OT: THE ONE WORD TO DESCRIBE OBAMACARE

[Guest guest]

That is a right wing canard!

> Good for FHA, glad to hear it. However, FreddieMAC and FannieMAe were

> largely to blame for the housing debacle and it seems to me Barney

> and many other politicians got off scott free. You cannot say one walk of

> life is a bunch of crooks and another is pure as the wind driven snow.

> It's human nature no matter what industry you are in, should politicians

> be held accountable more so than a bunch of corporate board members, one

> would think so with elections but so much is " pat my back I'll pat yours "

> and if the media doesn't expose the light of day at the real crooks, these

> people never get voted out.

>

> Sue

[Guest guest]

ooo, that's a pretty big word!

Sue

---- O' Conchubair <RNMSW@...> wrote:

>

> That is a right wing canard!

>

>

> > Good for FHA, glad to hear it. However, FreddieMAC and FannieMAe were

> > largely to blame for the housing debacle and it seems to me Barney

> > and many other politicians got off scott free. You cannot say one walk of

> > life is a bunch of crooks and another is pure as the wind driven snow.

> > It's human nature no matter what industry you are in, should politicians

> > be held accountable more so than a bunch of corporate board members, one

> > would think so with elections but so much is " pat my back I'll pat yours "

> > and if the media doesn't expose the light of day at the real crooks, these

> > people never get voted out.

> >

> > Sue

>

[Guest guest]

Before you make a decision on this health care bill, you need to make sure

of what's in it. To do that, you need to read the bill, and make sure you

interpret it correctly. Legal jargon can be confusing. You can read the

bill at this link:

http://edlabor.house.gov/documents/111/pdf/publications/AAHCA-BillText-071409.pd\

f

You've all had a chance to voice your opinions. Now it's time to stop

posting on this subject.

Thank you,

Ethel

[Guest guest]

Hi,

As an oberserver ( I am a Canadian) I would be very afraid of any bill that my

country leader was pushing that he has not even read and therefore would not

even be able to know if it is a good deal or not.

The media is so biased in one direction or another that unless each one reads

the entire bill himself/herself and understands it they have no way of knowing

whether they should back it or not.

The following quote, if true, scares me because if this is as bad as Ethel and

this Doctor seem to think it is and it gets passed then my country will be in

big trouble as well.

The reason I say this is that since Tommy initiated our Medicare plan,

(which worked very well until the different political parties kept making

changes to it over the years) there have been so many changes made, and not

necessarily for the good, that Tommy would not even recognize it as the same

plan. Government needs to stay out of the patient - doctor relationship period.

excerpt from Ethel's email:

" When Mr. Obama hosted a conference call with bloggers urging them to pressure

Congress to pass his health plan as soon as possible, a blogger from Maine

referenced an Investors Business Daily article that claimed Section 102 of the

House health legislation would outlaw private insurance.

He asked: " Is this true? Will people be able to keep their insurance and will

insurers be able to write new policies even though H.R. 3200 is passed? " Mr.

Obama replied: " You know, I have to say that I am not familiar with the

provision you are talking about. "

Here's hoping that common sense prevails.

As an observer, your gov't seems to be following in Germany's footsteps prior to

WWII

Carol_DM

[Guest guest]

>

> Written by Walter Brasch

> Jul 22, 2009 at 12:16 PM

>

> Marie Antoinette, contrary to popular opinion, never said a solution

> for

> the starving masses of revolutionary France in the late 18th century

> was, " Let them eat cake. " But, Sen. Grassley (R-Iowa)

> apparently

> said something close to it.

>

> At a public meeting, one of Grassley's constituents asked him, “Why is

> your insurance so much cheaper than my insurance and so much better

> than my insurance?” He then asked, " How come I can’t have the same

> thing you have?” Grassley's response was a flip, “You can. Just go

> work for the federal government.” Grassley, who opposes universal

> health care, is happy with health care programs paid for with tax

> dollars and available for every member of Congress, all Congressional

> staffers, everyone in the executive and judicial branches, and the

> military and their families. He doesn't even oppose Social Security

> and

> Medicare. He just doesn't want the masses to have the same quality of

> medical care that Senators have.

