The
Health Care industry in spending $1.4 million dollars per day on campaign contributions for politicians, lobbyists and attack
ads to maintain the status quo, they like things just the way they are. They know that a public option for health care would
create competition which would either force them to lower their premiums or lose customers.
Countless republican politicians have even said that
a public option would force many of the insurance companies to go out of business. Last year the top seven health insurance
companies made more than $250 billion dollars, I don’t think any of them will be going out of business any time soon.
Right now as you read this, thousands are being dropped
by insurance companies for getting sick; millions of others are not even allowed to buy insurance because of pre-existing
health issues. And it they are lucky to get insurance they are paying even higher extortion prices for their coverage than
a healthy person in his mid 20’s.
Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) recently said: last year more than a million people had to declare bankruptcy due to health issue’s
because their insurance companies dropped them once they got sick, or only covered a small portion then dropped them from
their subscriber rolls. Sanders went on to say that 20,000 people die every year because they can’t see a doctor in
time and only have access to emergency rooms.
Fear tactics:
By now most of you have seen the “mobs”
at town hall meetings being held by elected officials across the country now that the August recess has begun for Congress.
What you may not know is that the mobs are only showing up at Democratic town hall meetings, and that several health care
lobby groups have sent out guides on how to disrupt and rile Democratic House and Senate members. Fox News has
a schedule (PDF) on their web site of dates, times and places of town halls being held
across America. After being called out by the Main Stream Media (MSM) for only posting a list of Democratic town hall meetings
Fox placed a listing of Republican meetings as well.
A few quotes on Health Care Reform from Republicans
politicians who say the some of the craziest lies to keep you scared.
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.): “There are no
Americans who don’t have healthcare. Everybody in this country has access to healthcare,” she said.
Former Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK): "The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to
stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity
in society,' whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil," Palin wrote.
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) “If we're able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him," DeMint said.
RNC Chairman Michael Steele Huffington Post asked Steele whether he agreed with Sen. Jim DeMint's (R-S.C.) assessment that health
care reform could be Obama's Waterloo -- a chance for the Republican Party to break the president politically. "I think that's
a good way to put it," he responded.
House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH): “This provision may start us down a treacherous path toward government-encouraged euthanasia if
enacted into law,” said after looking at provisions for increased access to palliative care and end-of-life counseling
in the new health care reform bill.
A few stats on health care in the United States
·The United States
is Ranked 1st on what it spends on per capita for health care.
·The United States
Health Care is Ranked 37th in the world.
·The United States
is Ranked 24th in a Healthy Life Expectancy (HALE)
In 2008, health care spending in the United States reached
$2.4 trillion, and was projected to reach $3.1 trillion in 2012.1 Health care spending is projected to reach $4.3 trillion
by 2016.
The last stat, is the most important stat, that is to
say, it’s the most important stat for the Health Care industry, for American’s it just means millions more will
no longer be able afford health insurance.
A few more
Factoids on those without Health Care in the United States:
In November 2008, a Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that “nearly half of Americans report
that someone in their household skipped necessary health care in the past year because of the cost.” As ThinkProgress has previously noted, uninsured Americans are less likely to seek health care and more likely to die because of a lack of insurance.
In 2002, the Institute of Medicine estimated that there were 18,000 unnecessary adult deaths because of a lack of insurance while the Urban Institute estimated in
2006 that 22,000 died for the same reason.
WASHINGTON — A North Carolina congressman who supports an overhaul
of the health care system had his life threatened by a caller upset that he was not holding a public forum on the proposal,
his office said Friday.
Democratic Rep. Brad Miller received the call Monday, one of hundreds the congressman's office has fielded demanding town-hall
meetings on the health care proposal, said his spokeswoman, LuAnn Canipe. She said the callers were "trying to instigate town
halls so they can show up and disrupt."
"We had one of those kind of calls that escalated to what we considered a threat" on the congressman's life, said Canipe.
"These are some strong-arm tactics, and we are trying to deal with and trying to talk to people in good faith about health
care reform."
Democratic lawmakers expected protests and demonstrations as they headed back to their states and districts over the August
recess to sell health care reform legislation. Earlier this week, White House officials counseled Democratic senators on coping
with disruptions at public events this summer.
