How do you figure that?
About Elections 2012
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Things are turning around.==========
Ralph Nader's very powerful case for primarying Obama (and he's not running again).
No one in the Democratic Party will do it. It would be su!cide for any profession
Unless Obama drops out, the only challenges to him will come from outside the Democratic Party (Republica
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
No, I'm exactly in the right party. I think you need to learn what the Democratic Party platform states, and what you're supposed to stand for. And give a copy to Obama while you're at it.
Or better yet, go steal your own party back from the teabaggers
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Obama's 'most ardent admirers' just like the packaging better. I'm not talking skin color, although that may be a factor for some of them; I'm talking about how a 'D' after the name is a brand they trust believe and trust in, despite the fact that it's the same 'soap' (product).
Unless and until there is drastic and uncompromi
So where does that leave us?
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Once again, Obama's 'most ardent supporters
Those who just can't believe they were duped, who insist that he's really a good man, ok: This one's for you (Lawrence Davidson provides a less diabolical view of Obama, but I think there's far too much evidence that Davidson ignores to support the stronger assessment
If you want to l!e the country into war for oil and war-profit
And after 8 years of Bush-Chene
KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Once again, Obama's 'most ardent supporters
Those who just can't believe they were duped, who insist that he's really a good man, ok, whatever. If you insist on deluding yourself, then consider our elections as a business plan where the 'Corporate Masters of the Universe' have charted out their plans years in advance (governmen
If you want to l!e the country into war for oil and war-profit
And after 8 years of Bush-Chene
Obama's 'most ardent admirers' just like the packaging better. I'm not talking skin color, although that may be a factor for some of them; I'm talking about how a 'D' after the name is a brand they trust believe and trust in, despite the fact that it's the same 'soap' (product).
Unless and until there is drastic and uncompromi
So where does that leave us?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
I'm not sure what your last paragraph means.
==========
Understand
1) To be targeted for intensive education on the issues,
OR,
2) To be convinced to forget about voting altogether
Most Americans have a very basic education about democracy, the US government
For example, cognitivel
If you go out on strike for a better contract at work (more pay/benefi
I would argue (and have, and do) against it being a good formula for profit-mak
So, keeping those few voters angry, not having them "peeled off" (satisfyin
If you want my long and very self-indul
About Health Care
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
accommodat==========ing an additional 32 million people will entail more doctors, nurses, LVNs, medical staff and related personnel along with supporting infrastruc ture.
If insurance companies now have to account for 85% of the premium to provide medical care to the insurer and use the other 15% for administrative costs, salaries and bonuses, this is not aggrandizi ng the insurance overlords.
Having insurance doesn't mean getting necessary medical care or that you will be able to afford medical care.
Think about that for a minute, because I do understand how, after hours/days
All that these bills do is require money to go from here (my pockets/ta
There is NO LIMITATION on insurance companies' charging and increasing co-pays and deductible
There is NO REQUIREMEN
Obama took single payer (Medicare For All) off the table, because if the goal is to get affordable quality medical care for all then everything else pales in comparison
Dylan Ratigan nailed it - http://www
About Health Care
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
There is only one reason that the Establishm
The legislatio
And more won't be able to, as the economy worsens, as more lose their jobs and insurance coverage, as more can't pay the premiums, and as more fall to Medicaid (which is bankruptin
This legislatio
About Health Care
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
those with pre-existi
==========
Not true.
In addition to Obama's giving waivers right and left to insurance companies that are saying, "We can't afford this", having insurance doesn't mean the insurance company is going to cover the costs for treating the child's pre-existi
Co-pays and deductible
When your friend says, "some is better than nothing", not necessaril
Peeling off a few angry voters may just make the difference between getting good policy and being stuck with terrible policy for decades.
About Health Care
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
“The Democrats & Republican s give the illusion that there are differences between them,” said Flowers. “This keeps the public divided. It weakens opposition . We fight over whether a Democrat or a Republican will get elected. We vote for the lesser evil, but meanwhile the policies the two parties enact aren't significan tly different. There were no Democrats willing to hold the line on SinglePaye r. Not one. I don’t see this changing until we radically shift the balance of power by creating a larger & broader social movement.”
The corporate control of every aspect of American life is mirrored in the corporate control of healthcare. And there are no barriers to prevent corporate domination of every sector of our lives.
“We're at a crisis,” Flowers said. “Healthcare providers, particular ly those in primary care, are finding it very difficult to sustain an independen t practice. We're seeing greater corporatiz ation of our healthcare . Practices are being taken over by these large corporatio ns. You have absolutely no voice when it comes to dealing with the InsuranceC ompany. They tell you what your reimbursem ents will be. They make it incredibly difficult & complex to get reimbursed . The rules are arbitrary & change frequently .”
