If we don't create competition for our bloated American Health Insurance Corporations (and a public option like Medicare for all would provide that necessary element), we will continue to see these large corporations manipulate their markets to raise rates for health care policies to levels that few if anyone can afford.

Example? Anthem Blue Cross, a subsidiary of WellPoint Incorporated, which raised rates on policies held by 800,000 people in California by from 30 to 39%, effective March 1st:

In a letter faxed to Anthem Blue Cross, US Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius called for the insurer to publicly explain why it raised premiums.

"With so many families already affected by rising costs, I was very disturbed to learn through media accounts that Anthem Blue Cross plans to raise premiums for its California customers by as much as 39 percent," or 15 times faster than inflation, Sebelius wrote.

The rate hikes were "even more difficult to understand" in the light of soaring profits at Anthem Blue Cross's parent company, WellPoint Incorporated, Sebelius said.

WellPoint earned 2.7 billion dollars in the last quarter of 2009, she said, calling on the insurance company to "provide a detailed justification" for the increase.

2.7 BILLION DOLLARS in profits for one quarter? That's getting close to real money, the kind Goldman Sachs steals from the US public generates. Wellpoint must need that extra money really badly. I mean consider its expenses: it paid its CEO $10 Million and spent $9.5 Million to lobby against health care reform. That money has got to come from somewhere, folks:

The AFL-CIO calls out Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, which has requested a rate hike of up to 30 percent in Connecticut, for example, while spending more than $9.5 million on lobbying activities.

Oh my! There's another Wellpoint company in Connecticut which hiked its health insurance rates 30%? It obviously doesn't pay to live in a state that starts with the letter C (or in which Wellpoint operates), unless you are a Wellpoint senior executive, that is. But give them this: Wellppoint is a very understanding company if its PR department does say so itself:

Many policyholders say the rate hikes are the largest they can remember, and they fear that subsequent premium growth will narrow their options -- leaving them to buy policies with higher deductibles and less coverage or putting health insurance out of reach altogether.

"I've never seen anything like this," said Mark Weiss, 63, a Century City podiatrist whose Anthem policy for himself and his wife will rise 35%. The couple's annual insurance bill will jump to $27,336 from $20,184.

"I think it's just unconscionable," said Weiss, a member of Blue Cross for 30 years.

Woodland Hills-based Anthem declined to say how many individual policyholders will be affected or what a typical increase will be under the new pricing, which will vary from one individual to another. But the company defended its premiums, even as it tried to strike a sympathetic tone.

"We understand and strongly share our members' concerns over the rising cost of healthcare services and the corresponding adverse impact on insurance premiums," the company said in a statement.

See, they care, Californians. Just not enough to stop raising the cost of your insurance to a level 15 times the rate of inflation.

Well, teabaggers, I hope you're happy now. You helped the insurance industry defeat even a very limited health care reform bill, one that did not include a public option which would have provided real competition in the marketplace for health insurance. You do know what competition is, right, being defenders of Capitalism and all? It's the prime ingredient for any market to self regulate. Without meaningful competition you end up with a country that pays on average twice the amount other developed nations pay for their health care.

Employer-sponsored health insurance premiums have more than doubled in the last 9 years, a rate 3 times faster than cumulative wage increases.

The United States spent approximately $2.2 trillion on health care in 2007, or $7,421 per person. This comes to 16.2% of GDP, nearly twice the average of other developed nations.

Health care costs doubled from 1996 to 2006, and are projected to rise to 25% of GDP in 2025 and 49% in 2082.

[Links to footnotes providing sources for this information is not provided in this excerpt. Please go to the website from which this excerpt is taken to find those sources]

And now you and the rest of us get to reap the reward for your efforts: higher prices to pay for the one thing that, next to food and shelter is a critical necessity for life in our times: health care coverage. I sure hope none of you have health insurance policies with a Wellpoint company. That might be poetic justice, but I don't wish ill on anyone, even those who consider progressives and liberals like myself to be their sworn enemies.

