Dear Senator Hagan

You have correctly identified the problem. Why are you so afraid to implement the solution?

Premiums for employer-provided coverage have doubled in the past nine years, growing three times faster than wages. Health insurance costs for self-employed workers, many of whom own small businesses, have risen 74 percent since 2001. On our current trajectory, health care premiums for the average family will rise to nearly $25,000 by the year 2016. North Carolinians are struggling to afford health insurance coverage, and one in five North Carolinians has no health insurance. Our nation's unprecedented economic crisis has made it even more difficult for working families to manage medical costs while making ends meet. Without a doubt, our health care system is in dire need of repair.

. . .


In order to ensure that the Community Health Insurance Option competes on a level playing field, I insisted that it meet federal and state solvency requirements, that payment rates be negotiated, rather than tied to Medicare as some suggested, and that doctors and hospitals be free to choose whether to participate.

You see, for Kay Hagan, the important thing is that the playing field be level for the insurance companies that have been fucking us over for the past 20 years. Not that all Americans have equal access to high quality health care, but that the insurance companies, who along with Major League Baseball enjoy exemption from US anti-trust laws, not be forced to compete with a large insurance pool managed by the government in a not-for-profit fashion.

Thank you Senator Hagan for so clearly stating your priorities.

While I support the Community Health Insurance Option as a backstop insurance option for individuals who do not otherwise have access to affordable coverage, some have suggested alternative plans that may acheive the same goals. In particular, there has been a lot of discussion regarding establishment of non-profit health insurance co-ops or withholding the establishment of a public option unless health insurance costs meet specified reduction targets. I believe these ideas deserve full consideration as possible solutions.

What the fuck does that even mean? Withholding the establishment of a public option unless health insurance costs meet specified reduction targets? In a year where Social Security has announced no cost-of-living increases, NC BCBS has already announced an 11% rate increase. I'll be hearing from my insurance carrier at work within the next 3 weeks how much my premiums will be increasing next year. I can't imagine it'll be less than 10%, and possibly another 20%. I've been at my current job 13 years. When i started, all of my premiums were included in my benefits, and i only had to pay to cover my kids. Was about 100 bucks a month. My current premiums, for myself only, are $160/month, or just under $2k a year. Figure at least another 25 bucks a month this go 'round. Health insurance is a license to print money for the insurers. Kay Hagan sees no reason to change this arrangement. And she's a Democrat. One of 60 in the Senate.

Again, thank you for contacting my office. It is truly an honor to represent North Carolina in the United States Senate, and I hope you will not hesitate to contact me in the future should you have any further questions or concerns.

Well, if you don't start, you know, representing, you won't be having this opportunity after your first time expires.

Continue reading Dear Senator Hagan

Liddy Dole - still an asshole

And her husband Bob has squandered whatever integrity he might have had left after the moronic Britney Spears Pepsi ad from a few years ago.

First, Liddy's got a new "godless" ad.


"If godless Americans threw a party in your honor, would you go?"

What the fuck, Liddy? Do you really ask every person you know what kind of faith in the magical sky-being they have before you break bread with them? Does it matter that much to you? Really? Tell you what, then.

Go fuck yourself.

You're running for Senate, not Archbishop. You know, render unto Caesar and all that. No religious test shall ever be applied to an office seeker in the United States of America. Remember that? It's in the Constitution that you swore (on the Bible, if i remember correctly) to uphold.

And Bob?

An adviser for Godless Americans held a fund-raiser at his home for Hagan. The event was not billed as a Godless Americans event, and other hosts included an ambassador and U.S. Sen. John Kerry.

Former Sen. Bob Dole says North Carolina voters deserve to know why Hagan went to the event.

"Just answer the question, I've been in this business a long time and when everything else fails, you just have to answer the question. Even if you don't want to answer the question,” he said.

So, Bob? Here's a question you don't want to answer. Can you still get it up for Britney? What a pair of pseudo-moralistic hypocrites.

