Thoughts on Countdown with Keith Olbermann for December 22, 2009. Lawrence O’Donnell is in again for Keith.
Story 5: The Health Care Bill
The largest union of registered nurses came out against the health care bill. On the other hand Republicans may be starting to actually give in so they can get home for Christmas.
Senator Barabara Boxer of California joins the discussion. She’s fear mongering in favor of the bill. She’s saying the usual, that this isn’t a perfect bill but it’s a super emergency. She’s ignoring the allegation from the nurses union that this bill will make the insurance companies too powerful.
She claims the insurance companies are spending millions to combat this bill, but I think she’s lying. I think they were spending millions, but now that the bill says everyone in the country has to buy insurance from them I doubt they’re fighting this at all.
She is such a politician, I really don’t like her.
Lawrence talks about how much money the Congressmen and women are taking from lobbyists with Ezra Klein of the Washington Post. Like everyone else, Ezra says that Congress is basically a non-working body and most likely corrupted. He only says “most likely” because it’s hard to prove that the members of Congress are making political decisions based on contributions from corporations.
Story 4: Medical Loss Ratio
Medical Loss Ratio, the amount of money the insurance companies must spend on health care, the rest can be profits. Insurance companies are already trying to manipulate this number.
Wendell Potter, former executive for Cigna Insurance, joins the discussion. He says that transparency and disclosure is key to making this work, because the insurance companies are notorious for protecting their data. He feels we don’t have the process of enforcement figured out yet.
Story 3: Uncle Tom Michael Steele Getting Rich From Speaking Fees
Three past Republican chairmen are criticizing Steele because they claim the job should be taking most of his time and he shouldn’t have that much extra time to be giving speeches.
Eugene Robinson joins the discussion. He’s talking nonsense, like “The Republican party is supposed to stand for something.” From what Eugene is saying, I think this story is mostly made up, both by MSNBC and by the racist Republicans who still resent that a black man has this position. Not to say I don’t think something happened, I just don’t think it’s a story. This is MSNBC gossip mongering.
Story 2: Republicans Against Climate Change Legislation
Blah blah blah, both Republicans and Democrats are blowing smoke on this topic.
Richard Wolffe, author of Renegade: The Making of a President, joins Lawrence to discuss the topic. The discussion is centering around whether this is going to be another health care bill, with Republicans being obstructionist. Clearly it’s not because the Democrats can’t even agree on this. John Kerry and others are saying that we have to do something because Obama put American credibility on the line in Copenhagen. He did, but I don’t think that’s going to pay off for him.
The issue with climate change is we need to wait for it to start affecting our daily lives before people will even start caring. I’m not saying it’s not important, or that something doesn’t need to be done before then, it just isn’t going to have traction until then.
Story 1: The Ignorant Carrie Prejean
They show another video montage, this time featuring Carrie Prejean. She seems to be competing with Sarah Palin for being able to say the most stuff that doesn’t make sense. She can’t understand how she’s a hypocrite for masturbating on camera.