health care

"...One of the proudest moments of public employee unionism was its part in the creation of the New York State Retirement System in 1920. At that time, the state of New York and its public employees joined together to ensure a dignified and economically viable old-age for its workers. Through-out the decades that followed an almost symbiotic tapestry was created - and repeatedly strengthened - which is simple to describe: employees opt for a public service career (not to become rich but) with an understanding that they can retire with a modest pension and health care coverage. Indeed, it is this historic covenant between the state and its government workers which is currently under vicious and unrelenting attack by right-wing ideologues, various media outlets and big business."

Read the whole misinformation post at this link

The quote above is from a site I found referencing what I myself always thought of as the covenant.  It's how my mom explained to me the reasons some people elected to go into teaching or government jobs.  You see, I knew those jobs paid and still pay relative crap compared with other college educated professionals.  My mom said we owe them just as we owe our veterans.

I am not a teacher or government employee.  Never have been.  My aforementioned mother worked for the state going on 25 years before her retirement.  She gets a pension check each month that is less than her social security.  It barely helps but it's better than nothing.

My brother and sister-in-law are two of those who worked 9 months a year helping to mold the minds of the next generations of leaders.  They each spent 35 - 40 years helping students go on to be professionals in high paying careers.  Neither of them ever earned six figures in their teaching jobs.  But in retirement they are comfortable and having a ball.  Jealous I am, but  I always understood the choice they made and the promise we all made to them.

Republicans and their wealthy friends are desperate to pay lower taxes so they can leave even larger legacies to their unborn great grand kids.  So what do they do?  The same trick the kings and dictators of the middle east have used for decades and the people have finally figured out.  They ignore the age old promises and they use scapegoats.

The kings used Israel and religion as scapegoats and distractions to keep the poor poor.  There was also a German dictator in the last century who pushed this tactic to the limits in his quest for world dominance.  Now the GOP(Grand Old Pricks) are trying to divide and conquer by using teachers, government employees and unions as scapegoats.  They want you to believe that the recession and lack of a recovery is entirely the fault of those three groups.  And Americans being the suckers they are, well Americans are falling for it.

Last time I checked it had 216,662 views 279,733 views.

One by one, the Democrats are trying to clean up the mess caused by their push to pass what is increasingly becoming an unpopular health care bill. On Friday, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) admitted that the Progressives probably oversold their health care legislation that was just signed into law. In other words, the bill isn’t going to do exactly what they said it would and if it does, it may not be when they led voters to believe.

McCaskill appeared on MSNBC's Morning Joe, when she spilled the beans: "The side on which I'm on, that voted for the bill, is probably over promising, not been clear enough about the fact that this is going to be an incremental approach over time. The benefits aren't going to be felt by most Americans immediately.”  McCaskill's  use of  "over promising” to describe current political events is a euphemistic choice of words for what Americans are witnessing.

You sleep better when you don't lie, and keeping quiet when you know the truth must have been hard for some of the Democrats that stuck to the party line. So, Al Sharpton's brush with the truth seems to have started something. Senator Sam Baucus (D-MT) has decided to come clean; the truth dribbles from his lips here and there.

Obama lied, and he is going to raise the taxes of people making less than $250,000. Baucus set the record straight for all the Obots that fell for the song and dance:

Our Congressional majority has purposely fostered a phony low-ball estimate of what the Obama Health Care Plan will cost. The Progressives in Congress presented the Congressional Budget Office with incomplete, inaccurate and misleading data, so they could come up with an estimated cost of $940 billion and pretend they will save us money. In case you’re having problems understanding the scheme, the Investor’s Business Daily website uses the following analogy that makes it painfully clear:

 "Like a used car dealer pricing a car at $9,999 instead of $10,000, the hucksters in Congress were anxious to get the official cost below the scary $1 trillion level at which things suddenly sound very unaffordable. Using the rigged $940 billion estimate, Democratic leaders now hope to force a health care bill through … seizing 17% of the U.S. economy …. The $940 billion figure the CBO came up with is almost wholly bogus. So is the laughable estimate that deficits will be cut by $138 billion over a decade."

The final health care bill details are out and a full House vote is coming soon.

