Australia can do it, why can't we?

In case you are one who doesn't read comments left from others, I wanted to post this comment from Magpie he so graciously left yesterday on a previous post. Actually this is the type of comment I would like to email to the White House. Read what he said:

I'm from Australia and we've had public health care since 1975. I infer from your post that you are inviting this sort of comment so I hope it's welcome.

We claim expenses back in part or full from medicare, which is funded by a levy of 1.5% of taxable income, or less for low income earners. High income earners pay a surcharge of 1% of taxable income.
Generally speaking, you don't even feel the effect of the levy on your wallet, and access to health care is universally affordable for it.

There are imperfections and blind spots, of course no system is perfect. But it generally works.

As I've said elsewhere on US blogs re this issue, even our Right wing parties would not dare take this away from the public. It's part of our understanding of social justice. It's not socialist, communist, liberal or anything. It's just what we expect.

Furthermore we are still paying less of GDP than you are for medical services.

You have been ripped off for years and forced to suffer the pain for the ideological claptrap and greedy puppeteers of the Right wing. You should be profoundly angry.

Thank you Magpie. We are angry, but I don't know how far that has gotten us! Just in the past 2 weeks I have heard countless times "the HC bill is dead", then along comes a liberal Senator who says "the HC bill is NOT DEAD". Do you see why we are angry and growing desperate for our leaders to come to some sort of agreement on HC reform? When other countries who have this tried and true universal HC, look at us fighting over simple human rights, they must think we are morons! And ya know what? WE ARE!

I hope you come back Magpie and help us to understand more because a part of this country does not get it! Thanks again!

surprising trip to the Rx

I just came from the pharmacy, picked up my BP prescription that costs me 106.00 for 90 pills. That's not as bad as some folks have to fork out with no insurance so I pay it without complaining. The woman behind the counter said she wanted to check a competitors sheet of meds. prices and for me to wait a second. She came back with the price list from Walmart and I said NO, my BP pills are not on their 4.00 list and they want 180.00 for the same pills I just purchased from her for 106.00. (stupid WallFart Market are rip-offs!). So I left with my little white bag.
A few minutes later she called my name over the loud speaker! Yikes! She said she wanted to give me a discount, I was being placed in a program and she will refund me 96.00 from the 106.00 I just gave her! I said "excuse me"! lol. She said she didn't know how long the program will last though.

So as I'm on my way home I said to thehusband, this is what it would be like to have medicare for all the US citizens. Other countries have similar, why can't we?? Does our government really care more about insurance companies making huge profits then it does it's own citizens?? Apparently, YES.

Just too hot to drop,.... .just too hot.....

One of my favorite moments of the day, this is the Loooooong question asked by Jeb Hensarling, President Obama answers it in the video. Look at his expression, at the 40 second mark, to me it looked like a mixture of anger, hurt and frustration. He handled himself perfectly!

CONGRESSMAN HENSARLING: Jeb, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: How are you?

CONGRESSMAN HENSARLING: I’m doing well. Mr. President, a year ago I had an opportunity to speak to you about the national debt. And something that you and I have in common is we both have small children.

THE PRESIDENT: Absolutely.

CONGRESSMAN HENSARLING: And I left that conversation really feeling your sincere commitment to ensuring that our children, our nation’s children, do not inherit an unconscionable debt. We know that under current law, that government — the cost of government is due to grow from 20 percent of our economy to 40 percent of our economy, right about the time our children are leaving college and getting that first job.

Mr. President, shortly after that conversation a year ago, the Republicans proposed a budget that ensured that government did not grow beyond the historical standard of 20 percent of GDP. It was a budget that actually froze immediately non-defense discretionary spending. It spent $5 trillion less than ultimately what was enacted into law, and unfortunately, I believe that budget was ignored. And since that budget was ignored, what were the old annual deficits under Republicans have now become the monthly deficits under Democrats. The national debt has increased 30 percent.

Now, Mr. President, I know you believe — and I understand the argument, and I respect the view that the spending is necessary due to the recession; many of us believe, frankly, it’s part of the problem, not part of the solution. But I understand and I respect your view. But this is what I don’t understand, Mr. President. After that discussion, your administration proposed a budget that would triple the national debt over the next 10 years — surely you don’t believe 10 years from now we will still be mired in this recession — and propose new entitlement spending and move the cost of government to almost 24.5 percent of the economy.

