How Joe Wilson's Outburst Was Planned: SNL

While "Saturday Night Live" is a scripted comedy show, some have theorized that Rep. Joe Wilson's (R-SC) "You Lie" outburst during Barack Obama's address on health insurance reform last week was scripted as well. After all, the full text of the speech was known long before the actual event.

SNL took on that theory on last night's premiere of their spinoff show, a half-hour prime-time version of "Weekend Update." The show is hosted by Amy Poehler and Seth Meyers.

According to SNL, the "outburst" was planned to be a group effort by the GOP leadership. Unfortunately for Joe Wilson, he went to the restroom, and the rest of the folks reconsidered the plan.

Watch the video:

Bill Moyers: the Health Care Debate is Deranged

Bill Moyers addressed the health care debate, and more, on Friday's Bill Moyers Journal. He pulled no punches, and called the health care debate "deranged," and said that "red, white, and blue kooks are as American as apple pie."

Here's what he said (emphasis mine):

The editors of THE ECONOMIST magazine say America's health care debate has become a touch delirious, with people accusing each other of being evil-mongers, dealers in death, and un-American.

Well, that's charitable.

I would say it's more deranged than delirious, and definitely not un-American.

Those crackpots on the right praying for Obama to die and be sent to hell — they're the warp and woof of home-grown nuttiness. So is the creature from the Second Amendment who showed up at the President's rally armed to the teeth. He's certainly one of us. Red, white, and blue kooks are as American as apple pie and conspiracy theories.

Bill Maher asked me on his show last week if America is still a great nation. I should've said it's the greatest show on earth. Forget what you learned in civics about the Founding Fathers — we're the children of Barnum and Bailey, our founding con-men. Their freak show was the forerunner of today's talk radio.

Speaking of which: we've posted on our website an essay by the media scholar Henry Giroux. He describes the growing domination of hate radio as one of the crucial elements in a "culture of cruelty" increasingly marked by overt racism, hostility and disdain for others, coupled with a simmering threat of mob violence toward any political figure who believes health care reform is the most vital of safety nets, especially now that the central issue of life and politics is no longer about working to get ahead, but struggling simply to survive.

So here we are, wallowing in our dysfunction. Governed — if you listen to the rabble rousers — by a black nationalist from Kenya smuggled into the United States to kill Sarah Palin's baby. And yes, I could almost buy their belief that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, only I think he shipped them to Washington, where they've been recycled as lobbyists and trained in the alchemy of money laundering, which turns an old-fashioned bribe into a First Amendment right.

Only in a fantasy capital like Washington could Sunday morning talk shows become the high church of conventional wisdom, with partisan shills treated as holy men whose gospel of prosperity always seems to boil down to lower taxes for the rich.

Poor Obama. He came to town preaching the religion of nice. But every time he bows politely, the harder the Republicans kick him.

No one's ever conquered Washington politics by constantly saying "pretty please" to the guys trying to cut your throat.

Let's get on with it, Mr. President. We're up the proverbial creek with spaghetti as our paddle. This health care thing could have been the crossing of the Delaware, the turning point in the next American Revolution — the moment we put the mercenaries to rout, as General Washington did the Hessians at Trenton. We could have stamped our victory "Made in the USA." We could have said to the world, "Look what we did!" And we could have turned to each other and said, "thank you."

As it is, we're about to get health care reform that measures human beings only in corporate terms of a cost-benefit analysis. I mean this is topsy-turvy — we should be treating health as a condition, not a commodity.

As we speak, Pfizer, the world's largest drug maker, has been fined a record $2.3 billion dollars as a civil and criminal — yes, that's criminal, as in fraud — penalty for promoting prescription drugs with the subtlety of the Russian mafia. It's the fourth time in a decade Pfizer's been called on the carpet — and these are the people into whose tender mercies Congress and the White House would deliver us?

Come on, Mr. President. Show us America is more than a circus or a market. Remind us of our greatness as a democracy. When you speak to Congress next week, just come out and say it. We thought we heard you say during the campaign last year that you want a government run insurance plan alongside private insurance — mostly premium-based, with subsidies for low-and-moderate income people. Open to all individuals and employees who want to join and with everyone free to choose the doctors we want. We thought you said Uncle Sam would sign on as our tough, cost-minded negotiator standing up to the cartel of drug and insurance companies and Wall Street investors whose only interest is a company's share price and profits.

