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Archive for the ‘Political’ Category

US Healthcare Loses Again

23 Jun

As presented in the 2010 version of the annual Commonwealth Fund comparison of the U.S. health system with those in other industrialized nations, United States once again comes out on the bottom as far as healthcare issues go.

The United States ranked last in comparison with Australia, the Netherlands,Canada, New Zealand, Germany and the United Kingdom. In my mind this is clear evidence that a country who claims to be the only superpower in the world and spends more than half of its budget on defense is doing absolutely very little for its own people.

At $7,290 in annual spending per person in 2007, the U.S. also dwarfed second-place Canada at $3,895 and third-place Netherlands at $3,837. Out of the above countries, infant mortality was the highest in the United States, with Germany and the Netherlands being the best places to be born.

As for access to healthcare the United States tied for last place with Australia. This included late-night care, getting prescriptions filled, and worry that the patients did not have the money to pay for prescriptions. The one area that the United States did excel in as far as access goes, was getting to see a specialist in under four weeks. I’m glad that many people can see a specialist in four weeks, a year ago I had to see a specialist because my doctor had concerns that I may have cancer. The entire ordeal took almost 3 months, from the time that I requested an appointment with my doctor to finally getting the tests and seeing a specialist to diagnose the results. I can’t say that I’m glad that I didn’t have cancer and that it didn’t have three months to grow.

As far as quality care went, the United States ranked four out of six in receiving effective care and in patient centered care. In the safety care category we ranked seventh and in the coordinated care we ranked sixth. The United States did right forth in reporting getting infections in the hospitals. Which is better than seventh which is where New Zealand ended up. Major concerns in safety were receiving the wrong medicines, the wrong diagnosis and too much time relaxing between notification of abnormal test results.

There is a section known as equity. The United States placed dead here for various reasons. many people not seen the doctor’s or dentist because they could not afford it,and having to wait too long to get an appointment.

There are other categories that the viewer may read for himself but each time the result is pretty much the same. I think that Europe is so much further ahead of us in the lack of greed and not doing things because of the cost. There has to come a time when needs and requirements overcome the cost. And what is more important on this entire earth then your health? the United States seems to want to prove that you are here simply for people who have money and to make stockholders rich. If the United States considers itself to be a Christian nation than the reverse should be true.

I consider myself lucky as I have an incredible Dr. who comes from Argentina. He is very intuitive and always listens to me. As I now have no insurance he has worked with me on the cost of coming to see him and getting the deep discounts at my local pharmacy for generic drugs. I usually don’t have to wait too long for appointment with him, however a few schedules me for a specialist I am at that specialist’s mercy as far as getting an appointment and how long I have to wait for it.

It’s time for America to come up in the civilized world. The civilized world doesn’t concentrate on war nor spend its money on wars. Its people are the only golden property that are its highest priority. the healthcare bill that was passed may not be the best, but it is a start to becoming civilized.

All figures and facts from here

And here: Commonwealth Fund comparison

 
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Posted in General, Political

 

Rush Limbaugh Refuses To Move

23 Mar

Rush Limbaugh has promised to move to Costa Rica if health care passed here. Never mind that Costa Rica has a very socialist form of medicine and health care, thats where he said he would go.

Now the proverbial one trick pony radio familiar has went back on his promise. Its kinda what I expect from Republicans and conservatives from the right. He now says he would go there for medical health care. Is there any doubt he will go back on that too? Is there any doubt that anything he says is probably a half truth or outright lie?

Let the viewer choose for himself. Did Rush say he was moving or just going to Costa Rica for health care:

And then, characteristically backtracks like the clown that he is:

No wonder the man has such little credibility

 
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Posted in Political

 

Democrats passage of health care is actually the GOP Waterloo

22 Mar

Former Bush speechwriter tells GOP: Democrats’ passage of health care is actually ‘our’ Waterloo.

From Think Progress

“Last summer, during a conference call with conservative activists, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) said that if the Republican Party was able to defeat Democratic efforts to pass a comprehensive health care bill, it would “break” President Obama and be “his Waterloo.” Last night, former Bush speechwriter David Frum posted a note on his website addressing his fellow conservatives on the consequences of the Democrats successfully passing a health care bill. He castigated them for refusing to deal with Democrats throughout the process — especially when the final health care bill incorporated many ideas from the Republican Party — and said that a “huge part of the blame for [yesterday's] disaster attaches to conservatives and Republicans ourselves.” He concludes that “it’s Waterloo all right: ours”:

A huge part of the blame for today’s disaster attaches to conservatives and Republicans ourselves. At the beginning of this process we made a strategic decision: unlike, say, Democrats in 2001 when President Bush proposed his first tax cut, we would make no deal with the administration. No negotiations, no compromise, nothing. We were going for all the marbles. This would be Obama’s Waterloo – just as healthcare was Clinton’s in 1994. [...]

This time, when we went for all the marbles, we ended with none. [...]

So today’s defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry. Their listeners and viewers will now be even more enraged, even more frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the responsibility-free talkers on television and radio. For them, it’s mission accomplished. For the cause they purport to represent, it’s Waterloo all right: ours. “

This is not a defeat for free market economics. There is no such thing in the health care industry. This bill will demand much more in the way of products and actually boost manufacturing of medical equipment and even surgery products. More supply required from the corrupt pill manufactures. Why arnt the republicans happy about that? Isn’t that free market stuff? Doesn’t that give the corporations more chance for corruption in the free market that the republicans live on?

I wish we had 3 partys so we could get rid of the republican party of hypocrisy

David Frum also says that Rush Limbaugh wants the republicans to fail.

