Now I know Governor Schweitzer is the Governor of a very liberal state, Montanans are practically the French, no? And, yet, he manages to very effectively dispel myths of "socialized" medicine, and argues for single payer, in a way that may even appeal to those Hyde Park Blue Dogs.

BELGRADE - As Gov.

Bozeman Daily Chronicle

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., is putting on a health summit in Bozeman Aug. 9 and 10, his office announced Monday.

The summit will be free and will feature world-class experts and top foundation and business leaders discussing ways to improve health and promote wellness in small communities across the state.

Speakers include Sally Jewell, president and CEO of REI; Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; and Neil Nicoll, president and CEO of YMCA.

Health care TV ads, rallies target Baucus in home state

Disability rights coalition protests at Baucus' Missoula office

On Tuesday, members of the Missoula Coalition for Disability Rights took its fight back to Senator Max Baucus' Missoula office for a sit-in.

Baucus ‘spinning’ health care

As a former lifelong Republican I voted for Obama because he promised to take power from lobbyists and restore it to the American public, especially in areas of health care, energy and education reform. These areas need drastic changes, and thus far his personal efforts to promote such change has been pathetic. ...

UPDATE: How this hair brained scheme came into existence.

U.S. Senate proposal avoids healthcare taxes for union workers

Single-payer advocates not giving up the fight

John Selib, Baucus' chief of staff, said his boss' goal of making sure everyone has health care coverage could be undermined by opening a potentially divisive debate on single-payer.

Selib said it's been 16 years since Congress' last attempt at health care reform, and insurance companies continue to discriminate against patients and raise premiums.

Hear that peasants? Be grateful for any crumbs we choose to toss you or you might not get anything.

West Virginia Belly Dancers to Protest for Single Payer Outside Home Office of Congresswoman Capito

US Sen Baucus: Insurers Have To Negotiate On Public Plan

Sen. Max Baucus said Friday the health insurance industry may have to compromise on a public insurance option to cover uninsured people or risk losing a spot at the bargaining table.

National Health Care Act worthy of public support

Sick of health insurance costs? Then pay attention. Some in Congress want to perpetuate the power of insurance corporations over our health care and what we pay to get it. There is an alternative. The U.S. National Health Care Act: Expanded and Improved Medicare for All, HR 676 could be implemented within 13 months (like Medicare was) and unlike the Wall Street bailout, would be funded by eliminating waste while providing a real hand up for every American family and business — except the insurance industry.

Letter to Great Falls Tribune

We should ask Max why he refuses to give single-payer health care a fair hearing. Perhaps because he knows that a well-designed Medicare-for-all plan will "pencil out" far better and be more user friendly and less complex than his plan.

Mike Dennison: How did reform happen elsewhere?

And finally, in Canada, its system of government health insurance for all started in one corner of one province — Saskatchewan — in the mid-1940s and slowly spread across that province and then the country as citizens saw how it worked. It didn't become fully established everywhere until the mid-1960s.

Which brings us back to America, 2009, and our own health-care path. ...

...Why would we keep health insurance tied to employment? Almost nobody likes it.

Read the whole thing. Post it on your blog and any community blog you frequent. Blogwhore in the comments. Send it to your friends.

Missoulian Online

Which brings us back to Sen. Baucus, who told us last week that health care reform in America will include “both public and private coverage,” and that he'll be carrying legislation that will have “a very strong incentive for private (insurance) coverage.”

Action Alert: Demo. at National Health Policy Conference
Tuesday, February 3, 2009, 8:30 – 10:00 AM

Where: JW Marriott, 1331 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington, DC

What
National Health Policy Conference that includes a Congressional Plenary on Tuesday morning starting at 9:00 AM. Senator Baucus and Representative Stark start off at 9:00, followed by Senate and House staff at 9:45 AM.

The Plan
-Gather outside the hotel with banners and signs
-Street theater targeting health insurers, big Pharma and Baucus

Report: Montanans like 'Medicare for all'

As part of a grassroots effort to reform health care, Montanans are sending ideas to President-elect Barack Obama - and, so far, many are saying that a national, ``Medicare for all'' system is the way to go.

``The consensus of (our group) was that we did not see a lot of change coming unless we went to a single-payer, universal health system,'' said Deborah Hanson of Miles City, who organized a meeting of local citizens at the behest of Obama's transition team. ``That was sort of a general consensus - knowing, of course, that may not happen.''

These house parties do not seem to have worked out quite the way Daschle intended.

Gene Fenderson writes for the Great Falls Tribune

We don't really have a "system." What we have is a confused maze of coverage types and providers — Medicare, Medicare Advantage, Medicaid, SCHIP, military, veterans administration, Indian Health Service, federal employee coverage, health savings accounts, community health centers, private insurance, dental insurance, vision insurance, medical coverage in auto insurance and more.

Le Pistoir

Basically, there is a proven model for reducing health care costs that we could use "off-the-shelf" to fix the broken American health-care financing system.
NPR has taken a look at polling (which supports NHI over the status quo by 2:1) and concluded that it is impossible. Even with vast public support, a Democrat president and Congress, and proven results in other countries, NPR says the new President Obama will not be able to make NHI happen.

Today's Boston Globe carried a piece of corporate propaganda entitled Lobbies backing health reforms: Insurers change their tune from 1993-94 debate. Rather than deconstruct it line by line, I will just say what is conspicuous by its absence: any mention of single payer.

Because this was such a vote getter for McCain:
Democrats may tax health benefits

Senator Max Baucus of Montana, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, recently issued an 89-page health policy paper that many see as an important Democratic blueprint for health reform. His paper raises the possibility of capping tax breaks for health insurance premiums based on income, value of health benefits, or both.

Ceci Connolly has an article entitled, U.S. 'Not Getting What We Pay For': Many Experts Say Health-Care System Inefficient, Wasteful, where she quotes, without irony, all the parasites of our health neglect system.

First a few words about Ceci Connolly; if you read The Daily Howler, you know that more than any other member of the celebrity press corps, she is responsible for smearing Al Gore and giving us Bush. An example of her notion of humor:
Smile-a-while (10/3/00)

"... start dissecting exactly what this supposed Democratic consensus document is all about. First, is it really the consensus plan—the plan that consultants have focus group-tested and carefully crafted to avoid ruffling special-interest feathers and to soothe the middle class, assuring that it can keep the insurance it has now if it wants? ... Spend two hours reading it, he says, and “you’ll see there is no consensus.” ... Sift through it, and you’ll also find a lot of on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand language that really doesn’t offer much of a road map. ..." Baucus' HealthReform2009 here

Baucus says he will lead effort to overhaul nation's health care system

The Montana Democrat said he will not support a system in which the government covers all consumers equally, a system typically known as "single payer.''

"We are Americans; we're different from Canada, we're different than the United Kingdom,'' he said Friday in referring to nations with some form of single-payer health care funded by the government. "We have to come up with a uniquely American solution, probably a combination of private and public coverage.''

Typical corporatist, predating upon people's nationalism to divert them from their best interest.