The health care bill will lead to a reduction of $130 billion of the federal deficit in the next 10 years, according to analysis from the Congressional Budget Office.

The CBO also found that the bill would extend Medicare's solvency by at least 9 years and it would extend coverage to 32 million additional people.

Huffington has the details http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/18/health-care-bill-details_n_5040...

As most of you know, my mom has had some serious health issues since August. She had her gallbladder out a couple of weeks ago, recovered in a nursing home for two weeks, and is now very happy to be home. She hated the food in the nursing home so she really enjoyed the Chinese food we brought her tonight.

We talked about the HC summit, Obama, the HC bill, and the takeover of the DNC by the far left. Since my mom has been in very poor health and in and out of hospitals and nursing homes for nearly 7 months, there's a lot she's unaware of but she did see the summit. Her take on things is the opposite of mine but her bias is based on a fundamental lack of knowledge. She thinks the Washington Post is the same as it was prior to 1999 and that the Democratic party is still the bastion of Kennedy-era liberals. She doesn't know what a progressive is. She doesn't understand why the HC bill is bad or that the majority of the country is against it. Tonight, my wife and I did our best to bring her up to speed.

Today, The President put forward his own Health Care plan.  First time the White House has actually written a plan.

I haven't had time to look it over but I do know one thing is missing.  The one piece my spousal bot assured me would be included.  No public option.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/33275.html

President Barack Obama released a $950 billion health care reform proposal Monday aimed at pleasing the warring wings of his own party and bringing along skeptical voters, in part by including a provision to put off an unpopular tax on high-cost health insurance plans until 2018.

One notable absence in Obama’s plan – a public health insurance option, a favorite of liberals, but a provision that became the most controversial part of the congressional debate on reform. Obama has long said he would sign a bill without it, and his own legislation confirms that.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/33275.html#ixzz0gI9WDKid

We are fast approaching the end of President Barack Obama’s first year in office.  The banks, Wall Street, and the military-industrial complex have looted the US Treasury, and our leaders have created a multi-trillion dollar debt that they placed on the shoulders of American taxpayers. There is also news that the Democrats want to create a new Amnesty Bill, so that illegal immigrants can fill the jobs that "Americans don’t want" in an economy where we wonder if those jobs still exist. In short, under President Obama's leadership (with Democrats in control of both the Senate and the House), if things have changed, it's for the worse. 

Yesterday, at the National Press Club, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka pointed out that tough economic times call for “political courage.” In an opening salvo lobbed at lawmakers, Trumka shared that the courage necessary for that economic salvation of the country and its citizens wasn’t clearly evident in American leadership:

“Too many people in Washington seem to think that now that we have bailed out the banks, everything will be okay."

Martha Coakley is in a tough spot right now. Some polls have her 15 points ahead of her Republican opponent. Other polls have her neck and neck and some polls even state that Republican Scott Brown is leading Coakley by a few points. All of the polls have shown that Brown is gaining traction and momentum in the final days before the January 19th election.

Public Policy Polling has Republican Scott Brown leading Martha Coakley 48-47. There is also news that the corrupt Obamacrats will stall Brown's swearing in if he wins the election to get the Obamacare bill passed.

Bill Clinton has been unleashed to save Coakley with a fundraiser on January 15th, but the Big Dawg can only do so much.

From FireDogLake:

MIT health economist Jonathan Gruber has been the go-to source that all the health care bill apologists point to to defend otherwise dubious arguments.  But he has consistently failed to disclose that he has had a sole-source contract with the Department of Health and Human Services since June 19, 2009 to consult on the “President’s health reform proposal.”

How much was that contract worth? $396,200. Now Obama media shill Ezra Klein, who knew Gruber for years, denies that he knew anything about this conflict of interest:

h/t Pacific John of Alegre's Corner for finding this superb video made by a former Obama supporter.

I don't know how to embed the video so click here or the link to Alegre's Corner above to view the video. (I do and have done it for you.  hampster)

It must be painful for former supporters who really believed in the Obama movement and the promises that were made during the election to now see the truth. We tried to warn them but at least some are starting to wakeup from the fairy tale and hold Obama accountable.

The issue of Jan. 11, on my table yesterday, contains an excellent, yet short, analysis by Howard Fineman of the entire HC episode.

