Hillary Clinton and SCHIP: The Unvarnished Truth and The Massaged Talking Points
So now nothing is sacred. Not even something as laudable as the bipartisan coming together on the Children’s Health Insurance Program! The very people who credited Hillary for her role in it’s passage, are now so mercenary as to deny her any credit for CHIP at all! Well, in order to do this they’ll have to talk out of the other sides of their mouths.
Back then, when it was passed, they were more than happy to heap praise on Hillary for persuading Bill to come around on the deal, so they could pressure Trent Lott to roll over. Kennedy had then acknowledged that the First Lady had a very important role in getting the White House on board.
The children’s health program wouldn’t be in existence today if we didn’t have Hillary pushing for it from the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue," Kennedy told The Associated Press.
President Clinton signed the bill in August 1997. While Kennedy is widely viewed as the driving force behind the program, by all accounts the former first lady’s pressure was crucial.
It goes on to state:
’She wasn’t a legislator, she didn’t write the law, and she wasn’t the president, so she didn’t make the decisions,’ says Nick Littlefield, then a senior health adviser to Kennedy. ’But we relied on her, worked with her and she was pivotal in encouraging the White House to do it.’
Well, what a pair of witnesses! Not just Ted Kennedy, but one of his senior health advisors!
The story goes that Bill was a little wary on account of his negotiating a balanced budget with Lott, who called the children’s health bill a "deal buster."
But in another article in the New York Times from August 11, 2000, Littlefield again states:
’She was a one-woman army inside the White House to get this done,’ Mr. Littlefield of the Health, Education and Labor Committee said. He said that he and Senator Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat who was the major force behind the bill, enlisted Mrs. Clinton’s help in the spring of 1997 when the president became ’skittish’ about the program. Mr. Littlefield said the Senate majority leader, Trent Lott, was threatening that it was a ’’deal buster’ on the balanced budget agreement that he and Mr. Clinton had reached.
’At that point we went to Mrs. Clinton and said, ’You’ve got to get the president to come around on this thing,’ ’ Mr. Littlefield said. ’And she said, ’Absolutely.’ And we very quickly noticed a change. The president was very much on board.’
How times have changed!
Now that two factions have emerged in the struggle for the nomination, legislators who cooperated with one another now belittle each other.
After the Hillarycare debacle of 1993, Hill and Bill decided three things:
• Secretive decision making was not working.
• Hillary had to keep a low profile if she was to be of any legislative use to her pet projects.
And so, some people must’ve gotten confused or something. Someone played telephone and a whole lot of hats got hung on an innacuracy. The Washington Post says:
During months of SCHIP negotiations in 1997, her name rarely surfaced in news accounts. Clinton never testified before Congress or held a news conference on the bill. When Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (Utah), the lead GOP negotiator of the children’s health bill, heard reports that Clinton was depicting herself as SCHIP’s main advocate, ’I had to blink a few times," he said. Hatch said he doesn’t recall a single conversation with Clinton about SCHIP, even a mention of her name. "If she was involved, I didn’t know about it,’ he said.
’You know how she says, ’I started SCHIP’? Well, so did I," joked Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), one of the Democrats who pushed the bill across the finish line along with Kennedy. Both have endorsed Obama.’
I guess Senator Rockefeller didn’t get the very Clintonesque strategy of bypassing obstacles if you can’t remove them. Kennedy and Hatch wanted to attach SCHIP to the budget bill as an amendment. Clinton knew that Lott wouldn’t go for that, and according to Gene Sperling, the White House chose to back it as a seperate bill:
"Gene Sperling, a former chief economic adviser in the Clinton White House, said the budget resolution never would have passed the House with the Hatch-Kennedy amendment in it. He said that both the president and his wife wanted the SCHIP program and that Hillary Clinton lobbied hard to get it included in subsequent legislation."
Of course, Senators Kennedy and Hatch, who have both endorsed other candidates, acknowledge support by the White House, but try to play down the support of Hillary. Yet, according to the Boston Globe Sperling gives a different account:
Gene Sperling, a Hillary Clinton campaign adviser who served as one of President Clinton’s lead budget negotiators in 1997, said efforts to include children’s health coverage were constrained by a balanced budget agreement between the White House and Republican congressional leaders.
But he said Hillary Clinton pushed hard and even favored boosting the price tag to $24 billion, instead of the $16 billion that had been floated as a compromise.
’Her office was across from mine, and I knew what her priorities were," Sperling said. "I remember her having a lot of influence -- you’re getting this done because you know the first lady wants it.’
And so, the Obama partisans either in error, or deliberately, downplay Hillary’s legislative history as First Lady and use her misperceived inaction in this area as a politcal football against her.
But the high profile legislators ought to know better. Their legislative histories are recorded ad infinitum, and makes their words over time seem untrustworthy concerning Hillary:
’Last fall, Kennedy said SCHIP "wouldn’t be in existence’ without Clinton’s support inside the White House. But when her rhetoric on the campaign trail started to filter back to the Capitol, the veteran legislator became stingier with his praise.
’At the last hour, the administration supported it, and she was part of the administration, so I suppose she could say she supported it at the time," Kennedy said.’
It is with grave concern that I ask you to reconsider your endorsement of Sen. Barack Obama for our party’s nomination. I base my request on three suppositions:
1. The exacerbating factor that is disuniting the party is NOT Hillary R. Clinton, but Barack Obama.
2. Given the fact that Mr. Obama’s campaign engages in EXACTLY the same tactics that it professes to deplore of H.R.C., I do not see how he could change the face of politics in this country.
3. Mr. Obama shows that he has yet to finish learning to represent his state in this country and abroad as a member of a delegation let alone as President of the United States. His philosophy that good judgement is equal to experience precludes what we all know to be true, good judgement is preceded and informed by experience.
Our party was well poised to take control of this country and turn it back well before Mr. Obama decided that he was the man to do it. Our party could now be united and ready to fight the general election. This could have caused such consternation on the other side that they would be split along ideological lines much like we are now.
Instead, we are the ones who are divided, and I blame Barack Obama. It was his choice to announce for the Presidency and throw us into disarray.
Mr. Obama says that he wishes to leave behind the "old politics." But when have you ever seen any instance in this campaign where he has engaged in his so-called; "new politics?" I haven’t.
Firstly he disillusioned me when only after two years in the Senate, he chose to run for President. As if the Senate was only a stepping stone. What of the promise he made to people of Illinois to represent them?
