From John Stossel's piece at Real Clear Politics...
"I happily suspend disbelief when a magician says he'll saw a woman in half. That’s entertainment. But when Harry Reid says he'll give 30 million additional people health coverage while cutting the deficit, improving health care and reducing its cost, it's not entertaining. It's incredible."
Read it all - http://bit.ly/7qfPu5
Recieved this in the mail today from
Jerry Costello's office. They wanted to let me know he voted for
Health Care Reform. (I called his office a week or so ago.)
I'm disappointed that it seems to be difficult to have a discussion about health care reform (or any politically-charged topic, for that matter) without the conversation devolving into hysterics.
Late last night, the US House of Representatives passed the Democrats' healthcare reform bill. Despite countless attempts over recent decades, no chamber of Congress has ever before passed comprehensive health reform. This is history.
As Nancy Pelosi said: "Oh, what a night!".
In order to pass the bill, Democrats needed a majority, or 218 votes. They got 220.
The WhiteHouse released a simple chart reflecting the President's plan.
For more on the President's plan see video below:
Following the vote the White House released a statement from President Obama:
Tonight, in an historic vote, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would finally make real the promise of quality, affordable health care for the American people.
The Affordable Health Care for America Act is a piece of legislation that will provide stability and security for Americans who have insurance; quality affordable options for those who don’t; and bring down the cost of health care for families, businesses, and the government while strengthening the financial health of Medicare. And it is legislation that is fully paid for and will reduce our long-term federal deficit.
Thanks to the hard work of the House, we are just two steps away from achieving health insurance reform in America. Now the United States Senate must follow suit and pass its version of the legislation. I am absolutely confident it will, and I look forward to signing comprehensive health insurance reform into law by the end of the year.
It's now off to the Senate.
The Final Vote
The Post-Vote Press Conference
Tonight, a history milestone in the continued politics of divisiveness has passed. In the House of Representatives, the Health Care Reform bill has passed. Next comes the Senate version.
The oponent sector wanted to preserve the status quo. We saw the various ploys used to discredit the proponents of change and reform. Misinformation and disinformation strategies were put in action. One of these ploys was the invocation (as in macabre--false rummor) of "death panels" that, according to the fiction of its proponents, would make decisions as to who would live or die as a result of the realocation of health care resources resulting from the passage of the bill. Another tactic used to discredit reform was the dissemination of propaganda that indicated that the passage of the reform bill would increase taxes and that its cost would be prohibitive as it would increase the national deficit astronomically and beyond recovery and belief.
The oponents of reform worked intensely and invested tons of money to defeat this bill. So, what can we learn from these various months of bitter debate and divisiveness?
I believe that we have learned that the forces with interest in maintaining the status quo are well funded and active, and will fight any attempt by anyone/anywhere to change it and make reforms. A similar situation is going on with the green energy and climate legislature. These forces will use marketing and propaganda, utilizing media to:
- disinform and misrepresent
- revise histoy
- discredit authority
- fabricate negative scenarios
In view of these circumstances, the public must remain well informed about the facts/issues. What are the facts? First, as part of the civic responsibility of a Democratic society, citizens and communities must remain well informed, or at least, maintain a basic interest and concern about the basic issues. We (in America) still have free access to public libraries where research can be conducted and where information professionals can be approached with questions whenever necessary. If the books or periodical/material is not immediately available there is interlibrary loan service to request these materials. We also have access (most libraries provide computer use free of charge, an free wireless access) to the Internet where we can conduct research and get properly informed about the facts. Information and critical analysis is our solemn responsibility.
I got a little creative with my daily video in November. I had a plan as to what I wanted to shoot today. We were going to go to Babies R Us to stock up on some essentials for Hunter. I thought it would be great to share some of the stuff that we like.
As the political class drone on about the desperate need to reform healthcare, second only to voice 1 laughing maniacally at all the stupid proposals and those that believe they will change anything is voice 2 sadly wondering where personal responsibility is in the discussion and in our society. I was inspired while reading and responding to a blog post that was supporting one of the many doomed-to-fail proposals to demonstrate a little personal responsibility of my own rather than just slinging mud. My own health is not the best and it is my own fault. So it's time to nut up or shut up. I encourage haters, criticism and trolls.Problems:
Solutions:
Data:
This weeks blood-boiling topic? Medicare fraud. Watch this video for what is hopefully an uncommon occurrence:
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5419905n&tag=apiThere is already a strong argument with regards to medicare billing here -- http://blog.myphysicaltherapyspace.com/2009/10/medical-necessity-to-fix-a-problem-there-cannot-be-two-standards.html -- clearly photos aren't necessary for MC authorized providers or this guy's lamb chops and handlebar mustache should have kept him out . . .As a health care provider listening to the current debate on health care reform and a public option I am at odds. If the government can't manage what it currently has in place, then how will it create, implement, and manage a whole new system. Must we reinvent the wheel? The whole system quite frankly needs an overhaul and it needs to start much deeper than a public option.Why is health care so expensive in this country?! What happened to the days of employers paying 100% of an employee's health benefits? Clearly premiums have sky-rocketed so that businesses can no longer afford them and they pass on the cost to their employees, but why? Why are we paying so much for a mediocre system? (see comparisons to other developed countries here: http://www.americashealthrankings.com/2008/othernations.html)Something is awry. We must do something before health care becomes truly absurd (definition 2)!absurd:
EXCERPT:
"... This is a country that often has transformational ambitions but is saddled with an incremental system, a nation built on revolution, then engineered so the revolutionary can rarely take hold."
