Friday July 31, 2009, 5:50 pm
The U.S. has a catastrophically fragmented health care system that provides incentives for sick care instead of prevention. The system is in dire need of reform -- reform to save lives, to save families and to save money for both patients and the American health care system.

Stand with more than 450,000 doctors who support health care reform. Call Congress: (202) 224-3121.

Friday July 31, 2009, 6:06 pm
Who, in the eyes of Canadians, is THE most popular Canadian? Tommy

Douglas, the father of the Canadian Medicare System. Watch this video.



http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1463312787?bctid=1463302784



(Also posted at www.lftwings.org.)

Friday July 31, 2009, 8:24 pm
Thanks,Blue!

Saturday August 1, 2009, 5:58 am
Health care..hmmm lets see, When I got a chronic disease, I was treated once, that did not work, so now these wonderful doctors are doing nothing. I have begged them and I get no answer, I give up on trying to get them to help me, so I am helping myself by doing alternative meds. Our country U.S. has wasted our precious time trying to fiqure out how to do this. Will we ever learn from other countries, systems? I have lost faith in our country and the health system, Your killing me by stalling people..

Saturday August 1, 2009, 6:53 am
Be thy own physician...
you are what you eat.
They want to feed us GMO food so we have a need for their GMO healthcare system

Saturday August 1, 2009, 6:54 am
Make that 451 000 I'll join in the agreement

Saturday August 1, 2009, 10:10 am
Jonathan Alter: Our Heath-Care System Is Just Fine As Is!


newsweek.com: [warning!!!! satire]

Go ahead, shoot me. I like the status quo on health care in the United States. I've got health insurance and I don't give a damn about the 47 million suckers who don't. Obama and Congress must be stopped. No bill! I'm better off the way things are.

I'm with that woman who wrote the president complaining about
"socialized medicine" and added: "Now keep your hands off my Medicare."

Saturday August 1, 2009, 11:33 am
International Health Care: Commenters Share Their Stories


Read the numerous stories from the the online community about peoples' experiences with health care outside the United States

Saturday August 1, 2009, 12:19 pm

13 Republicans Voted To Allow Single-Payer Health Care In States
13 Republicans on the House Education and Labor Committee offered their support for an amendment, offered by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), that allowed states to set up single-payer health care systems.

Saturday August 1, 2009, 12:42 pm
Bu$h/RepubliCON$ do NOT want you to know that they cut health care for our veterans:


chucknyc I'm a fan of this user


permalink

This may be a bit off point, but I want to clarify something. Many people think that we veterans are getting some of the best 'free' health care in the world. First off, it is not free. It was part of the contract with America that we were offered when we agreed to defend this country.

Secondly, there are more than five million veterans, including myself, who do not have access to VA health coverage because we make too much money. Very few people know this dirty little secret. In 2004, President Bush and his congressional lap dogs quietly attached a rider to a bill that not only cut the VA budget but also restricted VA health care to those who make less than $28,550. I was never notified and I assume that financial data was made available to the VA through our tax returns. Imagine my surprise when I went to the VA hospital in Manhattan for followup treatment ten days after an emergency room visit only to be told they had 'erred' in treating me ten days earlier because I make too much money.

President Obama's attention to this egregious matter resulted in the income threshold being raised in June to $39,820 for a veteran with no dependents. That's an improvement, to be sure, but it still excludes millions of successful veterans who have bravely joined our nation's military when those in the Bush administration did everything they could to avoid it.

Saturday August 1, 2009, 1:28 pm

Nurses on Health Care : Don't Let Up On The Pressure Now, We Need to Remind Them We're Watching and Waiting


AFSCME Nurses urge Congress to support President Obama and pass H.R. 3200. Now. Turn up the heat and keep up the pressure. Make sure you continue
calling and emailing your representatives. Don't let the lobbyists be the only ones whispering in their ears




Nurses Praise House Vote to Permit State Single-Payer Laws
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/07/18-1

A Real Win for Single-Payer Advocates
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/07/18-5


Canada achieved Universal Health Care one Province at a time. The Federal gov't. was obliged to comply.



Be informed.

READ the bill:

\Short version: http://edlabor.house.gov/documents/111/pdf/publications/AAHCA-BILLSUMMARY-071409.pdf

Full test (scroll down to Learn More, then Read Bill Text): http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=1864

Help HuffPo with investigation of same: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matthew-palevsky/hundreds-join-together-to_b_237999.html


Just Go Read It
Everyone who's yapping about the CBO chief's comments about health care costs, should read this piece by Jon Cohn. Another one of those cases where -- shockingly -- it really helps to understand the policy details and not just the political atmospherics.



If Congress Fails to Pass the Obama Health Care Plan

The next time a Member of Congress tells you that he'd love to vote for the President's health care reform package but he represents a tough swing district, remind him about all the ex-members of Congress who said the same thing in 1994 and were retired by the voters to resume their careers selling insurance or practicing law.

Single Payer: Bold, Affordable, Humane
If you believe that every American has the right to quality, affordable health care, then the only affordable means to achieve that goal is through a properly financed, single-payer national health insurance program.

Follow the Money on Health Care Reform "Right now we are the only nation on earth that barters human life for money." -- Geri Jenkins, RN, co-president of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee in her testimony Wednesday, in the one Congressional hearing at which single payer has been on the table


Health Care For All : What If ... We Stripped Away the $13 Billion Insurance Company Profits ...
President Obama's health care plan will get rid of exorbitant corporate profits, bloated CEO bonuses, endless denials, and skyrocketing costs while giving voters more choice and making private insurance companies behave better.



Here is how your Representatives/Senators are voting on the public option.

http://standwithdrdean.com/where_congress_stands?chamber=&party=&state=&hc_status=&commit=Filter

Contact info, included.



Senate Report Finds Insurers Wrongfully Charged Consumers Billions
24 Jun 2009 Health insurers have forced consumers to pay billions
of dollars in medical bills that the insurers themselves should
have paid, according to a report released today by the staff of
the Senate Commerce Committee. The report was part of a multi-pronged
assault on the credibility of private insurers by Commerce Committee
Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.). It came at a time when
Rockefeller, President Obama and others are seeking to offer a
public alternative to private health plans as part of broad health
reform legislation. Health insurers are doing everything they
can to block the public option.



Public Health Plan Could Save Money Faster: Policy Group
A nationwide health insurance exchange that includes a Medicare-like government option could save $1.8 trillion more than if only private plans are offered, a prominent private U.S. health policy group said on Wednesday.


Medicare for All (Single-Payer) Reform Would Be Major Stimulus for Economy 2.6 Million New Jobs,$317 Billion in Business Revenue

First-of-Its Kind Study: Medicare for All (Single-Payer) Reform Would Be Major Stimulus for Economy 2.6 Million New Jobs,$317 Billion in Business Revenue, $100 Billion in Wages


TransGriot: 10 busted myths about the Canadian health care system.

Americans Who've Used Canada's Health-Care System Respond to Current Big-Lie Media CampaignMy wife and I used Canada's health care system for years, and we've been incensed by the lies we've heard back here in the U.S. about how it's supposedly broken.

Saturday August 1, 2009, 2:02 pm
With almost 20 years inside the health insurance industry, Wendell Potter saw for-profit insurers hijack our health care system and put profits before patients. Now, he speaks with Bill Moyers about how those companies are standing in the way of health care reform.

More about Wendell Potter and the health insurance industry. This is a must see for every American re: the truth about the Heath Care Industry.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07312009/watch.html

Saturday August 1, 2009, 3:16 pm

Dem: 'Why do we even need the insurance companies?

Saturday August 1, 2009, 4:51 pm

Health Care Reform : Uninsured Camp Out for Free Health Care


An estimated 3,000 people traveled to Wise, Virginia, to receive free
health, dental and eye care from volunteer doctors, nurses and support workers, who provided the care at their own expense.

Saturday August 1, 2009, 5:29 pm
What's Really Inside the Democrat WelfCare™ Bill

Law Professor Matthew Staver slogged through H.R. 3200 ("America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009") and delivered a startling summary. As an aside, have you noticed that this Democrat Congress routinely names bills that are diametrically opposed to their real purpose? Like "The Employee Free Choice Act", which destroys the secret ballot for unionization votes? Anyhow, the bill's particulars are as follows:

Democrat Government Care Plan Details

Pg 22 of the HC Bill MANDATES the Government will audit the books of ALL EMPLOYERS that self insure!

Pg 29 lines 4-16 in the HC Bill - YOUR HEALTH CARE IS RATIONED!!

Pg 30 Sec 123 of HC Bill - THERE WILL BE A GOVERNMENT COMMITTEE that decides what treatments/benefits you get

Pg 42 of HC Bill - The Health Choices Commissioner will choose your benefits for you. You have no choice!

Pg 50 Section 152 in HC Bill - HC will be provided to ALL non-U.S. citizens, illegal or otherwise

Pg 58 HC Bill – Government will have real-time access to individual’s finances and a National ID Health Care Card will be issued!

Pg 59 HC Bill lines 21-24 Government will have direct access to your banks accounts for electronic funds transfer.

(NOTE FROM RJ-This really does mean they can take your money at any time. Who will have this authority?—a government bureaucrat.)

Pg 65 Sec 164 is a payoff subsidized plan for retirees and their families in unions and community organizations (ACORN).

Pg 72 Lines 8-14 Government is creating a Health Care Exchange to bring private health care plans under government control.

Pg 84 Sec 203 HC Bill - Government mandates ALL benefit packages for private health care plans in the Exchange

Pg 85 Line 7 HC Bill - Specs for of Benefit Levels for Plans = The government will ration your health care!

Pg 91 Lines 4-7 HC Bill - Government mandates linguistic appropriate services.

Pg 95 HC Bill Lines 8-18 The government will use groups i.e., ACORN & AmeriCorps to sign up individuals for government Health Care Plan

Pg 85 Line 7 HC Bill - Specs of Ben Levels 4 Plans. #AARP members - Your health care WILL be rationed

Pg 102 Lines 12-18 HC Bill - Medicaid Eligible Individual will be automatically enrolled in Medicaid. No choice.

Pg 124 lines 24-25 HC No company can sue the government on price fixing. No “judicial review” against government monopoly.

Pg 127 Lines 1-16 HC Bill - Doctors/ #AMA - The government will tell YOU what you can make.

Pg 145 Line 15-17 An employer MUST auto enroll employees into public opt plan. NO CHOICE

Pg 126 Lines 22-25 Employers MUST pay for health care for part-time employees AND their families.

Pg 149 Lines 16-24 ANY Employer w/ payroll 400k and above who does not prov. pub opt. pays 8% tax on all payroll

Pg 150 Lines 9-13 Businesses with payroll between 251k and 400k who do not provide public opt pays 2-6% tax on all payroll

Pg 167 Lines 18-23 ANY individual who doesn’t have acceptable health care according to government will be taxed 2.5% of income.

Pg 170 Lines 1-3 Any NONRESIDENT Alien is exempt from individual taxes (Americans will pay).

Pg 195 Officers & employees of HC Admin (GOVT) will have access to ALL Americans' financial and personal records.

Pg 203 Line 14-15 HC - “The tax imposed under this section shall not be treated as tax.” Yes, it says that.

Pg 239 Line 14-24 HC Bill Government will reduce physician services for Medicaid. Seniors, low income, poor affected.

Pg 241 Line 6-8 HC Bill - Doctors, it does not matter what specialty you have, you’ll all be paid the same.

Pg 253 Line 10-18 Government sets value of doctors' time, prof judg, etc. Literally value of humans.

Pg 265 Sec 1131Government mandates and controls productivity for private health care industries.

Pg 268 Sec 1141 Federal Government regulates rental and purchase of power-driven wheelchairs.

Pg 272 SEC. 1145. Treatment of certain cancer hospitals – Cancer patients - welcome to rationing! Many cancer treatments will not work unless implemented early, but the waiting time just to see a specialist will likely be months when this plan is implemented. As you can see in this bill, the option of the health care bureaucrat is to deny treatment to those they deem not likely to be helped by it. Watch the cancer death rate skyrocket, like in Canada and the U.K.

Page 280 Sec 1151 The government will penalize hospitals for what government deems preventable readmissions (Incentives for hospital to not treat and release).

Pg 298 Lines 9-11 Doctors that treat a patient during initial admission that results in a readmission-Government will penalize you.

Pg 317 L 13-20 PROHIBITION on ownership/investment. Government tells Doctors what/how much they can own.

Pg 317-318 lines 21-25, 1-3 PROHIBITION on expansion- Government is mandating hospitals cannot expand.

pg 321 2-13 Hospitals have opportunity to apply for exception, BUT community input required. Can you say ACORN?!!

Pg335 L 16-25 Pg 336-339 - Government mandates establishment of outcome based measures. Health Care the way they want. Rationing.

Pg 341 Lines 3-9 Government has authority to disqualify Medicare Advantage Plans (Part B), HMOs, etc. Forcing people into Government plan.

Pg 354 Sec 1177 - Government will RESTRICT enrollment of special needs people!

Pg 379 Sec 1191 Government creates more bureaucracy – Tele-health Advisory Committee. Health care by phone/Internet?

Pg 425 Lines 4-12 Government mandates Advance [Death] Care Planning Consult. Think Senior Citizens end of life.

