His commentary was the most powerful argument I've seen yet for real health-care reform. Maybe there's promise in his kind of literate passion. The key motivation for the American Revolution - for selling the idea of nationhood to the farmers, colliers and storekeeps who actually did the fighting - was the lucid commentary of Thomas Paine. Reading him, and, say, the letters of Americans who weathered the Civil War decades later, is a reminder of how valuable were words and ideas to those earlier folk, so easily dismissed now as backward and primitive. Back then, people read - a lot more than they do now. The simple poetry of their writing strings together thoughts in inspiring packages somehow logical and heartfelt at the same time; they didn't write the way the spoke, they wrote the way they thought. Keith Olbermann conjured Paine for our health care Lexington.

If we're real lucky...

Insurance has become nothing more then a middle man who scrapes money off a transaction between a patient and their doctor.

Huh?

Even though I like KO, I rolled my eyes at the idea of sitting through one of his overblown tirades. I ended up watching it 3 times - twice on TV, once online. It was that good, and I cried all 3 times.

One thing I know for sure about the opponents of health care reform - they've never experienced a lengthy medical crisis for themselves or a close family member or they have but they're fantastically wealthy. Nowadays, even people with "good" insurance fear the deductibles and co-pays and worry they'll get booted out of the hospital before they're well enough to go and wonder how they'll pay for their meds.

Anyone who's dealt with a serious medical issue in a loved one - as Keith has, as I have - knows how bad the situation is and knows it has to change.

As much as I like Olbermann I've always felt his Special Commentaries were maybe 2 or 3 minutes too long. I like Bill Maher's better.

I think this hour long commentary was a mistake.

1-He could have cut it to 30 minutes and explained what the Public Option is and how it will benefit the public,

2- and how those fighting against it, especially Democrats, are awash in Insurance Co, Pharma, etc. contributions.

The contrast between these two would have been stark.

Several years ago, it was determined that I was suffering from congestive heart failure and my life-expectancy was one year. I was about 58 years old at the time. Before being accepted into the transplant program at Mayo I was told that I would have to provide a $40K cash deposit as my wife's employee was self-insured and would not commit to covering the transplant. I spent many nights looking at the stars thinking about not having a future or hope. God protect and give strength to those who lack the resources to have hope.

For those of us with compassion, he hit a nerve. However, there are people who believe their medical coverage would not let them suffer nor cost them nothing more than a $25 co-pay regardless the injury or acute medical condition they may suffer - Obermann's argument fell on deaf ears. These are the people who not only refuse to listen to reason, they feel it is their duty to keep the debate from happening because any reform would unravel the precious covenant they have with their company and the high level of health care coverage they believe they have. And with the republicans in dire need of any kind of public support to keep from having to declare political bankruptcy, this group gives them the political cover they need to fight against any reform efforts strictly for political oneupmanship and trip up the democrats efforts as a means for regaining political power in 2010. For health care reform in the form of a single payer option(screw public option)to pass with unanimous support from both Partys and the public will only happen when the nay-sayers realize their health care covenant isn't worth the cost of the paper it's written on. Only then will we get the health care reform we desperately need without any exceptions to the industry. We're not at that stage were the costs are so prohibitive in deductions from take-home pay, high deductibles and high co-pays to warrant any health care reform that carries any weight in favor of the public. I suspect it'll be another 15 years before we get the chance to tackle health care reform that has any meaning to it. Anything we get passed now will be equivalent to an abortion - best it dies quickly once its' born.

Sorry JohnW1141. On October 7, 2009, Keith Olbermann used his entire hour beautifully. He made the emotional, moral appeal that has been so lacking in the arguments for health care reform. If he'd taken 30 minutes to explain the public option and how opponents are awash in contributions from Pharma, etc. it would have been "business as usual" and would have lacked the impact of his hour-long commentary.

In this instance, I'd say Keith nailed it.

Have we lost our minds? No. But our leaders are a different story.

There would be plenty of rage nationwide if our leaders would have the guts to point out who the enemy is here in the form of the insurance, pharma and related industries. But they don't. Why? Because they are too busy trying to please them to do their jobs which is to represent the people's interests.

If Democrats had the integrity to do what is right instead of what is right for feathering their own nests they would be railing against the insurance interests and the others. They would be making the passionate and indisputable sort of arguments Olbermann made. But instead they seek "compromise" with evil. Our leaders seek "compromise" because they have compromised themselves and the principles they alledgely stand behind. They want the public to swallow the rotten compromises they have made with those who profit off of denying healthcare to people and charging them twenty times what a drug is worth. And so, they do not wish to inflame public anger. Their game is a delicate one of soothing the public just enough to make them think they did something for them all the while handing the keys to the store to the people who have caused much of the crisis to begin with.

IMHO, we need to make it clear to all the Democrats on the Hill and in the White House that on this question, the health of all our people, we cannot accept a bad deal for the sake of saying we passed "something". We must demand that they pass genuine, substantive reform. And for me it must be reform without insurance subsidies (mandates) that only cost the public money and drench the insurance companies in more profits they don't deserve and haven't earned.

Keith's special comment last night was spot on.

Since last December, when my father had a stroke, our family has been going through similar things. And it really did change my perspective on the health care system.

Specifically, I now favor fully socialized medicine. I had already been for a single-payer system. But now I think hospitals should all be non-profit, and the excellent doctors and nurses should be well compensated, but not on a per-procedure basis. It was a mind-opening experience.

Medicare is great, but it needs to be expanded and improved.