Now, very soon, Mr. President, you’re due to submit a new budget. And my question is —

THE PRESIDENT: Jeb, I know there’s a question in there somewhere, because you’re making a whole bunch of assertions, half of which I disagree with, and I’m having to sit here listening to them. At some point I know you’re going to let me answer. All right.

CONGRESSMAN HENSARLING: That’s the question. You are soon to submit a new budget, Mr. President. Will that new budget, like your old budget, triple the national debt and continue to take us down the path of increasing the cost of government to almost 25 percent of our economy? That’s the question, Mr. President.

Obama and the House Repubs square off!

Did you get a chance to watch President Obamas attendance at the House Republicans retreat today? He spoke for a bit then to my surprise the cameras stayed on and he took QUESTIONS from the repubs, are ya shocked?? I mean with the cameras? The White House asked if the cameras could stay on and the repubs agreed, BUT... afterwards, according to Luke Russert, GOP aides said it was a mistake to allow cameras into Obama's QA with GOP members. It allowed Obama to refute GOP talking points for 1.5 hours on TV. I think it was a great idea! I hope you will try and watch it on C-Span, it was a good showing of Obama and his defending his agenda while also letting the American people know he IS listening to the GOP even if they cry he isn't. He let them know just because they offer up suggestions does not mean they will be included in policy making if they don't work. The right and left have goals in common but also differ greatly on some policy. President Obama will not pander to the right when he feels their ideas are WRONG for the country.

Obama said a GOP-driven "politics of NO" was blocking action on bills that could help Americans obtain jobs and health care. He accused Republicans of portraying health care overhaul legislation as a "Bolshevik plot," saying that strategy, when they talk to their constituents, doesn't give them any room to negotiate. There were moans and groans from the repubs after that remark! But it's the truth, don't they remember last summer and the death panels discussions?? How quickly they forget!

During the sometimes-barbed exchange, he said some in the audience have attended ribbon-cutting ceremonies for projects funded by the stimulus package they voted against. Obama also questioned why Republicans have overwhelmingly opposed his tax-cut policies, which he said have benefited 95 percent of American families. One repub asked Obama if he would agree to an across the board tax cut. It's always about taxes for them isn't it! I don't get it! Anyway, Obama said he could not see giving a tax cut to those like Warren Buffet, the billionaires don't need tax cuts! (you will NEVER convince a repub of that though!)

Afterwards an Arizona republican spoke, he said last year President Obama promised to work in a bipartisan way but he has not kept his promise. Total bullshit again from the whiny repubs. Obama has tried and will continue to try to work with the GOP. It's time for them to realize they are the minority. It can't always be about them.

Great job Mr. President!!

California leading the way!

Published on Thursday, January 28, 2010 by CommonDreams.org

California Senate Passes Medicare for All Legislation

New Energy for Healthcare Reform After National Bills Stall

by California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee

SACRAMENTO - To ecstatic applause from healthcare advocates, the California Senate today breathed new life into national prospects for fundamental health reform by passing on a 22 to 14 vote a major bill to guarantee healthcare in the state through creating a Medicare for all system that would cover every Californian.

SB 810, The California Universal Healthcare Act, authored by Sen. Mark Leno and sponsored by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United (CNA/NNU), with broad support among many healthcare, community, and labor groups, will now proceed to a vote by the Assembly, which has passed similar legislation in the past. The bill would establish a single-payer system in California, modeled on the healthcare systems flourishing in virtually all other industrialized nations, where better patient outcomes are achieved at a fraction of the cost of the U.S. system.

“It is unclear what the prospects are for health reform at the national level,” said CNA co-president Geri Jenkins, RN, “but this vote offers California the chance to chart a new course for the nation. SB 810 will guarantee healthcare for every family through a humane system that controls costs and allows patients and their doctors--not insurance agents--to make decisions about healthcare,” said Jenkins. “People will pay less, and no longer be denied care based on their income, age, location, or pre-existing health conditions.”

Noting during the floor debate that, “consistently 59 per cent of California voters say yes” they want a Medicare for all system in the state, Sen. Leno added that single-payer is not just a bill for a humane health system, but also a jobs program for a state that desperately needs one: “We can’t compete in a global marketplace where all our competitors have had the government take the burden of healthcare off the shoulders of their employers….as we move towards single-payer in this state, and have better universal coverage, this will attract employers to California. We are already underwater in our healthcare system. We can’t keep up.”