Pg 425 Lines 17-19 Government will instruct and consult regarding living wills, durable powers of attorney. Mandatory!

Pg 425 Lines 22-25, 426 Lines 1-3 Government provides approved list of end of life resources, guiding you in death.

Pg 427 Lines 15-24 Government mandates program for orders for end of life. The government has a say in how your life ends.

Pg 429 Lines 1-9 An “adv. care planning consult” will be used frequently as patient's health deteriorates.

Pg 429 Lines 10-12 “adv. care consultation” may include an ORDER for end of life plans. AN ORDER from Government.

Pg 429 Lines 13-25 - The government will specify which doctors can write an end of life order.

PG 430 Lines 11-15 The government will decide what level of treatment you will have at end of life. The above really does give the government the authority to determine who lives and dies, and when. A government bureaucrat really will be making this decision for you and your loved ones.

Pg 469 - Community Based Home Medical Services=Non-profit orgs. Hello, ACORN Medical Services here!!?

Pg 472 Lines 14-17 PAYMENT TO COMMUNITY-BASED ORG. 1 monthly payment to a community-based org. Like ACORN?

Pg 489 Sec 1308 The government will cover Marriage and Family therapy. They will insert government into your marriage.

Pg 494-498 Government will cover Mental Health Services including defining, creating, rationing those services.

PG 502 Sec 1181 Center for Comparative Effectiveness Research Established. – Hello Big Brother – Literally.

Pg 503 Lines 13-19 Government will build registries and data networks from YOUR electronic medical records.

Pg 503 lines 21-25 Government may secure data directly from any department or agency of the U.S., including your data.

Pg 504 Lines 6-10 The “Center” will collect data both published and unpublished (that means public and your private info).

PG 506 Lines 19-21 The Center will recommend policies that would allow for public access of data.

PG 518 Lines 21-25 The Commission will have input from Health Care consumer reps – Can you say unions and ACORN?

PG 524 18-22 Comparative Effectiveness Research Trust Fund set up. More taxes for ALL.

PG 621 Lines 20-25 Government will define what quality means in health care. Since when does government know about quality?

Pg 622 Lines 2-9 To pay for the Quality Standards, government will transfer money from other government Trust Funds. More Taxes.

PG 624 “Quality” measures shall be designed to assess outcomes and functional status of patients.

PG 624 “Quality” measures shall be designed to profile you including race, age, gender, place of residence, etc.

Pg 628 Sec 1443 Government will give “Multi-Stake Holders” Pre-Rule Making input into Selection of “Quality” Measures.

Pg 630 9-24/631 1-9 Those multi-stake holder groups include unions and groups like ACORN deciding health care quality.

Pg 632 Lines 14-25 The Government may implement any “Quality measure” of health care services as they see fit.

PG 633 14-25/ 634 1-9 The Secretary may issue non-endorsed “Quality Measures” for Physician Services and Dialysis Services.

Pg 635 to 653 Physicians Payments Sunshine Provision – Government wants to shine sunlight on doctor but not government.

Pg 654-659 Public Reporting on Health Care-Associated Infections – Looks okay.

PG 660-671 Doctors in Residency – Government will tell you where your residency will be, thus where you’ll live.

Pg 676-686 Government will regulate hospitals in EVERY aspect of residency programs, including teaching hospitals.

Pg 686-700 Increased Funding to Fight Waste, Fraud, and Abuse. You mean like the government with an $18 million website? Or $60 billion in Medicare and Medicaid fraud every year?

PGs 701-704 Sec 1619 If your part of health care plan isn’t in Government Health Care Exchange but you qualify for Federal aid, no payment.

PG 705-709 SEC. 1128 If Secretary gets complaints (ACORN) on health care provider or supplier, government can do background check.

PG 711 Lines 8-14 The Secretary has broad powers to deny health care providers/ suppliers admittance into Health Care Exchange. Your doctor could be thrown out of business.

Pg 719-720 Sec 1637 ANY Doctor who orders durable medical equipment or home medical services MUST be enrolled in Medicare.

PG 722 Sec 1639 Government MANDATES doctors must have face-to-face with patient to certify patient for Home Health Services.

PG 724 23-25 PG 725 1-5 The same government certifications will apply to Medicaid and CHIP (your kids).

PG 724 Lines 16-22 Government reserves right to apply face-to-face certification for patient to ANY other health care service.

Pg 735 lines 16-25 For law enforcement, proposes the Secretary-HHS will give Attorney General access to ALL data.

PG 740-757 Government sets guidelines for subsidizing the uninsured (That's your tax dollars people).

Pg 757-762 Federal Government will shift burden of payments to Disproportionate Share Hospitals (DSH) to States. (Taxes)

Pg 763 1-8 No DS/EA hospitals will be paid unless they provide services without regard to national origin.

Pg 765 Sec 1711 Government will require Preventative Services including vaccines. (Choice?)

Pg 768 Sec 1713 Government – Nurse Home Visitation Services (Hello union paybacks).

Pg 769 11-14 Nurse Home Visit Services include economic self-sufficiency, employ adv, school-readiness.

Pg 769 3-5 Nurse Home Visit Services - “increasing birth intervals between pregnancies.” Government ABORTIONS anyone?

Pg 770 SEC 1714 Federal Government mandates eligibility for State Family Planning Services. Abortion and State Sovereign.

(NOTE FROM RJ—Can you believe that in America you will be told how many children you can have, and when? Does this mean we can expect the government to impose mandatory abortions? How else can this be interpreted?)

Pg 789-797 Government will set, mandate drug prices, controlling which drugs brought to market. Bye innovation.

Pgs 797-800 SEC. 1744 PAYMENTS for graduate medical education. The government will now control doctors’ educations.

PG 801 Sec 1751 The government will decide which health care conditions will be paid. Say RATION!

Pg 810 SEC. 1759. Billing Agents, clearinghouses, etc. req. to register. Government takes over private payment system.

Pg 820-824 Sec 1801 Government will identify individuals ineligible for subsidies. Will access all personal financial information.

Pg 824-829 SEC. 1802. Government sets up Comparative Effectiveness Research Trust Fund. Another tax black hole.

PG 829-833 Government will impose a fee on ALL private health insurance plans including self-insured to pay for Trust Fund!

PG 835 11-13 fees imposed by government for Trust Fund shall be treated as if they were taxes.

Pg 838-840 Government will design and implement Home Visitation Program for families with young kids and families expecting kids.

PG 844-845 This Home Visitation Program includes government coming into your house and telling you how to parent!?

Pg 859 Government will establish a Public Health Fund at a cost of $88,800,000,000. Yes that’s billion.

Pg 865 The government will MANDATE the establishment of a National Health Service Corps.

PG 865 to 876 The NHS Corps is a program where doctors perform mandatory health care for two years for part loan repayment.

PG 876-892 The government takes over the education of our medical students and doctors.

PG 898 The government will establish a Public Health Workforce Corps to ensure supply of public health prof.

PG 898 The Public Health Workforce Corps shall consist of civilian employees of the U.S. as Secretary deems.

PG 898 The Public Health Workforce Corps shall consist of officers of Regular and Reserve Corps of Service.

PG 900 The Public Health Workforce Corps includes veterinarians.

PG 901 The Public Health Workforce Corps WILL include commissioned Regular and Reserve Officers. HC Draft?

PG 910 The government will develop, build, and run Public Health Training Centers.

PG 913-914 Government starts a health care affirmative action program thru guise of diversity scholarships.

PG 915 SEC. 2251. Government MANDDATES Cultural and linguistic competency training for health care professionals.

Pg 932 The Government will establish Preventative and Wellness Trust fund- initial cost of $30,800,000,000 billion.

PG 935 21-22 Government will identify specific goals & objectives for prevention & wellness activities. Control YOU!!

PG 936 Government will develop “Healthy People and National Public Health Performance Standards” Tell me what to eat? This is no joke -- the government will be able to actually mandate what you can eat or not eat. This could be helpful for some, but do we want the government doing it? What is the most fat and out of shape entity on the planet? The Federal Government. What kind of shape do you think the bureaucrats will be in who mandate such for everyone else?

PG 942 Lines 22-25 More government? Offices of Surgeon General -Public Health Svc, Minority Health, Women’s Health

PG 950- 980 BIG GOVERNMENT core pub health infrastructure including workforce capacity, lab systems, health info sys, etc.

PG 993 Government will establish school based health clinics. Your kids won’t have a chance.

PG 994 School Based Health Clinic will be integrated into the school environment. Say government brainwash!

PG 1001 The government will establish a National Medical Device Registry. Will you be tracked?


Consider the central assertion of the Democrat Statists: that a public option will somehow make things more efficient. But the facts are stubborn things:

• Government workers in any health care bureaucracy will be protected from performance-related terminations by Civil Service rules.

• Most of the government workers will also be in public sector unions (Obama's ACORN-linked SEIU, for example) that will further shield failed employees from discipline or termination.

• Health care services will be delivered with all the efficiency of a Social Security office or the Bureau of Motor Vehicles.

This bill is another payoff to the unions and ACORN. If enacted, these Democrat leaders -- a group of losers, thugs and tax cheats -- will destroy health care in America and, worse, create a vast federal system with which they can control the citizenry.

I urge you to contact your representatives in Congress and demand they reject Statist health care.

Saturday August 1, 2009, 7:37 pm

"Real People, Real Healthcare Needs"
A volunteer effort in support of President Obama's healthcare initiatives - real people telling stories that illumine the current crisis and the need for change.

Saturday August 1, 2009, 7:39 pm

Health Insurance Horror Stories
Woman Refused Breast Cancer Surgery Because She Had Acne... Man's Policy Rescinded Because He Was Inaccurately Weighed

Saturday August 1, 2009, 7:41 pm

NYTimes: How Health Care Reform Will Help You -- Even If You're Insured
Though many of the crucial decisions about health care reform have yet to be made, the general direction of the legislation is clear enough to make some educated guesses about the likely winners and losers.

Sunday August 2, 2009, 3:46 pm
Linda Bergthold: So it Begins -- the August Attack on Health Care Reform

I received a mass email that exhorted the recipients to pray because of the disaster to befall on us if health care reform is passed. I went through every charge and answered it.
.....
Page 29 lines 4-16 -- Your Health Care is RATIONED.
WOW. NOT AT ALL! THIS LANGUAGE SAYS THAT YOU WILL NOT HAVE TO PAY MORE
THAN A SET AMOUNT EACH YEAR FOR YOUR HEALTH INSURANCE. RIGHT NOW YOU
ALL HAVE MAXIMUM AMOUNTS THAT YOUR INSURANCE WILL PAY ANNUALLY AND THEN
YOU'RE ON YOUR OWN. THE NEW LAW WILL PROTECT YOU FROM HAVING TO PAY
MORE THAN SET AMOUNTS. YOU SHOULD BE SO LUCKY!!
Page 50 Section 152 -- Health Care will be provided to ALL non-U.S. citizens, illegal or otherwise.

THERE IS NOTHING ON PAGE 50 OR SECTION 152 ABOUT ILLEGALS. ILLEGALS
WILL NOT BE COVERED. THIS SECTION PROHIBITS DISCRIMINATION AGAINST
PEOPLE BECAUSE OF THEIR RELIGION OR GENDER OR ANYTHING ELSE.
.....

Page 59 lines 21-24 -- Government will have direct access to your bank accounts for electrical funds transfers.
NOT THE GOVERNMENT. AGAIN. YOU WILL HAVE TO APPROVE AN ELECTRONIC (NOT
ELECTRICAL!) FUND TRANSFER IF YOU WANT TO PAY YOUR PREMIUMS THAT WAY.
IT WILL BE THE PRIVATE INSURERS WHO PROCESS THIS, LIKE BLUE CROSS,
AETNA, ETC. HOW DO YOU DO IT NOW?

Page 65 Section 164 -- A payoff subsidized plan for retirees and their families in unions and community organizations (ACORN).
NO. THIS IS A PROGRAM WHERE THE GOVERNMENT WILL HELP EMPLOYERS WHO
PROVIDE RETIREE MEDICAL BENEFITS TO PAY FOR THOSE BENEFITS IF THEY
EXCEED A CERTAIN AMOUNT. IT'S A REINSURANCE PLAN THAT LARGE EMPLOYERS
REALLY LIKE BECAUSE IT ALLOWS THEM TO CONTINUE GIVING THEIR EMPLOYEES
RETIREE BENEFITS WHEN THEY RETIRE BUT NOT BREAK THE PRIVATE EMPLOYER'S
BANK. UNIONS OPERATE HEALTH PLANS JUST LIKE PRIVATE EMPLOYERS SO OF
COURSE THEY ARE INCLUDED. NOTHING SAID ABOUT ACORN HERE.

Page 72 Lines 8-14 -- Government is creating a Health Care
Exchange to bring private health care plans under government control.
IT IS TRUE THAT GOVERNMENT WILL HELP TO REGULATE THE EXCESSIVE ACTIONS
OF PRIVATE INSURERS WHEN THEY DENY YOU COVERAGE BECAUSE OF A
PREEXISTING CONDITION OR BECAUSE YOU WERE SICK. BUT DON'T WE ALL WANT
THAT? EVEN THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY HAS AGREED TO THAT. THE EXCHANGE IS A
WAY TO KEEP OUR PRIVATE INSURANCE SYSTEM WORKING, BUT NOT ALLOW THEM TO
DENY YOU INSURANCE OR CHARGE YOU AN ARM OR A LEG. HAVE YOU EVER HAD TO
BUY PRIVATE INSURANCE BY YOURSELF? IF YOU DID, YOU KNOW THAT IF YOU
WERE EVER SICK, THEY CAN REFUSE TO SELL IT TO YOU OR CHARGE YOU A LOT.

