At DN: Rep. Alan Grayson's (Fla) "Medicare You Can Buy Into Act" Attracts 50 Co-Sponsors

Rep. Alan Grayson's H.R. 4789 "Medicare You Can Buy Into Act" Attracts 50 Co-Sponsors

The Public Option lives!!!

How Cong. Weiner helped bring public option back; challenging another way that Obama disappoints us

President Barack Obama is a colossal disappointment to progressives. Pick your issue. The Nobel Peace Prize winner is escalating the war in Afghanistan; Obama's Education Secretary Arne Duncan is short-sightedly pursuing a program to speed up the closure of "troubled schools" as a panacea to all ills in American education; he has restricted government generosity to bailing out the financial industry (OK, the federal bailout/ buy-out of General Motors, excepted), failing to address how the recovery is a jobless recovery. Now, he is settling for a terrible health care plan that rewards medical insurance companies and forces uninsured individuals to pick up their own health care costs.
To worsen matters on the last point, President Obama is dozens of potential allies on health reform. Meet Brooklyn/Queens (New York City) Congressman Anthony Weiner. And note well, how Obama responded to Weiner's hewing closer to principles with "I hope you are enjoying your last trip on Air Force One."
John Heilemann, "Back From the Death Panel: How the public option, helped by a congressman looking for an issue and a shrewdly silent White House, returned from the brink" "New York Magazine," October 11, 2009

On the night last week when much of Washington was joyously weeping over the seal of approval bestowed on the Baucus health-care bill by the Congressional Budget Office, Anthony Weiner was in his quarters in the Rayburn Building, merrily pissing all over the legislation instead. “It’s just too weak,” he told me. “It doesn’t do enough. It doesn’t achieve real cost savings. There’s no real competition. It’s pretty much a wish list for the insurance companies.” And those were merely Weiner’s substantive criticisms of the bill. His political assessment was even harsher: “It’s effectively dead,” he said.

Not a droplet of Weiner’s dismissal of the Baucus plan came as any sort of shock; he’s been trashing the Senate Finance Committee’s efforts for weeks. What’s surprising is that anyone gives a fig what Weiner has to say about the topic in the first place. Until six months ago, after all, the congressman was known more for his yearning to acquire the keys to Gracie Mansion than his mastery of the arcana of Medicare reimbursement rates. In fact, as Weiner would be the first to admit, his interest in, knowledge of, and record on health-care reform were perilously close to nonexistent.

And yet, since May, when he concluded that taking on Mike Bloomberg was a challenge that went beyond the Sisyphean into the realm of the just plain silly, Weiner has emerged as one of the few real stars in the marathon health-care debate: the clearest and savviest (and, as always, loudest and noodgiest) voice in favor of the public option. And though it’s plain that whatever bill eventually lands on Barack Obama’s desk—and, yes, I think the odds are now close to overwhelming that a big pile of health-care paper will wind up there—won’t be anything close to Weiner’s single-payer dream, his role in framing the terms of the discussion has been more than salutary. In some non-obvious ways, you could argue that it’s been essential.

I should confess at the outset that I have a long-standing soft spot for Weiner, whom I first met more than twenty years ago, when he was a budding Chuck Schumer protégé and we played on the same Capitol Hill softball team. Weiner then was strikingly similar to Weiner now: amped-up, ambitious, wicked smart, forever gauging all the angles, unafraid of being (actually, proud of being) a royal pain in the tuchis. All the qualities, in other words, that have served him so well in the wrangle over health care.

Weiner describes his efflorescence on the subject as a matter of opportunism, in the best sense of the word. “This was one of those unusual issues where we really didn’t have a mother ship that was directing the message, and that created an entrepreneurial environment,” he says. “You didn’t have the president out there speaking clearly about what he wanted. And among my colleagues, there weren’t people that jumped out who either had a comfort with the material or weren’t intimidated by the blowback.” Weiner laughs. “Frankly, I like the blowback. After my thirteenth town-hall meeting, someone on my staff said, ‘I can’t tell if you’re a sadist or a masochist.’ ”

Weiner is right about the nature of the vacuum that he smartly stepped in to fill, but there are at least two other proximate causes for it that should be added to his list: the illness and death of Ted Kennedy and the migration of Hillary Clinton out of the Senate and into Foggy Bottom, which deprived the debate of what would have been its two dominant liberal protagonists. For Weiner, Clinton’s absence and its implications carry a personal twist; he is engaged to Huma Abedin, Hillary’s longtime personal aide. “It’s a weird irony that I’m kind of part of the family now and this has become my issue,” Weiner says. “If Hillary had stayed in the Senate, I would never have had this opening.”