Referring to opposition arguments about supposed ballooning costs under the bill, Sen. Leno pointed out that a single payer system would simply redirect current spending on healthcare, away from insurance overhead and towards a more direct and efficient way of providing care. Additionally the bill would not go into effect immediately; the current SB 810 creates a system to propose revenue streams that would then go back to the legislature for final review.

Medicare for all or “single-payer” healthcare reforms, such as SB 810, would help create the kind of quality jobs so urgently needed today, and do so while providing a huge economic stimulus. A CNA/NNU study last year documented that national single-payer reform would generate 2.6 million jobs and $317 billion in additional business and public revenues. Further, CNA/NNU research last year found that six of California’s largest insurance companies reject more than one-fifth of all claims, an experience many California patients know all too well.

Way to go California! This is how it's done. Mr. President and Democrats, are you listening??

Some Progressives have Balls!!

First a comment from fivethirtyeight on last nights State of the Union speech:

great speech. I strongly support the President's agenda. Barack Obama never fails to amaze me as to how smart he is. He will go down in American history as a great President. He is a lot like having your high school history teacher as President. Not to mention being the basketball coach. Good things will happen to America under his leadership. The Republicans look like a herd of deer in the headlights. Now the only thing missing is that the Democrats need to grow some balls.
This sums up my feelings on the speech. My favorite parts have to be when the repubs sat there like the dickheads they are while the rest of the chamber was applauding the president. I believe the country is tired of the GOP's do-nothing attitude and I hope enough to punish them this November. Do we really need more of them in Washington??

This article was in my email yesterday....

HOUSE PROGRESSIVES PUSH REID TO PUT PUBLIC OPTION BACK ON THE TABLE Published on Wednesday, January 27, 2010 by The Huffington Post
by Ryan Grim

House progressives organizing to rescue health care reform are pressuring their Senate counterparts to go back to the provision that has most energized the party and a majority of Americans throughout the debate: The public option.

The effort was discussed during a closed-door meeting on Tuesday night, with a faction arguing that the best way to salvage reform is to persuade the Senate to pass the public health insurance option using the budget reconciliation process that needs only a majority vote.

They argued that the current bill before the House, which passed the Senate, lacks the votes needed to pass because pro-life Democrats don't believe the abortion restrictions go far enough and progressive Democrats don't like the lack of a public option, the weak affordability measures or the tax on private insurance. And nobody likes the Cornhusker Kickback, a provision won by Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson that would cover the state's Medicaid bills in perpetuity. Not even Nelson likes it anymore.

So, in order to move health care through the House, Democrats either need to pick up progressives or conservatives. And the budget reconciliation process does not lend itself to altering abortion language reform, because that wouldn't have a direct, substantial impact on the budget.

That leaves progressives as the bloc available to pick up. Their demands -- changes related to the tax on insurance, a Medicaid or Medicare expansion, and a public option -- would likely be allowable using reconciliation. (The Senate parliamentarian would have the final say.)

Two House freshmen, Reps. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) and Jared Polis (D-Colo.), circulated a letter, looking for signatures, that will be delivered to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Thursday on behalf of the plan, Polis told HuffPost.

Reid is not generally receptive to advice from the lower chamber, but health care reform has stumbled into territory where there is no map.

If Reid and President Obama decide that the House Democrats have a workable plan -- perhaps the only viable plan left, after the New York Times declared that the brakes had been slammed -- they may be able to accomplish it.

Pingree told HuffPost that the pair's proposal was met with excitement from some quarters and skepticism from others. "There are plenty of people who say there's no way we're going to bring it back, but there's nothing predictable about this political year," she said. "Never say never."

House and Senate negotiators were working out the final details of health care reform when the Massachusetts special election deprived the Democratic caucus of the 60 votes it needed to break a GOP filibuster and pass the final bill.

That could lead Democrats to use reconciliation, which requires only 50 votes. Once that decision has been made, deciding to go for the public option is less of a leap.