He calls his time in the Illinois State Senate experience enough to add to his resume for the job of President. But you and I both know that such experience as his only makes him elligible to represent his state or Congressional district, and that way - to start learning the ways of federal government. How his arrogance makes him think he is ready to be President, I don’t know.
If that were all, I could still forgive his youthful exuberance. What I cannot forgive is his dishonest behavior.
He professes to be the apostle of the "new politics," a politics based on "inclusion," speaking to the enemy, and being honest. But the reality couldn’t be further from the truth.
In fact, he is merely another politician, but with a better disguise and a silver tongue. In his message he distorts the facts, misquotes third party sources and takes them out of context like any other politician. And of course, he misreprents his opponent’s position, misquotes her and consciously misrepresents her position - like any other politician.
But he is supposed to be above all that isn’t he? And so he misdirects his listeners with flowery phrases, espouses those noble sentiments and like a magician, sneaks into the message all his distortions. And under his facade, he allows his attack dogs to do the dirty work - like any other politician.
He’ll also learn that while in Congress, on-the-job training is apporiate, in foreign policy, it’s a train wreck waiting to happen.
In conclusion, I’d have to say that to me it’s all Old Politics - all showmanship, and I’m not buying the ticket!
There MAY BE, just - maybe, another example that the underneath the high flying rhetoric of Obama’s speech, the wheels of his machine grind - pretty much the same as everyone else’s.
I do SO hope that this Canada thing turns out to be a ROVIAN PLOY that gets sussed out quickly.
Besides, someone DID say that a Clinton campaign official also met with the Canadians. ’that would be bad for her.
It’s just that she is right to imply that Obama’s campaign still plays the same tricks as everyone else does, so forgive me if don’t buy the messianic hype that swirls around him.
Anyway, back to the discrepancies from the Obama camp on Hillary’s health care plan. Once again, listen to his word! Then read them, and them read what was really said!
As you may well imagine, there is plenty of reasons to criticize Clinton, however Obama has so far gotten a free ride.
Well he doesn’t with Brooks Jackson! And listen how Obama shows how he deliberately fudges the facts with his own words! His attacks are "accurate?" Not to Brooks Jackson! And Jackson shows how impartial he is! He doesn’t let Hillary off the hook! He’s just - a realist, not a Maenad to either side!
Notwithstanding the "Xerox" faux pas, Paul Begala just went on record on the Stephanie Miller Show as the real source of that line. He says he wrote that into a speech for Bill Clinton. If that is true, and it can be verified by a thousand Kossacks no doubt, then Obama - Patrick rules say it’s legit!
Setting a Few Matters Straight_ Part 3: Why I’m Not Sold on Obama.
Category: News and Politics
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Obama, as I have pointed out in Part 2, is one of the good guys. However, if Hillary isn’t the Devil, then Obama is not Jesus.
But he is closer to Dionysus, and he has his Maenads.
Apparently, he has been Dionysus for a long time in Illinois. An April 3, 2007 New York Times article has this to say about Obama’s fundraising skills:
Improbably, Mr. Obama, running as something of an outsider, wound up raising $15 million and winning that 2004 Senate race. Now that he is running for president, his fund-raising prowess has helped make him the chief rival to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.
And later:
A look at his 2004 Senate race shows how he laid the foundation for his current fund-raising drive. Even as he cultivated an image as an unconventional candidate devoted to the people, not the establishment, he systematically built a sophisticated, and in many ways quite conventional, money machine.
The article goes on to say that Obama drew early support from Chicago’s black professional class "using it as a springboard to other rainmakers within the broader party establishment."
His popularity increased soon after he gave his famous speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention big-time fundraising soon followed. According to the article, though Obama wrote that he felt uncomfortable early on asking for money, he learned how to cultivate donors the same way he cultivates voters on the campaign trail. Good for him. No one is impugning his integrity. I’m just proving that he puts his political pants on one leg at a time - like everyone else.
For instance the Times article states that for the 2004 Senate race, faced with a self-financed opponent, Obama’s donors weren’t above exploiting campaign financing loopholes like giving up to $12,000 per donor:
As a result, nearly half of the more than $5 million that Mr. Obama raised in the primary came from just 300 donors. In a stroke of luck, he had just enough money to pay for a television advertising blitz in the final weeks as Mr. Hull’s campaign crumbled amid accusations that he had abused a former wife.
Well, lucky Barack! He impresses people with his directness and intelligence and aw shucks modesty. And he does know how to sell himself during a campaign. According to the Times Obama has a hold so strong on Chicago that Hillary, who grew up in Chicago, didn’t even think of having a fund-raiser there during the all important first quarter of ’07.
After losing the Congressional race in 2000 against former Panther Bobby Rush, he had to pay back a $9,500 personal loan and questions from FEC. He had to lend his own campaign committee $11,100 more to get back refunds to donors who over donated.
Yet no sooner than the two years it took to repay himself, he was back on the hustings. At first, donors demurred, but soon Obama worked his boyish charm, and soon Obama’s support increased so that even the Pritzker family, founders of the Hyatt Hotel chain.
The Bacchanalia continued as heretofore Clinton supporters like Jesse Jackson, David Geffen, and Michael Froman of Citigroup went to Obama.
Now that the Obama charm may also be viewed as a sales technique as much as a characteristic, let us see how plausible Obama really is well he sells his message to the public at large.
When we listen to our politicians get all eloquent about their own positions and strident about those of their opponent’s, we often do not hear the unsaid omissions, indicators that have all the volume and pitch of dog whistles to our uncomprehending ears.
Thank heavens we have a few bloodhounds, setters and pointers who make it their job to sniff out the unseen, and hear the unsaid. Folks like the ones at Factcheck.org are very impartial in uncovering the inaccuracies and sins of omission committed by both Hillary AND Obama. In this article, I won’t get into Hillary’s mistakes. There are plenty of people more than willing to do that job. I’m here to point out where Factcheck shows Barack is less than honest.
• Obama’s ad touting his health care plan quotes phrases from newspaper articles and an editorial, but makes them sound more laudatory and authoritative than they actually are. // • It attributes to The Washington Post a line saying Obama’s plan would save families about $2,500. But the Post was citing the estimate of the Obama campaign and didn’t analyze the purported savings independently.
• It claims that "experts" say Obama’s plan is "the best." "Experts" turn out to be editorial writers at the Iowa City Press-Citizen – who, for all their talents, aren’t actual experts in the field.