Weiner allows that he’s discussed the health-care battle with Clinton; what she’s told him he will not say. But one imagines she approves of the cleverness and chutzpa he’s displayed—especially in drawing an explicit analogy between the public option and Medicare, an equation that not only increases support for the proposal among voters but flushes out the phoniness of the Republican howls against a “government takeover” of health care. And one similarly imagines Madame Secretary’s chagrin at watching the Obama White House pursue a dance-of-the-seven-veils strategy explicitly designed to be the antithesis of the one she employed back in 1993 and 1994.

Weiner’s view of the administration’s approach hasn’t exactly been approving—a point he’s made abundantly and consistently clear over the past months. On the eve of Obama’s September speech before a joint session of Congress, Weiner cracked that “up to now, the messaging from the White House has been done by Sybil … They seem to have a different perspective on this every couple of hours.” And he’s apparently had no change of heart. “The president has been a miserable messenger on this by and large,” he tells me.

Read more: How Anthony Weiner Helped the Public Option Return From the Brink -- New York Magazine http://nymag.com/news/politics/powergrid/59907/#ixzz0Zc6q2dVk

Back From the Death Panel

Such criticisms haven’t gone unnoticed at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, in no small part because Weiner—in a testament to his consistency, lunacy, inability to shut up, or all three—hasn’t shied away from making them directly. Indeed, on a recent flight back to Washington from New York on Air Force One, I’m told by one congressman who witnessed the scene, Weiner got into a testy exchange with Obama over the former’s ideas about how the latter might better prosecute the case for reform. When I ask Weiner about the incident, he refuses to divulge details, but notes that when it was over, the president said to him drily, “I hope you’re enjoying your last trip on Air Force One.” “He was kidding—I think,” adds Weiner.

In truth, Weiner has been on the receiving end of zero complaints from the White House for his potshots. “I see Rahm [Emanuel] at the House gym every morning, and he’s never beefed to me about this once,” Weiner says. “I think he needs this pressure from the left—it serves them. They needed someone to generate the heat of their base to give them the space to be the moderate voice. I’m convinced that if it weren’t me, they’d have to create me.”

Weiner’s theory is self-serving, but it makes a kind of sense. Over the summer, Weiner, by threatening to bottle up a vote on the main House health-care bill in the Energy and Commerce Committee, forced House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to grant him a floor vote this fall on a single-payer plan. Weiner believes in single-payer as a matter of policy—but he also sees the political advantage of putting forward a proposal that will at once satisfy certain elements of the base and create the appearance that the public option is itself a compromise toward the center. And his adamant advocacy of a robust public option itself generates breathing room for the sort of modified version that might win approval in both the House and Senate.

What Weiner has no doubt about now is that the final legislation will include just such a provision—because without it, there simply aren’t the votes in the House to pass a bill. “I think President Obama will put his finger on the scale at some point,” he says. In the end, it’s going to be simpler to corral one or two senators to accept a public option with some modifications than it’s going to be to get a hundred House members off their rebellious screed.

From what Weiner can divine from Emanuel and others in the White House, this kind of brass-tacks calculation—not the policy merits, not even the long-range political ramifications—is all that matters now. Obama’s bizarro, out-of-nowhere acquisition of the Nobel Peace Prize at the end of last week notwithstanding, the president has had a rough few months and badly needs to put a win on the board. And no one is looking to make that any harder than it’s been already.

To illustrate why that means the public option will prevail, Weiner colorfully sketches out his vision of the endgame: “Obama goes to Nancy and says, ‘I’ve decided I’m giving up the public option.’ And she says, ‘Well, dude, I can’t get this done then.’ So then he goes to Harry Reid and says, ‘We’re going with the public option. What do we have to do in Nebraska to get Ben Nelson onboard?’ That’s a much easier conversation.”

