Archive for the ‘Government’ Category
Taken from the White House blog with verification for the numbers.
- 1 — in every six dollars in the U.S. economy is spent on health care today. If we do nothing, in 30 years, 1 out of every three dollars in our economy will be tied up in the health care system.
- 8 — The number of people every minute who are denied coverage, charged a higher rate, or otherwise discriminated against because of a pre-existing condition.
8 — The number of lobbyists hired by special interests to influence health reform for every member of Congress in 2009.
- 41 — that’s the number of leading economists — including three Nobel Prize winners — who sent a letter to President Obama and Congress yesterday urging the swift passage of comprehensive health insurance reform to curb skyrocketing health care costs.
41 — is also the percentage of adults under the age of 65 who accumulated medical debt, had difficulty paying medical bills, or struggled with both during a recent one year period.
- 50/50 – If you’re an American under the age of 65, there’s roughly a 50/50 chance that you will find yourself without coverage at some point in the next decade.
- 625 – That’s the number of people who lost their health insurance EVERY HOUR in 2009
- $1,115 – that’s the average premium for employer-sponsored family coverage per month in 2009. Annually, that amounts to $13,375 – or roughly the yearly income of someone working a minimum wage job.
Once upon a time, in the small town of Palookaville, there was a fire department. They weren’t very good firemen. They let their firefighting equipment fall into disrepair, failed to enforce the fire code, and allowed a few careless citizens (who were big donors to the Fireman’s Fund) to store highly flammable materials in places that would cause great harm to the townspeople if they were to catch fire.
The townspeople saw this and decided to hire a whole new fire department, starting the next month.
On the last day of the month, sure enough, a spark hit the flammable materials. The fire chief and his captains went to the townspeople and said, gravely, “We need the whole town to pitch in and help fight this fire, otherwise the whole town will be burned to the ground.” The townspeople saw that they were right. They left their homes and comfortable beds to help fight the fire.
The next day, the new fire department took over, and announced a plan to fight the fires. “Yes”, they said, “the townspeople will need to continue helping to fight this fire, for we have not seen a fire like this in many, many years and the risk of this fire spreading is just too great. We know how much of a strain this is on your busy lives, but there is no other way. It will take time, but we will fight this fire with all our might and rebuild the houses that could not be saved, and we will put in place new measures to ensure that this does not happen again.”
The former fire department heard this and refused to help. They yelled and screamed at the new firefighters that they should hold their hoses at a different angle, they blocked the new firefighters from accessing the hydrants and they went around the town pulling alarm boxes to distract the new firefighters from their work. They went to the townspeople and said, “See? These new firefighers are no good! Why should you have to help fight the fire? If they weren’t so incompetent, they would have it all put out and rebuilt by now and you could go back to your beds! Give us another chance and we will show you how much better we can do!”
Despite their hindrances, the new firefighters managed to get most of the fires under control, but a few still burned here and there. They got started rebuilding what had been lost, and made proposals to keep the town safe from this kind of disaster in the future, all the while continuing to fight the remaining fires.
Some of the townspeople (who were not necessarily the brightest bulbs in the drawer) began to listen to the former fire department members. “They are right”, they said, “Why should we have to help fight these fires? Isn’t that what we hired the new guys for? And all these newfangled fire-safety proposals are nothing but a drain on the town treasury!” They repeated these things over and over to anyone who would listen, and some of the other townspeople who weren’t quite as dim-witted, but maybe hadn’t been paying close attention, started to agree with them.
All of the townspeople were weary from fighting the fires. Some knew that it was hard work that had to be done, but others’ memories began to get foggy over what was to blame for the fire in the first place. “We are tired of this”, they said, “let’s bring back the old fire department and see if they can do a better job!” The others listened in amazement that such a thing would even be considered.
Tune in next time to find out if the old fire department is reinstated. Better yet – get active in YOUR community to make sure that bums like these are never allowed near YOUR fire department again!
In a 5 to 4 ruling on January 21st, 2010, with a single decision, the Supreme Court of the United States of America lifted nearly all restrictions on how corporate money can be used to influence the American political system. No longer will oil companies, mega-banks, insurance companies need to limit the amount of money they spend to get candidates who represent their interests elected or funnel the money through PAC’s. Their messages will be shown over and over on TV, radio and elsewhere to convince the public to elect the candidates they support.
Conservative leaders praised the decision, saying it was a win for free speech. If you’re a conservative, I’ve got news for you – you have been sold down the river. Your voice will be drowned out by the lobbyists and corporations with the megaphones the same as the rest of us. You may have the illusion for a while that your side has “won”, but just wait until the first time you disagree with what your corporate partners are pushing – your opinion will be ridiculed, your character questioned, and your intelligence insulted, as these masters of spin and language manipulation assault the airwaves with slogans that may sound reasonable on the surface but have no other purpose than to make money for the economic elite.
