We are asking Ellen DeGeneres, Christie Brinkley and other high-profile celebrities who are associated with Komen to demand that no more money raised for cancer treatment be given to Hadassah Lieberman or any other ex-Pharma/Insurance strategists.
Firedoglake blog founder Jane Hamsher • On her group’s push to convince the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation to drop Hadassah Lieberman as a spokesperson. (The push has celebrity support, by the way.) Lieberman, whose husband Joe is the 60th vote on health care and appears to be stonewalling the effort, has been a consultant for companies such as Pfizer and ALCO – companies, ironically, that might not benefit from the passage of a health care bill. source
They knew they had a very big [public relations] problem, and they knew this day was coming. They knew they had to be perceived as coming to the table with solutions. It was a departure from their previous point of view. But they knew they would be slaughtered if it weren’t.
Former Cigna Corp. public relations executive Wendell Potter • Describing the change in tactics that the health care industry has tried to help shape the health care bill in such a way that keeps them in the mix. Many are surprised that the health care industry hasn’t gotten the snot beaten out of it by congress, but the reason is that they’ve been working extra hard to make universal health care something that keeps them in the mix. So yeah, greeeeaaaaaat. • source
We can open up our health insurance markets to real competition and make an important contribution to the health reform efforts under way in both houses of Congress.
Democratic Congressman John Conyers • On the House Judiciary Committee’s decision to strip health insurers of their antitrust exemption. This is a BIG DEAL, because it means that big insurers can’t collude or price fix or do willy-nilly like they’ve been doing in the past. It means that the insurers will be subject to state AND federal regulation. They’ve had their antitrust exemption since 1945, which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid calls “antiquated” and “an accident of American history.” The legislation will be included as part of the broader health-care legislation. • source
“Chicago-style”? On Fox News, Bush-era White House strategist Karl Rove suggests that the Obama administration is carrying around an enemies list and is full of Chicago-style politicians. Is that kinda like Chicago-style pizza, Karl? That sounds tasty.
Axelrod’s grinding axWhite House strategist David Axelrod continues Anita Dunn’s strategy of trashing on the news value of Fox News. We think that this strategy has a lot of holes in it. And it’s making Rupert Murdoch more money.
Insuring criticismRepublican senator John Kyl may regret saying this. When tackling the Afghan war versus the cost of health care on “Meet the Press,” he says that the uninsured won’t die from the lack of insurance. Yeah man, whatever.
How does Shep stay on Fox News? Really? He’s like the worst fit for the network, ever. He doesn’t fit in with any of the right-leaning line, and he knows what he’s talking about in this video. He does more to devastate the arguments against a public option (and big insurers in general) in this video than Democrats fighting tooth and nail for it for six months.
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$880 billionthe estimated cost of the health-reform bill pushed by Sen. Max Baucus, which concedes a lot of things to the GOP to help gain bipartisan support
four millionuninsured people – out of 46 million overall – may need to pay 13% of their income for insurance under the Baucus plan; Democrats may not like this at all source