Read more: How Anthony Weiner Helped the Public Option Return From the Brink -- New York Magazine http://nymag.com/news/politics/powergrid/59907/index1.html#ixzz0Zc6LeVS3

Public option bill clears key House panel; shows need to replace yet more Blue Cross Democrats and Republicans

The House Energy and Commerce Committee late Friday night (July 31) finally completed work on a public option health bill. Progressive backers of the bill peeled off sufficient numbers of Blue Cross Democrats. "The committee passed its reform bill 31 to 28, with five Democrats joining every Republican in voting no," the Huffington Post reported.

THIS SUMMER'S REMAINING BATTLE
Like the kooky ideas, such as the spurious claim that Obama was not born in Hawaii, the Republicans make themselves all the more irrelevant and intellectually pathetic with outrageous demogogic lies about the most extreme kind of health rationing possible. Harkening back the 1973 science fiction film "Soylent Green" about a government euthenasia operation, the Republicans are spreading the sick lie that the Democrats and Obama have a plan to euthenize (put to death) the elderly.
Yes, the Republicans have really got much of the public convinced of this. Democratic Congressmen in public forums are having to respond to worried constituents that ask about a mysterious government euthenasia program.
Pro-health reform officeholders and activists need to get out there in the month of August and dispel this crazy euthenasia idea and push the drumbeat for the public option bill.

WHY "BLUE CROSS" DEMOCRATS; NEED FOR PUBLIC FINANCING OF CAMPAIGNS

NEED TO BUILD STRONGER PROGRESSIVE BASE IN CONGRESS BY PUSHING BLUE CROSS DEMS AND WEAK REPUBLICANS.
Republicans and Blue Cross Democrats are concentrated in states that currently have high unemployment. Progressives on the ground in these areas --I'm thinking of local chapter/activist-heavy organizations such as MoveOn.org or Progressive Democrats of America <{Here's their directory of chapters, all you progressives in those states}>-- need to mobilize among the vulnerable people in the communities in these high-concentration conservative Democrats or Republicans/high unemployment states: Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio. Activists need to tell the public that the FOX News / Limbaugh pablum is all wrong.
If the Blue Cross Democrats or Republicans stick by their aims and still oppose the public option health bill in the Fall vote,
they are sitting ducks and they must be replaced in the 2010 elections.
Call and write your Congressperson and Senator. They have sometimes pulled their contact information from their sights after contact from masses of pro-health reform constituents. Here is the connection for the Vote-Smart.org site (a non-partisan group), to get reasonably through contact information on Federal-level elected officials; just type in your zip code to find your representative.

HERE ARE THE HOUSE BLUE DOG DEMOCRATS, STRAIGHT FROM THEIR OWN SITE:
The lower South:
Rep. Charlie Melancon (LA-03), Blue Dog Co-Chair for Communications
Barrow, John (GA-12)
Berry, Marion (AR-01)
Bishop, Sanford (GA-02)
Boyd, Allen (FL-02)
Bright, Bobby (AL-02)
Childers, Travis (MS-01)
Griffith, Parker (AL-05)
Marshall, Jim (GA-03)
Melancon, Charlie (LA-03)
Ross, Mike (AR-04)
Scott, David (GA-13)
Taylor, Gene (MS-04)

The midwest and the upper South:
Rep. Baron Hill (IN-09), Blue Dog Co-Chair for Policy
Rep. Heath Shuler (NC-11), Blue Dog Whip
Boswell, Leonard (IA-03)
Chandler, Ben (KY-06)
Cooper, Jim (TN-05)
Davis, Lincoln (TN-04)
Donnelly, Joe (IN-02)
Ellsworth, Brad (IN-08)
Giffords, Gabrielle (AZ-08)
Gordon, Bart (TN-06)
Hill, Baron (IN-09)
Kratovil, Jr., Frank (MD-01)
McIntyre, Mike (NC-07)
Nye, Glenn (VA-02)
Shuler, Heath (NC-11)
Tanner, John (TN-08)
Space, Zack (OH-18)
Tanner, John (TN-08)
Wilson, Charles (OH-06)
The northeast
Altmire, Jason (PA-04)
Arcuri, Mike (NY-24)
Carney, Christopher (PA-10)
Dahlkemper, Kathy (PA-03)
Holden, Tim (PA-17)
Michaud, Mike (ME-02)
Murphy, Patrick (PA-08)