Here's a suggestion, Mr. President: ask Josh Marshall to draft your speech. Josh is the founder of the website talkingpointsmemo.com. He's a journalist and historian, not a politician. He doesn't split things down the middle and call it a victory for the masses. He's offered the simplest and most accurate description yet of a public insurance plan; one that essentially asks people: would you like the option — the voluntary option — of buying into Medicare before you're 65? Check it out, Mr. President.

This health care thing is make or break for your leadership, but for us, it's life and death. No more Mr. Nice Guy, Mr. President. We need a fighter.

Watch the video:

Lieberman: Put Off Health Care Reform Until After the Recession

Today on CNN, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) said the recession is too big a crisis to handle right now, and that Congress should worry about the nearly 50 million uninsured at some point down the road:

LIEBERMAN: Morally, everyone of us would like to cover every American with health insurance but that’s where you spend most of the trillion dollars plus, or a little less that is estimated, the estimate said this health care plan will cost. And I’m afraid we’ve got to think about putting a lot of that off until the economy's out of recession. There’s no reason we have to do it all now.

I'm glad that Lieberman added the word "morally." It's hard to understand how the right-wingers can condemn many people to die without health insurance. The Institute of Medicine estimated in 2004 that as many as 18,000 deaths a year among adults could be attributed to lack of insurance.

However, putting it off is not the right answer. Now is the time, with so many more out of work, that the number of uninsured or underinsured has gone way, way up. To be honest, the insurance companies would love this to be delayed, forever.

Of course, what would Lieberman care? He has his own "publicly funded health care" right now. Why don't they just give everyone what Congress has, and be done with it?

If Lieberman thinks the recession is a tough time to start reforming health insurance, he should take a look at what the U.K. did with the National Health Service, which is far more ambitious than anything proposed.

In the midst of turmoil and devastation from WWII, in 1946 the U.K. passed the National Health Service Act in 1946, and created the NHS in 1948. Joe, you think we have problems? You haven't seen anything.

Health Insurance Premiums to Rise 94% by 2020: Report

A report released Thursday by the Commonwealth Fund, a 90-year-old non-profit health care charity, shows what's on the line without health care reform: a 94% increase in health insurance premiums.

The analysis of health care costs, called "Paying the Price: How Health Insurance Premiums Are Eating Up Middle-Class Incomes," forecasts that employer-sponsored family plans will rise from an average cost of $12,298 in 2008 to $23,842 in 2020. In contrast, the same coverage would have cost around $9,200 in 2003.

The title has the key point: middle-class. Don't think health care costs just affects the poor; it's eating away at middle-class incomes as earnings stagnate for the middle-class, and health care costs increase.

It should also be clear that corporations will continue to pass more health care costs onto workers. Anyone watching the state of union contract negotiations should see that's the first thing the corporations want. It will only get worse for the American worker.

In response, Deborah Burger, RN, co-president of the 86,000-member California Nurses Association / National Nurses Organizing Committee said the following (emphasis mine):

"These findings are merely the shocking state of premiums, not even including a concurrent jump in out-of-pocket costs for deductibles, co-pays, and other fees. It's no wonder that medical bills now are the leading factor in 62 percent of bankruptcies, and half of American families are rationing medical care because they can't afford it.

"Yet, rather than show any compassion for how their price gouging practices have harmed so many families, the insurance giants are planning to continue to plunder the American people with more huge increases in premium prices.

"Such practices should remind us why there is such a desperate need for real reform. Unfortunately, there is little in the major plans being discussed to crack down on the pricing practices of the insurance industry. The most effective approach is the one that has worked in other industrial countries, a single-payer or national system."

"Congress and the administration still has time to pass legislation that will protect American families facing rationing, denial of care, and bankruptcy due to the disgraceful insurance industry policies. Medicare for all remains the most universal, most cost-effective solution to this crisis."

The California Nurses Association has long supported the "Medicare for All" bill.

It's interesting how those against health care reform continue to use disinformation rather than facts and statistics.

Fact: 62% of bankruptcies are related to unex0pected medical expenses.

Disinformation: death panels

Fact: insurance companies ration health care by denying treatment. Families ration care because they cannot afford it.

Disinformation: grandma won't be able to get hip replacement surgery

Fact: UNICEF statistics state that the U.K., Cuba, and Canada have lower infant mortality than us. The U.K. and Canada have longer lifespans; Cuba the same. Cuba! Many consider it a 3rd-world country!

We need to start talking about numbers, like lifespan, rather than nonsense and lies, like death panels.