*
MEMO*

January 17. 2016

*TO:* Bernie Sanders, Socialist

*FROM:* Arnold Steinberg, Republican Strategist

*RE*: Tonight's DebateIt's highly unlikely you will win the Democratic nomination. But I hope you do. In a general election, you will be this generation's George McGovern. I still remember when voters, including disaffected Democrats and a majority of independents, saw McGovern as the loony-tunes who would give their hard-earned money to able-bodied Americans who chose not to work. You are an aging white ideologue who will properly be perceived not as a savior of America's middle class but as a radical who will destroy it. Even for a nation that under President Obama has moved so far to the Left, you will be seen as offering no hope and no change.

It's not a good sign when Saturday Night Live already parodies a leftist like you. Larry David will make you into a lunatic. And in general election debates when you're challenged to defend your utopia, you'll stumble, because you're a clueless Marxist.

Hardened feminists will see you as an older white guy (all of six years older than Hillary) who stopped the course of human history. It is, they feel, destiny for a woman to become president, and you would have stolen the nomination and thus deprived Hillary of what is rightfully hers. In disgust, some will stay home in November. And don't expect Hillary to campaign for you. She will not be your running mate unless her 23-and-me DNA suggests that your health is worse than hers.

On the subject of health, I watched your spokesman explain how workers, through higher payroll taxes, will "pay" for "free health care." Once younger voters realize they will pay for all your "free stuff," many will not vote for grandpa. And if Donald Trump found Jeb Bush to be "low energy," wait until the millennials see you campaigning among your peers at an old-age home. They'll wonder why you don't just stay there.

Trump has it right. You made a fool of yourself when you let Black Lives Matter steal your microphone. Get some testosterone to bring you up to Hillary's level. Nearly a half century ago, the president of San Francisco State College stood up to some Black Power protestors. The image of this short guy pulling the wires from the loudspeakers on the protestors 'van went, as they now would say, "viral" and he ended up being elected to the U.S. Senate. On second thought, you are so far gone that the FDA would never approve the mega-dosage of T for you to be credible in our predatory world.

But if you are not the nominee, you might bloody Hillary, perhaps starting tonight. You are gaining in national polls, and victories in Iowa and New Hampshire could give you momentum. Moreover, if Hillary encounters headwinds, you might poll better in general election polls than she does, an illusion suggesting your viability in November. The resulting synergy would further boost your primary election polling.

Chelsea Clinton has imprudently attacked you as an opponent of Medicare. "I don't want to live in a country that has an unequal health system," Chelsea said. "So I don't want to empower Republican governors to take away Medicaid, take away health insurance for low income and middle income working Americans and I think very much that's what Sen. Sanders' plan would do."

What a stupid maneuver, because (a) it lowered Chelsea into attack mode; (b) it is implausible and thus (c) it gives you the moral high ground. Hillary will not repudiate Chelsea, so Hillary will lose credibility. You will look like an Elder Statesman. Indeed, in response to Chelsea's attack, you released a photo of you and Hillary. She inscribes the 1993 photo "To Bernie Sanders with thanks for your commitment to real health care access for all Americans." Perhaps you'll use the photo tonight as a prop. You look somewhat older, but Hillary has really aged.
"I have never run a negative radio or television ad in my life," you said the other day while campaigning in New Hampshire. " It is my very strong hope that I never will." That's not exactly a Sherman-like statement about negative campaigning. And, fortunately for you, Hillary now is running scared, so she will, as Tbe Donald would say, "throw the first punch."

So far, you've been very clever. Your "two visions" ad takes on Wall Street and implies that she backs the rich crooks, but you never mention her name. I guess we'll see more of your veiled attacks tonight. Of course, Clinton pursues the same technique. Her ad doesn't mention you by name but the script is: -"It's time for pick a side. Either we stand with the gun lobby, or we join the president and stand up to them. I'm with him."

Hillary is nervous, and that's good for you because she gets aggressive. The Cosby melodrama in the age of Law and Order SVU can reprise not Bill Clinton's infidelity, but rather he allegations of his sexual assaults, and Hillary's role in trying to silence the alleged victims. You can say that infidelity is not the issue, but a cover-up of sexual assault would be another matter.

The just released 13 Hours may resurrect Benghazi. You can say you have not seen the movie, and criticize Republicans for partisanship. But not coming to the rescue of Americans under siege would be another matter.

And there is the specter of an expanded government investigation of Hillary. You can say that there are more important issues than her personal email. But a violation of the law, or improper influence peddling through gifts to the Clinton Foundation, would be another matter.

Bernie, after tonight, there are only two debates left. You now believe you can win. Tonight is the time to show you intend to make this a fight.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 8 hours ago.

The New York Post warned its readers on Sunday not to be fooled by Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, whom it called a “diehard communist” in an article by Paul Sperry.

Sanders, the Post said, was “a communist collaborator during the height of the Cold War,” and could not be named to a cabinet position because he “would never pass an FBI background check.” His “radical pro-communist past” is being white-washed by the liberal media, who call his leanings “progressive” or “pragmatic,” the article claimed.

The former U.S. senator from Vermont, who has frequently described himself as a “Democratic socialist” and is not seen as a friend of big business, has been gaining ground against Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton in both Iowa and New Hampshire, and that may be what triggered the Post article.

*Also Read:* Donald Trump Jokes That Taxes Gave Bernie Sanders a Hernia

Among the “subversive red flags popping up” from Sanders’ past, according to the Post, which also refers to 74-year-old Sanders as “a codger,” are:

· Sanders’ joined the Young People’s Socialist League while attending the University of Chicago
· His work as an organizer for the United Packinghouse Workers Union, which the paper claimed was a communist front
· A documentary film he produced on the life of Eugene Debs, hailed by the Bolsheviks as “America’s greatest Marxist”
· Sanders’ honeymooning with his second wife in the USSR and several “goodwill” trips to Cuba and Nicaragua, where the Soviets were trying to expand their influence

*Also Read:* Bernie Sanders' Hollywood Support Surges, But Can He Steal Hillary Clinton's Spotlight?

Sanders has talked about nationalizing the U.S. health-care system and putting private health insurance and drug companies out of business, the Post noted. He also wants to break up big banks, provide free college tuition and guarantee home-ownership and jobs through massive public works projects, according to the conservative-leaning Post — a News Corp. entity, which is headed by Rupert Murdoch, who at 84 is a decade older than the “codger” Sanders.

*Related stories from TheWrap:*

Did Hillary-Bashing Help Boost Michael Bay's '13 Hours' in Red States?

Trump Uses Cosby, Weiner to Hit Hillary on Women's Issues

Bernie Sanders 'Hotline Bling' Mash-Up Will Make Your Day (Video) Reported by The Wrap 6 hours ago.

Bernie Sanders on Sunday released his plan to reform the American health insurance system -- or, more accurately, to reinvent it from scratch.

It's a plan to create a "single-payer" healthcare system, which means the government would provide everybody with insurance directly. Sanders is calling it "Medicare for All," because Medicare, which provides government-financed insurance to the elderly, is the closest thing to a single-payer system in the U.S. But that term actually understates the ambition of what he is proposing.

Sanders wouldn’t just replace existing private insurance plans. He would also replace existing public plans -- including Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Plan, and the private plans available through the Affordable Care Act. He'd even upgrade the coverage that Medicare provides. To pay for this plan, Sanders would replace existing insurance premiums with taxes and put a huge squeeze on the drug industry -- the kind that would be extremely difficult to push through the political system.

And while Obamacare has produced a historic decline in the number of uninsured Americans, the Sanders plan would reach many, if not most, of the remaining uninsured (roughly 10 percent of the population, according to recent estimates) through automatic enrollment.

“Universal health care is an idea that has been supported in the United States by Democratic presidents going back to Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman,” Sanders said. “It is time for our country to join every other major industrialized nation on earth and guarantee health care to all citizens as a right, not a privilege.”