The plains and mountain states, west of the 95 degree longitude:
Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (SD), Blue Dog Co-Chair for Administration
Boren, Dan (OK-02)
Cuellar, Henry (TX-28)
Giffords, Gabrielle (AZ-08)
Herseth Sandlin, Stephanie (SD)
Matheson, Jim (UT-02)
Minnick, Walt (ID-01)
Mitchell, Harry (AZ-05)
Moore, Dennis (KS-03)
Peterson, Collin (MN-07)
Pomeroy, Earl (ND)
Salazar, John (CO-03)

The west coast:
Baca, Joe (CA-43)
Cardoza, Dennis (CA-18)
Harman, Jane (CA-36)
Sanchez, Loretta (CA-47)
Schiff, Adam (CA-29)
Thompson, Mike (CA-01)

United Health had 155% profit in 2nd Q report; Blue Cross Democrat Mike Ross (Ark) on the take

On the "Ed Schultz Show" it was announced that United Health got profits of 155% in the second quarter
-a major detail that you will never hear from Fox News and similar right-wing, pro-Republican biased media. Here is the link, to hear audio archive of Schultz's first occasion to announce these outrageous profits.
And the MSNBC transcript page, of Ed's announcement there, 6 PM, Wednesday night.

MIKE ROSS, Blue Dog Democrat, ooh, make that "Blue Cross Democrat," has made millions from prescription drugs.
Scroll below the following story for Mike Ross' work to oppose public health reform.
From Blue Dog Lake, the Blue Texan's blog, Wednesday, July 22, 2009. Read the story. Ross has some gall to profit from drugs and also stall the health bill, THEN CALL HIS OFFICE, AND TELL HIM TO LET PUBLIC OPTION pass.

Every Blue Dog who claims to be "concerned about the costs" of health care reform is really just concerned about preserving their gravy train.

Rep. Mike Ross was at the White House Tuesday demanding Democrats produce a health-care bill that keeps costs under control. Mr. Ross is himself a Democrat -- and a powerful one. He is bringing together fellow party members on the crucial House Energy and Commerce Committee in rebellion against the health bill backed by House Democratic leaders.
...

There are 51 Blue Dogs in the full House, Mr. Ross pointed out, more than enough to kill the health bill if they join the Republicans.

Thanks, Mike! Your commitment to the financial well-being of our country is admirable.

This is probably just a coincidence.

A pharmacist, Ross founded Ross Pharmacy Inc. He sold the business in 2007, but according to his 2008 financial disclosure form, he and wife Holly still "own 100% of stock" in the company, which pays dividends over $100,000 a year. Holly Ross is also listed as employed by Super D Drug Acquisition Co.

And while Ross rakes it in, nearly 1 in 5 residents of Arkansas are without health insurance.

Guess who's his biggest sugar daddy?

The health industry was the #1 sector contributing to Ross last year. OpenSecrets.org lists $261,000 in contributions from individuals and PAC's from health care businesses.

Shocker.

Tell Mike Ross to stop putting his personal interests before his country's.

Office:

1-800-223-2220

202 225-3772

(202) 225-1314 Fax

Email:

mike.ross@mail.house.gov

"Mike Ross and the Blue Dogs Sell Their Souls"

. . . Yes, Ross seemed to take particular pleasure in letting real Democrats and Americans who desperately need real reform know that he plans on selling them out in every sense of the word:

Arkansas Rep. Mike Ross, a key negotiator on health care for moderate Blue Dog Democrats, has warned that "there's no way they can pass the current bill on the House floor. Not even close."

"I suspect we'll have all the time we need, given they don't have the votes to get it out of committee," Ross said

Well, I am so glad you have so much time Mr. Ross. Your healthcare is a sweet deal and is provided by us. Unfortunately for many of us who you hold in such low regard we do not have that luxury. We cannot afford to see a doctor to get stitches to sew up the wound from your stab in the back.

And of course when it comes to raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans Mike Ross by his own words might as well be Rush Limbaugh:

The conservative Arkansas Democrat also objects to the surtaxes included in the bill, saying, "I don't like the idea of raising taxes in the worst economic crisis since World War II."

http://www.politico.com/news/s...
***
HEALTH COMPANIES' BOY, MIKE ROSS, BLOCKING HEALTH REFORM:
. . . .