This is why every Democratic blogger in the known universe advises their readers not to donate to the DSCC, DCCC, or DNC, and only to donate directly to individual candidates. If I send money to the DSCC and they use that money to help Ben Nelson, then I've just effed myself in the a, have I not?

John Murtha has passed away from complications arising from his gall bladder surgery last week. He was a controversial congressman, but he served his country both as a serviceman and representative. He will long be remembered for his turn against the war in Iraq. My thoughts are with his family.

Maybe I am a poor judge of the mood of the electorate, but it seems to me that people are pissed off right now. And I don't think they are pissed off that those people living on Staten Island who make more than a quarter million dollars a year in gross income are paying too much in taxes. I don't think people are looking to the government to extend the tax cuts that the well-to-do received under President Bush. I know that the populist mood of the country is a bit inchoate and not necessarily logically consistent, but a common theme of anger is that we're running deficits that are too big. Since no one wants to pay for our government, it seems only natural that most people would support making people who make over $250,000 a year pay for it.

Yet, once again, we have a bunch of Democrats who don't want to change the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. They say it will be a tough sell. Maybe it will be, I don't know. However, I think most people want to see financial services workers drawn and quartered, not extended more tax breaks. Is it me, or is everyone in Washington friggin' crazy?

I like Steve Clemons even though he occupies a place in Washington that I distrust pretty deeply. Clemons is a progressive-minded fellow who successfully maintains relationships on both sides of the aisle and gets along well with some people like Grover Norquist who I have no respect for whatsoever. But, these are the kinds of things you have to do to have a place at the table on foreign policy issues. To have your voice mean something to our permanent establishment, you have to become part of it in some ways. Clemons's reward is not only influence, but access. I think there are some serious compromises that have to be made to play that game, but I understand those compromises and respect them. In any case, I wouldn't say that I read Clemons with a jaundiced eye, just with a certain detachment. I don't want to shake hands with people like Brent Scowcroft, James Baker, and Zbigniew Brzezinski because I see all three of them as causing America to make some pretty disastrous foreign policy blunders that we're still paying for. I think they all share a fatally flawed view of American power and its proper role in the post-Cold War world. It's true that they aren't neo-conservatives, but they're not terribly different in the larger picture. Yet, they do represent a kind of center-right position when you compare them to loonies like John McCain, Joe Lieberman, and Lindsey Graham. And if you want any kind of bipartisan agreement on foreign policy...if you want any kind of cover from the right for tough decisions...these are folks you need to respect and cultivate. I get that.

On the other hand, Clemons's decision to sign-on with Richard Luce's Financial Times (subscription required) criticism of Obama's inner sanctum on Chicago advisers strikes me just a tad too Sally Quninish for my tastes. It wouldn't be so hard to take the criticism if the solution wasn't to listen more to Katrina vanden Heuvel, Arianna Huffington, and Fareed Zakaria. Not to be a rube, but Obama isn't going to benefit from listening to those creatures of Washington so much as he'd benefit from listening to his Secret Service detail, or the White House pastry chefs and florists. He should spend a little time (not too much) reading political commentary from people who live outside the beltway and have no pretensions to power. That's the beauty of the internet. The opinion gatekeepers are long gone.

It may be that Obama's closest advisers (Axelrod, Jarrett, Emanuel, and Gibbs) are mucking things up. Maybe they are better at campaigning than governing. Maybe they have too much influence. That's a conversation I'm willing to have. But the solution ain't to listen to more Washingtonian old-hands. Old hands are invaluable for some things and can be of some assistance in helping you figure out how to strategize getting stuff through Congress. You can't come to Washington without massaging some of the egos around town because you'll pay a price that hurts your agenda and the people who are depending on your help. But you can take it too far. I'm happier having some new blood in the president's inner circle. If there's a problem with Emanuel it wouldn't surprise me. He's not new blood. He's there because he is supposed to know how to get things done. And he didn't do it on health care. I just don't know how much he is to blame for that. I do know that almost no one seems to like the guy and the long knives have been out for him since the day he took the job.