Sanders introduced his plan just hours before a nationally televised Democratic presidential debate, and after days of back and forth with Hillary Clinton, frontrunner for the nomination. Clinton, who like Sanders is a longtime champion of improving access to health care, has said she prefers to proceed incrementally -- mainly, by bolstering the coverage that Obamacare guarantees and putting more pressure on the drug industry to lower prices.

Sanders would go far beyond that. In place of existing arrangements, Sanders would offer coverage that, on paper, looks a lot more comprehensive than any other coverage widely available in America today.

The insurance that Sanders proposes would basically eliminate copayments and deductibles, except for cosmetic surgery and other elective procedures that a board of medical experts determined to be medically unnecessary. (People could still pay for those services on their own.)

Coverage for Medicare, the one program Sanders would leave in place, would become more generous, since today it does not offer such extensive benefits.

According to an independent analysis by Gerald Friedman, an economist at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, the Sanders proposal -- if enacted -- would pay for 98 percent of the typical person’s medical bills.

“This is a very generous plan,” Friedman told The Huffington Post. “Doing away with copays and deductibles is a big idea.”

Sanders says that his proposal would actually save the country money -- first, by eliminating all the money that the private insurance industry spends marketing and managing its plans, and generating profits, and then by reducing the money doctors and hospitals must spend on billing. The plan would also seek deep discounts from the drug industry.

Overall, according to Friedman’s analysis, the Sanders proposal would reduce health care spending in the U.S. by $6 trillion over the next 10 years.

Because Sanders is eliminating all existing insurance, he’d also wipe out the premiums that people now pay to finance these plans. In their place, he’d impose a new “income-related premium” of 2.2 percent, a payroll tax on employers equal to 6.2 percent of wages, and then a series of new tax hikes on the wealthy.

These taxes would be in addition to the payroll taxes that people already pay for Medicare, a Sanders spokesman confirmed.

In the end, Friedman found, a family with income of $50,000 would end up saving more than $5,000 a year relative to what they would spend in the current health care system.

Whether other independent analyses come to the same conclusion remains to be seen. But the challenge of single-payer has never been whether, on paper, such a plan could deliver comprehensive benefits to all Americans at a low price. It’s whether such a plan could survive the political process -- and how its implementation would play with the public. For example, Sanders envisions huge savings from lower drug prices, but efforts to extract far more modest savings from the industry have failed repeatedly in the past.

Conservatives have traditionally objected to single-payer systems because it means bigger government, which they oppose on principle and don’t trust to manage health care efficiently. Most of the health care industry also opposes single-payer, because it could reduce their profits (as it would to the drug industry, and possibly others) or eliminate it altogether (as it would to the insurance companies).

Traditionally, those forces, combined with American skepticism of government action, has been enough to prevent single-payer from getting a hearing in Congress.

“One can certainly design a single-payer plan on paper that saves money for the middle class by reducing payments to doctors and hospitals significantly and shifting the financing of health care from premiums to a very progressive tax structure,” Larry Levitt, senior vice president at the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, said on Sunday evening. “Whether such a plan could ever pass and be signed into law in that form is a very different question.”

That political difficulty, along with the daunting challenge of blowing up the current system and creating something new in its place, is a big reason Clinton has not endorsed anything as ambitious as Sanders -- and has been critical of him lately.

“After weeks of denying the legitimacy of the questions Hillary Clinton raised about flaws in the health care legislation he’s introduced 9 times over 20 years, he proposed a new plan two hours before the debate," Clinton spokesperson Brian Fallon said in a statement Sunday evening. "When you’re running for President and you’re serious about getting results for the American people, details matter -- and Senator Sanders is making them up as he goes along.”

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 5 hours ago.

Ryan O'Hara did everything right when notified he needed to renew his MinnesotaCare health insurance. Reported by TwinCities.com 4 hours ago.

CHARLESTON, S.C. -- Hillary Clinton's plan to stem her slide against Bernie Sanders in the presidential primary began to come into clear focus Sunday night in the fourth Democratic debate.

With two weeks to go before Iowa's caucuses, the former secretary of state offered several closing arguments:
· If you liked Barack Obama, stick with Clinton.· Sanders is too risky, he'll jack up your taxes, and what he wants to do can't get through Congress anyway.· Clinton is the only seriously electable Democrat in the race, regardless of polls that show otherwise at the moment.
She also went hard at Sanders, a Vermont independent senator, as too conservative on gun control and too radical on health care. With Sanders now tied with Clinton in Iowa, and leading in New Hampshire, her campaign is hoping that although Democratic primary voters may be in love with Sanders, they'll ultimately settle down with the pragmatic choice.

"We're at least having a vigorous debate about reining in Wall Street," she said, appealing to those Democrats who think she's too soft on banks. "The Republicans want to give them more power and repeal Dodd-Frank. That's what we need to stop"

The Single-Payer Attack

Nobody thinks a Republican Congress is going to allow a system of single-payer health care. With huge majorities, a Democratic Congress in 2009 and 2010 couldn't even push a weak public health insurance option into Obamacare.

Yet single-payer has managed to become a major issue in the Democratic primary -- one that Clinton injected into it. It's difficult terrain for Clinton. Democratic primary voters are sympathetic to single-payer, and Sanders, who's happy to call himself a democratic socialist, eagerly embraces it.

The Clinton campaign’s messaging on the issue has been muddled: While it insists that Clinton herself supports the goal of universal health care, Clinton has attacked universal health care from a conservative direction, warning it would require major tax hikes on the middle class without mentioning the cost savings that would come with the elimination of premiums and deductibles. Chelsea Clinton went the furthest, bizarrely claiming Sanders wants to end Medicare, Medicaid and other programs, while throwing "millions and millions" off their health insurance.

By Sunday night's debate, Clinton had honed her attack. This time, the thrust of her argument boiled down to: Obamacare is as good as we can do, and opening up the health care debate again risks losing what we have.

“Even when the Democrats were in charge of the Congress, we couldn’t get the votes for [a public option],” Clinton said. “We finally have a path to universal health care. We’ve accomplished so much already. I don’t want to see us start over again with a contentious debate.”

Clinton said she wants to “build on the Affordable Care Act and to improve it” by decreasing out-of-pocket costs and capping the amount Americans spend on prescription drugs.


This is such a key axis of disagreement: consolidate ACA and declare victory or push to expand coverage?

— Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) January 18, 2016

Two hours before the Democratic debate in Charleston, Sanders finally made good on his promise to release an updated single-payer proposal before the Iowa caucuses on Feb. 1. (He last released one in 2013.) His plan for federally administered health care would be funded by a 2.2 percent tax on all Americans -- which his campaign called a premium, not a tax -- a new 6.2 percent tax on businesses, and increased income and estate taxes on the wealthy.

Clinton suggested more than once that opening up the debate could backfire, a warning that Democrats shouldn't go too far.

"We have the Affordable Care Act. That is one of the greatest accomplishments of President Obama, of the Democratic Party, and of our country," she said. "To tear it up and start over again, pushing our country back into that kind of contentious debate, I think is the wrong direction." 

Sanders countered that there are still 29 million uninsured Americans, while rejecting the charge that he wants to dismantle Obamacare. “We’re not going to tear up the Affordable Care Act. I helped write it,” he said. 

Before Sunday, Clinton and her team had suggested that Sanders was withholding his health care proposal to avoid the perception that it would raise taxes on the middle class. After he released his plan, her press secretary, Brian Fallon, said in a statement that “Sanders is making [details] up as he goes along.”

Sanders said on Sunday night that he hoped Clinton would acknowledge that, overall, his plan would save people money. "It's a Republican criticism," he said of the tax jab.

The Tax Attack

The conventional wisdom is that Sanders (and the specter of Sen. Elizabeth Warren) has pulled Clinton in a more progressive direction. But health care isn't the only issue where Clinton is hitting Sanders from a conservative angle. 

During Sunday's debate, Clinton hammered on her promise not to raise taxes on households making less than $250,000 a year, which might sound trivial, but reflects a profound split within the Democratic Party.