• It quotes yet another newspaper saying Obama’s plan "guarantees coverage for all Americans," neglecting to mention that, as the article makes clear, it’s only Clinton’s and Edwards’ plans that would require coverage for everyone, while Obama’s would allow individuals to buy in if they wanted to.
Analysis Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama’s ad on his health care plan has been running in Iowa. A hat-tip to The Washington Post for first revealing some of the twists in this 30-second spot.
Obama Writes His Own Reviews
The ad flashes a line credited to The Washington Post that says the Illlinois senator’s health care plan would cut costs, "saving $2,500 for the typical family." But the Post didn’t say that; the Obama campaign did, and the Post reported it as the campaign’s estimate. The fuller citation from the May 30, 2007, article reads:
Washington Post:The senator’s aides estimated that his plan would save the average family $2,500 per year and would allow those without insurance to buy it through a new health-care option that would resemble the one federal employees can choose.
Obama Strengthens His Own Reviews
The ad also says that "experts" called Obama’s health care plan "the best," words that are attributed to the Iowa City Press-Citizen. We found the citation in an editorial from Dec. 19, 2007. With all due respect to the paper’s editorial writers, they aren’t "experts" in the same sense as, say, full-time health care researchers at think tanks or university professors who teach the subject. Editorial writers are paid to give their opinions, and in this case no actual experts were quoted.
On January 17, Factcheck again found it necessary to correct a new ad run by the Obama team, saying "The ad may be new, but we’ve seen this tactic, from this candidate, before:"
Analysis This is the second time in as many weeks that we’ve written about Democratic candidate Barack Obama’s misleading use of quotes pulled from newspapers. This ad is running in Nevada in advance of Saturday’s caucus.
Obama for America Ad: "President" Obama: I’m Barack Obama and I approve this message.
Obama: I’ll be a president who finally makes health care affordable to every single American by bringing Democrats and Republicans together. I’ll be a president who ends the tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas and put a middle class tax cut into the pockets of working Americans. And I’ll be a president who ends this war in Iraq and finally brings our troops home. We are one nation and our time for change has come.
Universally Wrong About Health Care Plan
The ad flashes the quote "Obama offers universal health care plan." That was a headline on a May 29, 2007, Associated Press story.
Correction, Jan. 17: We originally reported that the AP story didn’t include the quote used in the ad. We were looking at the final version sent on the AP wire that day. But the Obama campaign contacted us to point out, correctly, that an earlier version of that story included those words as a headline.
However, the story merely reported that Obama said he would sign a universal health care plan. The article goes on to cast doubt on the universality of his own plan:
AP: Obama’s first promise as a presidential candidate was that he would sign a universal health care plan into law by the end of his first term in the White House. But there is some dispute over whether his plan would provide universal care. It’s aimed at lowering costs so all Americans can afford insurance, but does not guarantee everyone would buy it.
It’s an important distinction we’ve raised a few times. Obama’s plan wouldn’t guarantee that every individual had health insurance, just that everyone would have the opportunity to obtain it. The AP story also includes a quote from a representative of Families USA, a liberal group that pushes for expanded government health coverage, who says, "It’s not totally clear that it would result in universal coverage." The ad even shows video of Obama using more accurate language when he says he wants to make "health care affordable."
But is that the most questionable creative editing on the part of Obama’s handlers? No.
Obama’s ad makes a big thing about being the first to oppose the war in Iraq. Once again, it quotes AP when it says "Obama opposed the war from the start." But just as Factcheck points out, AP does say this:
Nobody can dispute that Barack Obama opposed the Iraq war from the start and, with striking prescience, predicted U.S. troops would be mired in a costly conflict that fanned "the flames of the Middle East."
But nobody should accept at face value the Illinois senator’s claim that he was a "courageous leader" who opposed the war at great political risk.
The truth is that while Obama showed foreign policy savvy and an ability to keenly analyze both sides of an issue in his October 2002 warnings on Iraq, the political upside of his position rivaled any risk.
And, once elected to the U.S. Senate two years later, Obama waited months to show national leadership on Iraq.
I could have used Factcheck’s version of the quote, but they do make the originals accessible, so I went straight to the horse’s mouth, read the article, and found a few more paragraphs Obama’s ad omitted:
Courageous or calculating? These are the facts:
In 2004, while getting ready for his star-making address to the Democratic National Convention, Obama gave presidential nominee John Kerry and other leading Democrats a pass for backing Bush on Iraq.
Noting he was not privy to intelligence reports shown to Kerry and others, Obama told The New York Times, "What would I have done? I don’t know."
Once elected, Obama didn’t force the issue in the Senate. His first floor speech encouraged Democrats to drop challenges to the 2004 presidential election "at a time when we try to make certain we encourage democracy in Iraq."
His first major address on Iraq came in November 2005, when he said U.S. forces remained "part of a solution."
In addition, even Factcheck missed this one:.
Seven months later, he was voting in step with Clinton for a middle-of-the-road approach. On June 22, 2006, they both backed a nonbinding resolution to pull troops out of Iraq. More meaningfully, they also rejected a bill backed by the force of law that would have required the troops to come home by a date certain.
Interesting that Obama’s ad should fail to mention that part of AP’s article.
In addition, I suppose Obama’s people also found it inconvenient to mention the article states that in his run for Senate nomination his opponents were also against the war.
A lot of footage on the cutting room floor.
A look at their advertising is one thing, but a look at their money trail offers other more interesting examples of Obama’s disingenuousness.
Once again I’ll leave it too others to expose Hillary’s bundlers. They are there at Public Citizen’s White House For Sale site You’ll find them right next to Obama’s bundlers.
So let me just give you a small list of Obama’s more interesting. Obama says he won’t play any games, but some of his donors are players:
David Geffen
State CA
Employer Dreamworks SKG
Amount Raised. Bundler for Barack Obama, raised at least $50,000.00
Cycle 2008
Name Disclosed by Candidate Y
Mark D. Gilbert
State FL
Employer Lehman Brothers
Amount Bundler for Barack Obama, raised more than $200,000.00
Cycle 2008
Name Disclosed by Candidate Y
David Heller
State NY
Employer Goldman Sachs
Amount Bundler for Barack Obama, raised more than $100,000.00
Cycle 2008
Name Disclosed by Candidate Y
All I set out to point out is that:
• Hillary is NOT the Devil
• There is really very little daylight between both candidate’s views
• Obama’s very own political behavior is at odds with his "politics of hope," and since he’s really still playing the game, how much does he really believe in it?
