Posts Tagged ‘congress’

Healthcare By The Numbers
Can we afford to be well?

Posted on the March 16th, 2010 under Government by Pete Gaeta

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.

Bipartisanship

Posted on the March 7th, 2009 under Politics by Pete Gaeta

For years, Democrats have been in denial about how low-down and intellectually dishonest their Republican counterparts can be. Time and time again they have given conservatives the benefit of the doubt in discussions and debates , only to find out that their apparently rational positions were just a front and that the next day they would be right back in lock-step with their party talking points.

The right has used a layered approach to deliver their message – from the president right down to the talk radio freaks, they have all been unmovable in their opinions and positions, and no amount of logic or factual evidence has been able to move them one bit. Each layer being a bit more wild-eyed and loose with the facts, but all singing to the same tune. This may have worked for a while – Democrats tend to argue amongst themselves more and therefore are less effective at hammering home their positions with the public. But the problem is that when you engage in good faith debate with someone, you extend a trust and a promise – the trust that your opponent will not use dirty debate tricks (we all know what they are from when we were kids) and the promise that there is at least the possibility that you will alter your view based on the other side’s presentation. Like Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown to kick, conservatives have broken the trust and the promise time and time again. Even now, when we find a conservative who will call out Rush Limbaugh for being the lunatic he is, we are shocked by the exception of a Republican going off-script.

Along with whatever political and social views conservatives have held in recent years, they have also had as part of their profile an aggressive, win at all costs mentality.  I find it disingenuous when they complain over even a fraction of that kind of mentality being directed back at them.

I, like President Obama, have a very deep well of faith in people, and still hope for them to do the right thing, but I also understand people who are ready to attack anything Republican or conservative. You can only fool people so many times before they become hostile toward you and any others who march under the same banner, though some of them may be decent folks.

If we are to unite people of differing political and social views under a banner of common interest, it will take people with the courage to continue engaging their opponents in an honest fashion. Those people will take more hits and be called more names, and must be willing to call out a fool – be he of their own party or the other.

I hope we can all shed our many “ism”’s and look to tending to the things we all hope for – peace, freedom, prosperity, and good health.  There is no need to layer ideologies on top of these things – they can stand on their own.

The Declaration of Independence

Posted on the November 26th, 2008 under Government by Pete Gaeta

DeclarationOfIndependence The Declaration of Independence 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.

Letter to the 110th Congress

Posted on the January 5th, 2007 under Politics by Pete Gaeta

To the 110th Congress,

On the 100 hour agenda: it’s a good start, but we need to go much further to re-establish our government as by the People and for the People.