"I don't think we should be imposing new big programs that are going to raise middle-class families' taxes," Clinton said during the last Democratic primary debate in December, once again pulling from GOP rhetoric. "I don't think a middle-class tax should be a part of anybody's plans right now." 

Republicans tend to talk about government as "imposing" itself, while Democrats talk about it in terms of benefits, social insurance or giving back. The pledge not to touch taxes under $250,000 handcuffs what could be done, and Clinton has gone after Sanders for his paid family and medical leave proposal, which, like the Democrats’ versions in the House and Senate, would institute a small payroll tax to fund the program. Clinton says she’d tax the wealthy instead so the U.S. wouldn’t be one of the only countries in the world that doesn’t guarantee paid family and medical leave.

Sanders has criticized Clinton for her tax-the-wealthy approach to paid leave, pointing out that popular programs like Medicare and Social Security rely on a payroll tax and, as a result, people feel more investment in them, and they have thus survived GOP attacks.

The Gun Attack

On gun safety, Clinton's been coming at Sanders from a liberal direction, perhaps the only chance she has to do it. The pressure pushed Sanders to flip -- or at least add in a ton of nuance -- to his position on what liability the gun industry has.

"I have made it clear, based on Sen. Sanders' own record, that he has voted with the National Rifle Association, the gun lobby, numerous times," she said. Sanders replied Sunday night that he had a D- rating from the NRA. 

Her campaign has pointed to Sanders’ votes to give gun manufacturers and dealers legal immunity from civil lawsuits and his votes against the Brady bill that instituted the federal background checks system in 1993 to suggest that he’s out-of-step with Democratic voters on the issue. Sanders has responded to Clinton’s scrutiny of his gun control record by noting he is in favor of banning assault weapons and closing a loophole that allows firearms to be sold at gun shows without the purchaser undergoing a background check, even though he represents a state that has many gun enthusiasts and few gun control measures.

“I think Secretary Clinton knows that what she says is very disingenuous,” he said in response to her attacks.

But Sanders didn’t have a comeback when Clinton listed off his past votes that aligned with the NRA, including his vote for the so-called “Charleston loophole,” which allows gun sales to proceed after three days even if a background check has not been completed. As the candidates pointed out, the debate was held at a venue just a block from the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, where nine church members were shot last June by a man who purchased his weapon while his background check was still pending.

Clinton’s attacks have proved successful, as Sanders has just in the past few days worked to shore up his vulnerabilities on gun control. On Friday, Sanders said he would support legislation proposed by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) that would repeal portions of the immunity law, leading to accusations from Clinton’s campaign that he was flip-flopping on the issue. And on Sunday, he said that he “would take a look at” closing the Charleston loophole.

The Obama Attack

In the middle of Sunday's debate, the Clinton campaign highlighted a major, if unsurprising, endorsement, and its framing told you everything about Clinton's strategy in South Carolina.


“What we have to do is protect the Obama legacy...and Hillary Clinton is that person.” -@EricHolder https://t.co/vPPiL8nU5i

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) January 18, 2016

South Carolina was added to the early state primary calendar, along with Nevada, to offset the extreme lack of diversity in Iowa and New Hampshire, which have outsized abilities to influence the race. With South Carolina, the Democratic National Committee and state Democratic leaders intended to give the state's large black community a say in the debate, a move former DNC head Howard Dean talks about in a new interview.
Clinton, meanwhile, has looked to those voters as her firewall if she loses the first two states. With Obama still highly popular in the black community, Clinton clung Sunday night as closely to the president as she could, and didn't miss an opportunity to note that Sanders has been awfully critical of him in the past.

How fire-resistant that wall is remains to be seen. Rep. Jim Clyburn, the dominant figure in Democratic politics in South Carolina, said in the spin room after the debate that Obama was in the single digits in South Carolina before he won Iowa. “If it’s perceived that [Clinton is] being rejected by voters, it would be a problem here,” he told reporters.

The Wall Street Attack. Wait, What?

Another area where Clinton is attempting to out-progressive Sanders is, perhaps surprisingly, on Wall Street reform. Earlier this month, before Sanders was to give a speech on financial policy, Clinton’s chief financial officer issued a pre-emptive statement arguing that Sanders was being soft on Wall Street by taking “a hands-off approach” to regulating shadow banking, a broad term for various types of financial activities that aren't regulated as strictly as conventional lending.

Sanders wants to reinstate Glass-Steagall, the Depression-era banking legislation President Bill Clinton repealed that prevented big banks from engaging in both investment and commercial activities. Clinton has advocated for an approach that would more stringently regulate shadow-banking, but not break up the big banks.  

Sanders’ campaign unveiled a new television ad Thursday that, for the first time, contrasted his record with Clinton’s. Since she gave him an opening by going after him on Wall Street reform, he points out that she has taken “millions from big banks” but is promising to “tell them what to do.” Clinton’s team immediately characterized the ad as a critical one that broke his promise not to run negative spots -- a complaint that signaled the Clinton camp was looking to go negative soon itself.

For Clinton, every attack on Sanders comes with a price: His backers shell out more small-dollar donations every time she hits him, with his campaign seeing a big uptick after it sent out a fundraising email arguing that Clinton was making “vicious and coordinated attacks” on his health care plan.

*Also on HuffPost:*

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 1 hour ago.

The Democratic debate got heated Sunday as Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders vied for advantage in the Iowa caucuses and distant third Martin O’Malley struggled to be heard.

The candidates clashed over guns, health care and Wall Street, and these were the six hardest hits:

*1. Clinton slams Sanders for voting “with the NRA”
*In the first minutes of the  debate, held just blocks from church where nine were shot and killed in June, Clinton slammed Sanders for voting with the NRA and gun lobby “numerous times.” She fired off a list of votes.

*Also Read:* Democratic Debate: Bernie Sanders Says Bill Clinton's Behavior 'Deplorable,' Is Annoyed by Question

“He has voted with the NRA, with the gun lobby numerous times. He voted against the Brady Bill five times. He voted for what we call the Charleston Loophole. He voted for immunity from gunmakers and sellers which the NRA said was the most important piece of gun legislation in 20 years,” Clinton said.

Sanders insisted he had a “D-minus” voting rating from the National Rifle Association and said Clinton’s criticisms have been “very disingenuous.”

*Also Read:* Ted Cruz References Horror Movie 'It Follows,' '13 Hours' During GOP Debate

*2. Clinton and Sanders battle over healthcare
*Clinton argued Sanders would essentially dismantle Obama’s healthcare plan.

“We finally have a path to universal healthcare, we’ve accomplished so much already. I don’t want to see us start over again with a contentious debate. I want us to defend and build the Affordable Care Act and improve it.”

Clinton said that Sanders’ recently proposed Medicare-for-all plan would trigger a new fight with Republicans over health care.

“I certainly respect Sen. Sanders’ intentions,” Clinton said, but added, “when you’re talking about health care, the details really matter.”

Sanders shot back that Clinton’s claims were “nonsense.”

“I’m on the committee that wrote the Affordable Care Act. … I voted for it. But right now what we have to deal with is that 29 million people still have no health insurance. We are paying the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs and still getting ripped off,” Sanders said.

But Clinton got the soundbite moment.

“Are we talking about the plan you introduced tonight or the plan you introduced nine times in Congress?” Clinton shot back.

*Also Read:* GOP Debate: Donald Trump and Ted Cruz Could Be Running Mates, If They Ever Stop Fighting

*3. Sanders knocks Clinton’s Wall Street ties*
Sanders attacked Clinton for taking speaking fees from Goldman Sachs.

“Goldman Sachs was recently fined $5 billion,” Sanders said. “Goldman Sachs has given this country two secretaries of the treasury. The leader of Goldman Sachs is a billionaire who comes to Congress who tells us to cut Social Security. You’ve received over $600,000 in speaking fees from Goldman Sachs in one year,” Sanders said.