SEE NY TIMESSUNDAY WITH THIS QUOTE:
Lawmakers of both parties agree on the need to rein in
private insurance companies by banning underwriting practices that have
prevented millions of Americans from obtaining affordable insurance.
Insurers would, for example, have to accept all applicants and offer a
minimum package of benefits, to be defined by the federal government.
Nearly all Americans would be required to have insurance. Lawmakers
also agree on the need to provide federal subsidies to help make
insurance affordable for people with modest incomes. For poor people,
Medicaid eligibility would be expanded.

Page 84 Section 203 -- Government mandates ALL benefit packages for private Health Care plans in the Exchange.
THERE WILL BE DIFFERENT PLANS FOR YOU TO CHOOSE FROM, BASIC TO
COMPREHENSIVE DEPENDING ON WHAT YOU WANT TO PAY. RIGHT NOW, IF YOU ARE
A MEDICARE BENEFICIARY AND CHOOSE TO BUY A SUPPLEMENT OR "GAP" PLAN,
YOU CHOOSE PLANS FROM A MENU AND THE BENEFITS ARE MANDATED AND
CONSISTENT.

Page 85 Line 7 -- Specifications for Benefit Levels for Plans = The government will ration your Health Care.
NO RATIONING HERE. YOU CHOOSE THE BENEFITS YOU WANT TO PAY FOR. ONCE
YOU HAVE YOUR PLAN, YOUR DOCTOR DECIDES WHAT TREATMENTS YOU NEED.
"BENEFITS" MEANS YOU GET HOSPITAL SERVICES AND LAB AND X-RAY. IT
DOESN'T DETERMINE WHEN OR HOW OR WHY. JUST LIKE THE PLANS YOU HAVE NOW
THROUGH YOUR EMPLOYER OR WHICH YOU BOUGHT YOURSELF. NO DIFFERENT.

Page 91 Lines 4-7 -- Government mandates linguistic appropriate services. Example -- translation for illegal aliens.
YES, LINGUISTIC SERVICES. NO, ILLEGAL ALIENS. NO SERVICES TO ILLEGAL
ALIENS. THIS IS A BLATANT LIE. THERE IS NO MENTION OF ILLEGAL ALIENS
HERE AT ALL.

Page 95 Lines 8-18 -- The government will use groups i.e.,
ACORN & Americorps to sign up individuals for Government Health
Care plan.
THE BILL SAYS "APPROPRIATE ENTITIES" WILL HELP WITH ENROLLMENT. DOESN'T MENTION ACORN OR AMERICORPS.

Page 85 Line 7 -- Specs of Benefit Levels for Plans. AARP members -- Your Health Care WILL be rationed.
NO MENTION OF AARP. NO RATIONING. YOU GET TO CHOOSE THE LEVEL OF BENEFITS YOU CAN AFFORD. ....S SO YOU CAN UNDERSTAND THEM AND CHOOSE APPROPRIATELY.....




Read more.....

Sunday August 2, 2009, 8:35 pm
If you want the real hard facts on health care, here's the plain and simple truth... studied and researched ... to try and put together a mythbuster, this is more comprehensive than even I would have done. We already have people standing in long lines just to see a doctor, we already have denied/rationed care.

UnitedHealthCare is making record breaking profits and under the guise of The Lewin Group
are advising congress. They actually have health scare talking points like the one about killing granny.http://mediamattersaction.org/factcheck/200907300008

There will only be change when those unaffected are as outraged as those who are.

http://www.wisecountyissues.com/?p=62

More myth debunking is taking place at http://healthcarereformmyths.org, a site maintained by dedicated citizens with nothing to gain but possibly some intellectually honest debate





See also, http://www.pleasecutthecrap.com . Handy reference against the rumors.

Monday August 3, 2009, 12:12 am
The health care one payer system is the same thing we have here in Canada AND IT IS A DISASTER! Canadians have been interviewed and they are telling the truth. The information contained in the current bill is also truthful ...
YOU MUST STOP THIS AMERICA ALONG WITH THE CAP AND TRADE OR YOU WILL BANKRUPT YOUR COUNTRY ....

Monday August 3, 2009, 10:44 am

Republican Right Wingers : The Faces of Ignorance and Hate


Philadelphia, Pa, August 2: This afternoon, at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, I saw the face of ignorance and hate--and it wasn't pretty.

Monday August 3, 2009, 12:41 pm
Schumer: Reconciliation Is On The Table For Health Care

Monday August 3, 2009, 1:44 pm
I would like to know why you hate your country so much Blue Bunting? I walk the walk - live the nightmare of what they are trying to do to your county and you do not seem to care .... This will be the biggest change to take place in the history of your country. Do you not think that 'getting it right' instead of 'getting it right now' should be the priority? This bill as it exists is a bad bill .... and the numbers of the uninsured cannot really be counted until your country deals with the illegals you have living there. I do not hear stories in Canada that you have people dying in your streets because of not getting medical assistance but they ARE dying in the hallways of some Canadian hospitals .....

Monday August 3, 2009, 2:03 pm
Actually Northern I frequently see you bagging Canada on here; why shouldn't Blue be able to bag the US? Having lived in the US and Canada for several years I have some experience of both countries and as a Canadian you actually have a lot less to whine about than US citizens especially in respect of socialised medicine for all and benefits available to those on lower incomes. So either you're well off or just a redneck who mistakenly thinks that socialised medicine equates to socialism; check the dictionary it's not the same concept at all. If people are dying in the hallways you need to pay more tax. At least all your citizens get into hospital in Canada which is a luxury not available to many of the under-insured and uninsured citizens of the US.

Monday August 3, 2009, 2:43 pm
Northern, I lived in your country, too ... see my posts about Canada's filty, dirty OIL SANDS, why don'tcha! It's too bad that compared to most Canadians I know and have had as neighbors, you seem to be operating with one spark plug misfiring, LOL!

Monday August 3, 2009, 4:38 pm

A Canadian Doctor Diagnoses U.S. Healthcare
The caricature of 'socialized medicine' is used by corporate interests to confuse Americans and maintain their bottom lines instead of patients' health while 46 million people go uninsured and healthcare bills bankrupt over a million Americans every year.

Monday August 3, 2009, 4:41 pm
I already pay 52% + of my income to support the system here and it is not enough. Is that what you want in America? Do you like working hard for your money and have it taken away and poured into a system that will never work? Has never worked in any country it has ever been tried? As well a lot of our citizens are actually being transported to American hospitals by the government because we do not have the room or staff to take care of them here .....Imagine what that must cost and it is only the patient who is covered. The family that follows has to fend for themselves. Yep - really fair - works really well ...
Canada is a beautiful country and I am proud to be Canadian but I am not proud of the fact that the first time I ever voted as a young person I started my country on a path of socialized everything - It has created a money pit we cannot keep up with here and my children and grandchildren will never be able to pay off the debt incurred. You are being warned about this right now but you are not listening. I walked the walked - fell for the talk - and by the time I realized it would never work and changed my vote it was too late for Canada. There have been many Americans who I converse with who are actually interested in the experience I have had and in the opinions I have. This is not the only site I am on ..... I have made many friends and had a great number of excellent debates .... It is great to have the freedom of speech both our countries enjoy ....
I am just a retired old middle class Canadian. I was a blue collar worker - drove forklift all my life so maybe I am richer than you but I am far from rich. I have real horror stories of the hospital care here and want to warn Americans.
I know your system needs to be changed but surely Americans want to do better than those countries who have tried and failed? Surely Americans want to take the time to put the work into it so that it is a health care system that will benefit everyone? And surely Americans want to make damn sure that whatever route you take it will not bankrupt your country? Are these not reasonable things to be considering?

Monday August 3, 2009, 4:42 pm

Our friends at Sadly, No! take a look at the actual outcomes between the US and Canada. I don't think it will surprise you to see that the U.S. system doesn't measure up so well:

Monday August 3, 2009, 4:43 pm
Our Obama AKA Pierre Elliot Trudeau burst on to our political scene in Canada in the late 1960's. There were things we did and did not know about this man but I believe that if we would have had the internet – and learned about his associations and where his base of beliefs came from he would not have gone very far. He was a very good orator. Could talk the birds out of the tree and was our pied piper of social programs .……

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Trudeau

'Trudeau was a charismatic figure who, from the late 1960s until the mid-1980s, dominated the Canadian political scene and aroused passionate reactions.'

Trudeau was interested in Marxist ideas in the 1940s and his Harvard dissertation was on the topic of Communism and Christianity. At Harvard Trudeau found himself profoundly challenged as he discovered that his "... legal training was deficient, [and] his knowledge of economics was pathetic. Thanks to the great intellectual migration away from Europe's fascism, Harvard had become a major intellectual centre in which Trudeau profoundly changed. Despite this, Trudeau found himself an outsider - a French Catholic living for the first time outside of Quebec in the predominantly Protestant American Harvard University. This isolation deepened finally into despair and led to his decision to continue his Harvard studies abroad.

In 1947 he travelled to Paris to continue his dissertation work. Over a five week period he attended many lectures and became a follower of personalism after being influenced most notably by Emmanuel Mounier. [18] The Harvard dissertation remained undone when Trudeau entered a doctoral program to study under the renowned socialist economist Harold Laski in the London School of Economics.[19] This cemented Trudeau's belief that Keynesian economics and social science were essential to the creation of the "good life" in democratic society.”

His socialist values and his close ties with Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) intellectuals (including Frank Scott, Eugene Forsey, Michael Oliver and Charles Taylor) led to his support and membership in that federal social democratic party throughout the 1950s (after taking over our Liberal party) Trudeau soon called an election, for June 25, 1968. His election campaign benefited from an unprecedented wave of personal popularity called "Trudeaumania" which saw Trudeau mobbed by throngs of youths. (I was a youth back then and part of that mob! First time I ever voted!).

So this was our Obama – our pied piper of socialism and social programs. If the majority of Canadians had been informed on what his political background was – or had been able to find out about it – this man never would have made it past the front doors of our parliament. But we did not know – and so here we are today. Sure was a lot about Obama no one knew about.

When Trudeau (Liberal = Democrats) took office in 1968 Canada had a debt of $18 billion (24% of GDP) which was largely left over from World War II but when he left office in 1984, that debt stood at $200 billion (46% of GDP), an increase of 83%. He promised us that the rich would pay but the majority population in any country is the middle class. It is where most of the money to keep our governments running comes from because we are the majority of the population. We were so taken with his ideals and his charisma we lost our common sense!

Our politics are complicated here – we do not elect our ‘President’ as you do there – the party who wins the majority of seats in our Parliament becomes the government and the leader of that party our ‘President’. Unfortunately this does not always give them a majority of members to hang on to power in the government.

Those of us who finally found our common sense knew we were getting into trouble here with the social programs that had been brought in. We had one chance to turn the tide. In 1979 we managed to elect a fellow by the name of Joe Clark (Conservative = Republican) and his party into government kicking Trudeau out. Clark was not a very good speech maker and was kind of a homely little guy but he loved our country enough to base his campaign on truth. He told us what we needed to hear. Said we had to stop what was happening to the social program ideas being tried and our economy or the cost of what we were doing would catch up to our children.

Well he got kicked out when the other parties ganged up on his minority and you would have thought Joe would have won again but Trudeau was French – pandered to Quebec. (Quebec is a beautiful Province in our country that is full of history and wonderful people but what happened there is another long story) Trudeau won votes in that Province by promising them many things and one of them was that Canada would become bilingual! Great idea! Another social program! Most of us spoke English but it was a promise he kept, Quebec gave him the votes. He won a majority government so now all of our Federal and Provincial government levels right across Canada had to become bilingual. Still are - once you bring it in you are screwed. Now we have to pander to all languages because social programs are a right once given to one - has to be given to all. By the way … my family is from Quebec, very French and they agree 100% with me.

Our news stations have to give equal representation to all parties who are running in our elections. If you smear one side you better be able to smear the other … equal rights and all. Our government controls some of them (same way Hollywood controlled yours) and the list of things they slowly have to take over now because of our social programs continues to grow – as does the debt. Trudeau did a lot of good things for our country on the world level for sure – but his ideals he flaunted and we followed in a herd because of the excitement he stirred in us all those years ago has trapped my country in a never ending circle of more restrictions, bigger social programs more and more debt and higher and higher taxes that everyone of us in the middle class here pays the bulk of. I don't know about America but millionaires are not the MAJORITY of the population here. Common sense alone should have told us that years ago.

I used to think there was nothing Canada could ever teach America. When I went to school the only history I really learned about was yours. But I was one of the herd who blindly followed our Obama. Even though we have lost a great deal over the years I am going to heard now. I am going to keep trying to reach out to every American (especially the young) who stands where I stood all those years ago. Just as the Obama train used this media to spread this garbage of an ideal around your country I am going to try and speak from experience. I and many Canadians were you now. College & university students, young parents with children looking for a better future for our children, every other person who took something that appeared out of nowhere with everything wrapped up in a big red bow. We were looking in the wrong direction. We made a terrible mistake and we continue to pay for it in spades.



