford to pay anything to roll the dice.”

Independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont agrees on the need for a public option. “Without a public option it won’t be real reform. Some will win, some will lose, and some will sing the blues,” said Sanders.

“There has to be a public insurance option to compete with private insurance, otherwise this midnight train isn’t goin’ anywhere,” he said.

In other news, the woman at the center of the John Edwards scandal says she is penniless. In a photo spread for GQ, Rielle Hunter revealed how Elizabeth Edwards has actually sued Hunter’s pants off.

Health, Humor, Politics, Satire

Conservatives have rally safety concerns – Alarmed at cam-toting liberals

Conservative protesters are feeling threatened by pro-health insurance reform liberals who are coming to congressional and presidential town hall meetings with holstered video cameras strapped to their hips. So says an organizer of the anti-health insurance protesters who march outside the public forums.

“It sends the wrong message in our society,” said former Texas Congressman Dick Armey, now Executive Director of the Pinkies Up Tea Party Coalition, which describes itself as “a patriotic front.”

Armey is speaking out after his members contacted him about pro-reform counter-protesters carrying cameras in the open. One man came to a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, with a Sony HDR-CX520V slung over his shoulder. The incidents make Armey’s fellow conservatives nervous.

“Cameras are so small now they can be easily concealed under a coat or in a bag,” said Armey. “Suppose a conservative is shouting down the public option. Tensions rise. Heated words are exchanged. Next thing you know, a liberal pulls out a camera and: bang. A patriotic Republican gets splattered all over the blogosphere,” he said.

Shirley A. Nutt of Westmost, North Carolina, says she is worried at the potential of running into camera-wielding Democrats at rallies, forums, and other chances to disrupt public discourse. “Takin’ my picture is the kind of threat of violence we’ve come to expect from anti-gun, anti-death penalty, anti-war liberals,” she declared.

“Besides, it steals little bits of my soul,” Nutt added.

Law enforcement officials in North Carolina say there are no laws against openly carrying video cameras in public. “Or concealed ones, for that matter,” said Sheriff Andrew Taylor of Mayberry. Taylor went on to say: “What I’m seeing a lot are people carrying concealed intellects.”


Worries over safety
A recent victim of a camera-wielding assailant.

Government, Health, Humor, Politics, Satire

Obama health plan points the way – Now entire government could become co-ops

Only days after signaling it is willing to drop a public option from a health care reform package, the Obama administration is indicating that it is willing to end the public option for the entire federal government as well.

“If moving away from public options is how things are going to get through Congress, we’re going to look hard at it as a best practice,” President Obama said today at a town hall-style forum in Washington DC’s Capitol Hill neighborhood.

Capitol Hill was chosen for the event by administration strategists as a test of the president’s coattails. The area was strong for Obama in last November’s election, but has recently seen a large amount of gentrification resulting from reverse “white flight” from the K Street district.

Although a clearly well-heeled audience, many in attendance at the meeting exhibited the boisterousness that has materialized at many such forums held by senators and representatives during their August break. One man, Cent Konrad of Bismarck, North Dakota, shouted out several times until he got Obama’s attention.

“Since insurance corporations can’t compete against a public option, what about the rest of government — which is public by definition and therefore socialist? What other corporations are having their freedom restricted?” Konrad challenged Obama.

Obama moved quickly to reassure Konrad’s concerns. “Public options are not the entirety of government, any more than it is the entirety of health care reform,” Obama said. “This is just one sliver, one aspect of it.”

Following his remarks concerning best practice, Obama added that he is looking with increasing favor on applying the so-called “co-op” alternative to a wide range of government programs, to which another man, Bax Maucus of Helena, Montana, responded favorably.

“I really like co-ops because co-op means cooperating with private corporations. That’s what 45% of the American people voted for, and it’s what 40% of the Senate will allow,” said Maucus, who later identified himself to reporters as “just a concerned citizen.”

Obama told Maucus he would do all he can to press for co-op solutions. “During my four years as a senator, I learned from Harry Reid that majority opinion cannot determine American policy. So we’re not going to bow to the majority on health insurance, not on withdrawal from Iraq, not on the economy, and not on our foreign policy,” said the president.

Obama then personalized the issue by relating a recent experience he had with co-operating. “When I was going to get my girls a dog, we proposed a public pound option — a nice beagle, let’s say,” recalled the president.

“But Mitch McConnell called the public pound option socialistic, and he reminded Malia that a bureaucrat would stand between her and her choice of dog,” Obama said. “So we co-operated, and got a Portuguese water dog from a private source.”

“A co-op solution worked for Portuguese water dogs, so I think this proves co-ops deserve a chance to solve our health insurance crisis,” he said.

The co-op approach is seeing an uptick in the opinion polls for Obama. A telephone survey of residents of Pyongyang, North Korea, shows 100% support if the president were to convert the U.S. State Department into a co-op.

DINOs, Government, Health, Humor, Politics, Satire

Ask An Ex-Governor: Oppose French-style medicine

by SARAH PALIN, Syndicated Columnist
by SARAH PALIN, Syndicated Columnist

Dear Ex-Governor,
I’m vaguely apprehensive of the public option. What should I know in order to spread irrational fear about it?
Congressman Rick Larsen, (D?-WA)

Dear Rick,
You’re right (hard right!) to be scared, because what Barack Hussein Obama and the Democrat Party are going to ram down our throats is socialized medicine, also, too, the growing of the size of government, such as Big Government, such as the kind of Big Socialist Governments in Canada and Europe where they have health care for all, which also, too, is where they speak French — I’ll tell ya we don’t want that kind of French or French Canadian style health care, as your doctor would talk to you only in French or Canadian, and Americans don’t want a translator standing between you and your doctor, at least until Aetna figures out how to make money off it.