Health Deform

No, it is not a miss-spelling. I mean deform. It is the title of an interesting article by Carol Miller over at CommonDreams.org. She point out five deficiencies in the current house bill.

• If passed, this law will move the U.S. farther from universal health care, making it harder than ever to accomplish health care justice in the future.
• The legislation institutionalizes permanent inequality in health care.
• Out-of-pocket costs remain sky high.
• The legislation makes it illegal to not buy health insurance.
• We will all be drowning in paperwork, which will continue to drive up administrative costs.

But what I like the best is her last paragraph,

"Imagine real reform, as simple as adding people ages 55 to 65 years old to Medicare in 2010, 35-55 in 2011, and so on until everyone is included by 2013. The bills that promote this kind of reform are under 200 pages, they are simple to implement, cost effective and equitable. Choose a doctor, choose a hospital when needed and let the government pay the bills. Everyone in one system."

It just makes so much more sense that what is currently being proposed!

What A Bunch of Pussies

Not the cats.



The republicans.



Five suspects from the 9/11 attack will be tried in federal court in New York City and the republicans are pissing their pants. What a bunch of pussies. They could not get the job done and now their running around like a bunch of scared idiots.

Fear! Fear! Fear! It is all the republicans have. No wonder only 20% identify themselves as republicans.

Jane Goodall On the Daily Show

Last night, Jane Goodall was the guest on the Daily Show. What a great lady and a great sense of humor also.

What I found interesting was a comment she made which Jon Stewart quickly passed over. It occurs at about 2:45 into the clip below. The key quote is:

"It's the fundamentalists...Fundamentalists are dangerous."

She's been watching chimps all her life and she gets it! What does that say about the rest of us?

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Jane Goodall
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Another View of Veterans Day

Here is Andy Rooney with his take on Veterans Day. (Please excuse the commercial at the beginning. I don't know how to strip it out.)


Watch CBS News Videos Online

I kind of like the idea of a No War Day.

The Republican Plan

Stolen from Bob Cesca.

It is no secret. The republicans hate the current health care bills before Congress. Fine! Let them. They finally have an alternative, much later than originally promised, but it is now out. The republicans have published their own health care plan.

So, where are the teabaggers and other republican pundits spouting off about what a great bill this is? Where are the ones saying that it is so much better, in all ways, than the current bills? Who is saying that it will solve our health care problems? Where are the rallies in favor of it? Where are the comparisons between bills that show the advantages of the republican plan.

I'm looking.

I'm listening.

I don't hear squat!

I wonder why?

Viagra Legislation

I heard an interesting suggestion for an amendment to the current healthcare legislation being discussed in congress. It was from a caller to the Stephanie Miller Show. This is something that the republican wingnuts should flock to given their support of family values and right to life issues.

There has been a lot of discussion about limiting or preventing any money from going to fund abortion or abortion rights. There has also been discussion about prescription drug programs not paying for female birth control medication. Well, how about a bill, or amendment, which would put restrictions on Viagra?

For example, let's do the following:

1. Require that only MARRIED men could get Viagra. After all, we should not be promoting sex outside of marriage, should we?
   
2. Require that wives must approve of the purchase of Viagra. After all, they will be intimately involved in the consequences of the use of Viagra, so they should have a say in its purchase.
3. Limit the number of pills you could get at one time. We don't want to encourage the excessive use, or use by mulitple people at the same time.

In honor of the strong republican support that this measure should garner, I propose that it be called the Boehner bill. Seems appropriate to me. The guy's a big prick anyway!

2010 California Marriage Protection Act

I have found something that I can agree on with the radical conservative wingnut fringe of the republican party. Where is Sarah Palin??? I am sure she will support this.

LET'S PROTECT MARRIAGE. IT IS OUR DUTY. IT IS AMERICAN!!!

I've been married for over 25 years. I love it. I want to protect it. Let's all get behind the 2010 California Marriage Protection Act.

Here is a PSA for it. Please please please. Let's save marriage.

CEOs Bitch

CEOs are more concerned with their profits than with the health of their employees. This is the general drift of an article by David Lazarus in the LA Times.

Kodak has laid off about 22,000 workers in the last 5 years.

Verizon has laid off about 16,000 workers with more coming next year.

Caterpillar has laid off more than 27,000 workers.

Pfizer Inc has laid off more than 20,000 workers.

AT&T has laid off more than 12,000 workers.

Citigroup Inc. has laid off more than 52,000 workers.

Bank of America has laid off 35,000 workers.

JPMorgan Chase has laid off 14,000 workers.

Millions can't get employer-provided health care or have been rejected by private insurers.
The country's 500 largest public companies has laid off over 611,000 workers since the beginning of the year.

The CEOs of both Verizon and Kodak said through a news conference called by the Business Roundtable (all the above companies are members) said that a government health insurance plan is bad for America.

Where do they expect all the people that they have laid off to get insurance? Do they care? After all, they laid them off because their profits were more important than their people. And for those they have not laid off, most leading employers have increased premiums, co-pays, and deductibles.

As Lazarus asks -- "where do business leaders -- especially CEOs with their gold-plated benefits -- get off telling Americans what sort of healthcare is best for them?"

Question Of The Day

It has recently been puzzling me how conservatives, particularly the teabagger, wingnut wing of the republican party can complain about a government takeover of all our liberties. Yesterday I read an interesting article that kind of asks the same thing. It is by David Michael Green and published on CommonDreams.org. It is titled "Big Bad Government Is Coming To Get You".

He is asking how people who want

• government to regulate women's reproductive systems
• government to prevent people living in agony with terminal diseases from choosing to end their own lives
• government to decide which substances people can imbibe
• government to prevent doctors from prescribing medical marijuana to help retching chemotherapy patients stay alive
• the government gutting the Fourth Amendment protection against searches and seizures without a warrant
• laws controlling who consenting adults are allowed to sleep with
• laws controlling who they're allowed to marry
• laws controlling if they can use birth control
• a Republican Congress passing legislation intervening in Terri Schiavo's family medical tragedy

can believe that "conservatism is the ideology of freedom from government repression".

They talk about less taxation, less spending, less regulation, and less government ownership of industries. "When Republicans like Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush come to power, they actually spend more than Democrats (who aren't terribly liberal, but leave that aside), by far. Reagan tripled the national debt in eight years, and Bush doubled it again, from $5.5 trillion to $11 trillion. The only real difference these days is that so-called conservatives use big spending for purposes of funneling money to cronies like Halliburton or Exxon-Mobil, while so-called liberals do a bit less of the same, and maybe also throw a bone or two to the middle class every once in a while.

"On the social side, however, the conservative trope about theirs being the ideology of freedom is a total joke and an ugly lie. These are the people who want the government in your underpants, who want the government reading your mail without a warrant, who want to control who you sleep with and who you marry, and who even want to force you to live in agony when you just want to crawl off and die. These are the people who stood in the doorways blocking the movements for racial and sexual equality.

I will take the liberal view of America over the conservative view any day of the week.