There is something we could teach America – if people would only listen.

Share the wealth! Yeah right!

Monday August 3, 2009, 4:44 pm
Canadian Health Care We So Envy Lies In Ruins, Its Architect Admits
By DAVID GRATZER | Posted Wednesday, June 25, 2008 4:30 PM PT

As this presidential campaign continues, the candidates' comments about health care will continue to include stories of their own experiences and anecdotes of people across the country: the uninsured woman in Ohio, the diabetic in Detroit, the overworked doctor in Orlando, to name a few.

But no one will mention Claude Castonguay — perhaps not surprising because this statesman isn't an American and hasn't held office in over three decades.

Castonguay's evolving view of Canadian health care, however, should weigh heavily on how the candidates think about the issue in this country.

Back in the 1960s, Castonguay chaired a Canadian government committee studying health reform and recommended that his home province of Quebec — then the largest and most affluent in the country — adopt government-administered health care, covering all citizens through tax levies.

The government followed his advice, leading to his modern-day moniker: "the father of Quebec medicare." Even this title seems modest; Castonguay's work triggered a domino effect across the country, until eventually his ideas were implemented from coast to coast.

Four decades later, as the chairman of a government committee reviewing Quebec health care this year, Castonguay concluded that the system is in "crisis."

"We thought we could resolve the system's problems by rationing services or injecting massive amounts of new money into it," says Castonguay. But now he prescribes a radical overhaul: "We are proposing to give a greater role to the private sector so that people can exercise freedom of choice."

Castonguay advocates contracting out services to the private sector, going so far as suggesting that public hospitals rent space during off-hours to entrepreneurial doctors. He supports co-pays for patients who want to see physicians. Castonguay, the man who championed public health insurance in Canada, now urges for the legalization of private health insurance.

In America, these ideas may not sound shocking. But in Canada, where the private sector has been shunned for decades, these are extraordinary views, especially coming from Castonguay. It's as if John Maynard Keynes, resting on his British death bed in 1946, had declared that his faith in government interventionism was misplaced.

What would drive a man like Castonguay to reconsider his long-held beliefs? Try a health care system so overburdened that hundreds of thousands in need of medical attention wait for care, any care; a system where people in towns like Norwalk, Ontario, participate in lotteries to win appointments with the local family doctor.

Years ago, Canadians touted their health care system as the best in the world; today, Canadian health care stands in ruinous shape.

Sick with ovarian cancer, Sylvia de Vires, an Ontario woman afflicted with a 13-inch, fluid-filled tumor weighing 40 pounds, was unable to get timely care in Canada. She crossed the American border to Pontiac, Mich., where a surgeon removed the tumor, estimating she could not have lived longer than a few weeks more.

The Canadian government pays for U.S. medical care in some circumstances, but it declined to do so in de Vires' case for a bureaucratically perfect, but inhumane, reason: She hadn't properly filled out a form. At death's door, de Vires should have done her paperwork better.

De Vires is far from unusual in seeking medical treatment in the U.S. Even Canadian government officials send patients across the border, increasingly looking to American medicine to deal with their overload of patients and chronic shortage of care.

Since the spring of 2006, Ontario's government has sent at least 164 patients to New York and Michigan for neurosurgery emergencies — defined by the Globe and Mail newspaper as "broken necks, burst aneurysms and other types of bleeding in or around the brain." Other provinces have followed Ontario's example.

Canada isn't the only country facing a government health care crisis. Britain's system, once the postwar inspiration for many Western countries, is similarly plagued. Both countries trail the U.S. in five-year cancer survival rates, transplantation outcomes and other measures.

The problem is that government bureaucrats simply can't centrally plan their way to better health care.

A typical example: The Ministry of Health declared that British patients should get ER care within four hours. The result? At some hospitals, seriously ill patients are kept in ambulances for hours so as not to run afoul of the regulation; at other hospitals, patients are admitted to inappropriate wards.

Declarations can't solve staffing shortages and the other rationing of care that occurs in government-run systems.

Polls show Americans are desperately unhappy with their system and a government solution grows in popularity. Neither Sen. Obama nor Sen. McCain is explicitly pushing for single-payer health care, as the Canadian system is known in America.

"I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer health care program," Obama said back in the 1990s. Last year, Obama told the New Yorker that "if you're starting from scratch, then a single-payer system probably makes sense."

As for the Republicans, simply criticizing Democratic health care proposals will not suffice — it's not 1994 anymore. And, while McCain's health care proposals hold promise of putting families in charge of their health care and perhaps even taming costs, McCain, at least so far, doesn't seem terribly interested in discussing health care on the campaign trail.

However the candidates choose to proceed, Americans should know that one of the founding fathers of Canada's government-run health care system has turned against his own creation. If Claude Castonguay is abandoning ship, why should Americans bother climbing on board?

Gratzer is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a physician licensed in both the U.S. and Canada, where he received his medical training. His newest book, "The Cure: How Capitalism Can Save American Health Care," is now available in paperback.

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=299282509335931

Monday August 3, 2009, 4:46 pm
Northern, we know that you don't believe in Canada's health care system; it's not the only one we're evaluating so relax.

Robert Kuttner: Faint PraiseWhy is our health system so massively inefficient? Because it is run by and for private insurers, aided and abetted by for-profit drug companies and hospitals. Even if we insure more people, as President Obama hopes to, a fragmented, profit-oriented system dominated by these interests simply cannot yield the most efficient use of health outlays.

Monday August 3, 2009, 4:47 pm
Rubbish! Canadians do not pay 52% tax; just stick to the facts.

Monday August 3, 2009, 5:39 pm
Fact$ are $trange foreign object$ to the liar$' campaign, John ... in$urance lobbyi$t$ are now hiring Canadian$ to sabotage their neighbors in the U$A

Monday August 3, 2009, 5:39 pm

Geithner Hints Dems Will Move Ahead On Health Care Without Republican Support - If They Must


When I think of how much the Bush administration shoved down the country's throat on strictly partisan votes, it makes me crazy when Democrats start talking about being bipartisan. This kind of talk by Tim Geithner on This Week with Geo. Stephanopoulous

Monday August 3, 2009, 6:13 pm
John, you're absolutely right!!!

from: A Canadian doctor diagnoses U.S. healthcare

The U.S.' and Canada's different health insurance decisions make up the world's largest health policy experiment. And the results?

On coverage, all Canadians have insurance for hospital and physician services. There are no deductibles or co-pays. Most provinces also provide coverage for programs for home care, long-term care, pharmaceuticals and durable medical equipment, although there are co-pays.

On the U.S. side, 46 million people have no insurance, millions are underinsured and healthcare bills bankrupt more than 1 million Americans every year.

Lesson No. 1: A single-payer system would eliminate most U.S. coverage problems.

On costs, Canada spends 10% of its economy on healthcare; the U.S. spends 16%. The extra 6% of GDP amounts to more than $800 billion per year. The spending gap between the two nations is almost entirely because of higher overhead. Canadians don't need thousands of actuaries to set premiums or thousands of lawyers to deny care. Even the U.S. Medicare program has 80% to 90% lower administrative costs than private Medicare Advantage policies. And providers and suppliers can't charge as much when they have to deal with a single payer.

Lessons No. 2 and 3: Single-payer systems reduce duplicative administrative costs and can negotiate lower prices.

Because most of the difference in spending is for non-patient care, Canadians actually get more of most services. We see the doctor more often and take more drugs. We even have more lung transplant surgery. We do get less heart surgery, but not so much less that we are any more likely to die of heart attacks. And we now live nearly three years longer, and our infant mortality is 20% lower.

there's so much more --- click on the link above to read the entire article and don't let "NORTHERN" try to drown out "real Canadians" supporting universal health care.

Monday August 3, 2009, 11:04 pm
So, thanks to Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY), Speaker Pelosi says she will bring a vote to the floor on single-payer after the recess. Are you all ready to make those phone calls and write those letters?


Nancy's contact info..http://speaker.house.gov/contact/
Send our speaker an e-mail of encouragement.

Tuesday August 4, 2009, 1:09 pm
White House takes on Drudge, slams healthcare 'scare'

Tuesday August 4, 2009, 1:34 pm
Northern N. (19) Tuesday August 4, 2009, 1:32 pm
... and have you looked at the single payer system Romney brough into his state? IT'S GOING BANKRUPT and it has only been there for a very few years ....
Health insurance reform can come many ways to America and perhaps they should be dealing with the problems instead of making more problems for the MAJORITY OF AMERICANS who are happy with what they have .....

Tuesday August 4, 2009, 1:36 pm
Northern, the bill isn't even finalized yet; you're barking up te wrong tree ... the debate goes to the FLOOR of the House in September,relax!

Tuesday August 4, 2009, 2:52 pm
* The Democratic National Committee released a pretty hard-hitting statement this afternoon, slamming Republicans for "inciting angry mobs" or "rabid right-wing extremists."

* On a related note, "Town Halls Gone Wild" continued today in a variety of locations.

* CBS News offers a good example of how not to report on the right-wing harassment strategy.

* Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D) of Texas hasn't changed his mind
at all after his run-in with a right-wing mob: "I am more committed
than ever to win approval of legislation to offer more individual
choice to access affordable health care. An effective public plan is
essential to achieve that goal."

* What's more, Doggett told CNN
today, "I'll tell you, unless more Americans who are suffering under
the insurance companies get out there and express their opinion, write
their letter to the editor, call these talk shows -- if they don't get
their message out the insurance companies will win in September and we
just cannot let that happen."

* HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius reminds folks of "the reason we're even having this conversation" about reform in a WaPo op-ed.

* Nice to see Blue Dog Rep. Mike Ross (D-Ark.) have a few unkind words about George W. Bush and health care today.

Tuesday August 4, 2009, 4:25 pm
This is a ridiculous statement from the Democrats. I have been watching from this side of the fence for the last six months and what is happening is Americans are waking up to the fact that they are starting to lose freedoms at a rapid rate via Obama and his gang's agenda! Questions that should have been asked and answered BEFORE the election are now starting to be asked and answers are not forthcoming.
The one thing as Americans that makes you stand out in the world is the fact that you have personal freedoms no other country has! You might not always agree with each other but you unite under one flag and your constitution is being shredded by this administration.
For God's sakes America - WAKE UP AND TAKE A LOOK AT WHAT IS HAPPENING IN YOUR COUNTRY! An unelected shadow government of over fourty people with communist and socialist ties? Paid for and their staff by you - the people? I have never in all my sixty odd years ever seen this happen before and you all follow like sheep being led to the slaughter!
YES - your health care needs reforming but the majority of Americans are happy with theirs so why is this administration not starting from the bottom up instead of the top down? When Hilary care was presented the White House itself worked on it for months before being sent to congress ..... What does Obama do? Let's congress fight it out with help from Rom Emmanuels BROTHER! Do you know that the ties between Obama and Emmanual goes way way back? Start thinking for yourself America or you will just let go of freedoms and liberties and choices you will never get back. A freedom freely given away - is gone .....WAKE UP AMERICAN AND JOIN THOSE INDIVIDUALS FROM ALL WALKS OF LIFE AND ALL PARTIES WHO ALREADY HAVE AND WANT THIS GOVERNMENT STOPPED!!!

Tuesday August 4, 2009, 4:33 pm
Health issues aside Northern you can't have been watching long or else you haven't been paying attention; Americans have been losing freedoms hand over fist since 9/11 and the rest of us also to a lesser degree concerning far more issues than just healthcare and some of them much more disturbing.

Wednesday August 5, 2009, 2:13 am
I have been watching first with amusement at the foolishness I see going on in America - as I said it took me back to Canada's Obama and the first vote I ever made following a train of promises that has decimated personal freedoms and choices here in Canada. Now I am horrified that any of you would think that a government who bankrupted your Social Security (Clinton did that when he borrowed from it to make his administration look like he 'balanced' a budget) - runs your post office into the ground - everything that your government has charge of is a mess - JUST LIKE HERE IN CANADA only they do not control one of the biggest parts of your econony - 1/6 of it is related to health care. Obama has a clear agenda of taking it over no matter what he is saying out of the right side of his mouth - his is governing to the far, far left and THAT is socialism. Why would any American want to risk the bankruptcy of their country and the loss of a freedom that is so personal?
Any country that has tried it has failed - we cannot keep up with the cost and government cannot keep up with the financial strain that is being put on our system. JUST LIKE YOU DO NOW, I BELEIVED IT WOULD WORK OVER FOURTY YEARS AGO - AND I WAS WRONG!!!
I have been watching and listening and researching and walking the very walk you are being asked to take. It is not a good one = it will not work and it will lead to the highest taxes on individual Americans you have ever seen.
Instead of fair news reporting I hear about junk like "Sicko" and crap coming out of Obama's mouth that even he cannot explain clearly. Politics is not a science project and clearly you have politicians in power who believe most American are too stupid to think for themselves. I happen to think that given the REAL facts you would all turn your backs on this but your news is so full of propoganda right now it is shameful.
Obama is a great orator but he is not very smart. He has little experience and is being led around by the nose. You do not have to be an expert to see this for what it really is and from this side of the fence it is a circus - not a government. The greatest show on earth one might say with no substance and no common sense. Why any American is standing there without standing up to this is beyond me. You may be home of the brave and land of the free but not for much longer if this is allowed to go forward.