>

> In response, Sen. M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who has led the fight

> for

> universal health care for more than four decades, writing for the July

> 27 issue of /Newsweek/, argues that " quality care shouldn't depend on

> your financial resources, or the type of job you have, or the medical

> condition you face. Every American should be able to get the same

> treatment that U.S. senators are entitled to. "

>

> The liberals, and most Democrats, are outraged that 46–48 million

> American citizens still don't have health care coverage, and millions

> more have such minimal coverage that they often decline to get medical

> help when necessary. About 62 percent of all bankruptcies are the

> result

> of extraordinary medical costs, according to a report to be

> published in

> the August issue of /The American Journal of Medicine/. Of those who

> declared bankruptcy because of medical bills, " 78 percent of them had

> health insurance, but many of them were bankrupted anyway because

> there

> were gaps in their coverage like co-payments and deductibles and

> uncovered services, " Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, the study's senior

> author,

> told CNN. " Other people had private insurance but got so sick that

> they

> lost their job and lost their insurance, " she said.

>

> Liberals complain that the problem has become even more acute during

> the

> Recession when every day about 12,000 workers are losing health

> insurance, either because of forced layoffs or because a company cuts

> back on its insurance coverage for its workers. They question why the

> same drugs sold in Canada are significantly less expensive than ones

> sold in the U.S., and why the conservatives have blocked all attempts

> for Americans to go to Canada to buy the less expensive drugs. The

> liberals also point to a scientific study by the Commonwealth Fund

> that

> concluded, " Despite having the most costly health system in the world,

> the United States consistently underperforms on most dimensions of

> performance, relative to other countries. " That study also concluded

> that the U.S. " fails to achieve better health outcomes than the other

> countries [Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, the United

> Kingdom],

> and as shown in the earlier [studies], the U.S. is last on

> dimensions of

> access, patient safety, efficiency, and equity. " Of the top 50

> economies

> in the world, only the U.S. doesn't have universal health coverage.

>

> Two major competing plans—Single Payer and Public Option— are

> proposed to alleviate the problems of health care coverage. Under the

> Single Payer health care system, there would be one program, similar

> to

> Medicare but with all citizens covered. Although President Obama, as a

> senator, advocated the Single Payer system, he now believes the best

> proposal is the Public Option. The Public Option plan allows more than

> 80 million workers to keep or change their insurance coverage, buy

> into

> the government-run public plan, or go uninsured. The Public Option

> plan

> would protect the insurance industry, while reducing costs; the Single

> Payer system would threaten the industry, and relegate it to providing

> only supplemental or special needs insurance. The Public Option plan

> allows workers and employers to keep their own insurance or to

> enroll in

> the government insurance; there would be no choice in Single Payer

> system. Advocates of the Single Payer system argue that by enrolling

> all

> citizens into one system, costs would be significantly less because of

> the ability to negotiate with the health care industry and the

> probable

> reduction in administrative costs. The Public Option would also

> influence drug companies and health care providers, but the result

> could

> be less reduction than under the Single Payer system. Both Single

> Payer

> and Public Option plans eliminate or significantly reduce deductibles

> and co-pays.

>

> The conservatives, and most Republicans, don't buy into either plan.

> Sen. Jim DeMint (R–S.C.) explained one of the major reasons why

> conservatives will do everything they can to block health care reform.

> DeMint told about 100 leaders of Conservatives for Patients Rights,

> July

> 17, " If we're able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It

> will break him. " Of course, DeMint may be an unofficial paid puppet

> for

> the parts of the health care industry that doesn't want reform. During

> the past five years, DeMint received $2,917,870 in campaign

> contributions from the health care industry, according official

> campaign

> reports published by OpenSecrets.com. Steele, chair of the

> Republican National Committee, agrees with DeMint's " analysis " of what

> defeating health care reform can do to the Obama presidency. “I think

> that’s a good way to put it, " he told reporters at the National Press

> Club, July 20. For his part, Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the

> House

> and possible Republican candidate for president, gleefully claimed on

> talk radio that health care reform " could be the bill that drags his

> whole presidency down and they look back on it and suddenly the whole

> thing is unraveled. "

>

> Disregarding the absurdity of Republican statements that place

> partisan

> politics above health care reform, the conservatives have other

> issues.

> They complain they don't want government running any part of anything,

> especially health care. They ignore provisions of proposed Single

> Payer

> legislation that remove the middle-men insurance companies. They claim

> that no bureaucrat should step between a physician and a patient. Of

> course, they don't mind that private enterprise, in the guise of the

> megagoliath insurance and drug industries, do that all the time.