 
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Posted in Political, Reality

 

HealthCare Passes!

22 Mar

From The Huffington Post

Now that health care has passed, the American people will see immediate benefits. The legislation will:

  • Prohibit pre-existing condition exclusions for children in all new plans;
  • Provide immediate access to insurance for uninsured Americans who are uninsured because of a pre-existing condition through a temporary high-risk pool;
  • Prohibit dropping people from coverage when they get sick in all individual plans;
  • Lower seniors’ prescription drug prices by beginning to close the donut hole;
  • Offer tax credits to small businesses to purchase coverage;
  • Eliminate lifetime limits and restrictive annual limits on benefits in all plans;
  • Require plans to cover an enrollee’s dependent children until age 26;
  • Require new plans to cover preventive services and immunizations without cost-sharing;
  • Ensure consumers have access to an effective internal and external appeals process to appeal new insurance plan decisions;
  • Require premium rebates to enrollees from insurers with high administrative expenditures and require public disclosure of the percent of premiums applied to overhead costs.

By enacting these provisions right away, and others over time, we will be able to lower costs for everyone and give all Americans and small businesses more control over their health care choices.

Thank god, we are no longer the only industrialized  nation in the universe to not have a health care plan.

Never leave Americans to the Republicans.  You get war, corruption and little else in return.

 
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Posted in Political, Reality

 

Republicans And Blackwater

04 Mar

or otherwise entitled you are who you hang around with. This is incredibly pathetic. There is no doubt in my mind that the Republican Party is pushing for the destruction of representation in this country and for the type of rule that Pres. Cheney wanted when he was in office. Total presidential control and nothing Congress can do about it.

From Raw Story

Update at bottom: RNC fundraiser hoping to raise $60,000 will take place at Blackwater compound“What can you sell when you do not have the White House, the House, or the Senate?” asks a Republican National Committee PowerPoint presentation.

Answer: “Save the country from trending toward Socialism!”

That — along with a heavy dose of fear-mongering about President Barack Obama, sums up the Republican Party’s strategy heading into the 2010 mid-term elections, according to documents obtained by Politico.

In a presentation delivered to donors and fundraisers in Florida on Feb. 18, RNC Finance Director Rob Bickhart made it clear what the 2010 race was going to be about for the GOP: Creating a caricature of President Obama and the Democrats meant to help the Republicans recoup their losses from the last two election cycles.

One PowerPoint slide, entitled “Evil Empire,” shows the famous (or infamous) sketch of Obama painted up to look like the Joker from The Dark Knight. Underneath are cartoons of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, with the title “Cruella DeVille and Scooby-Doo.”
The whole presentation can be found here.

And Politico notes that the presentation displayed “an air of disdain for the party’s donors that is usually confined to the barroom conversations of political operatives.”
The strategy was detailed in a confidential party fundraising presentation, obtained by POLITICO, which also outlines how “ego-driven” wealthy donors can be tapped with offers of access and “tchochkes.”

Manipulating donors with crude caricatures and playing on their fears is hardly unique to Republicans or to the RNC – Democrats raised millions off George W. Bush in similar terms – but rarely is it practiced in such cartoonish terms.
Politico says it obtained the PowerPoint presentation from “a Democrat who said a hard copy had been left in the hotel hosting the … retreat.”

Faced with financial shortfalls and general discontent with the leadership of RNC Chairman Michael Steele, the GOP has been experimenting with some novel fundraising ideas of late. One, which drew some sharp criticism, involved mailing out fundraising letters disguised as a US census form.

Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Posted in Political

 

Sarah Palin The Dems Best Friend

08 Feb

Sarah Palin is turning into the Democrat’s best friend.

The things that she is saying do not make a bit of sense. First she wants, or tries to intimidate that she wants Pres. Obama to go to war with Iran to protect Israel. I certainly hope that that’s part of her campaign which he runs for office because it’s apparent that she doesn’t realize that a war platform is not the right platform in these times. The United States supports Israel and Obama has sworn to protect them. Why she is saying the things she is saying is just totally not understandable.

In a time when she is talking about smaller government and less taxes, she is now stating she wants war. Simply to protect Israel. She wants to spend another trillion taking over the Iranian government yet she will not spend that same amount of money for Americans. Nor does she seem to understand that going to war with Iran is going to cost a great deal of money which means taxes will have to be raised. This is the Republican Party for you.

There will never be a time again in our history when we will see smaller government. And no matter which party is in office they will continue to spend in order to please the people. And they will continue to raise taxes no matter what platform they run on. We have to pay for the spending of the Republicans during the Bush term and we will be spending for the Democrats and the Obama term in our future. Someone seems to have forgotten that with the amount of people out of work all revenues are considerably smaller. And that is why it is so funny that the tea party people and Sarah Palin are pandering about talking about less taxes.

What got the Dems elected?  War and the total lack of truth.  She has about as much chance of getting elected as I do.

In other news from the tea party, former Sen. Tom Tancredo called for the return of a civics test to prove that you are good enough to vote in the United States elections. This is the same type of test that Like people from voting for over 70 years, in the same type of thing that Lyndon Johnson tried to do away with. It’s bad enough that Tancredo came up with that subject, even worse than you receive a warm welcome from the tea party audience. Proving to me that this is more of a racist organization that it is political.

The tea partiers talk about less government and less taxes, but during the upcoming elections when they are asked how the war and TARP bailouts will be paid for they will have no answer other than the fact that we should not elect a Pres. Obama because people voted who shouldn’t have been voting. They will have no answers other than to stand on the stage and say we should have less government and less taxes.

 
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Posted in Political

 
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