Clinton shot back criticizing him for calling Obama “weak” and “disappointing.” She recalled that in 2011, Sanders’ called for a primary challenge against the president.

“He’s criticized President Obama for taking money from Wall Street,” Clinton said.

*Also Read:* Carly Fiorina Takes Shots at Trump, Clinton From the Kids' Table

*4. Sanders says he won’t dwell on Clinton, but calls his behavior “deplorable”*
Sanders was asked about former president Bill Clinton’s sexual misconduct, and said he found the inquiry annoying because he wants to focus on the issues. But he still worked in a jab.

“Yes, his behavior was deplorable,” Sanders said. “Have I ever once said a word about that issue? No, I have not.”

*5. Sanders and O’Malley slam Trump*

“All of us have denounced Trump’s attempts to divide this country: the anti-Latino rhetoric, the racist rhetoric, the anti-Muslim rhetoric,” said Sanders.

“If Donald Trump wants to start a registry in our country of people by faith, he can start with me, and I will sign up as one who is totally opposed to his fascist appeals that wants to vilify American Muslims,” said O’Malley.

*6. Clinton calls Putin a bully*

Asked how she would describe her personal relationship with Vladimir Putin, Clinton said: “Ah, it’s… interesting.”

“We’ve had some very tough dealings with one another,” Clinton went on. “He’s someone you have to continually stand up to because like many bullies, he is somebody who will take as much as he possibly can unless you do.”

*Related stories from TheWrap:*

Democratic Debate: Maybe Martin O'Malley Isn't Just Running to Be Clinton's Veep

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Here's Donald Trump On 'New York Values' At the GOP Debate (Video) Reported by The Wrap 49 minutes ago.

Clear Health Analytics announced today that their new health insurance plan-comparison portal, featuring the Clear Choice health plan selector, is available to assist consumers to easily and quickly choose a health insurance plan and beat the January 31st, 2016 deadline for open enrollment.

Stamford, CT (PRWEB) January 18, 2016

Shopping for health insurance should be more like shopping for a car and less like gambling. Consumers need to know what they are buying and what it will cost; Clear Health Analytics is on a mission to make sure that they do. The Clear Choice plan selector, which can be found at http://www.clearhealthmarket.com, uses Clear Health Analytics' innovative, patent-pending, machine-learning program to harness the power of big data to help consumers understand what they are buying and how much it will cost. Based on answers to a few questions, the Clear Choice plan selector offers a personalized estimate of total cost for each plan, allowing consumers to pick the best plan in minutes without overpaying.

Clear Choice predicts medical utilization for over 30 of the most common illnesses and conditions, modified for individual characteristics including age, gender and overall health. Clear Choice allows each consumer to personalize utilization and cost estimates based on their unique characteristics and health care needs. Users are presented with information about the type of medical services they are likely to need such as specialist visits, labs or imaging tests as well as the quantity of each service they are likely to need. Users can adjust values as they see fit for a more accurate cost estimate.

Clear Choice does the math. The cost of each medical service is instantly modeled against insurance plan provisions for all available plans, taking into account both deductibles and, where applicable, subsidies and cost share reductions. Consumers can cut through the complexity and confusion of different health plans designs to make better, faster and smarter decision about their health insurance based on a comparison of total cost for each available plan as well as other significant factors such as availability of preferred in-network doctors and preferred prescriptions (coming soon).

CEO of Clear Health Analytics, Jennifer Sclar said: “Picking a health insurance plan should not be like purchasing a lottery ticket. Under the Affordable Care Act, consumers are now required to purchase a very complex financial product each year. How can consumers possibly begin to evaluate their choices? Our mission is to empower consumers to make smarter health insurance decisions by providing clear, unbiased cost comparison information.”

About Clear Health Analytics; Clear Health Analytics is a consumer-focused data analytics company. Clear Health Analytics’ insurance decision support software reflects the core values of our Company; we value people, healthcare, good information, and clarity. Our software helps individual consumers and families select an insurance plan that will provide the coverage they need without overpaying. Our software is fast and simple to use and empowers consumers to make better decisions about one of the most important purchases they will make this year. Consumers can feel confident that they are making an informed decision.

Clear Health Analytics, Clear Choice, and Clear Health Market are trade names of Clear Health Bill, LLC, a Delaware limited liability corporation d/b/a Clear Health Analytics.

For more information please contact Jennifer Sclar, Jennifer(at)clearhealthanalytics(dot)com, 917-722-1181. Reported by PRWeb 1 day ago.

The GOP debate last week featured more immigrant bashing with the party’s front-runner, Donald Trump, reasserting his plan to construct a wall – this one a religious barrier preventing Muslims from getting into the country.

Trump has mocked a disabled journalist and Asian speech patterns, demonized undocumented immigrants as rapists and approved violence against a Black Lives Matter protester.  And he’s no outlier in the GOP. Chris Christie said he’d block even five-year-old orphaned Muslims from entering the United States. Ted Cruz denigrated gay people, urging states to ignore the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on marriage equality.

Since Nixon, this hate mongering has been GOP strategy to secure the vote of white workers. It’s a scam to get workers to fight among themselves. Republicans persuade white workers that blacks are taking their jobs through affirmative action. The GOP tells black workers that undocumented immigrants are taking their jobs. And now, the GOP warns, everyone should be afraid, be very, very afraid of Muslims. 
Meanwhile, back in Washington, D.C., the 1 percent took everybody’s everything. They got every rule change and tax break and special deal that they sought to further enrich themselves. Their incomes skyrocketed. That didn’t happen for white workers or black workers or women workers or any kind of workers. Workers haven’t had a raise in 30 years. No wonder they’re looking for someone to blame. But fellow workers aren’t at fault.

Last year, the AFL-CIO established the Labor Commission on Racial and Economic Justice to foster discussion among all workers about how the politics of hatred has enriched the wealthy and deprived the rest. I co-chair the commission with Marc Perrone, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union.

We’ve conducted forums in cities across the country and will continue those this year. Last week, we issued a report called Race and Economic Jeopardy for All by Ian Haney Lopez, a Berkeley law professor and director of the Racial Politics Project at Berkeley’s Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society. The report explains exactly how politicians’ deliberate use of racism has hurt workers ­– black, Latino, women, gay and white – while, simultaneously, advancing the agenda of the 1 percent.

Over the past several days in Washington, D.C., the AFL-CIO has brought together more than a thousand workers, including a delegation of hundreds from my union, the United Steelworkers, to discuss these issues at a convention that will end on Martin Luther King Day. This and the earlier meetings have been communions of workers of all ages, genders, religions and colors, enabling us to hear each other’s experiences, anxieties, fears and solutions.

The weird thing about hate is that it diminishes both the hater and the hated. The racial and religious hatred purveyed by the GOP didn’t improve the pay of white workers. They suffered wage stagnation just like everybody else. That’s because separated, workers are weak. Unions have always known that. To secure power, workers must stand together.

And workers’ common interests – better wages and better lives for themselves and their families – are much more significant than differences in skin tone or place of worship or gender.

Granted, the white worker and the black worker look different. But both want to go to work every day for decent wages. Both want to buy a home and have some kids and send them to good schools. Black and white hope to retire with dignity. Neither received a raise, considering inflation, in 30 years. Together they’ve suffered factory closures and jobs shipped overseas. There are no white pension plans or black pension plans. All pension plans are being gutted.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. saw this connection long ago. In 1961, as he tried to bridge the labor and civil rights movements, he said, “Our needs are identical with labor’s needs: decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing, old age security, health and welfare measures, conditions in which families can grow, have education for their children and respect in the community.”

Dr. King died while in Memphis to support striking sanitation workers. It was 1968. I was 14.

My life had changed completely because of what Dr. King was advocating that day in Memphis – collective bargaining. A couple of years before Dr. King’s assassination, my dad had gotten a union job at Reynolds Metal Co. near where we lived in Chicago.