Continue reading Liddy Dole - still an asshole

Liddy Dole is an asshole

I'm sure you've all seen, or at least heard about, Liddy Dole's latest attack ad on Kay Hagan, the one where she claims that Kay is spouting "There is no God" in exchange for money raised by a member of a groups called "Godless Americans." In any other part of the western world, a campaign that attempted this line of attack would be laughed into oblivion, but this is North Carolina, where Jesse Helms once won reelection to the Senate with an overt appeal to white racism, so we can't simply laugh this off.

What we'd like to do is sit Liddy down with a copy of the US Constitution, you know, the one she swore to uphold and defend 6 years ago upon taking office. The one that says "but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."

Maybe Liddy wants to put the bible above the Constitution as the supreme law of the land, but if that's the case, she needs to get up publicly and say that the Founding Fathers were wrong in the way they organized our republic. Let her repudiate the Constitution, loud and clear. Let her make the case that, like the Taliban, she wants a nation ruled by religious decrees.

That said, Team Hagan's response leaves, in my mind, much to be desired. Here's the email she sent out yesterday:

Elizabeth Dole should be absolutely ashamed of herself. I can't begin to tell you how outraged I am that she has attacked my Christian faith.

Her latest ad is fabricated and pathetic.

Our nation is in a crisis and the only solution Elizabeth Dole has to offer is mud and slime and more of the same. Wall Street was just bailed out and our economy is in shambles and Dole is doing whatever she can to talk about anything BUT the issues.

Enough. This kind of politics will not be tolerated.

Help me respond by paying for an ad directly addressing these claims attacking my Christian faith.

We already have two response ads -- watch them -- and please donate $100, $50 or $25 to help me directly respond to Dole's desperate, divisive and deplorable ads in a third ad.

I don't know what things were like when she grew up in North Carolina, but the North Carolina I raised my children in would never condone this kind of personal slander.

I was raised going to Sunday school and church every week and I raised my children that way. The Hagan family has attended the First Presbyterian Church for over 100 years -- that's where I've taught Sunday school.

If Senator Dole wants to pass judgment on my faith, that's her right -- but that's not the kind of response MY faith teaches.

Join me in taking a stand against the same old tired rhetoric that divides people by contributing today.

Your support at this critical time is imperative to our success.

But even more so -- your support right now is imperative to change the politics of our country.

We need a new direction -- leadership that will bring people together, not tear people apart. Leadership that offers new solutions, not the same old, tired rhetoric.

The people of North Carolina have had enough. No more. It's about time for a change.

Kay Hagan can, of course, respond to Liddy Dole's sleaze any way she wants. But if she's going to come to me asking for money, she has to at least acknowledge that there's a whole 'nother level on which Liddy's attacks are repulsive. It's not simply that Hagan's being called an atheist when she's not. It's that atheism is being attacked as somehow un-American. That people who don't believe in magic sky-beings are not entitled to participate in the American polity. That we are second class.

We're not.

And Kay, you've got my vote, primarily because Liddy Dole is a complete asshole. But if you want my money, you've got to do better than that.

UPDATE: Got a phone call from the Kay Hagan campaign tonight asking for, yep, money to run the response ad. So i got a chance to give them an earful. Hopefully it gets back to the candidate.

Continue reading Liddy Dole is an asshole

Polls

Hagan v Dole for the Senate seat from NC.

h/t the Archer Pelican

Continue reading Polls

Air of inevitability?

Rob Christensen in the N&O:

There is an air of inevitability about state Sen. Kay Hagan. She has been recruited by the national party, her campaign literature includes the blessings of the governor, and she has earned her spurs at the legislature.

That's just lazy writing. If one thing has become clear throughout the early months of the 2008 campaign, it's that the stale "air of inevitability" that some candidates try to wrap themselves in has gotten blown away by the overwhelming desire for change among the electorate.

People are pissed off.

Kay Hagan didn't get into the race until after Schumer and his pals at the DSCC panicked and twisted her arm after Jim Neal's announcement. Why? Because she didn't think she could win.

Do we really want a candidate who doesn't think she can win?

Hagan may win the nomination. But it won't be because of her inevitability.

Continue reading Air of inevitability?