The man still puts his pants on one leg at a time, like the rest of us.
These are pictures of graphs at Opensecrets.org insets provided by the author from same photographs.
Setting a Few Matters Straight: Why I’m for Hillary and not Obama. Part 2: Not Much Difference.
Current mood: aggravated
Category: News and Politics
In my previous post, I enumerated the various reasons why I feel that Hillary is not the ogre that most people feel that she is, and why she’s presidential timber. The trouble is, can honestly say the same for Obama? I don’t know. The trouble with that is, now is not the time for an Obama learning curve. How much do we really know about him?
For the past 7 years this country has been brutalized by an idiot who has brought us war, threatened our civil liberties, abused our economy, and destroyed our reputation around the world. His reign was the culmination of a way of thinking that has been entrenched among Conservatives for the past 30 years. It is a way of thinking that threatens our future socially, economically. And ecologically, the survival of the human race.
We need someone at the helm that we can rely on to fight that entrenchment. Someone who is vastly experienced in fighting Right Wing onslaughts. I don’t think the politics of "coming together" is going to work on the likes of John O’Neill’s Swift Boaters, Karl Rove, or Fox News. Already Obama has to contend with false rumors concerning his religion, and his upbringing. Now, this Rezko business will come up. And in an Obama candidacy, it WILL come up in the general election, regardless of who Rezko had his picture taken with.
But what is at the core of my objections to an Obama candidacy? Not only do I find myself questioning the feasibility of his "new style" of politics, but also I question whether he can possibly pursue it given today’s circumstances.
• His positions are really not that different from Hillary’s.
• He strives to set himself apart from most politicians yet his very history suggests otherwise.
• In particular, his relationship with Antoin Rezko calls into to question his judgment of character. Not only that, but his very criteria on what constitutes a friend can be questioned. Is a friend someone you like and trust, or is a friend merely someone who is "useful" to you?
I shall deal with the other two points in my next post, Part 3 of this series. On the issues, Clinton and Obama differ only on the details. According to Wikipedia:
In a 2004 fundraising speech in San Francisco, she was highly critical of George W. Bush’s tax cuts, saying that ’Many of you are well enough off that ... the tax cuts may have helped you. We’re saying that for America to get back on track, we’re probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.’[2] Clinton has sponsored legislation designed to reduce the deficit by reinstating some taxes that had been cut. She has co-sponsored legislation related to debt and deficit reduction. On the other hand, she has advocated for federal spending that advocates of less government spending deem nonessential, such as funding a museum commemorating the Woodstock Music Festival.[3]
Obama’s stand two years later wasn’t that much different:
Obama spoke out in June 2006 against making recent, temporary estate tax cuts permanent, calling the cuts a ’Paris Hilton’ tax break for ’billionaire heirs and heiresses.’[18] Speaking in November 2006 to members of Wake Up Wal-Mart, a union-backed campaign group, Obama said: ’You gotta pay your workers enough that they can actually not only shop at Wal-Mart, but ultimately send their kids to college and save for retirement.’[19] Obama has also proposed his own tax plan, including $80 billion in tax cuts for the poor and middle class.[20]
On health care, the only difference between the two front-runners is how they define "universal.":
In September 2007, as part of her presidential campaign, Clinton revealed her new American Health Choices Plan, an "individual mandate" universal health care plan that would require health care coverage for all individuals. Clinton explained individuals can keep their current employer-based coverage, or choose an expanded version of Medicare or federal employee health plans.[18][19] The projected cost of the plan is $110 billion annually and will require all employers to cover their employees’ health insurance or contribute to the costs of their employees’ health insurance coverage; tax credits will be provided to companies with fewer than 25 employees to help cover costs.[18][20]
And Obama said:
On January 24, 2007 Obama spoke about his position on health care at Families USA, a health care advocacy group. Obama said, ’The time has come for universal health care in America [...] I am absolutely determined that by the end of the first term of the next president, we should have universal health care in this country.’ Obama went on to say that he believed that it was wrong that forty-seven million Americans are uninsured, noting that taxpayers already pay over $15 billion annually to care for the uninsured.[15] Obama cites cost as the reason so many Americans are without health insurance, and claims his health care plan would cut the cost of insurance more than any of his Democratic rivals’ plans in the 2008 Presidential race. [16]
The list goes on and on. In foreign policy, both Hillary and Obama favor a tough approach to terrorism with Obama assuring people he will escalate the war against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. He would even go into Pakistan despite warnings that such a move could further destabilize the situation.
On the Arab-Israeli situation, both candidates meet at the center from different viewpoints agreeing that the Palestinian leadership must be more responsible. Obama wants more dialogue with the Arabs while Hillary is still in favor of the wall, and concentrates more on Israel’s security.
When asked who the United States’ top allies are, Senator Barack Obama said the European Union and Japan, but failed to mention Israel.
The debate moderator NBC News anchor Brian Williams interrupted Obama, drawing his attention to the omission and quoting Obama as having once said, ’No one suffers more than the Palestinians.’
Obama, unperplexed, explained that the Palestinians suffer because of their leadership. ’I said that no one suffers more than the Palestinian people because of their leadership’s failure to recognize Israel, denounce violence and be serious about peace negotiations and regional security,’ he said.
’Israel is one of our most important allies in the world. It is the only democracy in the Middle East,’ Obama added. He even noted that if he was elected, he intended to increase American involvement in the region.
But Obama comes to this point of view from the standpoint that we must have a dialogue with the Palestinians. According to AP at the National Jewish Democratic Council this was his (highly commendable) position:
Obama said while he was committed to protecting Israel’s security, he would also reach out to Arab leaders who were committed to recognizing Israel and renouncing violence.
And according to Wikipedia Obama is no friend of terrorism:
Referring to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in January 2006, Obama denounced Hamas while praising former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. At a meeting with then Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom on the eve of Hamas’ sweeping election victory,[33] Obama stated that Sharon’s role in the conflict had always been "absolutely important and constructive."[34] At a meeting with Palestinian students two days later, Obama stated opposition to Hamas in favor of rival party Fatah, noting his desire to ’consolidate behind a single government with a single authority that can then negotiate as a reliable partner with Israel.’ In a comment aimed at Hamas, he said that ’the US will always side with Israel if Israel is threatened with destruction.’[35]
On Iran, there is considerably less daylight between Clinton and Obama. While Hillary accuses Iran of having a nuclear weapons program, and supports UN sanctions against Iran, she believes that diplomacy is necessary, and has criticized Dubya for refusing to talk to the mullahs.