>

> The conservatives argue that competition between insurance companies

> keeps costs low, but they ignore a study published in the prestigious

> /New England Journal of Medicine/ that concluded that about 30 percent

> of all health care costs are for overhead expenses, including

> executive

> bonuses and aggressive advertising and marketing campaigns by drug and

> insurance companies. They disregard the reality that patients and

> their

> physicians, dentists, optometrists, and other health care providers

> will

> determine the best treatments, and not an insurance clerk reading

> myriad

> pages of rules and regulations established by—who else?—insurance

> companies. They ignore the fact that universal health care coverage

> would reduce " cherry picking, " the enrollment of only healthy

> persons in

> order to " maximize profits. " The Public Option plan allows insurance

> companies to continue to " cherry pick, " but has provisions for those

> who

> are denied coverage to enroll in the Public Option plan. Under the

> Single Payer system, there would be no denial because of pre-existing

> conditions.

>

> Conservatives falsely claim there won’t be any choice when government

> takes over health care, but disregard the reality that under both

> plans

> Americans can still choose whoever they wish to be their health care

> providers. But if the conservatives want to push what they call the

> terror of " no choice, " let them realize that even with excellent

> private

> insurance, patients currently have no choice in some situations. Those

> who go to an emergency room already have no choice of personnel.

> Except

> in the smaller hospitals, hospitalized patients, no matter how

> admitted,

> usually receive care from anonymous residents and hospitalists who are

> neither the patient's primary care physician nor the patient's own

> specialists.

>

> In yet another attempt to scare the working class, the conservatives

> tell the masses that government-run health care will be as much a

> boondoggle as the Post Office. But, while every organization has

> myriad

> problems, six days a week a member of the working class, a letter

> carrier, comes to almost every house or business in America and

> cheerfully delivers the mail on time, stopping occasionally from 10-

> mile

> routes to chat.

>

> Conservatives claim that a universal health care system will cost $1

> trillion, overlooking a reality that health care costs are currently

> about $2.2 trillion a year. They conveniently forget that W.

> Bush, with the approval of a lame Congress, ran up far more than $1

> trillion in debt during his two terms and that the cost of the

> unnecessary war in Iraq, begun by a jingoistic president and

> vice-president who lied to the people, will easily cost more than $1

> trillion.

>

> Nevertheless, the conservatives are right about two issues. They are

> right that the proposed Public Option plan doesn't specify which taxes

> are to be raised or what would be required for both individuals or

> businesses to become part of a national insurance plan. However,

> proposals for the Single Payer system, such as one proposed in

> Pennsylvania, will impose a 3 percent personal income tax; each

> business

> would pay 10%, significantly lower than what most businesses that

> insure

> their workers currently pay. Additional revenue would be from existing

> programs, including Medicaid.

>

> Conservatives also are right that there will be some fraud and the

> cost

> will probably be far greater than the projections, something that is

> part of almost every large private business and government-run

> programs.

> However, the conservatives conveniently ignore the reality that the

> Bush–Cheney Administration, again with little Congressional concern,

> handed out innumerable multi-million dollar no-bid contracts, often to

> their friends and business associates, and did little to investigate

> cost over-runs, wasteful spending, and fraud.

>

> Although President Obama is firm that there would be no additional tax

> for persons making less than $250,000 a year, conservatives are

> worried

> that the government will increase taxes for anyone making a net of $1

> million a year or more. Apparently, impoverished conservatives and

> their

> conservative representatives must protect millionaires from harm.

>

> About six of every ten Americans, according to a CBS News//New York

> Times/ poll in February 2009 say they want the government to provide

> universal health care coverage. Groups as diverse as the AFL–CIO, the

> AARP, and the American College of Physicians want universal health

> care

> coverage. According to a study published in the /ls of Internal

> Medicine/, only one-third of physicians oppose universal health care

> coverage.

>

> " America's health care system, " said Walter Cronkite in 1993, " is

> neither healthy, caring, nor a system. " Nothing has changed since

> then.Sen. Grassley has no worries about health care coverage. Under a

> quasi-socialist system for all three branches of government, including

> the military, he gets the best medical, dental, and optometric care in

> the country. As for the rest, like his conservative colleagues, Sen.

> Grassley believes that cake is the best medicine for those without

> adequate coverage.

>

> ______________________________________________________

>

> /[Walter M. Brasch is a university professor of journalism,

> award-winning social issues columnist, and the author of 17 books. His

> current book is /Sinking the Ship of State: The Presidency of

> W.

> Bush, /available from amazon.com, bn.com, and other stores. You may

> contact him through his website, _www.walterbrasch.com_

> <http://www.walterbrasch.com/>. Assisting on this column were Rosie

> Skomitz, Ron Stouffer, and Rosemary R. Brasch/]

>

>

>