April 15th saw a mixed group of "Tea Party" activists, protesters and political hopefuls stage a small but visible protest outside of California Senator Diane Feinstein's Los Angeles Offices.
It was one of many held throughout the southland on the American tax deadline date in response to the Obama administrations policies concerning healthcare, immigration and the growing federal deficit.

The protest was composed of libertarians, evangelicals, catholics, republicans, a percentage of democrats, LBGT republicans, Jewish, atheist, immigrant, wealthy and middle class conservatives.. This reporter spoke to at least a fourth of the crowd and found it to be surprisingly diverse and somewhat representative of the west side.

Generally the crowd was friendly with only a few openly hostile personalities. A warning went up at the beginning of the protest to be aware of left wing photographers that were simply there to take embarrassing shots of the participants. Of course that would seem to make this dreadlocked photographer who reports for IndyMedia an immediate center of attention, but happily that was not the case. The crowd was friendly and orderly.

The police presence was almost nonexistent ( one LAPD car was dispatched to cover the action ). This did seem rather disconcerting due to the presence of armed protesters at previous rallies around the US. and the recent threats that have been aimed at members of Congress following the passage of the health care bill. Also 11111 Santa Monica Blvd. is a heavy traffic area ( the protest was from 5:30 to 7:30... rush hour ) and the LAPD always has multiple units dispatched to protests for traffic / pedestrian safety issues alone. Yet there was only one unit for this protest.

The major media outlets were not in evidence either.

There were two political hopefuls working the crowd of perhaps 60 to 100 people, both republicans. Terry Rathbun is running for the State Assembly for the 41st district. and Ari David from the 30th district is running for Rep.Henry Waxman's seat.

Most of the crowd that I spoke to seemed to be of the entrepreneurial class and felt that they were losing control of their financial destinies. The complaints ran from President Obama being a Socialist antichrist to a few reasonable professional accountants who are deeply alarmed about a possible new state of "Stagflation", a jobless recovery, the national deficit, the cost of healthcare reform, and the untouchable bonus culture of Wall Street Bankers.

Quite a few of the activists were small business people who said that they felt crushed by regulations and taxation.

More than one person cited Ayn Rand.

For all of the suffering being cited the crowd was cheerful and friendly.

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This fellow was so reasonable.It was refreshing. He was the antithesis of the excited teaparty activist.

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This guy was a small business person. He was concerned that some one had incorrectly cited the "don't tread on me" flag as a flag of the Southern Succession. He also felt as though regulatory controls in California were oppressive.

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The Tea Party crowd in front of Senator Feinsteins Office in West L.A.

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I would hope not.

On to the snark.

The Gay and Stupid Guy

The law's going to pass, so he just has to deal with it. The new law will cause his premium to drop because he purchases insurance on the open market. It will drop because more people are forced into the buying pool. Because he could get insurance, I assume he has no severe preexisting condition. (People with preexisting conditions will finally be able to get insurance, but, they will pay high premiums for it.)

Once he's a little older, it's going to be the young paying for his insurance. That's something to consider, Mr. middle aged man.


LOL "ENTITED". I guess she didn't have the money for an "L" and a comma, and is doing the best she can.


Thomas Jefferson, spoken like a true politician. Sounds like one of those people whose spent their entire life in government, and say "we need less government." Ohhh, and look, one of these less-government Teabaggers is running for office. What a parasite.


"Taxers and Spenders" - the problem of voting is that you don't get rid of the taxers and spenders. You just replace them with other taxers and spenders.


"Can't get up" lady is lying. She bought that placard, paid sales taxes, and she's still standing.


The Sickle and Skulls Guy

If communism equals death, then death equals communism. Everyone becomes a communist, eventually. There are two things of which you can be sure: communism and taxes. When someone dies, they go to a better place: some communist country.


Psalms 109:8 - The Bible, in her hands, is a book of hate and murder.