And while Obama is all for talking to Iran, and has criticized Hillary for voting to declare the Quds Force a terrorist organization, he wants all military options on the table.
On the issue of Iraq, again there are only a few variations on the same stance. Let us dispense with the fact that Hillary voted to give authorization for the war. I had already touched on her reasons for that vote in Part 1 of this series. However, she did charge Dubya with rushing to war, and pulling the rug out from under the UN inspectors, and came out for an international solution to the problem. However, to quote from Wikipedia:
On June 15, 2006, Clinton charged that President Bush "rushed to war" and "refused to let the UN inspectors conduct and complete their mission ... We need to be building alliances instead of isolation around the world ... There must be a plan that will begin to bring our troops home." But she also said, "I do not think it is a smart strategy either for the president to continue with his open-ended commitment which I think does not put enough pressure on the Iraqi government, nor do I think it is a smart policy to set a date certain."[63][64]
Hillary voted for the USA PATRIOT ACT in 2001, but helped to filibuster the bill for its renewal when enough money wasn’t apportioned to New York for anti-terrorism efforts. She also stood up for some of the civil liberties concerns with it. She voted in favor of the compromise bill.
FISA and warrantless wiretapping were a different matter though:
Regarding the December 2005 NSA warrantless surveillance controversy, Clinton stated that she was ’troubled’ by President Bush’s 2002 actions. In a statement, she said: ’The balance between the urgent goal of combating terrorism and the safeguarding of our most fundamental constitutional freedoms is not always an easy one to draw. However, they are not incompatible, and unbridled and unchecked executive power is not the answer.’[83]
Clinton didn’t take the American Freedom to stop the military commissions, end torture, or restore habeas corpus, but then as President, she can end the former and sign into law the other.
Obama is also right that resetting the world’s view of the U.S. begins with making our government more transparent. As a senator, he’s worked to visibly link members of Congress to their roads to nowhere and to their Iowan rain forests. As president, he will hold large-scale, open discussions on the issues facing Americans in the 21st century: health care, climate change, comprehensive immigration reform, border security, tax policy, education and economic development.
Both Hillary and Obama take a rather tortured path concerning same sex couples. Obama...
• Voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment
• And yet, he believes that marriage is between a man and a woman.
• Supports civil union that carries legal standing equal to marriage, but believes that the appellation of marriage should be left up to the states. • Feels that homosexuality is not immoral.
To confuse things all the more, for the all-important South Carolina primary, Obama invited anti-gay people like Reverend Donnie McClurkin, Mary Mary and Hezekiah Walker to his 3 day "Embrace the Courage" campaign tour. After a whole lot criticism, he added openly gay pastor Andy Sidden.
Hillary has an equal amount of ’splaining to do Lucy:
Senator Clinton expressed her opposition to same-sex marriage while affirming her support for some form of civil unions for homosexual couples: ’I think that the vast majority of Americans find [same-sex marriage] to be something they can’t agree with. But I think most Americans are fair. And if they believe that people in committed relationships want to share their lives and, not only that, have the same rights that I do in my marriage, to decide who I want to inherit my property or visit me in a hospital, I think that most Americans would think that that’s fair and that should be done."’[115]
And yet:
• She opposed the Federal Marriage Amendment like Obama.
• She admitted the military’s "Don’t ask, don’t tell" was a failure and that gays should be allowed to serve openly.
Lastly the environment. Hillary wants:
• energy conservation
• to release oil reserves
• no drilling in ANWR
• to ratify the Kyoto Protocol
• a Strategic Energy Fund to put $ 50 billion into R&D and deployment of renewable energy, clean coal, ethanol, and homegrown biofuels.
I think Wikipedia says everything I’d say for Obama’s views on environment:
Obama has taken the stance that global warming is human-caused, and that it must be addressed. He has a record of supporting environmentally friendly bills.
The issue of climate change is one that we ignore at our own peril. There may still be disputes about exactly how much is naturally occurring, but what we can be scientifically certain of is that our continued use of fossil fuels is pushing us to a point of no return. And unless we free ourselves from a dependence on these fossil fuels and chart a new course on energy in this country, we are condemning future generations to global catastrophe.[64]
He has pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions 80% below 1990 levels by 2050 by creating a market-based cap-and-trade system.[65] Obama also has plans for improving air and water quality through reduced pollution levels.[citation needed]
And so, there doesn’t seem to be much daylight between Hillary and Obama’s positions.
And yet, Obama says he won’t "play the Washington game." We’ll see.
In Part 3 of this series, I shall examine the feasibility of the "politics of hope," and whether Obama is sincere or a fool.
Setting a Few Matters Straight: Why I’m for Hillary and not Obama.
Current mood: aggravated
Part One: She’s Not the Devil!
Maybe it’s just a gut feeling, but Hillary Clinton inspires confidence in me, and I’m just not sold on Barack Obama.
It could be that she’s just been known to me for much longer than Obama. Or that I was pulling for the first Democratic First Lady in twelve years since Rosalyn Carter in the Clinton’s fight for survival against neocons and spoiled Reaganites who were pining for their "good old days.
Maybe I saw at that time a toughness, an indomitable spirit of a person who became an expert at fighting that "vast Right Wing conspiracy" that we now know really existed and wasn’t a figment of her imagination. All I know is that she became my Senator, I met her once, "Cackles" wasn’t there at the time either. It was at our State Fair, and Cold Hillary never came. She was warm with everyone, and everyone felt proud just to be near her. She even posed for a picture for me.
Now, can someone explain to me why the Clintons are coldly calculating and Obama is not? According to MediaMatters.com,Hillary has consistently maintained the same positions that she had as First Lady. One example is ..ion:
Critics often cite Clinton’s views on reproductive choice as an example of her repositioning. For instance, Chris Matthews has described Clinton as purportedly shifting her stance ..ion in a "transparent" effort to recover the so-called "values vote." He has also accused her of "trying to play it safe" on the issue by taking a "poll-tested path." Matthews has pointed to her assertion in a July 25, 2006, speech that abortion should be "safe, legal, and rare" as an example of her changing position on the issue. But far from representing a point of departure from earlier statements, Clinton’s remarks in July were consistent with those she made in a January 22, 1999, speech. While first lady, she said: ’But all too often, generally because of the loudest voices, the American people don’t hear explained the efforts that we’re engaged in to continue to work with people from all different walks of life to make abortion safe, legal, and rare.’