I can't say that I know where this is going, but its got the wingnuts in a tizzy, so it has that going for it. Obama is going to hold a bipartisan, bicameral health care meeting at Blair House on February 25th. It's supposed to last half the day and be broadcast on CSPAN. Here is how Obama explained it to Katie Couric:

“I want to come back [after the Presidents Day congressional recess] and have a large meeting — Republicans and Democrats — to go through, systematically, all the best ideas that are out there and move it forward,” Obama said in an interview with Katie Couric during CBS’s Super Bowl pre-game show Sunday.

Obama said he wants to “look at the Republican ideas that are out there.”

“If we can go, step by step, through a series of these issues and arrive at some agreements, then, procedurally, there’s no reason why we can’t do it a lot faster the process took last year,” he said.

That basically tracks what he said at the DNC.

“Let's just go through these bills — their ideas, our ideas — let's walk through them in a methodical way so that the American people can see and compare what makes the most sense,” Obama said.

Here's why this is important. Listen to what Minority Leader John Boehner has to say:

"Obviously, I am pleased that the White House finally seems interested in a real, bipartisan conversation on health care,” said House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-Oh.) in a statement Sunday. He added: “The problem with the Democrats' health care bills is not that the American people don't understand them; the American people do understand them, and they don't like them.”

Actually, Boehner is dead wrong. The American people have been subjected to an unrelenting misinformation campaign without a fair referee.. Almost everything the Republicans say about the health care bills is wrong, and the rest is distorted. Making the Republicans sit down in a room with independent budget experts and health care experts and accept the facts that they've been lying and that they have no alternative plan, and doing it on television in order to keep a campaign pledge to negotiate on CSPAN? Well, for those who watch it (hopefully, it will be broadcast on cable news as well) it will probably be a slaughter in the president's favor, which is why this strange little man has the following advice for the Republicans:

Republicans would be crazy to rise to this bait. A big photo-op for Obama with zero chance for any meaningful changes to a bill that steals liberty from American citizens. Kill the bill(s) and start over from scratch.

Do not walk into this, Republicans. Standing strong against this abomination has worked so far and the American public is grateful. (Need proof? Look to Massachusetts, Virginia and New Jersey.)

You really do not want to follow George Armstrong Obama to the place he is leading his cavalry. This is really shaping up to be a throw the bums out election.

Bad time to join the bums.

You can see the concern. Supposedly, this is a terrible idea on Obama's part (an auto-de-fe, he calls it). But then he warns the Republicans not to let the president get a giant photo op where he'll make no concessions. The bottom line? The Republicans thought they had this health care bill whipped when they won the Massachusetts election and now they're getting nervous that the president is going to pull some kind of stunt at the last minute and save the day for the Democrats. Well, I hope so, too, but I don't write confusing posts about Little Big Horn and inviting the Republicans to join in the slaughter.

Now, as far as I am concerned, the virtue of this plan is that it will do a lot to expose the Republicans for what they are. But it won't convince any of them to vote for any health care bill of any kind. As far as I'm concerned, Rep. Joseph Cao and Sen. Olympia Snowe were the only Republican members of Congress who ever considered voting for a health bill, and Snowe's probably out of reach now. The problem is still Democrats who are looking at bleak re-elect numbers. They're spineless and stupid, and some are just corporate shills. So, this meeting has to address that problem more than it has to do anything else. I like the idea, even if the Republicans think discussing health care on teevee is a way to bore us to death.

These things are supposed to have funny ads.

I'm not sure why Kevin Drum is neutral on a sugared beverage-tax. I like to drink soda that has cane sugar in it every once in a while, but I've done my best to completely eliminate high fructose corn syrup from my diet. You should do the same. And diet sodas are just as nasty. Our society pays an enormous price in health-related costs due to the omnipresence of high fructose corn syrup in our diets. It's on a par with tobacco use, and we have no problem forcing smokers to subsidize everything from our health, to our roads, schools, and property taxes. Why should users of high fructose corn syrup get a break?

Peyton Manning is a very, very good quarterback. But he hasn't come close to proving himself the best quarterback ever. He hasn't even proved himself to be better than his contemporary, Tom Brady. Brady had an off season after losing the prior season to injury. But, Brady's resume is much more impressive than Manning's.