"It is very likely that the public option could have passed the Senate, if brought up under majority-vote 'budget reconciliation' rules," reads the letter. "While there were valid reasons stated for not using reconciliation before, especially given that some important provisions of health care reform wouldn't qualify under the reconciliation rules, those reasons no longer exist."

The major obstacle to reconciliation has always been the fear that popular insurance reforms would be carved out and ruled unrelated to the budget. But the Senate has already passed those particular reforms. The House could pass them and send them on to the president, then pass the package of reforms that moves through reconciliation.

It's a long-shot, but not impossible. And it's just the kind of aggressive action that voters showed they want in Massachusetts, said Pingree, and have long been supporting in surveys. It's a matter of political survival: "People will lose their seats because they want Congress to deliver what it promises," said Pingree.

Polis said that the response has been "very exciting."

"There's enthusiasm that if a majority of senators are on board with it, then we should go for it," he said. "I think the inclusion of the public option would make that route much more attractive to House Democrats."

Health care reform became less popular, Polis argued, when the public option was taken out but the requirement to buy private insurance or pay a fine remained.

"I think the fading of the public option from the Senate bill really hurt the Democrats' prospects in the Senate [race], because they were seen as following the typical pattern of tax and spend and caving to insurance companies," he said.

Pingree and Polis both noted that Obama's focus on fiscal discipline and cutting spending makes the public option -- which the Congressional Budget Office estimates could trim more than $100 billion from the deficit in ten years -- that much more appealing.

It would also give Democrats something else to run on in 2010.

The night of the Massachusetts election, three liberal groups -- Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Democracy for America and MoveOn.org -- paid for a poll of a thousand people who voted for Obama in 2008 and either switched to support Republican Scott Brown for Senate or didn't vote. It was conducted by Research 2000.

More than 80 percent of both groups favored a public option.

The poll also upended the conventional understanding of health care's role in the election. A plurality of people who switched to Brown -- 48 -- or didn't vote -- 43 -- said that they opposed the Senate health care bill. But the poll dug deeper and asked people why they opposed it. Among those Brown voters, 23 percent thought it went "too far" -- but 36 percent thought it didn't go far enough and 41 percent said they weren't sure why they opposed it.

Among voters who stayed home and opposed health care, a full 53 percent said they opposed the Senate bill because it didn't go far enough; 39 percent weren't sure and only eight percent thought it went too far.

"The public option," said Polis, "is not dead.

Another try and more of the same NO votes

Tuesdays vote for a bi-partisan commission on reducing the deficit failed, 53-46. The 23 Republican Senators listed below voted no. The party who claims to be the party of fiscal responsibility. This was their chance to work in a bi-partisan fashion to find solutions to reduce the deficit. Do they not think it's their problem too? This is purely political to further try and destroy President Obama. SIX rethug Senators co-sponsored the bill as recently as last month, but still voted NO! That my friends is truly rethug pressure, amazing.....


From Politico:
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of 16 Republicans to vote in favor of the commission, expressed despair over the Senate’s lack of progress on the deficit — or much of anything else.

“I’m willing to try anything because I’m desperate,” Graham said in an interview. “Immigration: hard, tried, it went nowhere. Social Security: hard, tried, it went nowhere. Health care: hard, tried, went nowhere. We’re running out of opportunities to try hard and go nowhere. Time is not on our side.”

The tepid support from Democratic leaders contributed to the loss, but more decisive was the number of Republicans switching under pressure from their party to block the measure.

Six Republicans who had co-sponsored the bill as recently as last month voted against it. A seventh co-sponsor, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), was absent for family reasons, but her office said she would have backed the amendment if she had been present.

Has anyone seen anything like this before? Pressure from a party to block a measure that would be of positive help for our country and her problems, problems which are the result of BOTH parties?

Look below at your shining examples of pure disgust. Do you think these Senators have your best interest in mind when they cast their NO votes time after time? And to think rethugs are on a roll, they are gonna "take back their country!!!" Take it back from who, and do what with it?
You GOP are worthless, absolutely worthless...

Barrasso (R-WY)
Bennett (R-UT)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Ensign (R-NV)
Grassley (R-IA)
Hatch (R-UT)
Hutchison (R-TX)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Kyl (R-AZ)
McCain (R-AZ)
McConnell (R-KY)
Risch (R-ID)
Roberts (R-KS)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Snowe (R-ME)
Thune (R-SD)