I like the first ad - but the name of the book seems to me a slap in the face to the woman who raised and stood by him despite the fathers abandonment.So typical of the appreciation women get for their unpaid efforts.

Here's your Health Insurance Industry. (From today's LA Times):

Blue Cross Asks Docs to Report Patients’ Omissions
Posted by Jacob Goldstein
Blue Cross of California is trying to enlist doctors’ help in finding patients who failed to report medical conditions when they applied for insurance, the LA Times reports. Docs aren’t rushing to respond.

“We’re outraged that they are asking doctors to violate the sacred trust of patients to rat them out for medical information that patients would expect their doctors to handle with the utmost secrecy and confidentiality,” Richard Frankenstein, president of the California Medical Association, told the paper.

Insurance companies are sometimes allowed to cancel individual policies for people who failed to disclose pre-existing medical conditions on their application for coverage. But there are limits to when they can do this, and Blue Cross of California, which is owned by WellPoint, was fined $1 million last year for inappropriately canceling some policies. The company is fighting that decision.

Blue Cross recently sent this letter to docs, along with the the patient’s application for coverage for the doctor’s review. “We ask your assistance to identify medical omissions because you, being the primary care provider, will have first-hand knowledge of services provided and/or requested.”

Efforts such as this are nothing new, a WellPoint spokeswoman told the paper. “Enrolling an applicant who did not disclose their true condition (and the condition is chronic or acute), will quickly drive increased utilization of services, which drives up costs for all members,” she said.

Wow. Simply put: I'm moved.

From the Obama Family story one could conclude that some Bush Family cancer might actually humble Georgie's charmed life, that he might find his humanity and stop all the suffering he's caused... not that anyone would actually wish that upon him... I'm just sayin'...

To all the people who criticize Obama for being 'all style no substance' - I can't give you a good argument in a sentence or two - but that's the point, you want something more than just a soundbite. If you still have a glimmer of openness toward Obama, I have a couple videos that have the potential to change your mind.

First is Obama at Google - he gives a speech then an in depth Q+A with the geniuses working there. You can't BS these guys(if impatient go to 52:30 - he addresses 'experience'):
http://youtube.com/watch?v=m4yVlPqeZwo

Second is at a church where he speaks in depth about religion and the country. Thoughtful - Even atheists should watch. Slow in beginning - Picks up at 1 min 30 sec.
http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid353515028?bctid=416343938

Is Obama pimping his mum?

I'm just kidding, the ads great. I think it conveys the point. Go BO. Also, I have noticed his team has figured out a balance between inserting substantive information in his stump speech without it sound boring. I remember hearing him speak at one economic symposium and I thought thats not very interesting.

Obama and the Democrats talk about Universal Healthcare, and how no family should be without healthcare. Yes, this is horrible, but what about a far more serious situation?

America's impending economic disaster. Go ahead, Democrats and Republicans. Keep telling us that Social Security and Medicare will be here forever. Keep telling us that our bank is infinite. Our hubris will be our demise. What about our similarity to Russia pre-Soviet Union collapse? Pouring resources in a ideology war - check. Facing a nation with good, and expanding economic resources that will make a nice, shiney new army - check. Trying to act tought when it's all a gigantic bluff from an economically imploding nation that is sounding its death knell - check. The growing idea that government should control your paycheck, and bail you out economically when they are a bureaucracy choked, inefficient mess that couldn't flip you a penny if they tried - check. Pipedreams of a fairer society through increased taxes and bigger government - check. Failure to acknowledge impending and possible economic doom, while beating our chests and proclaiming world dominance - check.

If we don't have changes soon, focused on economy stimulus and not social welfare, it's not going to matter. Healthcare won't be free anyways when the program is completely dry of funds and fails. The US dollar is bombing, and new taxes are not what we need. The middle class is spouting holes and is beginning to sink. Please, Mr. Obama - ECONOMIC STIMULUS - FORGET THE PIPEDREAMS - ECONOMY ECONOMY ECONOMY.

Wow, and they say that Hillary will do anything to win.

First Obama played the race card, and now my Mama died from cancer and had trouble paying her bills card. By the way, where was Obama when she was dying and had trouble paying her bills?

Wow, great ad. Simple and sweet.

So do we mark BO's invoking his deceased mother as the equivalent of Clinton tearing up when asked a heart-felt question...or do we just like everything else...give him a pass?

On Health Care--

If it's not single payer, it has profit as its core, which means NO ONE, not Hillary or Obama or anyone else has a plan that will cover everyone without bankrupting the country, period.

As far as I'm concerned, any debate of health care is smoke and mirrors without debating single payer, so I'm not even considering it in my vote.

Don't start about Kusinich. He was a hobbit, not a president. Now back to reality...

You have one of two, not three or four or five, one of TWO choices: for profit or single payer. If any of the health care plans involve an insurance agent making a commission from selling health insurance, and as I understand it they all do, then it's a for profit system.

So the choice is whether you want to pay the beaurocrat in a cubicle in Washington to decide what's covered or not, or you want the one in the big office office sitting behind the mahogoney desk at State Farm Headquarters to decide.

We're already in process of bankrupting ourselves over entitlements. If we make health care for all an entitlement, we will have to go to single payer, regardless of what any Democratic or Republican candidate claims, so I couldn't care less about the fantasy they are all spouting on health care.

Obama says he will make it available. Hillary says she will make it mandatory. If I have to choose between those two in a for profit system, I'll choose available. I can afford available, I can't afford mandatory.

Why Obama?

For one thing, his name isn't Clinton.

He hasn't been up our collective behinds for the last 15 years with all the drama and assinine emotional baggage that comes with the Clintons. Not all of it their fault, but so what? This isn't about a right to ascension based on fairness or the Clinton ego, it's about what we want for a president. For most Americans that does not include another eight year episode of "As The Clintons Turn".

That's a good start. The fact that he's not Republican completes it for me.

Experience? How much experience did Bill Clinton have? Abraham Lincoln?

For a long time in this country, experience meant success as a general. Want to see an ethical train wreck? Read a history of the U.S. Grant administration.

I suppose we could gauge experience like they did in Andy Jackson's day (you know, they guy on your money) when it was measured by how many native Americans you slaughtered.

Truman came in to office and found out that he had the ability to order the elimination of entire cities with one bomb. What experience prepares you for the very real decision of whether to nuke Joe Stalin or Mao? Was it experience that led us away from irradiating Moscow when we "had the chance" as so many right wing-nuts like to say? Or was it an inborn morality, character if you will, that can't be "experienced" in a senate cloak room?

LBJ had all kinds of experience and he was an absolute disaster. Nixon had 30 years experience and what a joy for democratic principles he was.

If the country can survive the current president not having a cerebral cortex attached to a brain, and I'm fairly sure it will, I think it can deal with Obama not having spent the last several decades gaining the invaluable governing "experience" of being Bill Clinton's wife.

All very nice. Good job Barak.

But I don't see his health care plan helping us at all. It sounds like too little too late. Even if it had come earlier - I don't think what he offers would have made a difference for my family. $2,500 savings per family? He's living in another world . . . .

*

Hillary's Health Care plan offer average Americans the same health care plan that Congress has, and it's about time. If they get it, why shouldn't the rest of us?
Hillary's plan brings the costs much lower than Obama does. In fact, Hillery's plan lowers costs for each individual about $1200 lower than Obama's plan.
And in case you are already to shoot back that typing the word mandate poison...remember, we already have money deducted from our pay checks...It's called Social Security and Americans are glad to have it.

And that means what to who?