The sub-title is: "And why he may come to regret it."

.......<snip>

Perhaps not since the New Deal has a new president made such a massive bet on a single domestic initiative. I think I understand Obama's reasoning. It did not take him long (probably after the first round of CIA briefings) to realize that he was not going to be able to satisfy his liberal base on intractable, unwinnable foreign and security policy. It's easier to make history on the home front. And Obama was genuinely moved by the heart-wrenching health-care stories he heard on the campaign trail. So he sought—and may well get—things to brag about. The legislation will extend coverage to at least 30 million of the uninsured, and it will end, or at least limit, some of the insurance industry's most predatory practices.

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I watched the President speak in Copenhagen this morning and I have to say I was impressed.  Maybe it was the short time allotted but he held nothing back and did not try to tiptoe around the issues, especially transparency whch Secretary Clinton laid down as a line in the sand.  Perhaps health care has taught him that if you really mean it, if you do care about life on Earth, then grab the initiative and take the leadership role.

With health care he didn't want ownership.  He wanted the best of both worlds.  If Nancy and Harry pass something worthwhile then Obama will take credit.  If it fails I can assure you that Axelrod has the blame came all mapped out.

Climate change is different.  It appears that they are taking leadership and demanding respect from friends and trading partners alike.  I just hope he keeps it up and makes the Chinese work with us rather than take take take.

He gets a thumbs up from me today.

His speech after the fold

Here we are about to get exactly what Obama and his insurance buddies wanted all along.  But I just can't get all riled up any more.

This is exactly the outcome I predicted and I care less at this point if the bill gets scrapped like Dean suggested or the fools pass the piece of shit Obama calls reform.  The people are getting just what they voted for. 

Hope

Filed under I truly believe in single payer but the bastards won't listen so the public option is better than nothing.  It's a first step.  It's world's better than the insurance boondoggle crap the senate is trying to foist on us.  Keep up the fight Madam Speaker and I just may start to like you.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi told Democrats Tuesday night that she wants to move forward with the more liberal version of a House health reform bill that would peg government-run coverage to Medicare – setting up a clash with moderates in her caucus who oppose the plan.

Pelosi told her rank-and-file that she has more than 200 votes for a public option tethered to Medicare and that she wants to "see if we can find the remaining votes," one member present said afterward.

 

"We are very close and I count tough," Pelosi told the room, according to one person in the room. She asked Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) to ask his deputies to survey members in the next 24 hours to see if she could get to 218 votes for the bill, several members said after the meeting.

thanks to Politico

Last Saturday night, we were at our rented beachfront condo getting ready to go home Sunday morning. I got out of the shower just after 11:30 PM and a few minutes later, my iPhone rings. You don't want to get a call late at night because it's never anything good. You especially don't want to hear from your aging mom's attending physician.

With a foreign accent that's a little difficult to understand, "Your mom is OK but a test gave us some concern so we're sending her to the emergency room for closer monitoring of her heart." One of the heart enzymes was a little elevated, suggesting the possibility of an arterial blockage. It meant she had to be moved across the street from a rehab center to an adjacent hospital.

SCENE I: A busy urban street. Two middle-aged white men, BOB and JOE, are waiting at a stoplight, having a spirited political discussion. They have been friends for years and the discussion has the feel of ritual.

BOB: Look, I just don't trust the government to run my health care. In fact, I don't want 'em doing anything for me at all. I just want to live my life without government interference. What's wrong with that? Besides, the American health care system is the best in the world!

JOE (sighing): Oh, forgawd'ssake, BOB, give it a rest already. I wish just for once you could live in that Libertarian Paradise you're always talking about. I'd bet you'd be begging for government to come back in about half a second!

(The light changes. BOB and JOE start walking across the street, too absorbed in their conversation to pay much attention to where they're going.)

A book signing where he's pushing his book on real health care reform.

Now I was a Deaniac in '03 and I honestly think he could have beaten shrub.  But I've not been a fan of his as he helped give the country to the shyster from Chicago.  Alas, he himself ended up under the bus and he is one of the lone voices out there for real health care reform.

I think I have to bail on my chores and go see him.

any questions for Howie?