May his days be few; may another take his place of leadership.
May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.
May his children be wandering beggars; may they be drivend from their ruined homes.
May a creditor seize all he has; may strangers plunder the fruits of his labor.
May no one extend kindness to him or take pity on his fatherless children.
May his descendants be cut off, their names blotted out from the next generation.
May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the Lord;

"The new law will cause his premium to drop because he purchases insurance on the open market. It will drop because more people are forced into the buying pool."
why don't you show us the page and paragraph in this Health Care Insurance Preservation Act where the Insurance providers need to respond to a 'market' where everyone is forced top buy the product.
Your statement is meaningless.

Well, he bought the insurance on the market, and he'll still be buying it in the market, but many people not presently in the risk pool will be paying into it.

The reason why individual premiums are high is because those who don't need the insurance drop their coverage. That leaves fewer healthy people in to cover for the sick people. That drives premiums up.

When you add those people back in, the premiums drop.

Not everyone will enjoy lower premiums, but, this person probably will.

"The reason why individual premiums are high is because those who don't need the insurance drop their coverage. "
what are you talking about?
The reason premiums are high is because the insurance companies have a bottom line and greedy share holders that know damn well, that most of the money goes to pad the butt buffers that administrate the insurance corporation and the greedy share holders.
Not like a social program run to cover medical costs only like Medicare, which is now going to be gutted 500 million to feed this act, which was written by the very same health insurance corporations.
nice try a fogging the real issues....

I wasn't going to respond to this, but, what the hey.

I'm all for single payer and even a national healthcare system, but political numbers to achieve that transformation are not there. I don't mean that Tea Party assholes were effective.

They tried, but, the resistance was mostly internal, from the White House. I suspect the WH has some polling data that isn't so media-friendly, and directed their strategy. If you look up the numbers about who has private insurance, who has public insurance, and who has none, it'll be obvious why it's hard to change.

As far as insurance companies - they were in it from the start, but not all of them. Just some of them, like Kaiser, were supporting. The rest were opposing, and passing money to the Tea Baggers.

Insurance company profits are around 4%. The problem is that to maintain that 4%, they have to spend a lot of money on marketing, and deny coverage to higher-risk people. This HCR basically cut at the marketing budget -- people are forced to buy insurance -- and got rid of denying coverage. It didn't address prices directly, but there is some competition in the market. It did address the problem of attrition when costs rise.

The HCR is just insurance reform. It doesn't fix everything. You still need to fight to establish a public option that will operate differently, and put healthcare ahead of profits. That's going to take more organization and "movement" than was mustered for the current HCR bills.

Hopefully, the fact that we're now forced into participating in an insurance system will wake some apathetic people to action, and create the political momentum to do exactly that.

There's a movement called OneCare California that is trying to establish Single Payer in CA. That's the next step. Or if it's not, maybe a compromise to create a public option in CA.

The only way to move toward real universal care is to build up a public healthcare system that works for more people.

PS - the HCR that has been passed is bad, but consider that the previous big HC law was Medicare Part D. That's the horrible political situation today: the Democrats pass old Republican-style reforms, while the Republicans are totally capitalist cronies.

If you drive a car, you must buy auto insurance, by law.

If you own a house, you have to buy earthquake and house insurance. (There is a public option for quake insurance, too.)

If you rent, you don't, but your landlord does, so that cost is passed along in the rent.

If you go to some colleges, you are forced to buy the health plan there.

If you work, you are "forced" to pay into Medicare. If you are an employer, there are those taxes, too.

Employers also pay into the workmens comp system.

If you travel to Mexico, you need to buy Mexican insurance.

Insurance is just the quasi-private/quasi-public mezzanine level between "nothing at all" and a government-run service paid for by taxes (like police, firefighting, and schools).

There are some insurances that are optional, like insuring your possessions. There are others that are mandatory, like auto insurance or workers comp.

HCR moves health insurance from the former, optional category, to the latter, mandatory category.

I own a home and it isn't insured. My privately owned vehicle is not registered beyond the original purchase and it is not insured.
I have the right to own property and travel on public thoroughfares without mandates from the state.