Wednesday August 5, 2009, 11:06 am
Northern, you've got lots and lots of work to do in Canada ... aren't you paying attention to the filthy, dirty oil sands project wreaking havoce on our environment?


The Facts About the World's Dirtiest Oil:Canada's Tar Sands Are the New Frontier of Oil Production

What's that old adage ... clean up your own backyard before you go rummaging around in someone else's....

Looks as though you've got big HEALTH and POLITICAL problems in Canada that require YOUR attention:

Canada: New political powers to
quarantine, invoke other measures, may be tested in flu outbreak --The top health official can now quarantine the ill, interview anyone who has been in contact with a sick person and do anything else that could help prevent the spread of a virus.

Wednesday August 5, 2009, 1:40 pm
What work? Our government systems are all socialized now - too far down the road to turn back ... Tar sands? I personally do not have a problem with our Canadian tar sands .... lots of jobs for folks and God knows that is what we need in this country ....
You might be interested to know that the Swine flu hit our native Indians in northern Manitoba so hard it overwhelmed the whole Provincial healthcare system. Lots of tests and surgeries were cancelled because there was not enough doctors or nurses to go around and take care of the Natives. It was a very bad scene in Manitoba and you are welcome to it Blue if you want the same thing.
I am not going to go away on this. I am very concerned for America right now and you should be too but maybe you are still drinking the 'koolaide' or maybe you are one of the over 400 people paid for by Obama to do exactly what you are trying to do here? Force the agenda on people etc ...
It is sad to hear Democrats calleing some of their own people 'mobs' just because they do not agree and are trying to stop what is happening.

Wednesday August 5, 2009, 10:11 pm
Grassley Uses Kennedy's Brain Tumor To Spread Fear Of Rationing

Thursday August 6, 2009, 1:27 am
... and what he said about Kennedy perhaps not getting treatment in a government run system is true. My mother in law - 75 has been followed every year with mammograms (after they found cancer 7 years ago) ... this is the first year she has not had a call back - age knocked her off the yearly list in spite of her history ... as well my own mother has one kidney - last year she had a bad chest infection and ended up in hosp in Surrey, BC .... they released her after four days of treatment and four days later we rushed her back only to find out a week and half later she had a severe blood infection that she probably caught while she was in the hospital the first time .... she almost died and now, though she has paid into the system all of her life and has been relatively healthy, her kidney is failing because of all the antibiotics they put her on to save her life .... she is on a list for kidney dialysis but keeps getting knocked back by younger folk (she is 82) - at the rate they are going she will be dead before she gets treatment but if we pay out of pocket she can get treated right away (a small fortune) ... Want more stories??? I HAVE A LOT OF THEM - A GOVERNEMENT RUN PROGRAM DOES NOT WORK - BELIEVE IT AMERICA!!!

Thursday August 6, 2009, 1:46 pm
HCAN Playbook For Thwarting Town Hall Protesters
How to deal with the crazy GOPers.

Thursday August 6, 2009, 3:05 pm
Contrary to Steele’s Claim, State Republicans Are Actively Promoting Town Hall Mobs and Violence

Thursday August 6, 2009, 3:37 pm

VIDEO: Republican Right-Wing Rage Cultivated At McCain-Palin Rallies Being Harnessed To Oppose Obama's Agenda Today


Some attendees admit they don't live in the Congressman's district, so why attend the meeting? The wave of unfounded, anti-Obama hate found legitimacy through the McCain Presidential campaign last year. Republicans are actively supporting the hate...

Thursday August 6, 2009, 6:06 pm
CNN’s Rick Sanchez leaves Rick Scott fumbling to justify his health care corruption.
CNN’s Rick Sanchez ripped into Conservatives for Patients’ Rights founder
Rick Scott today over his anti-health care reform advocacy efforts. Sanchez pointed out that Hospital Corporation of America/Columbia Hospital Corporation, which Scott founded, was charged with defrauding the government for more than a decade and had to pay the government a record $1.7 billion. “Some would argue, and it would be hard to say they’re wrong,” said Sanchez, “that you would be the poster child for everything that’s wrong with the greed that has hurt our current health care system.”

Thursday August 6, 2009, 10:31 pm




Tampa Town Hall On Health Care Reform Disrupted By Violence
(VIDEO)

Police officers were called to calm down an unruly crowd outside a health care reform town hall meeting in downtown Tampa, Florida on Thursday evening, according to local news reports.

Angry protesters screamed, yelled and banged on windows as officers hurried to guard the entrances to the facility, where U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor was trying to discuss the various health care reform proposals being debated in Congress. One photojournalist said that a fistfight broke out inside the building, reports WTSP.

Many of the hundreds of protesters said that they had been inspired by a conservative activist group promoted by Fox News host Glenn Beck and some received emails from the county Republican party, according to the St. Petersburg Times.....

The Tampa Tribune reports that some protesters carried racist caricatures of President Obama and added details of more fights and scuffles.....

Thursday August 6, 2009, 11:24 pm
Fox News' Glenn Beck's Republican fans turn health forum into 'near riot'

Friday August 7, 2009, 1:05 am
First of all Beck is not a Republican .... Secondly I have a cousin in Florida who tried to get into that meeting and it was by invitation only ..... He reported to me that anyone with Acorn identification was allowed in and only a select few of others though it was supposed to be a meeting open to the public. How does that work as a 'public meeting' when the public is not allowed in?
As well if you listen and view the tea party protest videos there are a lot of DEMOCRATS joining the protests as well because this administration appears to think they answer to no one. My prediction is if Obama does not start listening to people things are going to get a lot worse before they get better .... Oh and by the way - my cousin is 82 so he was a real scary protester - all he wanted was answer but there aren't any .... election next year and things will be cleaned up .... and turned around if need be ....

Friday August 7, 2009, 3:43 am

Right-Wing Turncoat Gives the Inside Scoop on How the GOP Is Screwing Its Healthcare Baby


The GOP is willing to disrupt the health care debate if they can't win it. Yesterday in Tampa, a mob of Glenn Beck supporters nearly caused a riot. The Republican is an uncaring idiot who cares for no one but itself? To hell with the guy in the street!

Friday August 7, 2009, 6:28 am

SICK FOR PROFIT : Fight Back Against Health Insurance Lies
The Democrats should've launched this campaign six months ago, easy. Take a look at what you're fighting for, teabaggers.

Friday August 7, 2009, 9:41 am
Give me a break Blue - the GOP is not behind this movement against the health care .... maybe Obama should have had a plan before trying to sell a non existant one to the people? THAT is what is creating the problem .... THERE IS NO PLAN and the ones that are outlined are terrible - There are videos all over the place of Obama stating OUT OF HIS OWN MOUTH that he is after a single payer system. All of what is happening is Obama and your Congress fault. If I were them I would start listening to the American people - next is the dumb cap and trade sitting in your senate ...
I also do not believe your unemployment rate released today - I think you are being lied to as it is on the rise here and Canada is in better shape than America right now ....

Friday August 7, 2009, 1:33 pm
Anti-Reform Group Takes Credit For Helping Gin Up Town Hall Rallies

Conservatives for Patients’ Rights, the operation that’s running a national campaign against a public health care option, is now publicly taking credit for helping gin up the sometimes-rowdy outbursts targeting House Dems at town hall meetings around the country, raising questions about their
spontaneity.

CPR is the group headed by controversial former hospitals exec Rick Scott that’s spending millions on ads attacking reform in all sorts of lurid ways, a campaign that’s being handled by the same P.R. mavens behind the Swift Boat Vets.

In response to my questions, a spokesman for the group confirmed that it has undertaken a concerted effort to get people out to the town hall meetings to protest reform. The spokesperson, Brian Burgess,
confirmed that CPR is emailing out “town hall alert” flyers, and schedules of town hall meetings, to its mailing list.

These efforts — combined with CPR’s effort to enlist Tea Party-ers, as reported yesterday by TPM — provide a glimpse into the ways anti-reform groups are trying to create a sense of public momentum in their favor.

CPR spokesman Burgess confirmed that the group had set up a list serv designed to reach out to “third party groups” involved in the health care fight, including the Tea Party activists. And in a statement emailed to me, Scott, who was ousted as a health-care exec amid a 1990s fraud probe, took credit for the town hall showings.

“We have invested a lot of time, energy and resources into educating Americans over the past several months about the dangers of government-run health care and I think we’re seeing some of the fruits of that campaign,” Scott said, though he claimed outrage was spontaneous.

Similarly, America’s Health Insurance Plans, or AHIP, the insurance industry group, has stationed employees in 30 states to track local town hall events.

The question is whether these uprisings are actually helpful to the anti-reform cause, or whether their raucus agitprop will work againt them. Dems have blasted out to reporters examples of protestors harrassing House Dems.

“The more you dig the more you learn that this is a carefully orchestrated effort by special interest lobbyists and the Republican Party, who are using fringe elements on the right to protect insurance company profits and defeat health care reform,” said House Dem leadership aide Doug Thornell. “The anger at these events looks very similar to what we saw at McCain/Palin rallies in the fall.”

****************************************

Update: The White House attacks CPR for manufacturing anger.

This blog’s homepage is here.

Posted by Greg Sargent | 08/04/2009, 12:12 PM EST | Categories: House Dems, health care, political advertising

Friday August 7, 2009, 5:36 pm

SICK FOR PROFIT : Fight Back Against Health Insurance Lies
The Democrats should've launched this campaign six months ago, easy. Take a look at what you're fighting for, teabaggers.

Friday August 7, 2009, 6:11 pm



OLA!
Why are we not able to duplicate what they are doing in Germany or in Canada--- why does the U.S. have a hard time with admitting that other countries have good health care programs that work?

Friday August 7, 2009, 6:58 pm

Why are we not able to duplicate what they are doing in Germany or in Canada

The health care system in both Germany and CANADA are collapsing - not enough money to go around .... I know - I am Canadian .....

Friday August 7, 2009, 8:32 pm
Anybody who actually supports this healthcare bill...obviously hasn't read it and/or has a death wish for themselves and every member of their family.

I'll stand with all those who do NOT support this atrocity being called a "Healthcare" bill.
I will indeed call Congress....again..with millions of others who want no part of government controlled anything including healthcare.

Wake up...you, too, might one day be told you need to consider ending your life before you believe it to be your time.

Saturday August 8, 2009, 8:31 am
You Do Not Have Health Insurance

http://www.truthout.org/080709A?n
The Baseline Scenario: "Right now, it appears that the biggest barrier to health care reform is people who think that it will hurt them. According to a New York Times poll, '69 percent of respondents in the poll said they were concerned that the quality of their own care would decline if the government created a program that covers everyone.'

Since most Americans currently have health insurance, they see reform as a poverty program - something that helps poor people and hurts them.

If that's what you think, then this post is for you. You do not have health insurance.

Let me repeat that. You do not have health insurance. (Unless you are over 65, in which case you do have health insurance. I'll come back to that later.)"

Saturday August 8, 2009, 11:53 am
Michael Moore's health care documentary 'Sicko' can be viewed online in its entirety here.(Hat tip to 'citisven' at Daily Kos.)

Saturday August 8, 2009, 1:30 pm
Here are the facts. Anyone can verify them by reading the bill at http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h3200/text




Actual itemized contents of the Health Care Reform Bill:

"Page 22: Mandates audits of all employers that self-insure!"

TRUTH: This is not an "audit," it's a study. Moreover, the bill states (pp. 22-23) that the report will "include any recommendations the Commissioner deems appropriate to ensure that the law does not provide incentives for small and mid-size employers to self-insure or create adverse selection in the risk pools of large group insurers and self-insured employers." This is almost directly the opposite of the email's claim.

"Page 29: Admission: your health care will be rationed!"

TRUTH: Page 29 continues to define the "essential benefits package" and discusses limits on what Americans will have to spend on health care under this minimum standard. In no way does this section stipulate the rationing of care.

"Page 30: A government committee will decide what treatments and benefits you get (and, unlike an insurer, there will be no appeals process)"

TRUTH: Page 30 begins to describe the Health Benefits Advisory Committee which establishes certain minimum standards for health insurance plans. In no way does this committee deny treatments and benefits to Americans with health insurance.

"Page 42: The 'Health Choices Commissioner' will decide health benefits for you. You will have no choice. None."

TRUTH: Page 42 begins to describe the Health Choices Commissioner's duties. The idea that this person will decide what benefits Americans receive is patently false, given that most Americans will keep their current plans under reform, and Americans within the exchange will have the choice of purchasing many different kinds of health plans. Rather, the Commissioner will establish minimum standards to protect Americans.

"Page 50: All non-US citizens, illegal or not, will be provided with free healthcare services."

TRUTH: Pages 50-51 contain a provision stating that discrimination will not be allowed in the provision of health care services. Nowhere does the bill state that non-US citizens will be provided free health care services. The bill prohibits federal dollars from being used for undocumented immigrants.

"Page 58: Every person will be issued a National ID Healthcard."

TRUTH: Page 58, in the context of a discussion of administrative standards, mentions that "determination of an individual's financial responsibility at the point of service and, to the extent possible, prior to service, including whether the individual is eligible for a specific service with a specific physician at a specific facility...may include utilization of a machine-readable health plan beneficiary identification card." In no way does the bill state that such a card would be national, or that it would be issued to every person, or that it would, in fact, be used at all.