Our elected representatives will now, more than ever, have to weigh every vote based on the pressure they get from lobbyists – or face the threat of being opposed by massive media campaigns against them in the next election and losing their jobs. Keep in mind that it’s very hard to prove that a representative cast a vote based on economic pressure – they will always swear they are doing what is best for their constituents, and support their decisions with some other rationale. We will just have to trust that they are ignoring all the economic pressures and doing what is best for the American people. Yeah, right.
Keep in mind also, that many of these corporations that will be wielding influence in our elections are owned in whole or in part by non-US citizens. Decision about where to send our troops, how to spend our tax dollars, how to protect our civil rights, and how to regulate our commerce will all be effected in a big way by the flow of corporate spending. Don’t fool yourself for a minute that peoples’ votes are not effected by the messages they hear over and over on television – for many people, this is the only source of information they use to make their voting decisions. We will continue to be fed a constant diet of “controversies” to divide us and keep us at each others’ throats, while the real decisions will be made quietly in accordance with the wishes of the corporate lobbyists.
This is the day that the judges’ gavel became an auctioneer’s gavel and declared that from here forward the American political process will be for sale to the highest bidder. It is a sad day for our nation, and one that will change the fabric of our democracy for all time.
Dear Senator Reid,
I am writing to you concerning the current debate over healthcare reform. I know you have long been a proponent of reform to our healthcare system, but I am going to ask you for something extra. If we fail this year to get a bill passed that includes a solid public option that can keep the insurance companies honest in their prices and their practices, we may never get it.
From what I have seen of you, you seem like a straightforward person, somewhat soft-spoken, not prone to hyperbole or exaggeration. These are traits to be admired and emulated.
At this time, however, I am asking you to pull out all the stops. Please use all your powers as Senate leader to help get a good bill passed. Take a page from DeLay’s book and knock some heads, twist some arms, threaten, cajole, hold staged press-conferences, work the media, distribute talking points, whatever it takes.
Yes, the Republican tactics are deplorable at times, and I know it would gall you to sink to their level, and I would not ask you to do this, except…
If we don’t pass meaningful healthcare reform people will die, people will suffer, people will lose their homes and their children’s inheritances, diseases and conditions will go untreated, and we will still be overpaying for a broken system.
Here is something I heard coming from the right (I can’t recall the exact source), maybe you can use it. This right-wing nut-job was going off on a tirade about how America has the best healthcare system in the world, and the proof was that foreign presidents, prime-ministers, kings, sultans, business tycoons, etc. all came to America when they needed advanced forms of treatment. I thought to myself – this is true, I have heard of rich and powerful people coming here to take advantage of our most advanced technology and expertise. What he didn’t say was that if you are NOT one of these rich and powerful foreigners, you may not get anywhere near the level of treatment that is available to them. Is this why generations of Americans have struggled and sweated and bled to make our country the greatest on Earth, so that only foreigners could take advantage of the progress we have made through the years, due in large part to research done by our publicly funded universities, our research grants, our public hospitals?
Please take this fight to the next level and win this for us.
Thank You,
Peter A. Gaeta
My friend Tony was alarmed by some claims made about provisions in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Stimulus Bill) by Betsy McCaughey in an article on Bloomberg.com (and possibly from other sources, but that’s the one he cited). My response wouldn’t fit in a Facebook note, so I’ll post it here instead.
Couple things first – the version of the stimulus bill cited in the article is the House version and NOT the bill that was passed, that being said, there is nothing in either of them that addresses the doctor/patient relationship or what kind of treatments can be covered. The topics in the bill address the creation and maintenance of medical records and the creation of an IT system to handle them. There will be a LOT of IT work there to keep schmoes like us busy. It also includes some funding for studies to provide information to doctors so they don’t have to rely exclusively on pharmaceutical and medical equipment salespeople to keep up with current treatment options.
Though I can’t deny the need for such a system, my big concern is privacy, and there are extensive stipulations in the bill about privacy and access, including recourse and penalties if there is a breach.
The reference to “Meaningful users” refers to payments to be made to healthcare professionals as incentive for adopting the government system. I’m not sure what McCaughey was getting at with that, but she totally mischaracterized what is in the bill.
The funding in the bill for comparative effectiveness research supplies grants to public and private organizations to provide information needed by healthcare workers, but does not stipulate any form of restriction or limitation on how that information is used.
There is no mention of “means-testing” in the bill, as the bill is not a health care plan. In any case, means testing (in a health care plan) would affect how much people of various incomes pay for their coverage and NOT what is covered.
The only reference in the healthcare section to “protocols” is a recommendation that open-source solutions are used.
Conclusion: Either Betsy McCaughey didn’t read the bill, read it wrong, or just hoped that YOU wouldn’t read it and accept her paranoid ideological viewpoint as fact.
And there’s my Friday night – thanks Tony!
Good to see these big names lending their voices to fight the hypocrisy.
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IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. |