As for the controversial vote to give Dubya war powers, I will not join the rest by bashing Hillary for it. The country was in no mood for peace after 9-11. I was full of vengeance myself at that time.
To call Hillary a staunch supporter of the Iraq War as a hypothesis is very widely off the mark.
But the claim that Clinton was once one of the ’staunchest" backers’ of the Iraq war does not withstand scrutiny -- nor does the claim that her criticism of the war is recent. While Clinton did vote in favor of the 2002 resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq, less than seven months after the war began, she expressed doubt about President Bush’s leadership in the war, saying in an October 17, 2003, floor statement, that her ’yes’ vote for an $87 billion supplemental appropriation ’was a vote for our troops, it was a vote for our mission. ... [I]t was not a vote for our national leadership.’ During the same statement, Clinton accused the Bush administration of having "gilded the lily" on pre-war Iraq intelligence at ’the cost of perhaps not being able to take actions in the future that are necessary to our well-being and our interests because we may look like the nation or at the least the administration that cried wolf.’
Now we come to the "deviousness" question. First of all, if we learned anything from the past seven years, it’s hard to slip one by diligent opposition researchers. Sooner or later, someone will check the source, listen to some disgruntled ex-employee, or check some coincidence and expose it. Someone who isn’t drinking the Kool-Aid will notice the details that True Believers overlook or deny.
Then why has nothing stuck to Hillary? Time and again for the entire Clinton administration Right Wing s spent millions of taxpayer dollars trying to bring them down, through Whitewater, Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky and impeachment. They only succeeded in self-destructing à la Newt Gingrich and Robert Livingston. And yet back then they learned nothing! And they still know nothing. To date, the stupidest thing they could do was to try to pin their own crimes on someone else. Someone like Hillary. Attempts to accuse Hillary of the madrassa slander backfired according to Mediamatters when the datelines of some Right Wing articles on the matter came to the fore. And mindlessly the Right Wing kept sticking it’s head into the mouth of it’s own lion. Now any Progressive blogger can close that beast’s mouth on Limbaugh’s neck by simply right-clicking on any link to the articles in question.
Conservative efforts to raise questions about Obama’s Muslim heritage had, in fact, begun days earlier. Indeed, on January 9 -- a week before the InsightMag.com article -- Chicago Tribune metro columnist Eric Zorn wrote on the Tribune’s Change of Subject weblog, "The crazies are sending around an e-mail that attempts to establish that Barack Obama is actually a Muslim who masquerades as a Christian for political advantage." But following the publication of the InsightMag.com article, numerous right-wing media figures repeated the entirely unsubstantiated accusation that Clinton’s campaign staff was responsible for spreading the madrassa allegation against Obama. Several Fox News hosts repeated the claim that Clinton had "outed Obama’s madrassa past." Rush Limbaugh declared, "This is Hillary’s team doing this." And conservative radio host Melanie Morgan asserted that Clinton "is going to try to derail the [Obama] train before it gets out of the station." As recently as January 30, Fox News political analyst Dick Morris persisted in leveling this baseless accusation.
A similar attempt to slander Hillary was made (though sadly compounded by an erstwhile Clinton operative,) that Hillary was behind a supposed leak about the ancient history of Obama’s drug use.
Sadly, it’s not only the Right that is unfairly treating the Clintons. In her latest column, Maureen Dowd carries forth much of the mistaken impression that all of Hillary’s actions are in part motivated by self interest, calculation, and cynicism.
She became emotional because she feared that she had reached her political midnight, when she would suddenly revert to the school girl with geeky glasses and frizzy hair, smart but not the favorite. All those years in the shadow of one Natural, only to face the prospect of being eclipsed by another Natural?
Even if you agree with this, which I do not, Dowd, whom I usually respect, gets it wrong when she concludes that:
Her argument against Obama now boils down to an argument against idealism, which is probably the lowest and most unlikely point to which any Clinton could sink. The people from Hope are arguing against hope.
However, she inadvertently contradicts that point with a preceding paragraph. in it she attempts to deride Hillary’s allusion to Martin Luther King Jr. and LBJ and in so doing, opens the backdoor for every supporter of Hillary to sink that argument:
Hillary sounded silly trying to paint Obama as a poetic dreamer and herself as a prodigious doer. "Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act," she said. Did any living Democrat ever imagine that any other living Democrat would try to win a presidential primary in New Hampshire by comparing herself to L.B.J.? (Who was driven out of politics by Gene McCarthy in New Hampshire.)
Dowd missed the point entirely. In the debate, Hillary argued for change with experience. She had every right to allude to the civil rights accomplishments of Johnson. Dr. King could only fight the battle in the streets, but Congress was another matter.
In her criticism of Hillary’s allusion to LBJ, Dowd forgets obvious facts where she should have been more diligent. In order to affect change, as a President Johnson needed to rely on his decade long experience in the Senate - and as Senate Majority Leader to push through the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, considering the amount of controversy and bloodshed it caused at the time. Getting laws passed the Johnson way required him to know a lot about every Senator and Congressman. That required that decade’s worth of Senate experience. The business with McCarthy in New Hampshire though important, is irrelevant to the argument.
update:
The Hooplah on the MLK Statement.
Everyone misses the point that Hillary was speaking from the perspective of someone who was for 8 years a President’s wife. This gives her at least one President’s point of view, and that President, her husband, had to deal with a very belligerent Congress whose every move was like.an act of war against him. This is not dissimilar to what Johnson faced from Dixiecrats in 1964. In fact, it lost him support from the South and was a factor in his choosing not to run for re-election. Remember George Wallace?.
Part Two "Keeping Barack Obama in Perspective" will appear in my next post.
Pete Stark and The Sinful Stone Throwers
Category: News and Politics
(Warning: A few of these quotes came second-hand from About.com or Wikipedia)
I for one, find this John Boehner remark to be rather disingenuous:
Mr. Stark, by his despicable conduct, has dishonored himself.
No way Pot! This is the BRONZE kettle! A far less similar hue to yours you won't find!
Mr. Stark can only look to the Right for any teachers in the art of senseless vituperation.
When I think about the unthinking bloviators of the Right, I find it hard to feel sorry for them as they reacted with indignancy to the remarks of Pete Stark, although they might be enough to get some Freeper's skivvies in a bunch! However, I'd like to remind at least those of us who'd care to listen, that despite the erudition of the best of us on the Left, aside from the occasional "Hymietown," or Joycelyn Elder's theories on teaching masturbation, or the Dean Scream, and anything Rosie might have to say, we never seem to hold a candle to the Right!
