Tag Archives: single-payer

Staking out This Week this morning: TWS talks to Feingold

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My friend Sam Husseini’s project, The Washington Stakeout, was at the studios of ABC’s This Week this morning. The guests were Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and Senator Russ Feingold.

I collaborate with Husseini, providing technical support, and I also watch the shows. This morning I noticed that Clinton repeated a myth about the start of the Afghan war that the Institute for Public Accuracy, where Sam is the communications director, called-out in a press release earlier this week.

The appearance of both Clinton and Gates was pre-taped earlier in the week, otherwise I’m sure Sam would have tried to question her on it if she stopped for the press gaggle.

Sam did have some interaction with Senator Feingold which is now posted at The Washington Stakeout.

Husseini asked Feingold about the legitimacy of the Afghanistan war, Israel’s nuclear weapons (of which official acknowledgment might catalyze a different calculus in the US’s non-proliferation actions with regards to Iran, India, as well as, of course, Israel), and, in essence, how much due diligence was actually done in exploring the feasibility of Single Payer health care.

Doctors jailed for outbursts as Democrats steer to the right

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The New York Times reports “Schumer offers middle ground on health care.”

How could this be?

The article describes Schumer offering a limit to the proposed public national health insurance plan so that it can’t compete with private health insurance companies to the best of its ability. The effort for national health insurance is ostensibly beneficial because it could compete with private insurance plans, but would still be an insurance effort that wouldn’t promise complete coverage. Senator Schumer’s idea is not a “middle ground,” it is a move to defend an industry most are discontent with. It is a further push right of an already compromised position from the point of view of public interest.

Today doctors with PNHP and other activists were arrested in a coordinated protest that disrupted the start of a Senate Finance Committee hearing that further demonstrated the degree to which serious consideration of single-payer health care has been and is being avoided by politicians. Democratic Senator and Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus both declared “we need more police” and that he respected the views of all Americans — but apparently not enough to include the options quite possibly preferred by a majority of them in his committee hearing. Senator Schumer also sits on this committee.

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