(photo WT)

McCain's economic adviser makes Obama's case for him and against McCain's bogus 5000 dollar tax credit as his health care plan.

Younger, healthier workers likely wouldn't abandon their company-sponsored plans, said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain's senior economic policy adviser.

"Why would they leave?" said Holtz-Eakin. "What they are getting from their employer is way better than what they could get with the credit."

dday elaborates on it...

One day after proclaiming on Meet the Press that he and George W. Bush share a common philosophy, John McCain took to a stage in Cleveland Monday to attack the President's economic policies. As it turns out, of course, when it comes to ideology and policy on the economy, John McCain and George W. Bush are virtually indistinguishable.

The feebleness of McCain's effort to distance himself from Bush was revealed in its brevity. Despite the AP's headline that "McCain says Bush policy on economy is wrong," McCain's critique was limited to a single sentence. And in those nine words and the attack on Barack Obama that followed, John McCain wasn't telling the truth:

"This is the fundamental difference between Senator Obama and me. We both disagree with President Bush on economic policy. The difference is that he thinks taxes have been too low, and I think that spending has been too high."

Leaving aside for the moment his dissembling on the Obama tax plan (which the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center concluded would offer larger tax cuts to Americans at every income level below $112,000), McCain simply lied about parting company with George W. Bush.

A quick glance at their shared approach to tax cuts, the deficit and health care confirms that George W. Bush and John McCain are joined at the hip.

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Download | Play    Download | Play(h/t Heather)

I thought this was a powerful moment in the debate for Obama. When a candidate can get personal about an issue it always rings true and in this case Obama draws on the the horrible experience his own mom had to endure during her final days fighting cancer and the insurance company. I'm still trying to figure out what Lisa Schiffren of the NRO was complaining about.

CNN:

Brokaw: Privilege, right or responsibility. Let's start with that.

Obama: Well, I think it should be a right for every American. In a country as wealthy as ours, for us to have people who are going bankrupt because they can't pay their medical bills -- for my mother to die of cancer at the age of 53 and have to spend the last months of her life in the hospital room arguing with insurance companies because they're saying that this may be a pre-existing condition and they don't have to pay her treatment, there's something fundamentally wrong about that.

So let me -- let me just talk about this fundamental difference. And, Tom, I know that we're under time constraints, but Sen. McCain through a lot of stuff out there.

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The Obama campaign has already released an ad using footage from last night's VP debate and they've scored another direct hit.

The ad targets Sarah Palin from last night's debate as she proudly announced John McCain's disastrous health care plan that allows a $5000 tax credit for Americans to purchase health care -- and then strikes right back with Joe Biden's brilliant response, reminding people that in order to offset the credit McCain's plan would tax American's health insurance premiums for the first time in American history. The ULTIMATE bridge to nowhere.  Brilliant! (h/t Jamie)

Barack Obama responds to McCain's call for deregulation of the health care industry just as he dd for the banks. Can you imagine if that happens?

Obama: He calls himself "fundamentally a deregulator," when reckless deregulation and lack of oversight is a big part of the problem. And here's the really scary part. Now this "Great Deregulator" wants to turn his attention to health care.

He wrote in the current issue of a magazine - the current issue - that we need to open up health care to - quote - "more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking." That's right, John McCain says he wants to do for health care what Washington has done for r banking. Think about what that means.

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Obama: The news of the day isn't good. The era of greed and irresponsibility on Wall Street and in Washington has led us to a perilous moment. They said they wanted to let the market run free but instead they let it run wild. And now we are facing a financial crisis as profound as any we have faced since the Great Depression. But here's the truth:

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  This week, Americans were introduced to Wrong-Way McCain. To be sure, it's the same John McCain ("McSame") who would continue the policies of George W. Bush that 80% of Americans believe have put the country on the wrong track. It's also the same "Jukebox John" who has changed his tune 61 times on issues foreign and domestic, including a dizzying 10 times in two weeks back in June. But as he showed repeatedly over the past several days, Wrong-Way McCain is also the Republican presidential nominee who simply can't keep his stories straight.

Whether the result of crass political opportunism, transparent deceit or just plain confusion, on at least 7 occasions this week alone, Wrong Way McCain couldn't remember what he stood for, if anything at all.

