Consumer Watchdog – Protecting Patients - Blog

Sarah Palin, the Cruella DeVille of anti-government-health care, caught everyone's attention with the story of her family hopping the border from Skagway, Alaska, into the Yukon Territory for Canadian government health care when Palin was a child. Canadian newspapers noted cattily that Palin previously described going to Juneau, Alaska, for the same treatment for her brother's burned foot. Whatever. I wanted to know whether other Alaskans went to Canada for medical care--and still do.

The President called for an up or down vote on health care reform, but I can say from my own experience this week working with Blue Cross patients, who are part of Consumer Watchdog’s lawsuit against he company, that the public has already cast its vote. 

President Obama's "get it done" speech on health reform Wednesday may have been a day late, but I hope it's not a dollar short, as the old saying goes. At least he has one tremendous ally in his call for action by Congress: Anthem Blue Cross, and the continuing outrage at its huge rate increases.

A few sentences in a Wall Street Journal story Tuesday, on Blue Cross insurance increases, made my eyes pop. If you take the words at face value, we're heading for a future in which a few very rich sick people will pay $10,000 a month for health insurance and the rest of us can just beg for bandages on the street.

Veteran political cartoonist Clay Bennett of Chattanooga has the solution...

President Lyndon Johnson faced hard choices in 1964: Preserve Democrats' majority in Congress, perhaps for decades. Or ram through landmark civil rights legislation proposed by the slain John F. Kennedy, plus Medicare health coverage for seniors--and lose the whole bloc of so-called Southern Democrats, Strom Thurmond among them.Substitute Blue Dog Democrats for Southern Democrats, and you'd be close to what Congress and President Obama face over a much easier choice--a moderate health reform bill that bears no relation to a "government takeover."

I just got off the phone with Consumer Watchdog Boardmember Kathy Olsen, who is in Washington, D.C. today along with her family, and medical malpractice victims and/or their families from four other states, for meetings at the White House with the Obama Administration.

As pressure builds toward Thursday's "bipartisan" presidential summit on health care reform, some Capitol Hill staffers have reported receiving calls from the White House claiming the President is ready to give up the legal rights of medical malpractice victims for GOP support.

What's wrong with the trade-off? LA's local NPR talk radio host, Larry Mantle of KPCC's Air Talk, asked me yesterday in a midst of a debate about Obama's new health care reform proposal, which appropriately did not mention any changes to medical malpractice accountability. So I told Steven Olsen's story.

Yesterday happened to be the 20th birthday for Steven Olsen, whose tragic story at the age of two year deeply touched me and every one who ever heard it. Steven and his terrific parents, Kathy and Scott, will be at the White House next Monday to stop the President from using the remedies of innocent patients as a bargaining chip to get Republican votes. If President Obama personally spends a few minutes with Steven, it's hard to imagine how his conscience will let him sell out the rights of injured patients for Republican votes.