The Right Wing media has at least four prominent shining examples of oratory that regularly regail us with their pearls of wisdom!
And yes, they are Mr. Rush Limbaugh, Billo O'Reilly, Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin. The Squawking Magpies of the Right.
One catalyst of their bile is their palace guard brand of patriotism. If you have it, you're a real American. Say something they don't like - and it won't matter if you fought in Iraq or lost a loved one on 9/11, you're a fraud or a dupe. When confronted with vets who denounced the war, Limbaugh called them "phony soldiers." And in reply to the ad of a soldier who called him out on his statement, he then said this:
He discusses his service in Iraq, the wounds he suffered there, and he says to me in this ad, "Until you have the guts to call me a 'phony soldier' to my face, stop telling lies about my service." You know, this is such a blatant use of a valiant combat veteran, lying to him about what I said, then strapping those lies to his belt, sending him out via the media in a TV ad to walk into as many people as he can walk into.
He has the temerity to equate a war veteran with a suicidal terrorist.
Ann Coulter is another great humanitarian with erudition. When 9/11 widows criticized the administration's lack of interest in investigating the causes of 9/11, she gave this touching tribute:
These broads (the widows of 9/11 victims) are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis. I've never seen people enjoying their husband's deaths so much.
It is amazing how someone could underutilize the two brain cells it would suffice for most of us to call up compassion for such obvious victims, and dismiss them out of hand.
Then there's Billo. Here is a man who parses the definition patriotism in a rather chiliastic fashion because he was offended by San Francisco's ban of military recruiters from city schools:
If I'm the president of the United States, I walk right into Union Square, I set up my little presidential podium, and I say, 'Listen, citizens of San Francisco, if you vote against military recruiting, you're not going to get another nickel in federal funds. Fine. You want to be your own country? Go right ahead. And if Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead.
On the issue of torture, Limbaugh is positively sophomoric. Here, he describes his attitude towards the indignities suffered at Abu Ghraib:
This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation...I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You ever heard of the need to blow some steam off?
I'll tell you what. I've been in combat. I've seen it, I've been close to it... and if my unit is danger, and I've got a captured guy, and the guy knows where the enemy is, and I'm looking him in the eye, the guy better tell me. That's all I'm gonna tell you. The guy better tell me. If it's life or death, he's going first.
No Billo, John Wayne would not be proud of you! You see, torture gets your enemy to tell you what he thinks you want him to hear, not the truth.
However, the piece d'resistance is a statement by Anne Coulter, as she wondered in 2005 why the New York Times didn't propose the same solution for terrorism as it did for online child predators:
Would that the Times allowed the Bush administration similar investigative powers for Islamofacists in America!
Which brings me to this week's scandal about No Such Agency spying on 'Americans.' I have difficulty ginning up much interest in this story inasmuch as I think the government should be spying on all Arabs, engaging in torture as a televised spectator sport, dropping daisy cutters wantonly throughout the Middle East, and sending liberals to Guantanamo.
Ms. Coulter might want to remember that though she may fondly wish America to be under fascism, communist dictatorship would put her ilk on the short hit list. "Televised spectator sport?" Like the Doctor's Trial Stalin had in the early 50's? Or maybe she meant like the People's Court after the attempt on Hitler's life starring Screaming Judge Friesler? Yep. Real super-patriot that Ann Coulter!
And the Right wants to stack Mr. Stark's relatively more factual statement up against ginormous classics like these? Hah!
Keep'em coming folks. You see, the well of stupid, insensitive and obnoxious statements runs rather dry on the Liberal side. And, try as you might to engender indignation at the few and infrequent gaffes you may detect from the Left, we know that you will never fail to disappoint us in demonstrating to us by your own tongues, examples of what you are looking for.
The Smearing of The Innocent: Graeme Frost, Bethany Wilkerson, and the Calumny of the Right.
Current mood: pissed off
Category: News and Politics
Graeme Frost is not a pawn. He is a boy. A boy who was once severely injured, whose sister is severely disabled. Nevertheless, according to the Right, he committed a serious unpardonable crime. He dared to speak out against the policies of Bush and the rest of the privatizers as a young boy.
Now, it used to be that young children of traumatized families were sacrosanct, but not any more!
Apparently, at this point, feeling threatened on all sides by a disgruntled and scandalized American public, the Right knows it is standing on a precipice looking down a deep and dark abyss. Every "gain" the Right made during the last 6 years, would be undone and reversed if a Democratic president was to coincide with a Democratic Congress. Now they are paranoid.
Like cornered bears, they seem to attack these days anyone, no matter how innocuous, who they perceive to be threats. Their reaction to the Frost family's action is like that of a conspiracy theorist finding his enemy under every bed.
Here and there, they miraculously find snippets they call clues to bolster their ignorant suppositions about the "affluent" Frosts, and the "unworthy" Wilkersons.
First, Mr. Halsey Frost, Graeme's father, owns his own woodworking design studio, Frostworks, so his claim that he can't get health insurance through work is shockingly deceptive. He chooses not to get health care for his family. Second, Graeme and his sister Gemma attend the very exclusive Park School, which has a tuition of $20,000 a year, per child. Third, they live in a 3,000+ square foot home in a neighborhood with smaller homes that are selling for at least $400,000.
I believe that they bought their house at $55,000. The neighborhood's property values were not as high then due to the crime rate. However, why let facts get in the way?
Think Progress did give the definitive answer for Graeme Frost and his heroic family:
1) Graeme has a scholarship to a private school. The school costs $15K a year, but the family only pays $500 a year.
2) His sister Gemma attends another private school to help her with the brain injuries that occurred due to her accident. The school costs $23,000 a year, but the state pays the entire cost.
3) They bought their lavish house sixteen years ago for $55,000 at a time when the neighborhood was less than safe.
4) Last year, the Frosts made $45,000 combined. Over the past few years they have made no more than $50,000 combined.
5) The state of Maryland has found them eligible to participate in the CHIP program.
Park enrolls students based on their talents and capabilities. Families who are unable to meet the full cost of tuition may apply for the Financial Assistance Program, which supplements tuition payments. Financial assistance does not need to be repaid. In 2007, 18% of Park students in grades 1-12 received over $2 million in financial assistance that ranged from $1,000 per year to full tuition. Tuition remission for children of our faculty brings that total to 25% of the student body. Because each family's situation is unique, it is impossible to predict the amount of funding awarded based solely on income. For example, the number of children attending tuition-charging institutions is an important factor. As a guide, families with incomes up to $160,000 received financial assistance during this past school year.
