It’s somewhat disturbing to realize that even her press secretary was a raving ideologue. Were all the White House gardeners were also highly-trained ninjas?

I’m sure that’s true , Ruthie. So let fucking Obamco start trying to simplify it (they’re not, as we both know) and start explaining it to the voters. No one said it was easy,

Uhm, problem with letting Obamco and friends explain it is that it keeps sounding suspiciously like the healthcare equivalent of Ted Stevens trying to explain how those liberal blogging “dump trucks” clog up the “Internets.”

Lou Nanne: Beat the best team in the world?… Pretty lofty goal, Herb.
Herb Brooks: Well, Lou, that’s why I want to pursue it.

His speech on health care was a fucking speech – image building, like his “support” for cramdown and then – fucking crickets. But – he’s a radical who “tried” for us and sorry, it just didn’t work. We’ll be selling pencils and wormy apples when he’s the president of Harvard or the Ford Foundation. Sorry, fuck Obama.

http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore…../07… – Similar pages

Yeah, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar; and sometimes most of the time, a political speech is just the usual load of crap. And Obama probably will retire to some cushy position like president of Harvard–if not head of his own effin’ think tank that rakes in shitloads of money from 527s who HAVE to donate a certain portion of their income to other non-profits.

But you don’t realize how difficult it is to undo our current system of healthcare until you understand ERISA. Suffice it to say it’s a subject based on entrenched adminsitrative and equity law, that most attorneys don’t like to think about. It’s also also an area of law that was developed entirely by Congress–allegedly to protect workers’ rights in their pensions/benefits. In developing the law, Congress intended to dominate the field with regard to most healthcare and benefits issues–which means they also legislated the enforcement scheme. Since it’s an equity issue, this means plaintiffs are not entitled to jury trials, and receive no major damages awards–because equity only allows for injunction, declarative relief, specific performance, or restitution. Needless to say, insurers have learned to work this system to their advantage. And when the law seemed to be leaning toward the Plan Beneficiaries (–that would be us, the “little people”–) just a bit too often, liberal applications of money to the appropriate members of Congress usually guaranteed that the laws were revised to favor the insurers.

The most recent notable attempt to break from the federal pre-emption issue, which might allow some health care reform at the local and state level, as opposed to waiting for Congress to act, came with the Golden Gate Restaurant case referenced above.

It must be a terrible letdown to no longer be Laura Bush’s press secretary.