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In another sign of the media's sheepish acceptance of the Barack Obama "elitist" story line, the New York Times on Tuesday described the Illinois Senator as "tagged as elitist." But just as disturbing as the Republicans' apparent success in establishing the "out of touch" narrative as a fixture in campaign coverage is John McCain's seeming inoculation from it.

After all, John McCain isn't merely fabulously well off, courtesy of his wife Cindy's $100 million beer distribution fortune. At almost every turn, the Republican presidential nominee has shown almost a total ignorance of – or yawning disinterest in – the real lives of American voters. From the growing financial hardships of the economic slowdown and the foreclosure crisis to the disintegrating American health care system and the dangers U.S. troops face on the streets on Baghdad, it is John McCain who is truly "out of touch." Yet voters and pundits alike agree that the supposed maverick is treated with kid gloves by the press, an elitist masquerading as a man of the people.

Here, then, are John McCain's Top 10 "Out-of-Touch" Moments:

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Hillary Clinton doesn't bite when BillO tries to bully her into admitting that her health care plan would "bankrupt the country."  In fact, she quickly shuts down his straw man argument and schools him on why providing quality health care to all Americans is a moral issue while explaining clearly how she intends to pay for it.

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"If we don't [pass universal health care], we'll meet here again in five or ten years, we'll have more uninsured people, the prices will have continued to go up because we will not have put into place the safeguards and the accountability that our health care system needs." 

John Amato: BillO tries to use the age old "socialism" conservative talking point when describing any form of universal health care, but that doesn't hold up to the realities of everyday life in our country because people are struggling just to fill up their gas tanks let alone trying to carry incredibly high health care insurance costs for their families. And the idiotic tax break proposed by John McCain will have zero impact on the problem.

It used to amaze me when I went to my old doctor. Every time I sat in the waiting room you would see all these sharp dressed sales reps come in from different drug companies. Once you got back to the exam room, the walls would be plastered with posters from drug companies, as well as pictures, little models of different parts of the anatomy and anything else you can think of. All the mugs would be from a drug company and even the office supplies would bear their names. All the sudden I would get a prescription and it would be for the same drug that is engraved on the side of the pen the doctor was writing the script with.

That was about four years ago and also the reason I switched doctors. I now go to a doctor who doesn't have all these little trinkets given to her. She doesn’t have sales reps coming in and out offering free meals or vacations - sales reps that leave me sitting in the waiting room feeling horrible why they tie up my doctor with their sales pitch. She is there to practice medicine, not auction off her remedies.

Well it now looks like one health provider has realized this conflict of interest and is taking action :

When a Duluth-based operator of hospitals and clinics purged the pens, notepads, coffee mugs and other promotional trinkets drug companies had given its doctors over the years, it took 20 shopping carts to haul the loot away.

The operator, SMDC Health System, intends to ship the 18,718 items to the west African nation of Cameroon.

The purge underscored SMDC's decision to join the growing movement to ban gifts to doctors from drug companies.

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I saw this a few days ago, but I'm still trying to rest during the holiday....Atrios:

California health insurers have a duty to check the accuracy of applications for coverage before issuing policies -- and should not wait until patients run up big medical bills, a state appeals court ruled Monday.

The court also said insurers could not cancel a medical policy unless they showed that the policyholder willfully misrepresented his health or that the company had investigated the application before it issued coverage.

"These facts raise the specter that Blue Shield does not immediately rescind health care contracts upon learning of potential grounds for rescission, but waits until after the claims submitted under that contract exceed the monthly premiums being collected," the court wrote.

A health plan, the court went on, "may not adopt a 'wait and see' attitude after learning of facts justifying rescission." The court said companies could not continue to "collect premiums while keeping open its rescission option if the subscriber later experiences a serious accident or illness that generates large medical expenses."...read on

The courts have caught on to their con game and it's starting to unravel...

 Many C&Lers have followed the horrifying story of Nataline Sarkisyan. She was denied a liver transplant by health care giant CIGNA because they called it "experimental."  

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 CIGNA has ignored this medical decision and calls the transplant “experimental” as justification for denying the treatment. CIGNA’s refusal of Nataline’s liver transplant—overruling the urgent appeals of an array of doctors and nurses—is indicative of the failures of the new healthcare plan sponsored by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Fabian Nunez.  That plan, which is actively supported by CIGNA, requires every single Californian to purchase insurance products from companies like CIGNA, but does not address the problem of denial of care evident in this situation.

After a protest led by the California Nurses Association along with family and friends turned the heat up on CIGNA, they finally approved the life saving procedure, but...

