Washington Post:
Six months into his presidency, Barack Obama may have no greater test of his ability to translate personal popularity into a successful legislative agenda than the upcoming two weeks.
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We have your back, get the public option!!
no thanks .......i like my coverage
Your coverage will improve. If you get really sick they won't be able to cancel it, which they can now.
Health Security now, Health Security tomorrow, Health Security forever!
Yep, make every doctor, nurse and everyone else a public employee as Obama dictates!
Those greedy nurses, dieticians and radiologists have had it too good for too long.
Limit the pay of every dental hygienist......they've been getting rich off our backs for years.
Give me free root canals or give me welfare!
who said that? more fear from The Republiban. It won't work this time. We ain't skeered...
Obama has suggested no such thing, ever.
As a health care professional, when I treat Medicare/Medicaid patients mow, that does not make me a federal employee. Nor will this plan.
That "mow" should read "now." Rushing to get ready for work.
The House bill needs work...a LOT of work. I hope Obama strongly urges that the necessary changes be made.
I doesn't have to be perfect. It can be amended and adjusted as necessary.
Lilith33 brought up the interview Wendell Potter (a former veep for corporate communications at CIGNA) did with Bill Moyers recently. It was a spectacularly good interview that is worth repeating and discussing.
For the record, Potter left CIGNA voluntarily, without any duress or ulterior motives. He began to question the practices of the industry with the shift (i.e., the industry's greed-driven trough-hog money grab) of health care costs to individuals through the use of "very high deductibles" (his words), and he became convinced of their error after having witnessed a "health care expedition."
From his testimony to Congress:
"Recently it became abundantly clear to me that the industry's charm offensive, which is the most visible part of a duplicitous and well-financed PR and lobbying campaign, may well shape reform in a way that benefits Wall Street far more than average Americans.
"The industry and its backers are using fear tactics, as they did in 1994, to tar a transparent and accountable, publicly accountable health care option as "government-run health care." But what we have today, Mr. Chairman, is Wall Street-run health care, that has proven itself an untrustworthy partner to its customers, to the doctors and hospitals who deliver care, and to the state and federal governments that attempt to regulate it."
They also discussed how Michael Moore got it right with "Sicko," but the industry's PR campaign effectively shut down, or "blunted," the documentary’s influence. An incredible interview.
It was incredible. Potter also talked about a phrase Wall Street uses (actually the insurance industry's phrase) to describe the fact that when insurers pay more benefits to their insureds, it is
viewed as a negative and has a depressing effect on the stock price of the insurance firm. Imagine that!
You can watch Michael Moore's documentary here:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6646340600856118396
"the government should be the last stop....not the first"
This is the last stop. Just like energy companies and industry having 40 years to stop poluting, insurance companies have had even longer to keep medicine affordable and their policies honest. And, just like the energy companies and industry, they failed to take the necessary steps themselves for the sake of greater profits.
If the free market were capable of self-regulating (as the last 5 administrations have insisted), we wouldn't be where we are now.
Sorry; 4 administrations, not 5.
Obama's Natl Health Care program will not be any better than all the other government run health care systems in other countries. Rationed medical services, long waiting lists (months to years), and high taxes to pay for this so called Free medical care. Only fools would want a government bureaucracy running health care.
Best site on the internet: http://www.stop-obama.info.
"Obama's Natl Health Care program will not be any better than all the other government run health care systems in other countries."
As Americans, we can do better than any other nation.
Some people don't think so.
Why do they hate America?
i don't believe you can find many that hate the US.......just tired of people with their hands out
These horror stories about universal healthcare are repeated enough by the rightwing manipulators here in this country, but citizens of the countries in question aren't telling them.
On the contrary, politicians know that running on the platform of taking this away from the citizens is a sure-fire way to lose an election.
Even Rush Limbaugh seems to realize this, strangely enough. He says that if we get universal healthcare in this country, we'll never be rid of it! Like Social Security, he says.
That's for sure.
They guy that orchestrated universal health for Canada is their national hero.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6646340600856118396
Spam much? You're posting the same tripe everywhere.
We already have "rationed" heath care!
Everyone knows that group insurance plans reduce health care costs by spreading health risks across the group. The larger the group, the more widely spread is the risk, resulting in lower health care insurance premiums.
i agree.....so
So?
It's what makes the public option a good idea.
Repubs should approve of State's rights amendments !
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/452493
They didn't think too much about States Rights in 2000, when it came time to have the Supreme Court overturn Florida's decision.
Where was "States Rights" then?
that had a little bit to do with Gore only picking dem. counties to recount and a bit more to do with FL's lack of consist counting standards across the state.
the Supreme Court upheld CA's medical marijuana laws. :)
Their Own Medicine
Senators prefer the insurance they have
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124786946165760369.html
Oh, wait!
I read Babbit in high school! Hated it!
Now I know why!
Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis ( 1976)
, is a scathing satirical critique of capitalism, conformity, and "boosterism" in the fictional Midwestern city of Zenith.
~~
Speaking of " just psych0tic?
"Alcohol would play a dominant role in his life and he died of the effects of advanced alcoholism in Rome, Italy"
Alccoholics are known for blaming their troubles on EVERYBODY but themselves!
Sometimes, even entire societies!
Sinclare also wrote that Fasci sm would come to America wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross.
He was right about so many things.
"Alccoholics are known for blaming their troubles on EVERYBODY but themselves!"
So are conservatives, and?
"This country will not be a permanently good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a reasonably good place for all of us to live in."
Chicago, IL, June 17, 1912
Teddy Roosevelt
What happened to the republican party?
Right about that date is when the two parties switched.
There used to be more moderates in the Republican Party, but they purged most of them out in their "RINO hunts."
They have brought about their own downfall.
Dear Obama,
Glad you got the wakeup call and decided to do some WORK on healthcare. I hope it's not too late.
I think they were calculating the pros and cons of having his political capital in there. Would the measures with his name on them be more of a target for the reactionaryassholes?
People who are against health care reform are either very young and still living under the delusion that they'll be young and healthy forever;
or they currently have excellent employer-provided insurance and are living under the delusion that they'll never lose their job or their superior insurance;
or they're very wealthy and too greedy to care about their neighbors.
Of course, they could also be all three.
it is not my job to pay the way for the lazy and indigent
Your right... Let's eliminate farm subsidies.
...so it's your learned opinion that anyone without adequate health care insurance is lazy AND indigent? One marvels at the synaptic vacuum that is your intellect.
Unless you don't belong to a society, or never pay your taxes, it clearly is your job.
I get it. So everyone who is not rich is lazy. OK, I see that now. Thanks for waking me up.
I am against this health care reform. It is age based. People from the age of 55 to 65 will be paying twice as much for this insurance.
I am also against the insurance being involved in the health care system. They provide nothing to the care and has everything to do with the profits.
Whatever happened to progressive republicans?
"If a man does not have an ideal and try to live up to it, then he becomes a mean, base and sordid creature, no matter how successful."
Letter to his son Kermit, quoted in Theodore Roosevelt by Joseph Bucklin Bishop, 1915
what are the republican ideals again?
Each man for himself?
Dog eat dog?
Greed is good?
not all greed is bad when used properly
What percentage of greed is good, do you suppose?
I wonder if I could find it in the New Testament.
Is that what they teach you at church?
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First Posted: 07-19-09 08:21 PM | Updated: 07-19-09 09:40 PM