"Page 59: The federal government will have direct, real-time access to all individual bank accounts for electronic funds transfer."

TRUTH: Page 59 continues the discussion of administrative standards, and authorizes electronic transfers of money within the government. In no way does this provision grant the government access to individual bank accounts.

"Page 65: Taxpayers will subsidize all union retiree and community organizer health plans (read: SEIU, UAW and ACORN)"

TRUTH: Here's what page 65 says: "Not later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Health and Human Services shall establish a temporary reinsurance program to provide reimbursement to assist participating employment-based plans with the cost of providing health benefits to retirees and to eligible spouses, surviving spouses and dependents of such retirees." No mention is made of unions or community organizations.

"Page 72: All private healthcare plans must conform to government rules to participate in a Healthcare Exchange."

TRUTH: That's true! Plans have to have a minimum standard of benefits, bat can offer other plans as well. But that's fair, isn't it? Private insurers can continue to operate outside the exchange if they wish - should the government establish no standards for the exchange? In that case, how could reform end insurance industry abuses and help to control costs?

"Page 84: All private healthcare plans must participate in the Healthcare Exchange (i.e., total government control of private plans)"

TRUTH: This section says is that if private health care plans want to operate in the Exchange, they must provide a basic benefit package.

"Page 91: Government mandates linguistic infrastructure for services; translation: illegal aliens"

TRUTH: Some American citizens are more comfortable speaking a language other than English, especially in a sensitive situation like a consultation with their doctor. This provision in no way opens the door for coverage of undocumented workers.

"Page 95: The Government will pay ACORN and Americorps to sign up individuals for Government-run Health Care plan."

TRUTH: Page 95 makes no mention of ACORN and Americorps; all it says is that the Commissioner can conduct outreach to vulnerable populations, making them aware of their options.

"Page 102: Those eligible for Medicaid will be automatically enrolled: you have no choice in the matter."

TRUTH: People who are eligible for Medicaid will not have to face the burdens of paperwork and other bureaucratic struggles. Far from depriving people of choice, this measure will ensure coverage.

"Page 124: No company can sue the government for price-fixing. No 'judicial review' is permitted against the government monopoly. Put simply, private insurers will be crushed."

TRUTH: This section describes rate-setting under the public health insurance plan option, which will compete with private insurers, who can set their own rates. Because of inherent advantages like their established administrative and provider frameworks, private insurance companies will not be "crushed" by government competition.

"Page 127: The AMA sold doctors out: the government will set wages."

TRUTH: The government will negotiate rates with providers under the public health insurance plan option. However, private insurers will continue to pay their own rates.

"Page 145: An employer MUST auto-enroll employees into the government-run public plan. No alternatives."

TRUTH: This is simply not true. Employers with more than 20 employees aren't even eligible to participate in the exchange, let alone the public plan, until several years after the exchange launches in 2013. Moreover, no employer will be forced to participate in the public plan.

"Page 146: Employers MUST pay healthcare bills for part-time employees AND their families."

TRUTH: Employers are required to pay some benefits for part-time employees on a basis proportional to what they pay for full-time employees. No language on this page or the next stipulates coverage for the families of part-time employees.

"Page 149: Any employer with a payroll of $400K or more, who does not offer the public option, pays an 8% tax on payroll"

TRUTH: The payroll penalty applies to employers with payroll over $500,000 who do not provide insurance to their employees. The percentage for employers with payroll from $500,000 - $750,000 is 6%. Employers do not have to offer the public option to avoid this penalty, they can offer private insurance if they wish.

"Page 150: Any employer with a payroll of $250K-400K or more, who does not offer the public option, pays a 2 to 6% tax on payroll"

TRUTH: This is false, see above.

"Page 167: Any individual who doesn't' have acceptable healthcare (according to the government) will be taxed 2.5% of income."

TRUTH: Pages 167-173 detail what "acceptable health care" means (basically, insurance coverage) and also allow for many different kinds of exceptions to this rule.

"Page 170: Any NON-RESIDENT alien is exempt from individual taxes (Americans will pay for them)."

TRUTH: Non-resident aliens do not have to pay the penalty for not having health insurance, nor will the receive federal assistance, because they are not required to purchase health insurance. They are not exempted from individual taxes generally.

"Page 195: Officers and employees of Government Healthcare Bureaucracy will have access to ALL American financial and personal records."

TRUTH: This is a gross overstatement. For the purposes of determining affordability credits for Americans who need financial assistance in purchasing health insurance, employees of the Health Choices Administration will have access to tax information that the federal government already keeps. As is clearly stated on page 196, "Return information... may be used by officers and employees of the Health Choices Administration or such State-based health insurance exchange, as the case may be, only for the purposes of, and to the extent necessary in, establishing and verifying the appropriate amount of any affordability credit described in subtitle C of title II of the America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 and providing for the repayment of any such credit which was in excess of such appropriate amount.''

"Page 203: "The tax imposed under this section shall not be treated as tax." Yes, it really says that."

TRUTH: This quote is taken out of context, and is in fact referring to a calculation used in the bill. Full context of quote: "'(4) NOT TREATED AS TAX IMPOSED BY THIS CHAPTER FOR CERTAIN PURPOSES.-The tax imposed under this section shall not be treated as tax imposed by this chapter for purposes of determining the amount of any credit under this chapter or for purposes of section 55.''

"Page 239: Bill will reduce physician services for Medicaid. Seniors and the poor most affected."

TRUTH: This section has nothing whatsoever to do with reducing services. It makes much needed changes to the way in which physician reimbursement is recalculated every year. The bill will, in fact, create much more opportunity for seniors and the poor to receive necessary care.

"Page 241: Doctors: no matter what specialty you have, you'll all be paid the same (thanks, AMA!)"

TRUTH: Page 241 does not say this. Nowhere does it say this. It does say that physicians will be grouped into certain categories regardless of specialty. These categories merely determine if the physician is engaged in primarily therapeutic or preventative care.

"Page 253: Government sets value of doctors' time, their professional judgment, etc."

TRUTH: There is no good response to this assertion as it appears to have been made up completely. The section deals with 'misvalued codes' meaning that the government is potentially not paying an acceptable rate for a specific service. This will allow the government to, for example, pay more for services that require more payment, such as high-overhead procedures. The author of these criticisms separately attacks the bill for paying the same rate to all doctors, then attacks again for paying different rates.

"Page 265: Government mandates and controls productivity for private healthcare industries."

TRUTH: This section amends the Social Security Act to include productivity measures. There is no mandate or control of anything. This merely updates the way in which doctors and hospitals are paid through Medicare.

"Page 268: Government regulates rental and purchase of power-driven wheelchairs."

TRUTH: This is simply not true. This slightly amends existing guidelines for payments for medical equipment, in this case power-driven wheelchairs. This section introduces no 'regulations' that are not in the Social Security Act.

"Page 272: Cancer patients: welcome to the wonderful world of rationing!"

TRUTH: Overusage of the hot-button word "rationing" is a way to deflect attention away from the actual language of the bill and incite unjustified fear. This section only compares costs incurred by cancer hospitals to costs incurred by similar hospitals, and adjusts payments to reduce the possibility of fraud and abuse.

"Page 280: Hospitals will be penalized for what the government deems preventable re-admissions."

TRUTH: This is almost correct. The section is one of the first efforts at targeting excessive readmissions. Excessive readmissions are physically and emotionally damaging to patients, while simultaneously putting them, and the health care system, in far more financial risk than is necessary. The American Hospital Association recommended reduced payments for avoidable readmission in testimony to Congress.


"Page 298: Doctors: if you treat a patient during an initial admission that results in a readmission, you will be penalized by the government."

TRUTH: This is patently false. The section is about possible methods that the Secretary of Health and Human services might consider in order to address the growing problem of patient readmission. This section does not, in any way, create a penalty, nor does it even mandate policy. It merely provides examples of recourses that might be considered.

"Page 317: Doctors: you are now prohibited from owning and investing in healthcare companies!"

TRUTH: This provision only limits Doctor's investments in health care facilities that they refer patients to The effort to limit self-referral has been ongoing for many years as an effort to reduce fraud and abuse. This is, essentially, the medical community equivalent of insider trading. Limiting this incentive works to put the patient's health above all other considerations. Doctors remain free to engage in investment opportunities in areas that don't create a significant conflict of interest.

"Page 318: Prohibition on hospital expansion. Hospitals cannot expand without government approval."

TRUTH: This section regulates physicians' investment in hospitals to make sure that physicians are not unfairly benefiting from their power to refer patients to hospitals they have a stake in. The section does not prohibit hospital expansion.

"Page 321: Hospital expansion hinges on 'community' input: in other words, yet another payoff for ACORN."

TRUTH: In the ongoing effort to demonize community-based groups such as ACORN, every instance of the word "community" has become associated with that group's efforts. In reality, this provision allows for anyone to provide input. This includes homeowners, religious leaders, neighborhood groups, and others. There are no payoffs. There is no money exchanged in any way.

"Page 335: Government mandates establishment of outcome-based measures: i.e., rationing."

TRUTH: This provision is included in order to allow the government to base payments on practices that work. Nowhere does it say health care will be rationed. The attempt to isolate what works and what does not work in Medicare Advantage plans only benefits the health care system in general.

"Page 341: Government has authority to disqualify Medicare Advantage Plans, HMOs, etc."

TRUTH: The government can disqualify some Medicare Advantage Plans from receiving some additional payments, but only if those plans are not meeting necessary requirements.

"Page 354: Government will restrict enrollment of SPECIAL NEEDS individuals."

TRUTH: This section only deals with how to handle special needs individuals who need to enroll outside of the open enrollment period. Almost every type of plan operates with open enrollment periods. This section does not create more restrictions.

"Page 379: More bureaucracy: Telehealth Advisory Committee (healthcare by phone)."

TRUTH: This section merely expands existing Telehealth programs, which supplement but do not replace other health coverage, and provide a vital resource to Americans in rural and remote areas.

"Page 425-430: More bureaucracy: Advance Care Planning Consult: Senior Citizens, assisted suicide, euthanasia?; Government will instruct and consult regarding living wills, durable powers of attorney, etc. Mandatory. Appears to lock in estate taxes ahead of time; Government provides approved list of end-of-life resources, guiding you in death; Government mandates program that orders end-of-life treatment; government dictates how your life ends; Advance Care Planning Consult will be used to dictate treatment as patient's health deteriorates. This can include an ORDER for end-of-life plans. An ORDER from the GOVERNMENT; Government will decide what level of treatments you may have at end-of-life."

TRUTH: All of these hysterical claims have been debunked elsewhere. HR3200 provides for the reimbursement of a voluntary session of end-of-life counseling with your physician once every five years. This in no way means the government will make decisions for patients or encourage doctor-assisted suicide. Counseling simply makes patients and their families aware of their options.

"Page 469: Community-based Home Medical Services: more payoffs for ACORN."

TRUTH: ACORN is not a Community-Based Medical Home.

"Page 472: Payments to Community-based organizations: more payoffs for ACORN."

TRUTH: This is clearly still referring to community health groups, not ACORN.

"Page 489: Government will cover marriage and family therapy. Government intervenes in your marriage."

TRUTH: Covering marriage and family therapy, as many private insurance plans do, does not mean that the government "intervenes in your marriage." The types of individuals who are recognized as therapists are clearly defined on page 491; in brief, professionals only, not bureaucrats.

"Page 494: Government will cover mental health services: defining, creating and rationing those services."

TRUTH: This section expands government coverage for mental health services under various government programs, and ensures that all mental health services will be offered by qualified professionals.

Sunday August 9, 2009, 3:13 pm
I heard that this morning on MTP, Gingrich asked Palin, Romney and Huckabee to join him in supporting the next republican grass roots initiative…in an effort to prove conservatives mean what they say, he wants all seniors and vets to renounce medicare, social security and VA benefits. Gingrich says we have to walk the talk. When a befuddled Stephanopoulis said, really? Gingrich said yes, we have to show the left that we don’t need ANY government help. American seniors and vets are strong people, they’ll find a way to get along without these socialist services.

Let's see if the Right is willing to walk the walk and give up their "socialist" programs.

Sunday August 9, 2009, 9:53 pm
Two Words for Palin, Gingrich and the Rest of the GOP Who Fear an Imaginary Federal "Death Panel"



Sun Hudson
Thank you. And thanks, Kaybee, for the reminder.

Doctors say he had a genetic deformity, a lethal form of dwarfism in which the lungs do not grow large enough to support life. Doctors felt that further treatment was futile. His mother, Wanda, argued that all he needed was time to develop. The court sided with the doctors and allowed them to disconnect the ventilator. This is allowed in Texas under the Advance Directives Act, signed into law in 1999 by Gov. George W. Bush.



And the 2005 decision to remove the ventilator was made under the watchful eye of Republican governor Rick Perry.


Posted on Aug 09, 2009 at 02:09 PM in Health Care, Right Wing Madness

Monday August 10, 2009, 11:24 am
Wherever there's a RepubliCON angry mob ... alway$ follow the money ...