"The rest were opposing, and passing money to the Tea Baggers."
--some evidence of this please. Many aspersions are being grafted to the TEA PARTY MOVEMENT---
like the deliberate insulting "tea bagger" wicker.
"Insurance company profits are around 4%"
--again, where did you get this data? I don't believe it.
We do know that profits are the only motivation for these institutions which makes it a fascist coalition between the state and the corporations. With no public input, unless being denied heath care for a bottom line is now a method of feedback to the competitive race among these predatory corporations.
Not like a universal, not for profit, public single payer Medicare like double blind treatment system.
Are we to believe that the major contributors who WROTE this act were blessed with a fervent desire to 'help' us?
if so....
Ocean front property is now for sale in New Mexico for you....
Are you employed to disperse this 'information' by the insurance companies?

If you're in CA, and drive the car without insurance, you're violating the law. You're also required to purchase earthquake insurance, and some places require fire insurance. If you have a mortgage, the bank requires insurance.

You can look up profit margins on finance websites. Look for companies on the report linked from this page: http://blog.aflcio.org/2009/05/27/health-insurance-profits-soar-as-industry-mergers-create-near-monopoly/

Then look up the stock quotes on sites like Yahoo. I looked up Aetna, and their profit was 3.6% last year. That's not small, but it's not huge. For comparison, supermarkets operate at around 1% profit. Wal-Mart is around 3%.

The HCAN report is interesting, too. It says that insurance is too highly consolidated. They may be correct. But the implicit solution of breaking up the monopolies doesn't solve the pricing problem. Insurance companies are fundamentally fiscal institutions, like banks -- they don't provide healthcare - they provide financing to purchase healthcare, and act as middlemen between patients and doctors.

The real problem is the internal way they do business. Money is spent on things like marketing and participating in a market like a profit-oriented company. They spend money on lobbyists. They're like small empires.

The real solution is single payer, but, given US history, it's not likely to happen quickly.

Over and over, the government has been slow to implement social programs for public benefit. Instead, the governments tend to hold back and let churches, insurance companies, labor unions, and cooperatives create public benefits.

I don't think it's necessarily because government is slow. Generally, some people in the government will put up roadblocks to government action. Maybe it's a politician who happens to have financial interests in a competing, private service. At least in CA, some of the politicos have been business moguls or the "robber barons" of the railroads. Rich people decide they want to get richer, and, the government is getting in the way of their huge egos... so they run for office and basically buy a seat in the government.

Steve Poizner, Meg Whitman, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ron Unz, Steve Westly, Mike Curb, Richard Riordan, etc. etc. etc. All these politicians were rich people who look(ed) favorably on businesses.

The insurance companies clearly won this round, but, what they won wasn't huge profits but protection for their existence. They will have to change their business, but the business will still exist.

Now the challenge is to mobilize "consumers" into a political force that can defeat the insurance business' monopoly on heathcare financing. The most sensible strategy is to start up publicly operated insurance, and also establish public hospitals. We have them, but we should have more.

If these things are established, they can grow. They'll have to be done at the state and county level, but, that's okay. If they grow to cover the majority of residents, it'll be a success. If a public system covers around 60% of residents, they'll have basically displaced the private insurance system (which presently has around 60% of the market).

That's why the insurance companies killed the public option.

If you're in CA, look for OneCare California. They are making a local effort to implement single payer. Even if it gets modified into a public option, it would be a victory. I signed up, and will probably donate some money to their cause. We're a liberal state and can do it.

Fair.org has an article: "The Right’s Library of Fake Quotes
Putting words in dead people’s mouths"
Researching this quote on the protester's sign shows it is a legitimate quote, but incomplete... it seems to me Jefferson goes on to approve of a 'communism':
" I think, myself, that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious. I believe it might be much simplified to the relief of those who maintain it. Your experiment seems to have this in view. A society of seventy families, the number you name, may very possibly be governed as a single family, subsisting on their common industry, and holding all things in common. "
THE PROGRESS OF SOCIETY
To William Ludlow
Monticello, September 6, 1824

The government cannot force you to buy a product from a private for profit company as per the insurance index. The first question a Judge will ask is- If we agree with the governments argument, wouldn’t we be giving it the capacity to order citizens to buy any product it deemed necessary.

The government cannot force you to buy a product from a private for profit company as per the insurance index. The first question a Judge will ask is- If we agree with the governments argument, wouldn’t we be giving it the capacity to order citizens to buy any product it deemed necessary.