All of a sudden, he was making enough money that we could afford a television. He saved and bought our family a home. He had health insurance and we went to a private doctor for the first time in our lives. My dad was the son of a Mississippi sharecropper who could barely scrape by, but now he worked in a mill where white and black union men called each other brother and where he earned enough to give his family a piece of the American dream.

That is what all workers want.

We aren’t going to achieve that dream for ourselves or our families or our communities or our country if we allow ourselves to be riven by ridiculous hatreds. It’s self-defeating.

We should listen to each other, employed and unemployed, union and non-union. All of us lucky enough to still have family-sustaining jobs should listen to those who don’t. We should, for example, hear the voices of those who work for minimum wage at places like Walmart and McDonald’s.

Walmart, owned by the Walton family, one of the richest in the world, won’t give many of their employees full-time hours and won’t provide health benefits they can afford without full-time hours.

So the workers are forced to depend on food stamps to feed their families and Medicaid for health insurance for their children. The GOP urges workers to see that as some sort of failing by Walmart employees. Republicans want to distract workers with hate for food stamp recipients while the Walton family benefits from all those government subsidies.

Food stamps and Medicaid mean the Walton family doesn’t have to pay its workers a decent wage. Food stamps and Medicaid are, in fact, welfare for the Waltons.

My grandfather worked hard every day of his life. Like Walmart workers, he never had much to show for it. It wasn’t because there was something wrong with him. It was because there is something wrong with the system, something exploited by the rich and powerful for their own benefit. But if workers reject hate and stand together, we can fix the system so that it works for the vast majority, for the workers.

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Consumer dissatisfaction with the Illinois health insurance market has spilled into the new year.

Much of the frustration stems from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois' decision last year to drop 173,000 members enrolled in a PPO plan. The cancellation sent individuals and families scrambling... Reported by ChicagoTribune 19 hours ago.

*1. "He'd never beat Trump or Cruz in a general election."*

Wrong. According to the latest polls, Bernie is the strongest Democratic candidate in the general election, defeating both Donald Trump and Ted Cruz in hypothetical match-ups. (The latest Real Clear Politics averages of all polls shows Bernie beating Trump by a larger margin than Hillary beats Trump, and Bernie beating Cruz while Hillary loses to Cruz.)

*2. "He couldn't get any of his ideas implemented because Congress would reject them."*

If both house of Congress remain in Republican hands, no Democrat will be able to get much legislation through Congress, and will have to rely instead on executive orders and regulations. But there's a higher likelihood of kicking Republicans out if Bernie's "political revolution" continues to surge around America, bringing with it millions of young people and other voters, and keeping them politically engaged.

*3. "America would never elect a socialist."*

P-l-e-a-s-e. America's most successful and beloved government programs are social insurance - Social Security and Medicare. A highway is a shared social expenditure, as is the military and public parks and schools. The problem is we now have excessive socialism for the rich (bailouts of Wall Street, subsidies for Big Ag and Big Pharma, monopolization by cable companies and giant health insurers, giant tax-deductible CEO pay packages) -- all of which Bernie wants to end or prevent.

*4. "His single-payer healthcare proposal would cost so much it would require raising taxes on the middle class."*

This is a duplicitous argument. Studies show that a single-payer system would be far cheaper than our current system, which relies on private for-profit health insurers, because a single-payer system wouldn't spend huge sums on advertising, marketing, executive pay, and billing. So even if the Sanders single-payer plan did require some higher taxes, Americans would come out way ahead because they'd save far more than that on health insurance.

*5. "His plan for paying for college with a tax on Wall Street trades would mean colleges would run by government rules."*

Baloney. Three-quarters of college students today already attend public universities financed largely by state governments, and they're not run by government rules. The real problem is too many young people still can't afford a college education. The move toward free public higher education that began in the 1950s with the G.I. Bill and extended into the 1960s came to an abrupt stop in the 1980s. We must restart it.

*6. "He's too old."*

Untrue. He's in great health. Have you seen how agile and forceful he is as he campaigns around the country? These days, 70s are the new 60s. (He's younger than four of the nine Supreme Court justices.) In any event, the issue isn't age; it's having the right values. FDR was paralyzed, and JFK had both Addison's and Crohn's diseases, but they were great presidents because they fought adamantly for social and economic justice.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 18 hours ago.

As we celebrate his birthday, it is easy to forget that Rev. Martin Luther King was a democratic socialist.

In 1964, accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, he observed that the United States could learn much from Scandinavian "democratic socialism." He often talked about the need to confront "class issues," which he described as "the gulf between the haves and the have-nots."

In 1966 King confided to his staff:
"You can't talk about solving the economic problem of the Negro without talking about billions of dollars. You can't talk about ending the slums without first saying profit must be taken out of slums. You're really tampering and getting on dangerous ground because you are messing with folk then. You are messing with captains of industry. Now this means that we are treading in difficult water, because it really means that we are saying that something is wrong with capitalism. There must be a better distribution of wealth, and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism."

In holding these views, King followed in the footsteps of many prominent, influential Americans whose views and activism changed the country for the better. In the 1890s, a socialist Baptist minister, Francis Bellamy, wrote "The Pledge of Allegiance" and a socialist poet, Katherine Lee Bates, penned "America the Beautiful." King was part of a proud tradition that includes such important 20th century figures as Jane Addams, Eugene Debs, Florence Kelley, John Dewey, Upton Sinclair, Helen Keller, W.E.B. DuBois, Albert Einstein, A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin, and Walter Reuther.

Today, America's most prominent democratic socialist is Senator Bernie Sanders, a candidate for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. Like King, Sanders says that the U.S. should learn from Sweden, Norway and Denmark -- countries with greater equality, a higher standard of living for working families, better schools, free universities, less poverty, a cleaner environment, higher voter turnout, stronger unions, universal health insurance, and a much wider safety net. Sounds anti-business? Forbes magazine ranked Denmark as the #1 country for business. The United States ranked #18.

Concerns about the political influence of the super-rich, the nation's widening economic divide, the predatory practices of Wall Street banks, and stagnating wages, have made more and more Americans willing to consider the idea seriously. A December 2011 Pew survey found that nearly half of young voters under the age of 29, regardless of their political party affiliation, viewed socialism positively. Since Sanders began running for president and openly identified himself as a democratic socialist, the idea has gotten more traction. A New York Times/CBS News poll conducted November, discovered that 56 percent of Democratic primary voters nationally said they felt positive about socialism as a governing philosophy, compared to 29 percent who had a negative view. A new poll found that 43 percent of likely voters in the February 1 Democratic Iowa caucuses would use the word "socialist" to describe themselves.

Regardless of how Americans identify themselves ideologically, the majority embrace ideas that some might call socialist. For example, 74% think corporations have too much influence; 73% favor tougher regulation of Wall Street; 60% believe that "our economic system unfairly favors the wealthy;" 85% want an overhaul of our campaign finance system to reduce the influence of money in politics; 58% support breaking up big banks; 79% think the wealthy don't pay their fair share of taxes; 85% favor paid family leave; 80% of Democrats and half the public support single-payer Medicare for all; 75% of Americans (including 53% of Republicans) support an increase in the federal minimum wage to $12.50, while 63% favor a $15 minimum wage; well over 70% support workers' rights to unionize; and 92% want a society with far less income disparity.

If these ideas seem "radical," it is worth remembering that many things that today we take for granted -- Social Security, the minimum wage, child labor laws, voting rights for women and African Americans, Medicare, and laws protecting consumers from unsafe products and protecting workers from unsafe workplaces -- were once considered radical, too. Ideas that were once espoused by socialists and seemed radical have become common sense.

It is easy to forget that, in his day, in his own country, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was considered a dangerous troublemaker. King was harassed by the FBI and vilified in the media. The establishment's campaign to denigrate King worked. In August 1966 -- as King was bringing his civil rights campaign to Northern cities to address poverty, slums, housing segregation and bank lending discrimination -- the Gallup Poll found that 63 percent of Americans had an unfavorable opinion of King, compared with 33 percent who viewed him favorably.