In the week since the House began its break, several town-hall meetings have already been disrupted by noisy demonstrators.
The latest occurrence was at back-to-back town hall meetings held by Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., which got so raucous police
had to escort people out.
Dingell vowed Friday to push ahead with Democratic-led efforts to extend coverage to all, saying he won't be intimidated
by protesters.
Blue Dog Democrats helping to slow Health Care Reform
Congressional Quarterly Today:
“Democrats
in the Blue Dog Coalition might have drawn the ire of party liberals for putting the brakes on the fast-moving health care
overhaul, but their political action committee has been raking in contributions from business interests with an eye on reshaping
President Obama’s signature initiative.
“The Blue Dog Political Action Committee has collected
$1.1 million for the 2010 election cycle, more than any other leadership political action committee on Capitol Hill, according
to CQ MoneyLine.
“The total includes about $300,000 from health care interests, including $158,000 from
doctors and other provider groups; $87,000 from makers of drugs and medical devices; and $50,000 from health insurance interests.”
Newton "Newt" Leroy Gingrich (born June 17, 1943) is an American politician, author, former Speaker
of the United States House of Representatives, 1994 Time magazine Person of the Year, college history professor, professional
hypocrite, loudmouth, panderer, adulterer, and a dick.
Gingrich's first name comes from an abbreviation of Newton and not from his parents naming him after a lizard. It is extremely
unlikely that a man with such jowls could've ever been likened to a long, slender animal surviving on a healthy, high protein
diet.
Through such landmarks as the Contract with America and the subsequent Republican Revolution, Gingrich would follow the
time-honored—if paradoxical—Republican Party tradition of somehow cementing a favorable legacy while almost never
achieving an approval rating above 50%.
Though Gingrich's career has been mostly comprised of attacks on other officials and a spotty ethical and moral record,
he has maintained a prominent position in a faltering party searching for a clear leader who's not a complete embarrassment.
A champion of Christian morality, Gingrich had three different wives over 35 years, though during that period, was only
unmarried for a total of less than a year. Simple arithmetic suggests that either Gingrich is incredibly impulsive or his
position on family values might include a bit more extramarital fucking than one might have originally thought.
Nearly four years after the police shootout that took the lives of Ronald
Madison and James Brissette on New Orleans’ Danziger Bridge, the FBI raided the offices of the police investigators
who had been looking into the deadly incident.
The bureau’s move suggests that the federal government may be serious about seeing police officers prosecuted over
the Sept. 4, 2005 shootout, when Madison and Brissette were allegedly killed by police while four others were wounded as they
crossed a bridge in the midst of the Hurricane Katrina crisis.
It also suggests the FBI may be worried that New Orleans police are trying — or may in the future try — to
destroy evidence of what happened that day.
According to ProPublica, “the police officers involved say they began shooting in response to gunfire from the civilians;
that claim is vigorously disputed by the shooting victims.”
“Survivors of the high-profile shooting incident have said they were unarmed when ambushed by officers on the bridge,
who came to the site because they heard a radio call that described other police officers in distress,” the New Orleans
Times-Picayune reported last year. “But police officers have maintained that police were in a firefight, shooting only
after they were fired upon.”
According to an article in Friday’s Times-Picayune, FBI agents seized “the files and computer hard drives of
two officers assigned to investigate police conduct” in the incident.
Last year, the federal government announced it would be investigating the possibility of federal charges against some or
all of the officers involved in the shootout, after a state prosecution of the incident fell apart.
According to New Orleans TV station WDSU, the “investigation had been years in the making and the probe into the
police department is broader than the events that happened on the Danziger Bridge that left two dead and four wounded.”
Harry Rosenberg, a former US attorney, told WDSU that FBI raids on police homicide squads are rare. “It’s done
when the FBI believes evidence may be destroyed if officers or other individuals become aware of a criminal investigation
and are likely to dispose of electronic data or paper evidence that might assist the FBI in its investigation,” Rosenberg
said.
WDSU also stated that the federal investigation would look at “the police-involved shooting of Adolph Grimes on New
Year’s Eve and the death of Henry Glover, whose body was found in a burned out car in the days after Hurricane Katrina.”