A leader of the Blue Dog Coalition of conservative House Democrats said Thursday that he and six others in the group would vote together to block the bill in the Energy and Commerce Committee unless changes were made to slow the growth rate of federal health care spending and to ensure that rural hospitals are adequately reimbursed for treating new patients under the legislation.

"We simply are demanding a bill that contains costs so that health care can grow at the normal rate of inflation and that addresses many of the rural health care concerns that (hospitals be adequately reimbursed) and that we don't put small businesses out of business through an employer mandate," Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark., said in an interview.

In response to the Blue Dogs' demands, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said that there would be opportunity for members to make additional "structural changes" to the bill to address cost concerns.

"Can there be more (savings)? I think so," she said. "And that is what the legislative process is about. You don't write the whole bill, introduce it, and then go to the floor. This is the time now for an open process of bipartisan review of the bill in the committees. So, I am hopeful and optimistic that there will be more savings."

Ross, chairman of the Blue Dogs' health care task force, said the six other Democrats who'd vote to block the bill are Reps. Zack Space of Ohio, Baron Hill of Indiana, Charlie Melancon of Louisiana, John Barrow of Georgia, Jim Matheson of Utah, and Bart Gordon of Tennessee . . . .

* * *
If that's not enough, MIKE ROSS AND OTHER BLUE DOG / BLUE CROSS DEMOCRATS TAKE TIME OUT TO RAISE FUNDS,
as the Sunlight Foundation's politicalpartytime.org reported this week:

Blue Dogs party as planned

The Huffington Post’s Arthur Delaney reports that canceled health care hearings this week cleared the calendar for Blue Dogs to fundraise as planned:

The House Committee on Energy and Commerce was supposed to be the third leg supporting health care reform legislation already approved by two other House committees. Instead, this week it’s become more of a fifth wheel. The committee’s markup sessions for Tuesday and Wednesday have been canceled in the face of opposition to the bill from the panel’s conservative “Blue Dog” Democrats.

So Monday’s markup may have lasted past midnight, but on Tuesday evening the committee’s Blue Dogs were free to party, and party they did! Reps. Mike Ross (D-Ark.) and Jim Matheson (D-Utah) feted fellow Blue Dog Rep. John Barrow (D-Ga.) at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse in Northwest Washington from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Ross is the lead Blue Dog on health care reform.

Read more here [in Huffington Post].

ED SCHULTZ INSISTS OBAMA PLAY CHICAGO POLITICS ON PUBLIC OPTION

"I don't know if I can support Obama in the next election if he caves in on public option."

"I cannot support President Obama if he does not play Chicago politics."
{{{Call the White House, say no to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel's trigger option. No to giving the health insurance industry seven to ten years to clean up their act. Go back to President Barack Obama's original public option idea. 202-456-1111 --as Jack and Jill politics says and Daily Kos says}}}

WE GOT ED!

Ed Schultz, the Rush Limbaugh-sound-alike on Air America Radio drew the line in the sand on public option, Friday, July 10, 2009. (Also on MSNBC .)

A snippet from a recent Huffington Post piece on Big Ed last month (June 24, 2009), Bill Mann, " 'Big Ed' Schultz Is Keeping Dem Senators' Feet to The Fire":

Big Ed's moved from being a publicity-hungry blowhard (remember "John McCain is a warmonger" last fall?) to expressing daily the kind of much-needed real passion for this critical legislation far too many Democrats (and, some might argue, the President) are lacking. Ed's gone on the attack. Someone has to do it.

The one-time pro football player is running interference for the Democrats who are actually doing something to move the ball toward the goal of meaningful national health care by calling out those playing footsie with HMO's and big pharma.

GET INVOLVED: MOVEON.ORG IS ORGANIZING ON THE YES ON PUBLIC OPTION ISSUE, AGAINST EMANUEL'S CAVING IN.