Today King is viewed as something of an American saint. A recent Gallup Poll discovered that 94 percent of Americans viewed him in a positive light. His birthday is a national holiday. His name adorns schools and street signs. In 1964, at age 35, he was the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Many Hollywood films -- most recently Ava DuVernay's brilliant "Selma" -- explore different aspects of King's personal and political life, but generally confirm his reputation as a courageous and compassionate crusader for justice. Politicians, preachers, and professors from across the political spectrum invoke King's name to justify their beliefs and actions.

King was a radical. He challenged America's class system and its racial caste system. He was a strong ally of the nation's labor union movement. He was assassinated in April 1968 in Memphis, where he had gone to support a sanitation workers' strike. He opposed U.S. militarism and imperialism, especially the country's misadventure in Vietnam.

In his critique of American society and his strategy for changing it, King pushed the country toward more democracy and social justice.

If he were alive today, he would certainly be standing with Walmart employees, fast food workers, and others fighting for a living wage and the right to unionize. He would be in the forefront of the battle for strong gun controls and to thwart the influence of the National Rifle Association. He would protest the abuses of Wall Street banks, standing side-by-side with homeowners facing foreclosure and crusading for tougher regulations against lending rip-offs. He would be calling for dramatic cuts in the military budget to reinvest public dollars in jobs, education and health care.

It is hardly a stretch to envision King marching with immigrants and their allies in support of comprehensive immigration reform and a path to citizenship. He would surely be joining hands with activists seeking to reduce racial profiling and the killing of young black men by police. He would stand with activists organizing to end the mass incarceration of young people. Like most Americans in his day, King was seemingly homophobic, even though one of his closest advisors, Bayard Rustin, was gay. But today, King would undoubtedly stand with advocates of LGBT rights and same-sex marriage, just as he challenged state laws banning interracial marriage.

Indeed, King's views evolved over time. He entered the public stage with some hesitation, reluctantly becoming the spokesperson for the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955, at the age of 26. King began his activism in Montgomery as a crusader against racial segregation, but the struggle for civil rights radicalized him into a fighter for broader economic and social justice and peace. Still, in reviewing King's life, we can see that the seeds of his later radicalism were planted early.

King was born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1929, the son of a prominent black minister. Despite growing up in a solidly middle-class family, King saw the widespread human suffering caused by the Depression, particularly in the black community. In 1950, while in graduate school, he wrote an essay describing the "anticapitalistic feelings" he experienced as a youngster as a result of seeing unemployed people standing in breadlines.

During King's first year at Morehouse College, civil rights and labor activist A. Philip Randolph, a socialist, spoke on campus. Randolph predicted that the near future would witness a global struggle that would end white supremacy and capitalism. He urged the students to link up with "the people in the shacks and the hovels," who, although "poor in property," were "rich in spirit."

After graduating from Morehouse in 1948, King studied theology at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania (where he read both Mohandas Gandhi and Karl Marx), planning to follow in his father's footsteps and join the ministry. In 1955, he earned his doctorate from Boston University, where he studied the works of Reinhold Niebuhr, the influential liberal theologian. While in Boston, he told his girlfriend (and future wife), Coretta Scott, that "a society based on making all the money you can and ignoring people's needs is wrong."

When King moved to Montgomery to take his first pulpit at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, he was full of ideas but had no practical experience in politics or activism. But history sneaked up on him. On Thursday, December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a seamstress and veteran activist with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), decided to resist the city's segregation law by refusing to move to the back of the bus on her way home from work. She was arrested. Two other long-term activists -- E. D. Nixon (leader of the NAACP and of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters) and Jo Ann Robinson (a professor at the all-black Alabama State College and a leader of Montgomery's Women's Political Council) -- determined that Parks' arrest was a ripe opportunity for a one-day boycott of the much-despised segregated bus system. Nixon and Robinson asked black ministers to use their Sunday sermons to spread the word. Some refused, but many others, including King, agreed.

The boycott was very effective. Most black residents stayed off the buses. Within days, the boycott leaders formed a new group, the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA). At Nixon's urging, they elected a hesitant King as president, in large part because he was new in town and not embroiled in the competition for congregants and visibility among black ministers. He was also well educated and already a brilliant orator, and thus would be a good public face for the protest movement. The ministers differed over whether to call off the boycott after one day but agreed to put the question up to a vote at a mass meeting.

That night, 7,000 blacks crowded into (and stood outside) the Holt Street Baptist Church. Inspired by King's words -- "There comes a time when people get tired of being trampled over by the iron feet of oppression" -- they voted unanimously to continue the boycott. It lasted for 381 days and resulted in the desegregation of the city's buses. During that time, King honed his leadership skills, aided by advice from two veteran pacifist organizers, socialist Bayard Rustin and Rev. Glenn Smiley, who had been sent to Montgomery by the pacifist group, Fellowship of Reconciliation. During the boycott, King was arrested, his home was bombed, and he was subjected to personal abuse. But -- with the assistance of the new medium of television -- he emerged as a national figure.

Between 1957 and 1968, King traveled over six million miles, spoke more than 2,500 times, and was arrested at least 20 times, always preaching the gospel of nonviolence. King attended workshops at the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee, which connected him to a network of radicals, pacifists and union activists from around the country whose ideas helped widen his political horizons.

It is often forgotten that the August 1963 protest rally at the Lincoln Memorial, where King delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech, was called the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. King was proud of the civil rights movement's success in winning the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act the following year. But he realized that neither law did much to provide better jobs or housing for the masses of black poor in either the urban cities or the rural South. "What good is having the right to sit at a lunch counter," he asked, "if you can't afford to buy a hamburger?"

King had hoped that boycotts, sit-ins and other forms of civil disobedience would stir white southern moderates, led by his fellow clergy, to see the immorality of segregation and racism. In his famous "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," written in 1963, King outlined a strategy of using nonviolent civil disobedience to force a response from the southern white establishment and to generate sympathy and support among white liberals and moderates. "The purpose of our direct-action program is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation," he wrote, and added, "We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed."

King eventually realized that many white Americans had at least a psychological stake in perpetuating racism. He began to recognize that racial segregation was devised not only to oppress African Americans but also to keep working-class whites from challenging their own oppression by letting them feel superior to blacks. "The Southern aristocracy took the world and gave the poor white man Jim Crow," King said from the Capitol steps in Montgomery, following the 1965 march from Selma. "And when his wrinkled stomach cried out for the food that his empty pockets could not provide, he ate Jim Crow, a psychological bird that told him that no matter how bad off he was, at least he was a white man, better than a black man."

When King launched a civil rights campaign in Chicago in 1965, he was shocked by the hatred and violence expressed by working-class whites as he and his followers marched through the streets of segregated neighborhoods in Chicago and its suburbs. He saw that the problem in Chicago's ghetto was not legal segregation but "economic exploitation" -- slum housing, overpriced food and low-wage jobs - "because someone profits from its existence."

These experiences led King to develop a more radical outlook. King supported President Lyndon B. Johnson's declaration of the War on Poverty in 1964, but, like his friend and ally Walter Reuther, the president of the United Auto Workers, King thought that it did not go nearly far enough. As early as October 1964, he called for a "gigantic Marshall Plan" for the poor -- black and white. That's when he began to talk openly about radical-but-practical solutions to America's problems, including some version of democratic socialism.

King became increasingly committed to building bridges between the civil rights and labor movements. Invited to address the AFL-CIO's annual convention in 1961, King observed:

The labor movement did not diminish the strength of the nation but enlarged it. By raising the living standards of millions, labor miraculously created a market for industry and lifted the whole nation to undreamed of levels of production. Those who today attack labor forget these simple truths, but history remembers them.

In a 1961 speech to the Negro American Labor Council, King proclaimed, "Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all God's children." Speaking to a meeting of Teamsters union shop stewards in 1967, King said, "Negroes are not the only poor in the nation. There are nearly twice as many white poor as Negro, and therefore the struggle against poverty is not involved solely with color or racial discrimination but with elementary economic justice."