The Times-Picayune reported in June that federal authorities are investigating Glover’s death. According to the paper,
the owner of the car in which Glover’s body was found said he last saw it in the possession of the New Orleans police,
before it was found burned with Glover’s body inside.
“A community group that has been monitoring each of the cases said it’s glad to see the FBI push for more information,”
WDSU reported.
“This has been a long time coming,” Evelyn Lynn of the activist group Safe Streets Strong Communities told
WDSU. “The police department here has been in crisis for a long time. Having federal help is going to help a lot in
terms of the cases and the reforms that we need to make in the department.”
When Diplomacy is needed always use a Democrat
Politico
Former President Bill Clinton returned to the United States Wednesday morning with the two U.S. journalists released from custody by North Korea following
his surprise arrival there Tuesday.
The private plane carrying Clinton and the two journalists – Laura Ling, 32, and Euna Lee, 36 – landed at the
Burbank airport just outside Los Angeles around 8:50 a.m. eastern Wednesday morning, roughly four-and-one-half months since
the two reporters were captured along the North Korean border.
After watching the two journalists depart the plane, the former president walked down the steps to the tarmac and hugged
former Vice President Al Gore, the owner of the cable network that employs the journalists.
U.S. Job Cuts Slow, Unemployment Rate Falls as Recession Eases By Shobhana Chandra
(Bloomberg) -- The pace of U.S. job losses slowed more than forecast last month and the unemployment rate dropped for the
first time in more than a year, the clearest signs yet that the worst slump since the Great Depression may be ending.
Payrolls fell by 247,000, after a 443,000 loss in June, the Labor Department said yesterday in Washington. The jobless
rate unexpectedly dropped to 9.4 percent from 9.5 percent.
The figures sent stock indexes soaring to their highs for the year and 10-year Treasuries to their worst week since 2003.
At the same time, the White House warned the jobless rate is still likely to reach 10 percent, and with companies from Boeing
Co. to Verizon Communications Inc. continuing to cut costs, any rebound in hiring may not come until 2010
Three amigos" summit dominated by swine flu, trade By Steve Holland and Patricia Zengerle
GUADALAJARA, Mexico (Reuters) – Leaders of the United States,
Mexico and Canada gather on Monday to present a united front to try to limit the spread of the H1N1 swine flu, but there is
less unity on simmering trade issues.
U.S. President Barack Obama, Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper enjoyed folk
dancing and a mariachi band late Sunday and now are getting down to business at a North American summit.
They hold talks with all three feeling the heat from an economic downturn.
The leaders, sometimes referred to as "the three amigos," are expected to issue a joint communique stressing their shared
commitment to keep a predicted resurgence in the H1N1 virus this autumn as limited as possible.
A senior Obama administration official said the goal was to ensure that the people of the three countries are fully informed
about steps to mitigate the spread of the virus, which is believed to have originated in Mexico last spring.
Obama held 45 minutes of talks with Calderon before they were joined by Harper for a dinner at the sprawling Cabanas Cultural
Center. Crowds lined Obama's motorcade route.
Calderon wasted little time in raising what Mexico considers a pressing trade issue -- a cross-border trucking dispute.
Mexican trucks are supposed to be allowed to cross into the United States under the North American Free Trade Agreement,
but U.S. trucking companies say Mexican trucks are not safe.
Mexico imposed retaliatory tariffs of $2.4 billion in U.S. goods in March after Obama signed a bill canceling a program
allowing Mexican trucks to operate beyond the U.S. border.
Obama made clear to Calderon that he was working with the U.S. Congress to resolve what he considers to be legitimate safety
concerns.
The Leadership of the GOP
Glenn Beck is truly insane, He makes Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity sound like Liberals.
Sen. Martinez announced his resignation last Friday, pulls a Palin and Quits
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida Gov. Charlie Crist says he won't
appoint himself to replace Republican Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida.
Crist, also a Republican, made the comment as he boarded a plane to Tampa on Friday but declined to elaborate.
Martinez said Friday he will resign from the Senate as soon as a replacement can be appointed, leaving the seat more than
a year before his term ends.