TALKING POINTS ON PUBLIC OPTION
Last December from Paul Waldman of Media Matters, writing in American Prospect:
The basics:

Although the public option wasn't the topic of a great deal of discussion during the campaign, for many progressives it amounts to a beautiful jewel hidden amidst a pile of compromise and disappointment. Ask average progressives what they think ought to be done about health care, and many will reply, "Well, a single-payer system would obviously be the best thing. But since that's politically impossible…" At the end of 2008, some things seem a little more possible than they used to.

That isn't to say a public option is just a modified single-payer system. It would be one option among many for individuals and businesses, and would leave the private insurance system in place (you can read more on the benefits of the public option here). But it does crack the door open for expanding the number of Americans who get their health insurance through the government. And this is what terrifies the insurance companies and conservatives. Their fear is that it will actually work. If the program operates well, more and more people will make the rational decision to choose it over private insurance (what we're supposed to do in a market, after all) and the insurance companies will lose customers.

For all their paeans to the power of private enterprise, we know that private insurers simply can't compete with the government, because they offer an inferior service at higher prices. We know this because of the example of Medicare, which operates more efficiently than private insurance (Medicare spends only around 2 percent of its costs on overhead, a fraction of what private plans do) and gets higher satisfaction ratings. We also know this because the government set up a program to allow private companies to compete directly with Medicare.

It's called Medicare Advantage, and the "advantage" was supposed to be that by allowing private companies to handle insurance for Medicare enrollees, costs could be reduced. Using their free-market mojo, the private firms would naturally bring in the coverage at a lower cost than having the big, bureaucratic government do it.

EXISTING SITUATION ESSENTIALLY MONOPOLY CONDITIONS IN CERTAIN GEOGRAPHIC MARKETS
From: "Health-Care Market Characterized By Consolidation, Not Competition"
By Zachary Roth - June 29, 2009:
Key excerpt:

But the notion that most American consumers enjoy anything like a competitive marketplace for health care is flatly false. And a study issued last month by a pro-reform group makes that strikingly clear.

The report, released by Health Care for America Now (HCAN), uses data compiled by the American Medical Association to show that 94 percent of the country's insurance markets are defined as "highly concentrated," according to Justice Department guidelines. Predictably, that's led to skyrocketing costs for patients, and monster profits for the big health insurers. Premiums have gone up over the past six years by more than 87 percent, on average, while profits at ten of the largest publicly traded health insurance companies rose 428 percent from 2000 to 2007.

Far from healthy market competition, HCAN describes the situation as "a market failure where a small number of large companies use their concentrated power to control premium levels, benefit packages, and provider payments in the markets they dominate."

So extreme is the level of consolidation, in fact, that one former top Federal Trade Commission official working with HCAN has sent a letter to the Justice Department's Antitrust Division, asking for an investigation into the health insurance marketplace.

The problem is most acute in small rural states, according to the report. In Shelby's own state of Alabama, the biggest insurer, Blue Cross Blue Shield, controls 83 percent of the statewide market. There, and in nine other states -- Hawaii, Rhode Island, Alaska, Vermont, Maine, Montana, Wyoming, Arkansas and Iowa -- the two largest health insurers control at least 80 percent of the market. So much for Shelby's "marketplace for health care."

The report doesn't consider how this reality stands to affect the forthcoming congressional battle for reform. But extreme consolidation may actually be making it harder, not easier, to win support from lawmakers for a public option.

That's because insurers who control large swathes of a given market stand to see their bottom lines particularly threatened by the introduction of a lower-cost public option. So, in turn, they'll be particularly aggressive in pulling out all the stops to pressure lawmakers to oppose the plan. Given the healthy amount of campaign dollars that some wavering members take in from the major insurers, that's hardly encouraging.

OPPOSITION TO PUBLIC OPTION COMING FROM PROPAGANDA POINTS FROM INSURANCE COMPANIES
Note that the right wing buzz via Hannity, O'Reilly, Limbaugh feeds into voters/listeners; and that IT COMES FROM THE INSURANCE COMPANIES that fear loss of profits.
Josh Marshall, "Bottom Line on Public Option" in TalkingPoints Memo noted this, June 29, 2009:

This won't come as the slightest surprise to those versed in health care policy issues. But I fear it's only barely permeated the health care reform debate in the country, certainly in Washington. And that's this: the opposition to a so-called 'public option' comes almost entirely from insurance companies who have developed monopolies or near monopolies in particular geographic areas. And they don't want competition.