King's growing critique of capitalism coincided with his views about American imperialism. By 1965 he had turned against the Vietnam War, viewing it as an economic as well as a moral tragedy. But he was initially reluctant to speak out against the war. He understood that his fragile working alliance with LBJ would be undone if he challenged the president's leadership on the war. Although some of his close advisers tried to discourage him, he nevertheless made the break in April 1967, in a bold and prophetic speech at the Riverside Church in New York City, entitled "Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence."

King called America the "greatest purveyor of violence in the world today" and linked the struggle for social justice with the struggle against militarism. King argued that Vietnam was stealing precious resources from domestic programs and that the Vietnam War was "an enemy of the poor." In his last book, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (1967), King wrote, "The bombs in Vietnam explode at home; they destroy the hopes and possibilities for a decent America."

In early 1968, King told journalist David Halberstam, "For years I labored with the idea of reforming the existing institutions of society, a little change here, a little change there. Now I feel quite differently. I think you've got to have a reconstruction of the entire society, a revolution of values."

King kept trying to build a broad movement for economic justice that went beyond civil rights. In January, 1968, he announced plans for a Poor People's Campaign, a series of protests to be led by an interracial coalition of poor people and their allies among the middle-class liberals, unions, religious organizations and other progressive groups, to pressure the White House and Congress to expand the War on Poverty. At King's request, democratic socialist activist Michael Harrington (author of The Other America, which helped inspire Presidents Kennedy and Johnson to declare a war on poverty) drafted a Poor People's Manifesto that outlined the campaign's goals.

In April, King was in Memphis, Tennessee, to help lend support to striking African American garbage workers and to gain recognition for their union. There, he was assassinated, at age 39, on April 4, a few months before the first protest action of the Poor People's Campaign in Washington, DC.

President Johnson utilized this national tragedy to urge Congress to quickly enact the Fair Housing Act, legislation to ban racial discrimination in housing, which King had strongly supported for two years. He signed the bill a week after King's assassination.

The campaign for a federal holiday in King's honor, spearheaded by Detroit Congressman John Conyers, began soon after his murder, but it did not come up for a vote in Congress until 1979, when it fell five votes short of the number needed for passage. In 1981, with the help of singer Stevie Wonder and other celebrities, supporters collected six million signatures on a petition to Congress on behalf of a King holiday. Congress finally passed legislation enacting the holiday in 1983, 15 years after King's death. But even then, 90 members of the House (including then-Congressmen John McCain of Arizona and Richard Shelby of Alabama, both now in the Senate) voted against it. Senator Jesse Helms, a North Carolina Republican, led an unsuccessful effort - supported by 21 other senators, including current Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) -- to block its passage in the Senate.

The holiday was first observed on January 20, 1986. In 1987, Arizona governor Evan Mecham rescinded King Day as his first act in office, setting off a national boycott of the state. Some states (including New Hampshire, which called it "Civil Rights Day" from 1991 to 1999) insisted on calling the holiday by other names. In 2000, South Carolina became the last state to make King Day a paid holiday for all state employees.

In his final speech in Memphis the night before he was killed, King told the crowd about a bomb threat on his plane from Atlanta that morning, saying he knew that his life was constantly in danger because of his political activism.
"I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And he's allowed me to go up to the mountain, and I've looked over, and I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land."

We haven't gotten there yet. But Dr. King is still with us in spirit. The best way to honor his memory is to continue the struggle for human dignity, workers' rights, racial equality, peace and social justice.

*Peter Dreier is the E.P. Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics and chair of the Urban & Environmental Policy Department at Occidental College. His most recent book is The 100 Greatest Americans of the 20th Century: A Social Justice Hall of Fame (Nation Books).
*

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 16 hours ago.

Hillary Clinton probably wishes Google users were searching for something different about her after Sunday’s Democratic Presidential debate.

According to Google analytics, the most-searched question related to Clinton on Sunday night was, “Will Hillary Clinton get prosecuted?” Users also searched for “What did Hillary Clinton do that is illegal?” and “Is Hillary Clinton a Democrat?”

Fellow Democratic Presidential hopeful Martin O’Malley didn’t fare much better in the Internet searches, with Google users submitting queries like, “Is Martin O’Malley still running for President?” and “What does Martin O’Malley do?”

*Also Read:* Democratic Debate: The 6 Hardest Hits by Clinton, Sanders and O'Malley

Rounding out the Democratic field, people wanted to know things about Bernie Sanders like, “Why is Bernie Sanders so popular?” and “Can Bernie Sanders win?”

During the debate, the three remaining Democratic candidates traded jabs on issues like healthcare, with Clinton claiming that Sanders would essentially dismantle President Obama’s Affordable Care Act.

“We finally have a path to universal healthcare, we’ve accomplished so much already. I don’t want to see us start over again with a contentious debate,” she said. “I want us to defend and build the Affordable Care Act and improve it.”

*Also Read:* Democratic Debate: Bernie Sanders Says Bill Clinton's Behavior 'Deplorable,' Is Annoyed by Question

Sanders shot back that Clinton’s claims were “nonsense.” “I’m on the committee that wrote the Affordable Care Act … I voted for it,” he said. “But right now what we have to deal with is that 29 million people still have no health insurance. We are paying the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs and still getting ripped off.”

*Related stories from TheWrap:*

Democratic Debate: Maybe Martin O'Malley Isn't Just Running to Be Clinton's Veep

Trump Uses '13 Hours' to Bribe Iowa Voters, Troll Clinton

Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders Talk Iowa Caucus in 'Courting Des Moines' Trailer (Video) Reported by The Wrap 15 hours ago.

On January 6, 2016, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a modification to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) removing barriers to reporting federal mental health prohibitor status for gun background check purposes. Reported by Mondaq 16 hours ago.

In the past few months a number of employers have taken action against employees for not participating in wellness programs. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is litigating these matters on behalf of employees. Reported by HNGN 14 hours ago.

We all knew the day would come when Hillary Clinton would finally have to stop pretending she wasn't worried about the Bernie Sanders campaign, and it has finally arrived.

Her daughter, Chelsea Clinton is now on the road doing stump speeches for her mom and using the opportunity to flat out lie about Bernie Sanders' healthcare plan.

"Sen. Sanders wants to dismantle Obamacare, dismantle the CHIP program, dismantle Medicare, and dismantle private insurance," Clinton said in New Hampshire earlier this week. "I don't want to empower Republican governors to take away Medicaid, to take away health insurance for low-income and middle-income working Americans. And I think very much that's what Sen. Sanders' plan would do."

Yet, nothing about this statement is actually true and the Sanders campaign was quick to act calling her comments inaccurate, and the fact-checking site PolitiFact was not far behind.

Sanders has not released his health care proposal as a presidential candidate but this campaign has said that Sanders would model it after the 2013 bill he put forward.

PolitiFact says:The bill, the American Health Security Act of 2013, specifically strips insurance benefits from the Affordable Care Act, the Children's Health Insurance Program, Medicare and Medicaid. The bill also bans the sale of private health insurance that duplicates benefits provided by the government program.

And she is also right that states would be the primary administrators of the system. The bill calls it a "state-based American Health Security Program." However, the assertion that it would empower Republican governors to take away individual's health insurance is misleading.

Sanders' plan requires states to set up the specifics of their health care system, though they must meet federal standards for various administrative details. For example, states must identify a single agency to manage the program. If a state does not set up a system, or if they refuse to meet the federal standards, the federal government will step in and run that state's program.
So this means Clinton's remarks that he would hand power over to governors is misleading, as it ignores the oversight and requirements. Currently, states can totally opt-out of many of these programs leaving too many uninsured residents, but Sanders' plan fixes that.

Clinton wants you to believe that millions would be left without insurance under Bernie's plan, but that is not the case.

"Her claim is analogous to saying that Medicare dismantled private insurance for the elderly," David Himmelstein, co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program, told PolitiFact. "It replaced defective private coverage with something better."