It’s looking
more and more like the forged “Kenyan birth certificate” released by Orly Taitz on Sunday was a prank by a supporter
of President Obama. Politijab points to an anonymous blogger at FearlessBlogging, who has uploaded four photos of the original forgery
and a mocking declaration:
Fine cotton business paper: $11
Inkjet printer: $35
1940 Royal Model KMM manual typewriter: $10
2 Shilling coin: $1
Pilot Varsity fountain pen: $3
Punkin’ the Birthers: Priceless
First, there’s the original photo of the infamous forged certificate
on a red, striped carpet, as it appeared on WorldNetDaily.
Then, a photo of a typewriter and special paper for making official-looking
documents.
The federal government's new “Cash for Clunkers” program
got off to a rousing start over the past two weeks, with some new-car dealers reporting dozens of deals completed in just
the first few days.
Officially, the program began July 24 when the government released the final rules. The first flurry of activity kicked
in over the first week — when the program came close to running out of money — and is continuing now only because
of an infusion of $2 billion more, approved by Congress.
The new money, which raises the total appropriated for the program to $3 billion, should fund the program at least through
September, the program's administrators say. The money should be enough for about 750,000 total clunker trades.
The media’s mean, so I quit: (That’s the message that Palin has writ.) And you don’t
need a title To do something vital. I’m betting she runs against Mitt.
VARIOUS LATE NIGHT QUOTES
"Newspapers around the country are calling former President Bill Clinton a hero for his role in extracting two
female journalists from North Korea. As a result, today, Clinton asked to be named secretary of extracting Asian chicks."
--Conan O'Brien
"Earlier today, Sonia Sotomayor was confirmed as the U.S. Supreme Court's first Hispanic justice. Or, as Lou
Dobbs reported it, 'Yet another job gone south of the border.'" --Conan O'Brien
"The latest polls show that President Obama's approval ratings have slumped to an all-time low, which explains
Obama's new Secret Service code name, 'NBC.'" --Conan O'Brien
"This week the Toyota Corolla became the most traded-in car as part of the 'Cash for Clunkers' program. After
hearing about it, the CEO of General Motors said, 'Oh my God, don't tell me Toyota makes even a better clunker than we do.'"
--Conan O'Brien
"Sonia Sotomayor was just confirmed by the U.S. Senate for the Supreme Court. I'm not sure how this works. So,
does she sit next to Randy or Simon Cowell? Either way, it's going to be a great season." --Jimmy Fallon
"North Korea, it turns out, they were offered a meeting with Al Gore in exchange for the two American journalists,
but Kim Jong Il wanted to meet with Bill Clinton instead. Al Gore said, 'I have no hard feelings at all,' and then he gained
70 pounds and grew a beard." --Jimmy Fallon
The powerful and secretive group known as the Fellowship Foundation or the “Family” is quickly gaining notoriety,
due to its links to two scandal-plagued Republicans, Senator John Ensign of Nevada and Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina.
According to the Washington Post, however, the Fellowship Foundation is itself linked to an even more secretive
religious organization — Youth With a Mission (YWAM), whose Washington, DC branch owns the “C Street House” where Ensign has lived and where Sanford has participated in Bible study.
A diarist at Daily Kos points out that “YWAM founder leader Loren Cunningham has publicly outlined a vision for Christian
world-control,” which involves establishing domination over government, education, business, the media, and other areas.
YodasWorld.org is updated each Monday. Some of the items from
the previous week are added to the various topic links on the left side of the main page. Links embedded should be good
for at least the date posted. After the posting date, link reliability depends on the policy of the linked sites. Some sites
require visitors to register before allowing access to articles. Material presented on this page represent the opinion's of
YodasWorld.org.
Copyright 2000-2009 YodasWorld.org. All rights reserved
on original works. Material copyrighted by others is used either with permission or under a claim of "fair use."
YodasWorld.org is updated each Monday. Some of
the items from the previous week are added to the various topic links on the left side of the main page. Links embedded
should be good for at least the date posted. After the posting date, link reliability depends on the policy of the linked
sites. Some sites require visitors to register before allowing access to articles. Material presented on this page represent
the opinion's of YodasWorld.org.
Copyright 2000-2011 YodasWorld.org. All rights
reserved on original works. Material copyrighted by others is used either with permission or under a claim of "fair use."