In a stunning turn around, insurance giant CIGNA has capitulated to community demands, and protests that the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee helped to generate, and agreed to a critically needed liver transplant for Nataline Sarkisyan, a 17-year-old girl in the intensive care unit at UCLA Medical Center... 

...they acted too late and she died. 

The California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee today blasted insurance giant CIGNA for failing to approve a liver transplant one week earlier for listen to 17-year-old Nataline Sarkisyan, who tragically died last night just hours after CIGNA relented and agreed to the procedure following a massive national outcry.

An editorial by the Houston Chronical called CIGNA's decision to deny the teen a liver transplant until it was too late "Heartless."

As California and the nation debate how to institute universal health insurance coverage for citizens, the Sarkisyan case indicates that more must be done than simply covering everyone with a policy. All too frequently, insurance company bureaucrats are making medical judgments that should be left in the hands of a patient's physician...

If the staff at the UCLA transplant unit approved Nataline's procedure, that should have been the end of the discussion. For universal health coverage to be meaningful, such decisions must be taken out of the hands of insurance adjustors and placed with an impartial arbiter whose interest is the welfare of the patient rather than a corporation's balance sheet.

Will the tragedy that struck Nataline Sarkisyan and her family because health care giant CIGNA initially refused a life saving medical treatment become an important story for the voters in Iowa as they begin the process that will determine which candidate will represent each party in the upcoming Presidential election?

Republican voters may face the same situation as the Sarkisyan's. The CIGNA's of the world could care less if a family filled out a GOP loyalty oath or did the Pledge of allegiance to President Bush...

 Here's her brother's plea for help. CIGNA heard the outcry loud and clear, but waited too long. I hope some good can come out of this tragedy...And as Steve says: Sometimes, the national healthcare scandal isn’t limited to those without insurance; sometimes it’s equally outrageous what happens to those with insurance: 

Attorney Mark Geragos said he plans to ask the district attorney to press murder or manslaughter charges against Cigna HealthCare in the case. The insurer “maliciously killed her” because it did not want to bear the expense of her transplant and aftercare, Geragos said.

All Spin Zone:

It’s all about risk management. Keep this in mind as you read further — because you are a risk, not a client — to your healthcare, life, auto, and homeowners insurance providers...In other words, a bean counter at Cigna made the decision that since they had already shelled out a lot of cash for the bone marrow and kidney transplant, that the cost of a liver transplant and followup care was just too high...read on

We posted this story yesterday with an update to the heartbreaking result. While battling CIGNA for a new liver, her family and friends fought and protested until CIGNA finally gave in, but it was too late---the seventeen-year-old Nataline Sarkisyan died.

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ABC has the video of the story as it unfolded. And the only mention of health care that we get from the GOP presidential candidates is to use the word "socialized" medicine, as if it's something scary. What's scary is what happened to Nataline. I'm sure her family is so very happy we don't have socialized medicine today. Let's see some Iowa residents bring this case up to Huck, Rudy/McC and Williard. They had a liver for her last week. We know the media is incapable of doing some basic reporting.

Check out guaranteedhealthcare...CNS released this statement:

The California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee today blasted insurance giant CIGNA for failing to approve a liver transplant one week earlier for listen to 17-year-old Nataline Sarkisyan, who tragically died last night just hours after CIGNA relented and agreed to the procedure following a massive national outcry.

On Dec. 11, four leading physicians, including the surgical director of the Pediatric Liver Transplant Program at UCLA, wrote to CIGNA urging the company to reverse its denial. The physicians said that Nataline “currently meets criteria to be listed as Status 1A” for a transplant. They also challenged CIGNA’s denial which the company said occurred because their benefit plan “does not cover experimental, investigational and unproven services,” to which the doctors replied, “Nataline’s case is in fact none of the above.”...read on

Today some righties are hyperventilating about a story in the Daily Mail — “Father delivered baby after partner was turned away from NHS hospital - TWICE.” A laboring woman in the UK was sent home because, she was told, there were no beds available in the hospital. Eventually her husband delivered the baby at home.

The British National Health Service has big problems that, as I understand it, stem less from the system itself than from massive underfunding of the system. Brits have been trying to get by on the cheap, and it shows. To illustrate, here is Figure One from the University of Maine’s “The U.S. Health Care System: The Best in the World, or Just the Most Expensive?” (PDF).