Apparently the Clinton campaign is confused as what universal health care is and somehow imagine a program that covers every single American will somehow leave out millions.

Or, more realistically, they know this but understand the only way they stand a chance to knock down Sanders is to turn to flat out lies, stealing from the Republican Party playbook.This article first appeared on Dan Arel's Danthropology blog.

[Image: rally #2 via photopin (license)]

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A devilishly shrewd idea emerged during the past few weeks from Hillary Clinton’s Presidential campaign. Rather than argue that her left-wing rival, Bernie Sanders, is simply too radical to be President, as she did at first, Clinton has decided to insist instead that the Vermonter is not progressive enough. Because Sanders has for decades been the only national political figure willing to call himself a socialist, this strategy at first seemed either strange or cynical. But it has been gathering momentum, first when Sanders struggled to defend his record on gun control and then when Chelsea Clinton, the once and perhaps future First Daughter, gave a pointed speech arguing that Sanders’s insistence on “dismantling” Obamacare to build a more radical health-insurance program would, effectively, “strip millions and millions of people of their health insurance.” In the debate last night, this tactic looked clearer, and more effective, than it had before. Sanders’s ideology is an imperfect fit with the institutional progressivism that Democratic primary voters have spent years working for; perhaps, in certain ways, it even undermines it. Clinton’s bet is that the political compass for her party’s primary voters does not point true left, to the Scandinavian social projects that Sanders so admires, but to the tangible gains that Democrats have won. She came to praise Barack Obama. Norway be damned. Reported by The New Yorker 14 hours ago.

Bernie Sanders' new plan for achieving the dream of countless Americans for nearly a century -- healthcare coverage for everyone -- deserves all of our thanks. And nurses will fight to make it come true.

Sen. Sanders' plan also aligns with the official position of the AFL-CIO, which has endorsed single payer health care, Medicare for all.

The AFL-CIO repeated that pledge most recently again last July when its Executive Council specifically endorsed single payer as part of its national Raising Wages campaign.

Indeed, as National Nurses United has long noted, improved Medicare for all will raise real wages for American workers and income will go up for nearly everyone. And that will give consumers more resources to spend, creating a huge multiplier effect for the economy.

In his announcement, Sen. Sanders said "the typical family earning $50,000 a year would save nearly $6,000 annually in health care costs."

An NNU study in 2009, on the eve of debate over the Affordable Care Act, predicted that single payer multiplier effect would create some 2.6 million new good paying jobs alone, plus substantial increases in federal and state revenues.

And, of course, Sen. Sanders deserves huge praise for being the first leading Presidential candidate to present a plan that will guarantee healthcare for every American, just as every other major nation has done.

A plan that will end the long nightmare facing the nation's uninsured, and those having to choose between getting the care they need or putting food on the table for their families. And it protects our most precious gift, our health.

A plan to eradicate the crisis of the 29 million who are still uninsured, and the tens of millions more facing medical debt, even with the gains made under the Affordable Care Act.

A plan to cut health care costs, put money back in consumers' pockets, create jobs, and address a major cause of income inequality, un-payable medical bills.

Instead of being held hostage to a corporate system based on profits and price gouging, we can finally have a system based on patient need, with a single standard of quality care for all, regardless of ability to pay, race, gender, age, or where you live. That's a beautiful thing.

A plan that pledges to provide comprehensive coverage, inpatient and outpatient, emergency care, dental care, vision, long term care, prescription drugs, medical supplies, and other basic needs.

One medical card, no networks that limit patient choice of doctor or other provider, no fighting with insurance companies over needed care they refuse to pay for.

And, contrary to those in the Clinton camp who have claimed that Sen. Sanders wants to turn our healthcare over to state governors, many of whom have refused to expand Medicaid under the ACA, the Sanders plan would be federally administrated, with national standards and national reimbursements.

Ultimately, any single payer plan is a financing mechanism. All final details would remain to be ironed out in the legislative process, as occurred with the ACA as well.

Sen. Sanders has certainly emphasized the power of the healthcare industry lobby in Congress, and that it will take the power of a grassroots political movement that he talks about to enact this plan. Nurses will be in the forefront of that effort.

A recent New York Times/Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that 20 percent of people under 65 who have health insurance continue to face significant problems with medical bills, despite the ACA.

The Times report found that 63 percent of those burdened by medical bills said they had "used up all or most of their savings," 42 percent had to take on another job or work more hours, 11 percent had to move or take in roommates, and 11 percent had to turn to charity due to those bills.

Those days will come to an end when we pass the Sanders proposal.

Now we have the framework for a plan that will save lives, achieve the dreams of Americans for nearly a century for guaranteed health care, help the fight to create jobs and reduce income inequality. It's up to all of us to make that happen.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 11 hours ago.

The growth of social-welfare programs, including health insurance, is shaping up to be a central issue in the campaign to succeed Obama. Reported by Seattle Times 8 hours ago.

Hindsait selected by Magellan Health for Technology to help further enhance clinical review process.

Hackensack, NJ (PRWEB) January 19, 2016

Hindsait, Inc. today announced that it has been selected by Magellan Health, Inc. (NASDAQ: MGLN) to provide technology to further improve Magellan’s utilization management system to help increase clinical quality and outcomes. Magellan Health selected Hindsait’s artificial intelligence and predictive analytics technology to enhance the company’s ability to identify potentially unnecessary health services during the review process. The technology also improves consistency and productivity for Magellan’s care reviewers.

Pinaki Dasgupta, Hindsait's CEO said, "The healthcare industry is starting to recognize the tremendous value that artificial intelligence predictive analytics technology can provide to leverage data in pursuit of better, more efficient care. We are excited to be working with Magellan Health to lead the way in this area."

"Magellan Health’s value for our clients is grounded in a unique high touch and high tech approach,” said Laurel Douty, chief operations officer of Magellan Healthcare. “We worked with Hindsait for more than a year to fine tune the particular application of predictive analytics that would enhance our efficiency without compromising quality. We are continually finding innovative ways to deliver better care at lower costs, and look forward to working with Hindsait and others in this developing area.”

Hindsait, Inc. turns artificial intelligence, predictive analytics and big data into healthcare business solutions. Hindsait’s platform starts with its ability to ingest and translate physicians’ “free text” in patient charts within a context of clinical guidelines and regulatory requirements. These inputs drive machine learning and predictive analytics in Hindsait’s Software as a Service (SaaS) Platform that evaluate, score and flag patient charts for specific actions. With Hindsait’s help, physicians and administrators at hospitals, health insurance plans and other healthcare payers and businesses can now prevent more unnecessary services, correct missed preventive care opportunities, speed up provider quality reporting (HEDIS and STAR ratings) and much more. To learn more or to contact Hindsait for a product demonstration, visit hindsait.com.

About Magellan Health: Headquartered in Scottsdale, Ariz., Magellan Health, Inc. is a leader in managing the fastest growing, most complex areas of health, including special populations, complete pharmacy benefits and other specialty areas of healthcare. Magellan develops innovative solutions that combine advanced analytics, agile technology and clinical excellence to drive better decision making, positively impact health outcomes and optimize the cost of care for the members we serve ¬— all within a customer-first culture. Magellan’s customers include health plans and other managed care organizations, employers, labor unions, various military and governmental agencies and third-party administrators. For more information, visit MagellanHealth.com.

Contact information for Hindsait:
Email: info(at)hindsait(dot)com
Phone: 201-478-6374

Contact information for Magellan Health:
Media Contact:
Colleen Flanagan Johnson, cefjohnson(at)magellanhealth(dot)com, (860) 507-1923
Investor Contact:
Renie Shapiro Silver, rshapiro(at)magellanhealth(dot)com, (877) 645-6464 Reported by PRWeb 23 minutes ago.

During one of the final weekends of the 2016 open enrollment period, MNsure enrollment centers statewide will host special weekend hours on Saturday and Sunday, in an effort to help any Minnesotans who have not yet enrolled in health insurance coverage. Reported by TwinCities.com 1 day ago.