To which Wingnuttery added:
If the school is giving assistance to families making $160K, they are offering pretty substantial assistance to those making $45K. I'm just guessing here, but it sure does seem plausible!
I take it that the Right Wing has never needed tuition assistance! I sure did when I was in junior college - back in the '70's.
I'm surprised that at the first stage of this news cycle that the Right Wing didn't discover such obvious facts that Graeme's sister was so severely and permanently disabled that her private school necessarily had to be one that accommodated her disability, or that Graeme had a scholarship that left the Frosts only to pay $500.
And now, little Bethany Wilkerson who had a pre-existing heart condition will have to face the calumny of the selfish.
Has anyone heard of an insurance company giving a policy to an infant with a pre-existing heart condition? Bethany had to have her surgery at six months old. She still has a hole in her heart.
Yet, that doesn't stop the Freepers from attacking the credibility or character of her parents. It is remarkable what Mark Steyn has to say:
Last week I compared parents who allow their kids to be props in political debates to stage mothers. Instead of, Judy, take one more Benzedrine and this time smile during the encore of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," it is "Madison, tell the nice man what Uncle Gore said would happen to the polar-bear cubs if people don't drive better cars." Maybe the political form of stage mothering isn't as harmful to the kids, but it is just as exploitative.
Now Mr. Steyn wants to argue that the Democrats had chosen the wrong S-CHIP poster family.
Well, I was surprised that someone on the Right could actually concede (italics) that the Frosts might have a fair to middling claim to S-CHIP!
However, he only does so to imply that the far poorer Wilkersons are a worse choice due to "bad behavior":
While the debate around the Frost family at least initially centered around their relative wealth, the issue really at hand is one of bad behavior. While US Action and a labyrinthine maze of leftist activist groups prepare to rally around images of Tampa Bay's Most Photogenic Baby holding up a crayon sign that says "Don't Veto Me," Dara and Brian Wilkerson are real poster children ó for irresponsible decisions.
Wait a minute! Is the Right to Life crowd finally converting to Pro Choice? Hallelujah will miracles never end!
I thought it was the job, no - the duty of every girl, single or married, rich as a queen or poor as a beggar to not interfere with nature and postpone the Blessed Event through contraception. And when the bun went in the oven, every good girl saw it through! Amazing how conveniently chameleon like the morality of the Right is when it sees its money slipping away!
Bethany's mother probably faced the same dilemma many newlyweds face when adjusting to marriage. She left her job at the country club (whose insurance plan would anyway be irrelevant to Bethany's case, because her condition must have made her ineligible,) because it was an obstacle to the establishment of a household.
In addition, the funny part is that just as the Wilkersons ruled out abortion, the Frosts in their own way are also are the model Conservative family!
Most Conservatives want government support for attending private schools, which is what Graeme got - government support for attending private school!
Instead of having a "woodworking hobby," Halsey Frost was an entrepreneur. He owned his own home as well. And he tried to do well by his family.
But because of the Frost's stand on S-CHIP, he is castigated!
Conservatives endlessly praise risk-taking by entrepreneurs and would give big tax cuts to those who are most successful. But if a small-business person is struggling, he shouldn't even think about applying for SCHIP.
Conservatives who want to repeal the estate tax on large fortunes have cited stories -- most of them don't check out -- about farmers having to sell their farms to pay inheritance taxes. But the implication of these attacks on the Frosts is that they are expected to sell their investment property to pay for health care. Why?
Oh, yes, and conservatives tell us how much they love homeownership, and then assail the Frosts for having the nerve to own a home. I suppose they should have to sell that, too.
Well, if the Frosts and the Wilkersons, who in different ways personify two of the staples of Family Values, then how is it that their espousal of S-CHIP bars them from passing Right Wing muster?
Well, if you're not saving the money for butter... maybe you want it for guns!
Let me leave you with one last tidbit from Wikipedia:
Insurance companies use the term "adverse selection" to describe the tendency for only those who will benefit from insurance to buy it. Specifically when talking about health insurance, unhealthy people are more likely to purchase health insurance because they anticipate large medical bills. On the other side, people who consider themselves to be reasonably healthy may decide that medical insurance is an unnecessary expense; if they see the doctor once a year and it costs $250, that's much better than making monthly insurance payments of $400 (example figures). The fundamental concept of insurance is that it balances costs across a large, random sample of individuals (see risk pool). For instance, an insurance company has a pool of 1000 randomly selected subscribers, each paying $100 per month. One person becomes very ill while the others stay healthy, allowing the insurance company to use the money paid by the healthy people to pay for the treatment costs of the sick person. Adverse selection upsets this balance between healthy and sick subscribers by leaving an insurance company with primarily sick subscribers and no way to balance out the cost of their medical expenses with a large number of healthy subscribers. Because of adverse selection, insurance companies use a patient's medical history to screen out persons with pre-existing medical conditions. Before buying health insurance, a person typically fills out a comprehensive medical history form that asks whether the person smokes, how much the person weighs, whether the person has been treated for any of a long list of diseases and so on. In general, those who present a large financial burdens are denied coverage or charged high premiums to compensate.[5] One large U.S. industry survey found that roughly 13 percent of applicants for comprehensive, individually purchased health insurance that go through the medical underwriting process were denied coverage. Declination rates increased significantly with age, rising from 5 percent for individuals 18 and under to just under a third for individuals aged 60 to 64.[6] On the other side, applicants can get discounts if they do not smoke and are healthy.[7] Starting in 1976, some states started providing guaranteed-issuance risk pools, which enable individuals who are medically uninsurable through private health insurance to purchase a state-sponsored health insurance plan, usually at higher cost. Minnesota was the first to offer such a plan; 34 states now offer them. Plans vary greatly from state to state, both in their costs and benefits to consumers and to their methods of funding and operations. They serve a very small portion of the uninsurable market — about 182,000 people in the U.S. as of 2004,[8] but in best cases allow people with pre-existing conditions such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease or other chronic illnesses to be able to switch jobs or seek self-employment without fear of being without health care benefits.[9] Efforts to pass a national pool have as yet been unsuccessful, but some federal tax money has been awarded to states to innovate and improve their plans.
aggravated
pissed off