Coal Lobby’s ‘Purest Form Of Grassroots’ Delivered By GOP Voter Fraud Company

Paid staff will both call people already on the group’s list and talk to other people at public events, asking them if they want information or T-shirts or would be interested in asking a question at a town hall meeting. “This is the purest form of grassroots,” Lucas said. “It’s facilitating constituents to talk one-on-one with members of Congress.

The new project will use 225,000 volunteers dubbed “America’s Power Army.” They will visit town hall meetings, fairs and other functions attended by members of Congress and ask misleading questions about energy policy.

Anti-Reform Group Takes Credit For Helping Gin Up Town Hall Rallies
Conservatives for Patients’ Rights, the operation that’s running a national campaign against a public health care option, is now publicly taking credit for helping gin up the sometimes-rowdy outbursts targeting House Dems at town hall meetings around the country, raising questions about their spontaneity.

CPR is the group headed by controversial former hospitals exec Rick Scott that’s spending millions on ads attacking reform in all sorts of lurid ways, a campaign that’s being handled by the same P.R. mavens behind the Swift Boat Vets.

Monday August 10, 2009, 3:43 pm

Health Insurance Reform Reality Check


Get the facts about the stability and security you get from health
insurance reform instead of listening to industry and right wing hype.

Monday August 10, 2009, 6:29 pm

$1.2 TRILLION WASTED : The 6 Biggest Ways Our Health Care System Throws Away Money


More than $1.2 trillion spent on health care each year is a waste of money. That's half of the $2.2 trillion the USA spends on health care each year, according to the most recent data from accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers' Health Research Institute

Tuesday August 11, 2009, 8:22 am
EXCELLENT thread, Blue!!! Sorry I arrived so late. Great links, info and rebuttals to the wingnut lies.

Senator Bernie Sanders said yesterday, "If we don't get a handle on this [health care reform], we'll be paying 50% of our incomes on health care."

One way or the other, we WILL have health care reform by the end of 2009.

Tuesday August 11, 2009, 8:28 am
Do republicans really want to help reform health care? Senator Bernie Sanders discuss this issue with Olbermann.

Tuesday August 11, 2009, 8:36 am
Since 2000 (when GWBush took office...wonder of wonders!) health care profits rose...drumroll please...a whopping 428% !!! 428%. Now that's something to fight for, isn't it? That's what this ruckus is all about and the little people are fighting the dirty battle for the health care industry while they are the ones who are paying for it.

Maddow: Health insurance is a big money business

Maddow: GOP taking low road in health care debate

Tuesday August 11, 2009, 11:04 am
Countdown Special Comment: STOP THE LIES! The Clear & Present Danger Isn't Obama's Agenda; It's GOP Talking Points


Keith Olbermann calls out the dangerous rhetoric and lies of Sarah Palin and her other GOP cohorts--such as Glenn Beck and Sen. John Cornyn--scaring the populace with their outrageous fear mongering over health care reform.

Wednesday August 12, 2009, 9:54 am
Whistleblower: Insurance firms behind town hall disruptions
Man arrested at Obama event had loaded gunHeld in police custody; was also carrying pocket knife...
Stewart recalls conservative attacks on anti-war protesters

Wednesday August 12, 2009, 10:52 am
Chris Matthews had on the Ron Paul supporter who showed up with a handgun to the New Hampshire town hall on health care led by President Obama. On Hardball yesterday, he really
laid into the man -- a Kramer lookalike named William Kostric -- with some tough questions about just what the hell he hoped to accomplish:

Matthews: Why did you bring a gun to a meeting with the President of the United States, given the violent history of this country with regard to presidents and assassinations? Why did you bring a gun to a public event with the president? You know the history of this country. If you love this country and its history, you know we've had a problem with people with guns and presidential events. Why did you bring a gun to an event with the president?

... OK, you brought a sign that says, 'The tree of liberty has to be watered with the blood of tyrants,' and you're carrying a goddamn gun at a presidential event. I think those things make people wonder what you're about.

Matthews gets to the core point eventually:

Matthews: I'm gonna ask you: What do you bring to this discussion about health care? By bringing a gun, and that sign that you quote Jefferson from, what does that bring to a debate that this country's engaged in -- and we're looking at your gun right now, and your sign on there -- what did you -- and it's loaded, you pointed that out -- what are you doing to help this debate?

The best that Kostric can do is babble incoherently -- rather Kramerlike, actually -- about "showing the other end of it" so you can "pull people in your direction." He manages to finally blurt out that he actually thinks everyone would have been safer at the Town Hall event if everyone there had been packing heat.

Of course, that begs the questions of whether President Obama would have been safer, doesn't it?

Especially with crackpots like this in the crowd.

Wednesday August 12, 2009, 11:37 am

Health Insurance Reform Reality Check
Get the facts about the stability and security you get from health insurance reform instead of listening to industry and right wing hype.


* Nice work from the LA Times fact-checking common health care claims. (thanks to reader T.C. for the tip)


For some factual info on Health Care Reform go to:
http://HealthActionNow.org
http://Healthcare­factcheck.­com

The only way to fight this is with facts

Wednesday August 12, 2009, 2:04 pm
STOP PRETENDING GRASSLEY IS SERIOUS ABOUT REFORM.... Ladies and gentlemen, I present you with the leading Republican lawmaker negotiating a "compromise" on health care reform...... Grassley isn't serious about reform. Not at all. Seriously. He's proven this again and again. It's time to stop trying. Grassley will only let down reform advocates in the end.

Update: Joe Klein on Grassley's comments:
"[H]e either (a) hasn't the vaguest notion of what's in the bill or (b) he is so intimidated by the ditto-head-brown-shirts that he is trying to fudge a response to keep them happy. Either way, he should be ashamed. And once has to wonder about the fate of the Senate Finance Committee deliberations if this is what the Administration is dealing with."

Permalink

Wednesday August 12, 2009, 2:58 pm

Professor Stephen Hawking Enters U.S. Health Care Debate
"I wouldn't be here today if it were not for the National Health Service," he told The Guardian. "I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived.

Saturday August 15, 2009, 7:06 am
10 AWESOME THINGS THAT WOULD HAPPEN IF HEALTH REFORM PASSES...and it will!

Forget the fearmongering scare tactics of the right, here's how your life will actually be better.

Confused over the dizzying array of outright falsehoods to terrify Americans into opposing a process that might deliver real benefits to their families? They've falsely claimed that the government would "take over" the health system, put private insurers out of business and let pasty bureaucrats decide what treatment Americans would receive. They've spun wild tales of federal agents coming into Americans' homes for lifestyle checks and faceless government officials making end-of-life decisions for patients. They've falsely claimed that the legislation being considered by Congress would cover undocumented immigrants, and they sent around elaborate-but-wholly-fake "analyses" of the supposed bill, with references to made-up page numbers and all.

Sounds like the lies and tactics about Obama during the election not being an American and on and on...

All of these serve the same ends: using the politics of distortion and distraction to capitalize on people's natural fear of change and compelling them to fight noisily against their own interests. And it can be somewhat effective -- that's clear from the raw, populist anger unleashed into the health-care debate in recent weeks by well-heeled corporate-lobbyists bent on derailing the democratic process. The industry-approved fog-and-monsters strategy has another benefit: It puts advocates of reform in the position of batting down a series of nonsensical arguments based on an endless string of health-policy straw men when they could be explaining why getting something decent done would in fact be good for the country.

So let's get past the fearmongering and look at some of the highlights of what's really in the more progressive legislation working its way through Congress. The proposals aren't perfect. As I've written before, in their current form, the bills fail the test of having a truly "robust" public insurance option, and as such has limited potential for cost savings. But they are also substantial reforms that would go quite a way toward beefing up the health and economic security of a lot of American families if enacted.

The following breakdown is based on the legislation developed by three committees in the House of Representatives (HR 3200) and the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee. A third piece of legislation is yet to emerge from the Senate Finance Committee. Reports suggest that the legislation coming out of Finance will be much more accommodating to the insurance industry and other corporate stakeholders. Much of the real legislative fight will come when the two Senate bills are combined and then, later, when the final Senate and House bills are reconciled.

1: THE FIRST THING THAT WILL HAPPEN IS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING

At least that's the case for a lot of people who now have quality health insurance.

If you have a decent health plan through your job, nothing will change for you in terms of your insurance.

In fact, if you work for a large or medium-sized company and have decent coverage at a price you can afford, then nothing can change for you -- you'll be ineligible to enroll in the public insurance option (which is discussed below).

If you have already have government-run health care -- if you're a vet, or are on Medicare or Medicaid or have a child in the State Children's Health Insurance Program, nothing will change for you in terms of your coverage. (One exception: Under the House bill, eligible children would be shifted from S-CHIP to a new public insurance program in 2013).

The only thing that would change for you in these circumstances would be this: your current insurance company would have a harder time screwing you over if you get sick. That's because, although your policy wouldn't change, it would be governed by new public-interest regulations for the entire health insurance industry. (See next item.)

2. NEW PROTECTIONS FOR CONSUMERS

Regardless of your place of employment or the kind of coverage you have now, new regulations would take effect in 2010 that would go a long way toward curtailing the insurance companies' worst abuses.
* Insurance companies could no longer deny coverage to people because they've had health problems in the past, nor could they charge hugely different rates for different groups of people (premiums could only vary by age, geography, tobacco use and family size).
* The House bill bans recissions -- the insurance industry's habitual practice of collecting premiums until someone gets sick, and then digging through their histories for an excuse to cancel coverage.
* Insurers wouldn't be allowed to cancel an individual's coverage for reasons other than failing to pay the premium.
* Insurers would no longer be permitted to impose annual or lifetime caps on benefits.
* Insurers that sell insufficient, cheapo plans that leave people vulnerable to medical crises would be required to disclose that fact to their customers.
* All insurers would be required to disclose how much of their spending is on health care and how much goes to costs like overhead, advertising, etc.
* The legislation (especially the Senate HELP bill) creates new tools for fighting insurance fraud and abuse.

3. MEDICAL BANKRUPTCIES WOULD PLUMMET

One of the most significant of these regulations is in the House bill: a cap on out-of-pocket expenses. If the measure passes, individuals would face a maximum of $5,000 in out-of-pocket expenses a year, and families no more than $10,000. For poorer families, the limits would be much lower: $500 per year, for example, for a family making less than 1.33 times the poverty rate.

In 2007, Harvard researchers studied thousands of bankruptcy filings and found that medical causes played a role in more than 6 in 10.

4. PEOPLE WHO COULD NEVER GET DECENT COVERAGE WILL FINALLY BE ABLE TO

So far, one of the great victories for the anti-reform movement has been convincing many small-business owners that health reform will put them under.

The reality is that small-business people, their employees, independent contractors, freelancers, entrepreneurs, part-timers and the "marginally employed" would be the biggest winners from the legislation if it passed as currently drafted. Small business owners and their employees -- as well as those other groups -- would, for the first time, be able to get decent coverage at a fair price, and if eligible, both employer and worker would be able to get extra help paying for it.

Under the current system, most of the largest employers in the country self-insure -- they pay their employees' claims directly and cut out the middleman.

Big firms that don't self-insure buy insurance on the large-group market, where risk is spread out over a large pool. Large-group plans tend to be more or less comprehensive and, relatively speaking, affordable.

But those forced to purchase coverage on the individual or small-group markets have little buying power and are routinely forced to pay budget-busting premiums for the worst possible coverage -- plans with high deductibles, caps on benefits and strict limits on what is and isn't covered.

This gets to the heart of the "public insurance option" -- the most contentious point of debate in the reform battle. It would work like this: The government would establish regional exchanges, or "gateways," that would be open to those who would otherwise be forced into the individual and small-group markets. These gateways would have relatively large insurance pools just like large employers -- and public programs like Medicare -- have now.

Within these large purchasing pools, people would be able to choose from among different insurance plans -- one a government-run "public option" and the rest offered by private insurers.

In order for private insurers to sell plans through the exchanges, they would be required to offer a standard set of benefits (which the public option would have to offer as well). They'd also be permitted to offer plans with more bells and whistles at a premium price.

For those enrolled in the public exchanges, the process would be quite similar to what employees in many large companies experience -- they would simply choose from among a variety of plans, with slightly different levels of coverage and costs.

Compared to the plans now available in the individual and small-group markets, they would pay a lot less for significantly better insurance (which, in reality, is what those "teabaggers" are protesting).

Because of pressure from Republicans and conservative Blue Dog Democrats, the public exchanges will phase in slowly, over a period of four to six years.

5. (ALMOST) EVERYONE GETS COVERED

That brings us to another "controversial" -- but ultimately commonsense -- piece of the puzzle, the "individual mandate." It means that (almost) everyone would either have to buy health insurance or pay a modest penalty that would contribute to the system. In the House bill, the penalty would max out at 2.5 percent of income. Waivers would be available in the cases of economic hardship or for those who have religious objections.

There will be those who get those waivers; others will be left behind -- it's not a truly universal system. But according to preliminary projections, the result would be an uninsured rate of 3-5 percent, rather than the 16 or so percent who lack insurance today, reducing the rolls of the uninsured by some 20 million30 million.

6. THOSE WHO CAN'T AFFORD THE PREMIUMS WILL GET HELP PAYING

Ultimately, even if the public exchanges were to succeed in bringing the price of health insurance back to earth, a lot of people would still be priced out of the market.

