Tag Archives: health care reform

Posing as a reporter from a Canadian television station, comedian Mary Walsh punked Sarah Palin during a book signing, getting Palin to tell her that Canada needs to return to a U.S.-style system of health care. Walsh is the co-creator and star of This Hour Has 22 Minutes — a nightly news parody show in the same vein as The …

The Democratic National Committee has just posted this health care reform clip on President Obama’s official YouTube channel. I like that it spins the GOP’s own “think of the children!” meme right back at them.

The New York Times reports that 42 members of the House read health care reform statements into the official record that were ghostwritten by lobbyists from pharmaceutical giant Genentech. E-mail messages obtained by The New York Times show that the lobbyists drafted one statement for Democrats and another for Republicans. The lobbyists, employed by Genentech and by two Washington law …

After all the screaming about “Obamacare” paying to kill babies comes the news that the Republican National Committee’s employee health plan covered abortions. For the last 18 years.

“Think of how much constructively such money could have been spent on public health issues such as improved sanitation, immunizations, and other more worthwhile programs instead of promoting immoral and self-destructive behavior through needle exchanges and widespread condom distribution. The money invested on AIDS research could be returned to taxpayers or transferred to more worthwhile areas of public health research …

Rep. Joseph Cao (R-LA) defends his lone GOP vote on the health care bill as critical to the residents of his district, many of whom remain impoverished years after Hurricane Katrina. Cao says he has no plans to switch parties and that his vote was not a “backroom deal” with Obama to maintain FEMA funds to his district, as right-wingers …

After his lone GOP “yes” vote on the U.S. House’s health care reform bill helped its approval by only a two vote margin yesterday, right wing sites such as Free Republic and others have already launched a campaign against Rep. Joseph Cao (R-LA), branding him a “traitor” and calling for his deportation back to Vietnam, among other unrepeatable things. Cao …

Late last night the U.S. House narrowly approved its version of the health care reform bill by a vote of 220-215. Only one Republican, first termer Rep. Joseph Cao (LA), voted yes and 39 Democrats voted no. Roll call here. A triumphant Speaker Nancy Pelosi likened the legislation to the passage of Social Security in 1935 and Medicare 30 years …

“Mattie believes in freedom! She says, ‘If you want health care, pay for it yourself!'” Sickening grandstanding from the GOP.

It was a cavalcade of crazy on the steps on the U.S. Capitol yesterday as Rep. Michelle Bachmann led her fellow mental patients through the usual storm of “patriotic” talking points, including a botched reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance and a reference to the Preamble to the Constitution – which does not contain the quoted words, “We hold these …

The Christian Broadcast Network devoted the first ten minutes of this morning’s show to yesterday’s LGBT rights battles in Maine and Washington state, with one George Costanza lookalike warning that the vote in Maine should serve as notice to legislators that other silly liberal ideas such as health care reform will not be tolerated. (Via – Good As You)

Think Progress reports: Few Republican congressional members have served as a greater fount for hyperbolic and uninformed ranting about health care reform as has Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC). As ThinkProgress previously documented, Foxx has claimed Democratic reforms would mean seniors are “put to death by their government,” that health reform is a “distraction,” and that “there are no Americans who …

Today Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) said that health care reform could mean the end of America’s two-party system, because everybody will come to depend on Democrats to stay alive. Or something. Hatch asserted that the health bills, which he believes represent a “step-by-step approach to socialized medicine,” will lead to Americans’ dependence on Democrats for their health and other issues. …

Fellow blogger Mike Rogers wrote me this morning to request I help publicize the response to right wing attacks against Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL), who has been targeted because of his now-famous speech on the House floor claiming that the Republican health care strategy is for Americans to “die quickly.” The GOP is especially seething over this Grayson quote about …

Via Think Progress: This week, radical anti-choice activist and Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry launched a contest encouraging people to make videos burning House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) in effigy. Today, he and his followers are on Capitol Hill “with signs and costumes, talking to House Staffers as they enter work,” and they …

Follow the bouncing ball as insurance stocks rollercoastered yesterday on the news that Sen. Joe Lieberman would filibuster against a public option.