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart
Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Many of us on the left have said for years that it isn't really what Obama says we worry about, it's what Obama doesn't say.  I have myself being less than pc, have said that he has no core beliefs.  He never spells out his vision because he doesn't actually have one.  Unless of course you include his being elected President..

The current debate over my health and your health has made this part of Obama visible to even his supporters.  Over at CNN I just read how one of his campaign advisors and a so-called expert on the psychology of selling, Drew Westen, wonders where is the vision.

Despite charges from the right that he is a socialist (or at the very least a big-government Democrat), Sunday on "Meet the Press," he inadvertently made clear that he may be more the heir to Reagan than to FDR in response to a question about why the health care debate has become so heated: "But I think you actually put your finger on what this argument's really about. And it's an argument that's gone on for the history of this republic. And that is, 'What's the right role of government? How do we balance freedom with our need to look after one another?' "

Yes, they do.  The poll I heard about on NPR says that Doctors believe government, in the form of medicare, has proven it can manage health insurance better than the privates.  Yep, they find faults but is anything perfect?

Poll Finds Most Doctors Support Public Option

by Joseph Shapiro

Among all the players in the health care debate, doctors may be the least understood about where they stand on some of the key issues around changing the health care system. Now, a new survey finds some surprising results: A large majority of doctors say there should be a public option.

 

When polled, "nearly three-quarters of physicians supported some form of a public option, either alone or in combination with private insurance options," says Dr. Salomeh Keyhani. She and Dr. Alex Federman, both internists and researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, conducted a random survey, by mail and by phone, of 2,130 doctors. They surveyed them from June right up to early September.

 

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Regular readers know I like Roger Cohen.  I think he's down to Earth and realistic in his opinions.  I'm also jealous that he spent his summer in France.  From the New York Times, Sunday, September 13, 2009

Some of my summer in France was spent listening to indignant outbursts about U.S. health care reform. The tone: “You must be kidding! What’s there to debate if 46.3 million Americans have no health insurance?”

I think the French are right. I don’t think there’s much to debate when France spends 11 percent of its gross domestic product on health care and insures everyone and the United States spends 16.5 percent of G.D.P. and leaves 20 percent of adults under 65 uninsured. The numbers don’t lie: The U.S. system is wasteful and unjust.

Yes, we spend 5% more of G.D.P. on health care than France but they insure everyone and we leave a boatload out in the cold.

In fact, ever since President Mitterrand tried broad nationalizations in the early 1980s with catastrophic results, France, like most of Europe, has been on a steady march toward freer markets, trade and competition. In its way, it has been Americanizing.

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For we children know in advance that tonight's speech will be historic, game changing, one of the greatest speeches ever to grace the House Chamber.  Even Republicans will be in the aisles dancing and applauding as his Oliness explains how we should not question his intentions or try to understand where he is monkeying with 1/7 of the economy.  Be good children and follow where he leads. 

That is all.  NOT

Yesterday I had the pleasure of reading the HorseRace blog on RealClearPolitics.

Obama To Give Historic Speech...Again

Another historic, monumental speech from the 44th President of the United States. He's averaging about one of these every three weeks now, isn't he?

To say that this President is overexposed is an understatement. He was overexposed six months ago when he let his kids appear on the cover of Jann Wenner's trashy supermarket celeb mag. I'm not sure what prefix to use, but "over-" does not sufficiently describe a President who is now doing 30-second spots for George Lopez's new late night show on TBS. Seriously.

 

....

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It's over folks so get over it.  Of course my favorite season is fall.  That's common here in New England where we like cold nights and cool crisp days.  Much better for apple picking in the orchard out back and extremely better for Land Locked Salmon fishing in Maine.

My one never skip vacation is the end of this month when I'll be way the feck up in northern Maine fly fishing with my son.  No bugs, no humidity just lots of catch and release fishies with a changing backdrop of red and gold leaves.  That pic to the left is from a trip back 5 or six years and the wide body is an old friend.

So as I write this his Oliness is preparing to speak to the kids.  TOTUS is all cleaned up with all bad words removed.  If he sticks to the speech as written and released last night then I have no problem at all with the President encouraging kids.  It was that dumb ass first lesson plan that was the problem all along and that seems to have been fixed too.