All of the Democratic plans come with subsidies to help those at the lower end of the economic ladder get access to decent health care. The most generous are in the House bill, and how extensive the subsidies will be in the final legislation will be a point of heated debate.

In the House bill, individuals making less than 400 percent of the poverty line -- $43k per year and families earning under $88k -- will be eligible for subsidized coverage on a sliding scale.

Those at the lowest income levels (but who earn too much to get Medicaid) will be required to pay no more than 1.5 percent of their total income for health coverage.

Subsidies would also be available for co-pays -- also for people earning up to 400 percent of the poverty line.

Finally, many small businesses would be eligible for tax credits for insuring their employees.

7. NO FREE LUNCH FOR BUSINESSES

Currently, large employers that rely on low-skilled workforces usually offer little or no health coverage, and much of these workers' health care is already subsidized by taxpayers in the form of Medicaid and Medicare payments, other public programs and unpaid bills for emergency-room visits. Under the proposals in Congress, medium and large firms would face a simple choice: Offer their employees decent coverage or pay something into the system to offset the burden their employees' health needs impose on the American taxpayer.

8. MORE LOW-INCOME WORKERS ELIGIBLE FOR MEDICAID

All of the plans being considered by Congress make more of the working poor eligible for Medicaid by lifting the income limits on eligibility.

9. SOME THINGS WILL CHANGE, BUT YOU'LL NEVER NOTICE

The right's fearmongering is only effective because the health care debate is often so complex. Opponents of reform paint dark conspiracies about some of the more-obscure provisions in the reform package (a good example being the gross mischaracterization of a rather innocuous provision that makes counseling on living wills and other end-of-life decisions available to ill seniors as a "government death panel").

It is true, however, that the proposed legislation contain a number of provisions that aren't getting a lot of attention in the debate.

For example, there are measures that would impact the way doctors are paid, allocate additional dollars for developing the health care workforce and bring new technologies online.

These provisions will have a significant impact on a variety of stakeholders -- mostly health professionals -- but ordinary people looking for health coverage are not going to notice anything different about their health care.

10. OVER TIME, THE SYSTEM WILL BECOME HEALTHIER

Everything depends on what the final legislation entails. But if it were done right, those systemic changes -- greater competition, tighter regulation, technological improvements, a greater emphasis on prevention, the buying power and efficiency of less-fragmented insurance pools and an end to treating the uninsured in emergency rooms -- would gradually "bend the cost curve" of health coverage and offer insurance to tens of millions of people who today struggle with the health problems and stressful economic insecurity of living without insurance.

As I've argued before, the Democrats' approach is far from perfect. But the things outlined here are essentially what would come about if the more-progressive version(s) passed.

Understanding what's actually contained in the legislation leads to an unavoidable conclusion about the anger we've seen in recent weeks: it's doubtful that at anytime in the history of our nation have a group of people been so furiously opposed to something that would so obviously be an improvement over what they now have.

It's nothing less than a testament to the power of industry propaganda.

Full article here

Who are you going to believe? The Bushies, Beck and Limbaugh who got us into this mess and plunged this country into a shipwreck and want the rest of your blood, or a party that has consistently brought programs that has improved the lives of all of us.

Saturday August 15, 2009, 1:36 pm
* After all the fuss about every lawmaker reading every word of the health care bill, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) of Kentucky opposes reform despite not having read the legislation.

Sunday August 16, 2009, 1:05 pm
COMPARE health care in:

Australia
http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/Home
Canada
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/...

England
http://www.propertyshowrooms.com/...

USA videos
http://www.youtube.com/...
http://www.youtube.com/...

Sunday August 16, 2009, 2:04 pm
The brutal truth about America's healthcare vs Stephen Hawking, who said, "I wouldn't be here today if it were not for the NHS. I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived.." And a student who suddenly found himself unable to move and had to be supported by his wife would not have been able to get that sort of care in the United States at all, let alone be kept alive and allowed the time to think that made it possible for him to become *the* Stephen Hawking.

Sunday August 16, 2009, 4:20 pm
WHITE HOUSE STILL BACKS PUBLIC OPTION

Sunday August 16, 2009, 5:34 pm
Why does the US pay twice as much as ALL industrial nations for health care, yet falls behind the rest? If health care is working in those countries, surely America can do the same or better.

France: 'Best' Health Care? Say What?
It's a comprehensive, innovative system but still carrying a deficit...

Sunday August 16, 2009, 5:35 pm
Blue...I don't understand...Sebelius says Obama is open to no public option. What are they saying?

Monday August 17, 2009, 11:11 am
Krugman: All That Stands In Way Of Universal Health Care Is Greed, Lies And Gullibility

Howard Dean On Public Option: "You Can't Really Do Health Reform Without It"

Monday August 17, 2009, 10:08 pm
Marion ... hang in there ... our President and his family are on vacation; they're making stuff up; twisting words ... they've got no news so they're HYPEing everything!

Tuesday August 18, 2009, 6:41 am
Thanks, Blue. The louder they get and the more smoke and mirrors they (republicans) give means they are running scared. Now it's "co-ops"...what will it be tomorrow? As you said earlier, the republicans have no plan. Nothing to offer. Yet they would deny Americans health care. Unbelievable!

Tuesday August 18, 2009, 7:23 am
Marion, since you asked "...what will it be tomorrow?"

Kucinich-Supporting College Student Behind Obama "Joker" Poster

Tuesday August 18, 2009, 7:53 am
I don't believe for a second this student is a Kucinich (Libertarian) supporter. I suspect he has republican connections. This poster is wrong on so many levels. It is indicative of the dirty tricks the republicans use. They won't stop until they hang themselves.

Tuesday August 18, 2009, 3:49 pm
Could be, Marion, what you say might be true. That studetn also did a JOKER portrait of George W. Bush, but that got whipped out of the media in a few hours when it appeared; President Obama's portrait got made into tee shirts, etc.; they stole the student's art ... RepubliCON$ do that, infringe on copyrights, intellectual, creative, musical and otherwise.

Tuesday August 18, 2009, 5:32 pm
WATCH: Man Who Brought Assault Rifle To Obama Rally Was Part Of Radio Stunt

The man with the semi-automatic (referred to in interviews as "Chris," no last name) was spotted at the protest by CNN news cameras, in the middle of a Q&A. Today, his interviewer -- Ernest Hancock of conservative talk radio show Declare Your Independence With Ernest Hancock -- went on CNN and explained to host Rick Sanchez that he and Chris were actually in the middle of a radio broadcast. Hancock, also packing heat at the rally, had invited Chris to come down the protest with his rifle to be interviewed. The two men had known each other for two years, through their work for presidential hopeful Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas).

During the segment on CNN, Rick Sanchez said, "the more we look into this, the more it appears that it was really planned." Hancock concurred: "Oh, it's more planned than you think." In addition to scheduling the interview, Hancock had also informed the local police force.

As the interview continued, Rick Sanchez loudly exclaimed, "This was a publicity stunt!"

"Oh absolutely," Hancock responded.

Sanchez pushed on, "isn't there something terribly disingenuous about putting people on like that? And isn't there also something a little bit... dangerous about playing these kinda games--"

"Oh, it's not a game," Chris interjected.

"---with what I imagine is a loaded weapon," Sanchez continued.....

Chris is also featured in a YouTube video produced by the libertarian group Freedom's Phoenix. In this video he expounds further on his right to bear arms. He also explains that he is "absolutely totally against health care... health care in this way, in this manner, stealing it from people. I don't think that's appropriate."

Wednesday August 19, 2009, 2:13 pm
Phoenix police helped Obama gun-toters, radio host admits

Wednesday August 19, 2009, 2:50 pm
BE THERE ... 9/12/2009 in D.C.


The place to organize for the March on DC
(93)
August 15, 2009 • Category: Blog, Featured
I just wanted to remind everyone that you can connect with other people in your state by joining our ning social networking site. JOIN NOW and find a bus to ride in on, or a caravan of cars coming from your area. Connect with others in your state and work together to spread the word!
The [...]

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Saturday August 22, 2009, 11:27 am

"Many promoters of health-care reform believe that people have an intrinsic ethical right to health care—to equal access to doctors, medicines and hospitals. While all of us empathize with those who are sick, how can we say that all people have more of an intrinsic right to health care than they have to food or shelter? Health care is a service that we all need, but just like food and shelter it is best provided through voluntary and mutually beneficial market exchanges. A careful reading of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will not reveal any intrinsic right to health care, food or shelter. That's because there isn't any. This "right" has never existed in America."

Whole Foods CEO, John Mackey in arecent Wall Street Journal op-ed on health care.

Whole Foods Backlash & Boycott: Bloggers Outraged Over CEO's Anti-'ObamaCare' Column

Thursday August 27, 2009, 8:28 am
McCain Evicts Angry Woman From Town Hall

Thursday August 27, 2009, 9:55 am
McCain jokes about taking hundreds of thousands from healthcare lobby

Friday August 28, 2009, 1:13 pm
Veterans For Common Sense: Veterans demand an apology from the Republicans and FOX for lies about the VA

Monday August 31, 2009, 2:24 pm

Republican Rep: We'll Repeal Health Care Reform If It Passes

Monday August 31, 2009, 2:56 pm
What did you think was going to happen if they try and shove this through? So much for Obama working across the Isle and uniting your country ..... he and his administration only add to the discourse and tearing apart of your country ,..... OF COURSE THEY WILL REPEAL IT - AMERICA IS BROKE!!!

Wednesday September 2, 2009, 10:39 am

Who Will Be Hurt if the Democrats Pass Health Care Alone
If the Democrats pass the health care bill, and are able to do it with a public option, the Republicans will have once again put themselves on the opposing side of groundbreaking legislation.

Wednesday September 2, 2009, 5:52 pm
When it comes to healthcare, there is no lie a conservative will not tell.

Wednesday September 2, 2009, 7:19 pm
PUBLIC OPTION WATCH.... Under the circumstances, the chances of passing a health care reform bill with a public option in the Senate will hinge on a dozen or so senators, whose support will make or break the provision. As of last week, two of the 59 senators in the Democratic caucus -- Lieberman and Landrieu -- were definite (or near-definite) opponents of a public option.

This week, the on-the-fence senators are clarifying matters a little further. Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D) or Arkansas, who just found out she's facing a credible, top-tier conservative Republican opponent next year, now opposes a public option.


"For some in my caucus, when they talk about a public option they're talking about another entitlement program, and we can't afford that right now as a nation," Lincoln said in a speech to the Elder Law Task Force at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.

Lincoln has said previously she would support whatever health care plan worked, but she indicated Tuesday that a plan including an expensive, government-funded health insurance program would not get her vote.

"I'm not going to vote for a bill that's not deficit-neutral, and I'm not going to vote for a bill that doesn't do something about curbing the cost in the out years, because it would be pointless

... I would not support a solely government-funded public option. We can't afford that," Lincoln told reporters before her speech.


This might be a good time to note that bloggers seem to be the only people in the country who realize that a public option would be cheaper than the alternative. If Lincoln is concerned about what "we can afford," she should be an enthusiastic champion of the public option. I suspect she knows this, but doesn't quite have the courage to explain this to her enraged constituents.

Other than Lincoln, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) seems iffy on the public option, though her in-state colleague, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), is an ardent supporter of the policy.

Sen. Michael Bennett (D-Colo.) was considered a "maybe," but he's
making it clear he's a "yes" on the public option. David Sirota argues that this is the result of a credible primary challenger, and I think that's absolutely correct.

Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) has said he supports a public option, but as of yesterday, he's no longer willing to say whether he backs the measure or not. This probably isn't a good sign.

And then there's Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who offered a muddled position on a public option late last week. Yesterday, Reid's office clarified matters, explaining that the Majority Leader envisions a public option that would be administered in part by private entities, though the HHS would still set the policies.

Of course, there's one point that's always worth emphasizing when this comes up. It matters whether these senators support a public option, but it matters just as much whether these senators would also support a filibuster of a reform package that includes a public option. It's one thing to oppose the policy; it's another to vote with Republicans and prevent the Senate from even voting on the reform package at all.
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Thursday September 3, 2009, 9:42 pm
Why Health Insurance Reform Will Pass This Fall -- It's the High Political Ground

Health insurance reform represents the high political ground for four major reasons:

1). Most Americans - including swing voters - can't stand the health insurance industry. As Congress reconvenes, the Administration and its allies will unleash a major drive to correctly define the battle as a contest between the interests of private health insurance companies and ordinary Americans. Health Care for America Now (HCAN), the big coalition of progressive organizations and Labor, will put it this way: If the insurance companies win, you lose. ....

2). The Obama Administration will use every ounce of its political capital to win this battle. The President and his top advisors understand that -- when it comes to health care -- failure is simply not an option. They know that defeat on health care would be a huge blow to the President's ability to pass his entire agenda and his own standing with the voters. People follow successful leaders - not those who fail.

As a result, the President will use every bit of his charm, his persuasive ability and the formidable powers of the Presidency to secure the votes to win.

And make no mistake. While Barack Obama would prefer a bi-partisan bill passed through the regular order with broad consensus, he has an iron will and will pass a bill by one vote using special budget procedures if that is necessary to win. He is a huge fan of Lincoln's Team of Rivals, but in matters of legislation his model is Lyndon Johnson.

Anyone who doubts the strength of his resolve - or his resourcefulness - doesn't yet understand Barack Obama.

be sure to read the entire article ...