He has played in four Super Bowls, winning three of them (XXXVI, XXXVIII, XXXIX). He has also won two Super Bowl MVP awards (XXXVI and XXXVIII), has been selected to five Pro Bowls (and invited to six, although he declined the 2006 invitation), and holds the NFL record for most touchdown passes in a single regular season. Brady has the sixth-highest career passer rating of all time (93.3) among quarterbacks with at least 1,500 career passing attempts. He was named Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the Year in 2005. He also helped set the record for the longest consecutive win streak in NFL history with 21 straight wins over two seasons (2003-04).

Manning has won four Most Valuable Player awards and was the MVP of the one Super Bowl he has been to before today. His stats are incredible. But the test of a quarterback is in the playoffs. The Colts have won at least 12 games every year since 2003, but this is only their second Super Bowl appearance. Two of those years, it was Tom Brady's Patriots that knocked the Colts out of the playoffs.

In my opinion, Joe Montana is the greatest quarterback to ever play the game, followed by Tom Brady and John Elway. For Manning to move up the list, he must win today, and then win at least one more Super Bowl.

And Drew Brees ain't chopped liver. That boy can play.

"The tea party movement is dead. The one I was familiar with anyway. Judson Phillips held it down and Sarah Palin drove a stake right through its heart live last night on C-Span in front of an unsuspecting audience." - Kleinheider at the Nashville Post.

I knew I should have gone to that damn Teabagging Convention. Just standing around in the halls talking to those nutters would have been high comic relief. I could have even called myself a journalist and compared notes. But, seriously, it's belly-achingly funny to picture Andrew Breitbert and WorldNetDaily Editor-in-Chief Joseph Farah having a public argument about who is and isn't a real journalist. It's also hilarious that the subject of contention was whether the Obama birth certificate issue is divisive to the nascent Tea Bagging Party. And the guy arguing that Birtherism is dumb is the guy who brought you the ACORN-steals-elections nonsense.

Hey, their bullshit is effective in its own way. But to argue that any of it is true, or journalism? Yeah, it makes me giggle.

By the way, how'd Palin do? I was too busy watching real hypnomedia. That shit is hilarious. And I say that as a non-Guido Jersey Boy.

What do you want? It's a snow-day.

Finn's thoughts on the snow:

How are things at your house?

Hard to believe that a renowned conservative journal would suggest that the Obama administration didn't spend enough to stimulate the economy and create new jobs, but that's what this article from The Economist seems to be saying about our jobless recovery:

Most troubling of all is the continued failure of economic growth to benefit the labour market. Employment fell by over 300,000 jobs during the last three months of 2009, despite strong expansion in GDP. The first quarter of 2010 is unlikely to show as big an output gain, suggesting that the pace of improvement in employment may be slowing, even as regular job growth has yet to return. And the situation may be more dire still; initial jobless claims have grown in recent weeks, indicating that what momentum there was in labour markets has been lost. [...]

[W]ith the revelation that labour markets early last year were far weaker than expected and the growing indications that the recovery will be jobless, the country's leaders may be wishing they had done more to boost the economy sooner. The longer it takes to achieve steady job creation, the more uncertain recovery will become.

Well, I suppose Real Conservatives will claim The Economist was never a "real" conservative journal, just like they claimed that Bush hadn't been a "real" conservative, too. Denial is so easy to do when the alternative is admitting that maybe you were wrong --about everything.

You might have heard, but there is about two feet of snow on the ground here. Luckily, we have a very kind neighbor who plows our long driveway whenever it snows. He's been by twice. However, there is still the walkway to deal with. Just looking at it is giving me a pain in the back. I get back spasms at the drop of a hat, and shoveling this is going to cripple me for a day or two. I hope we have plenty of Tylenol in the cabinet. The band of heavy snow has moved out of my area but it is still hammering Wilmington, Delaware, which is about 15-20 miles south of here.

We still have electricity, although there will be high winds for a while and it only takes one branch to knock us out. If we do lose it, it could be several days before we get it back, so we'd have to seek alternative shelter. Wish us luck.