“This new legislation doesn't change any of that. It doesn't make it easier for doctors. It adds more administra tive complexity . We're going to continue to have a shortage of doctors. As the new law rolls out they're giving waivers as the provisions kick in because corporatio ns like McDonald’s say they can’t comply. Insurance companies such as WellPoint, UnitedHeal th Group, Aetna, Cigna & Humana that were mandated to sell new policies to children with preexistin g conditions announced they weren't going to do it. They said they were going to stop selling new policies to children. So they got waivers from the ObamaAdmin istration allowing them to charge higher premiums. Healthcare costs are going to rise faster.
The CenterForMedicare & MedicaidSe rvices estimated that after the legislatio n passed, our healthcare costs would rise more steeply than if we'd done nothing. The CensusBure au reports that the number of uninsured in the US jumped 10 percent to 51 million people in 2009. About 5.8 million were able to go on public programs, but a third of our population under the age of 65 was uninsured for some portion of 2009. The NationalHe althInsura nceSurvey estimates that we now have 58 or 59 million uninsured. And the trend is toward underinsur ance. These faulty insurance products leave people financiall y vulnerable if they have a serious accident or illness. They also have financial barriers to care. Co-pays & deductible s cause people to delay or avoid getting the care they need. And all these trends will worsen.”
“You can’t effect change from the inside,” she has concluded. “We have a huge imbalance of power. Until we have a shift in power we won’t get effective change in any area, whether financial, climate, you name it. With the wealth inequaliti es, with the road we are headed down, we face serious problems. Those who work and advocate for social and economic justice have to now join together. We have to be independen t of political parties and the major funders. The revolution will not be funded. This is very true.”
“Those who are working for effective change are not going to get foundation dollars,” she stated. “Once a foundation or a wealthy individual agrees to give money they control how that money is used. You have to report to them how you spend that money. They control what you can and cannot do. Robert Wood Johnson [the foundation ], for example, funds many public health department s. They fund groups that advocate for health care reform, but those groups are not allowed to pursue or talk about single-pay er. Robert Wood Johnson only supports work that is done to create what they call public/pri vate partnershi p. And we know this is totally ineffectiv e. We tried this before. It is allowing private insurers to exist but developing programs to fill the gaps. Robert Wood Johnson actually works against a single-pay er health care system. The Health Care for America Now coalition was another example. It only supported what the Democrats supported.
There are a lot of activist groups controlled by the Democratic Party, including Families USA and MoveOn. MoveOn is a very good example. If you look at polls of Democrats on single-pay er, about 80 percent support it. But at MoveOn meetings, which is made up mostly of Democrats, when people raised the idea of working for single-pay er they were told by MoveOn leaders that the organizati on was not doing that. And this took place while the Democrats were busy selling out women’s rights, immigrant rights to health care and abandoning the public option. Yet all these groups continued to work for the bill. They argued, in the end, that the health care bill had to be supported because it was not really about health care. It was about the viability of President Obama and the Democratic Party. This is why, in the end, we had to pass it.”
KEEP READING
Yes, the public option is the 600 lb gorilla in the room. ==========
About Health Care
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
To those who want to believe your Repub acquaintan
==========
I'm an old OLD liberal Democrat who doesn't have to rely on Republican acquaintan
Meet Dr. Margaret Flowers (NOT a Republican
Dr. Margaret Flowers, a pediatriciKEEP READINGan from Maryland who volunteers for Physicians for a National Health Program, knows what it's like to challenge the corporate leviathan. She was blackliste d by the corporate media. She was locked out of the debate on healthcare reform by the Democratic Party & liberal organizati ons such as MoveOn. She was abandoned by those in Congress who had once backed calls for a rational health care policy. And when she and seven other activists demanded that the argument for universal health care be considered at the hearings held by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, they were forcibly removed from the hearing room.
“The reform process exposed how broken our system is,” Flowers said when we spoke a few days ago. “The health reform debate was never an actual debate. Those in power were very reluctant to have single-payer advocates testify or come to the table. They would not seriously consider our proposal because it was based on evidence of what works. And they did not want this evidence placed before the public. They needed the reform to be based on what they thought was politicall y feasible and acceptable to the industries that fund their campaigns. ”
“There was nobody in the House or the Senate who held fast on universal health care,” she lamented. “Sen. [Bernie] Sanders from Vermont introduced a single-payer bill, S 703. He introduced an amendment that would have substitute d S 703 for what the Senate was putting together. We had to push pretty hard to get that to the Senate floor, but in the end he was forced by the leadership to withdraw it. He was our strongest person. In the House we saw Chairman John Conyers, who is the lead sponsor for the House single-pay er bill, give up pushing for single-pay er very early in the process in 2009. Dennis Kucinich pushed to get an amendment that would help give states the ability to pass single-pay er. He was not successful in getting that kept in the final House bill. He held out for the longest, but in the end he caved.”
For the record, had the public option been the criteria for passage, all the Repub senators and a few Dems would have voted against it.==========
Why is everybody predicting his going to win.==========
© Blogger templates Newspaper by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008
Back to TOP