The figure shows spending for health care per capita in various nations, in 1998. I added “USA” and “UK.” In 1998, the U.S. was spending $4,178 per capita and the UK was spending $1,461 per capita. I understand that in recent years the Brits have been increasing their spending on NHS, but it takes a long time to make up for years of underfunding.

I bring this up because one cannot fairly compare the U.S. and U.K. systems without considering the funding issue. This does not, of course, stop righties from comparing them.

Click here for more.

Check out Howard Kurtz and his panel from Sunday's Reliable Sources (Time Magazine's Mark Halperin,  WaPo's Jonathan Capehart, and Townhall's Amanda Carpenter).  Why would you have a person from the right wing "Townhall" to explore the attacks on the Frost family from the right wingers? No balance there---read the transcript and notice how he never criticizes Malkin or the right even though Howard says he's against attacking a sick, 12 year old boy. And he always asks questions as they are framed by the right wing blogosphere.

KURTZ: But is it partisan, Mark, for criticism to be made and for the media to cover questions about the eligibility of the family or their financial circumstances when, after all, the Democrats did try to make Graeme Frost the poster boy for why we need an expansion of the program?

KURTZ: The consensus seems to be that the questions were fair, but certainly the tone can be mean-spirited in a lot of these controversies and it is really striking when a 12-year-old boy is involved.

Whose consensus, Mr. Kurtz? A bunch of right wing apologists for the Bush administration?  Those were false charges leveled at the Frost family and not simply questions about their eligibility. And what about their personal information being released? If he was appalled, it never seemed to raise his ire.

Then there's this from the WaPo:

Howard Kurtz: But every guest was offered the opportunity to weigh in. Was it fair to question a family's qualifications for the S-CHIP insurance program after Democrats had made the 12-year-old boy a symbol by having him deliver its weekly radio address? My feeling is yes; you can't say one party can trot out such a symbol and no one can criticize. I also recited instances in which I felt the criticism was misleading: yes, the kid attends a private school, but on scholarship. Yes, the dad owns a home but bought it for $55,000 in a rundown neighborhood in 1990. In short, I tried to put the debate into perspective.

There's a big difference between misleading criticism and vitriolic attacks which Kurtz is certainly trying his best to tone down.  The Frost family qualified for SCHIP under the existing parameters, so why should their eligibility be up for discussion?  He's just enabling the right wing's tactic of ad hominem attacks.  Yet, he was so utterly flabbergasted about some Cheney comments left on the Huffington Post, which he used Michelle Malkin as his source, the extremist right winger who was the driving force in the Frost story, but Howie refused to criticize.

This is really sick.

I know we're living in a polarized time. I know there are people who absolutely detest George Bush and Dick Cheney. I know they like to vent their spleen online, sometimes in vulgar terms, and hey, that's life in a democracy.

But some of the comments posted after a suicide bomber blew himself up at Afghanistan's Bagram Air Force Base, while Cheney was there--killing as many as 23 people--are nothing short of vile.

The comments appeared on the Huffington Post, which, to its credit, took them down. But some were preserved by Michelle Malkin, and I reproduce them here..

It goes on and on from there....And Howard, Michelle isn't really into you...

Kevin Drum was looking for some help in naming the practice of cherry-picking comments: COMMENT TRAWLING

A reader notes that the practice of trawling through open comment threads to find wackjobs who can be held up as evidence of "crazy liberals" is on the rise. Needless to say, this practice is almost self-discrediting: if the best evidence of wackjobism you can find is a few anonymous nutballs commenting on a blog, then the particular brand of wackjobism you're complaining about must not be very widespread after all. So how can we mock this practice effectively enough to make people ashamed to indulge in it?

So the question is: can someone invent a catchy phrase to basically mean, cherry-picking crazy comments or emails? Or, if one of your readers could find the right way to turn it into a "law," then maybe it could become "X's Law" — a fitting prize for the winner.

I say we give the label to Howard. He certainly is outraged more by those nasty comments about Cheney that do no actual harm than the despicable attacks on and threats to Graeme Frost and his family. Let's possibly call it a Kurtz, The Kurtz Law, Kurtz's Law or Kurtzing. You can come up with a label of your own....Email Howard and ask him why he was so outraged by some anonymous comments left on the Huffington Post, but is playing it sooo cool over the smearing of Graeme Frost. Maybe someone can start a new Wikipedia page for him....