Howard Dean Explains How To Talk About Health Care Reform-- And How To Try To Influence Reactionary Democrats Like Blanche Lincoln Who Oppose Reform

A few years ago I didn't know much about the health insurance industry or the Medical-Industrial Complex. I pay my premiums and try to stay healthy by eating well, swimming and hiking everyday, and staying as far from doctors as I can. But then a doctor called up and asked if he could come over to my house and talk about health care with me. I invited him for breakfast. I prepared fresh fruit shakes and papayas stuffed with blueberries, pecans and ground up flax seeds. While we ate he opened my mind to the scam that is the insurance industry. At that moment I decided to back his candidacy for the presidency. I believe if he were president today we would be on our way to a single-paying health care system and then excision of for-profit insurance companies from the health care system, to which they contribute absolutely nothing but out of which they suck billions of dollars annually.

This morning that doctor, Howard Dean, spoke at the Netroots Nations convention in Pittsburgh and explained why he supports Obama's health care efforts and what the rest of us can do to try to salvage the health care reform bill. He seems a lot more optimistic about this than I am. He does mention, though, a list of Democratic senators not supporting health care reform. Although the list is incomplete-- Blanche Lincoln, a health care reform foe, isn't on it because she made some amorphous statement about supporting it under threat of exposure-- here are the names (with their donations from Big Insurance added in; Blanche has gotten $495,283):

Senator Tom Carper (D-DE)- $465,944

Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA)- $82,250

Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR)- $246,223

Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL)- $534,746

Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE)- $1,231,299

Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA)- $404,731

Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND)- $828,787

Senator Max Baucus (D-MT)- $1,190,463

Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)- $369,490

Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN)- $602,752

Senator Mark Pryor (D-AR)- $206,690

Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT)- $1,033,402

Senator Mark Warner (D-VA)- $213,800

Here's the video of Dr. Dean speaking today:



If you don't want to call Blanche Lincoln up and argue with her staffer about health care, here's an even better way to get her to stop obstructing the president.