Anyone who has not had to deal directly with the things Keith described -- including facing the possibility of death -- does not really understand what the healthcare debate is really about. I hope that Keith's special comment helped some people understand it better.

-- ARG

I certainly can not refute what you post about marches. Perhaps I'm too cynical, but I sense that too many of our politicians, too quickly, "forget" why they were elected. Yes, they do set up offices and utilize assistants to help constituents deal with bureaucratic mazes which they have created. Do I believe that they answer the telephone and read their email? Hell no! Staffers do that. Some say that faxing is more effective. I do believe that "most" of our representatives concern themselves with polls and fund raising. DC is a country onto itself and our reps become citizens of DC. The power, benefits and social status become an opiate. Now, I'm not painting all of our reps with a broad brush because I have noted some damn good people representing us in Washington...Just, so few. I doubt that a million people screaming in the Mall moves them very much. They are a very insulated lot. I think that threatening their political future will get their attention. Of course there is always K Street, it seems.

Can you not see how your opinion becomes a self fulfilling prophecy? I don't think it does any good so, let's not do it, and then see, it didn't work. It's kinda the flip side of Baucus saying he won't support a public option because there aren't 60 Senators in favor of it despite the fact that if he would come out for it, the chance of there being 60 Senators for it would be far better and his support might just make the critical difference in reaching that threshold.

I'll say it again, we need to do ALL these things and each of them has it's place. But mass demonstrations are absolutely effective and have proven over and over again to be so in myriad ways. Think about it for a second. With pressure from all sides hot and heavy on members of Congress and a million angry constituents show up demanding Medicare for all. This won't have much effect? Of course it will. But it's effect is heightened by all the other activities going on and vice versa.

Unlike me, some other proponents of single-payer healthcare claim a moral basis for their preference.

For me it's a merely economic question of getting a lot more, as a nation, for a lot less, but it may be worth asking all these ad hoc moralists what's the basis of their ad hoc morality?

That basis probably isn't religious, because there were plenty of doctors in Mecca and Jerusalem and Nepal, but neither Jesus or the Buddha or Mohammed demanded universal healthcare, and very few religious scholars in any of those traditions have ever interpreted a sacred text as demanding single-payer or even a public option.

Jesus practiced faith-healing rather than relying on mainstream medicine, the Buddha's concerns were mostly confined to a more rarefied metaphysical atmosphere than physical health, and it's hard to fit universal healthcare into Mohammed's injunction about devoting around 4% of GDP to charity, when universal education and all other charitable projects have to fit into the same budget.

It's probably possible to make a case for universal healthcare as an injunction which follows from universally admitted axioms of rational morality, but there's no such thing as universally admitted axioms of rational morality, and I can't even believe that so many ad hoc moralists like Keith Olberman share either the same or even mutually consistent sets of all the required axioms and rules of moral inference.

So in this context it seems more likely to me that words like "morality" and all its cognates are just a noise that some people on my side of this issue like to make, and hear.

Since the single payer option is DOA and the public option is in serious doubt, here's an option the democrats might want to consider as a way to appease the right and give us progessives something to hold on to.

Is Germany's health care a good model for the US?

Analysis: One freelancer in Germany thinks the health care system there could work in America.

By Paul Hockenos — Special to GlobalPost
Published: October 8, 2009 21:29 ET
url: http://www.globalpost.com/print/3972936

Wow. Good health to you!

Hope we hear more about Keith's initiatives and this takes off into something. Rec'd.

People have to wake up. What do they think they're paying into for years and years of "good" health only to be shocked out of their minds to find out that when you DO need your insurance to kick in they'll come out with all types of excuses to NOT pay. My wife (the Primary holder of the health plan) and I paid for years on our HUMANA health plan, and rarely used it except for yearly physicals. Last year I had 2 heart attacks and was in the hospital for 2 days (that's right TWO days), a month later she gets a letter saying that I am not covered because she FAILED to prove I am her husband. It didn't keep them from charging her to add me to the plan for 5 years though and NOT asking if I was her husband then. So we sent IRS documents, checking accounts, utility bills that showed both our names on it as they requested. They sent back a letter saying that they needed our marriage certificate, WOW now I now what President Obama feels at the being asked of his birth certificate. So we had to get a copy since we don't have the original and sent it to them. Well as of last week, I am still not on the plan that we paid into for 5 years. So I guess I'll have to hire a lawyer to see where this goes. I write this so that others can see that if they have insurance not to be lured into thinking everything is OK.

I don't dispute the economic advantage at all. That's one of the reasons we should have single payer. But the self evident morality of making sure everyone has health care is every bit as important as the economic argument. For example, in my case, I would be for single payer whether or not it was the most economical alternative simply because I believe we should make healthcare available to every human being.

As for abortion, I see that as being a very different question and one where there are some very sincere, intelligent people who believe that abortion is morally wrong. There are also a whole lot of people who see abortion as morally wrong who are ignorant fools. The test, in my opinion, of what qualifies as a self evident truth is how broad a consensus there is on such a question, not that there is unanimity.

I don't think Olbermann's arguments were shallow nor do I see his proposal as shallow. I found his arguments compelling and believe many, many other people will too. His argument was intended to reach people at a different level than simply a dry, wonkish presentation. You can take either route, but I see Olbermann's effort as having a much broader reach and effect. I think we should embrace not only what is intellectually sound but also those arguments that are highly persuasive to a much broader audience.

I don't see why we couldn't do what you describe AND march.