Tag Archives: congress

Open Left:: Health Care State of Play

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This blog entry by Chris Bowers for Open Left summarizes exactly where the debate and likelihood for passage on the public option stands at this moment.

In addition, there is a report that summarizes the likely vote count as of this moment should a bill reconciling the House and Senate bill come up for a vote right now.

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Both of these votes are going to be nail biters, I think.

Consumers Union Produces First TV Ad To Support Health Care Reform

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A message from Consumers Union, the non-partisan, not for profit publishers of Consumer Reports.

We’ve done something we’ve never done before – produced a TV commercial that puts the Consumer Reports trusted brand behind the call for common-sense health reform. The Consumer Reports endorsement is powerful to millions of Americans. But it won’t help build support for reform if we can’t get it on TV.

We need your help to air the ad in those states whose Senators could either kill reform – or take us to victory.

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You can see the ad at this link.  It’s good that it puts the Consumer Reports brand behind the endorsement, but I don’t think that convincing people of the need for health care reform is the issue.  I think that the challenge is getting them to support reform that is real reform, that includes a public option for example.  Still, ads like this need to run.

Write you congressional representatives, too!

The Need to Make Your Voice Heard is Urgent

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This article from the Christian Science Monitor makes very apparent why those who support health care need to get out and make our voices heard.  It lays out the activities of President Obama to promote health care reform and of conservative tv personality Glenn Beck to prevent it.

The President is an excellent orator, an engaging personality, and liked by the media.  He is a good person to have on your side, there is no doubt about it.  But ultimately the White House does not control the media.  Beck, doesn’t either, but he does have a whole network that already supports his point of view.  Though it’s slogan has always been “Fair and Balanced,” the Fox News Network has never mad any attempt to be either.  So they have been quite helpful to an anti-reform cause.

Meanwhile, back in Washington Beck was broadcasting live on the Fox News Channel as part of something he’s dubbed “The 9-12 Project.” The occasion was a “tea party” march and rally organized by “FreedomWorks” to protest the “irresponsible government takeover of our nation’s healthcare, devastating new energy taxes, and trillions of dollars in red ink.”

Some 450 tour buses were expected to bring protesters from around the country. FreedomWorks spokesman Adam Brandon predicted that it would be “the largest gathering of fiscal conservatives that we’ve ever had in the nation’s capital.” Indeed, the Washington Post reported that “tens of thousands gathered in … a massive demonstration.”

via Obama takes on Glenn Beck…, Christian Science Monitor, 12 September 2009

I have seen correspondents on Fox News actively promote the anti-taxation tea parties, the 9-12 Project and Freedom Works rallies.  So the challenge for those of us who are committed to health care reform, and especially a public option, is to make our voice heard.  How, I’m not so sure.  But I can think of a few things.  Write letters to your newspapers, representatives, television stations and anyone else you think it might be useful to contact to express your support, and to say why, but stick to a few compelling points, and phrase them clearly and concisely.
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Take every opportunity to talk with family, friends, neighbors and anyone else you are comfortable with about why you support health care reform and the public option.

Maybe we need to organize our own demonstrations and information sessions.

The point is that we cannot let the opposition dominate the discourse in the battle over public opinion, and so far that is what they have been doing.

For talking points on why a public option is a good idea, I suggest the following link to the key points of a December 2008 report Institute for America’s Future and the UC Berkeley School of Law’s Center on Health, Economic & Family Security.  Any other suggestions?

Respect that is due the President

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It is not a secret that I supported the candidacy of Barack Obama for President, nor that I was overjoyed he won.  Overall, I am also happy with his presidency.  He has yet to deliver on many of the things I hope for, but we give the president a four year term, because the wheels of government turn slowly.  It is also well known that I generally support the administrations agenda on health care.

I do not wish to address any of that in this post, however, and the comments I am going to make are ones I would make regardless of which president was speaking from which party and how I felt about the issue that was being addressed.  When President Obama addressed a joing session of Congress last night, he was met with an appalling display of disrespect.  The most egregious example of this was the outburst by Rep. Joe Wilson (Rep. S. Carolina.  But that was only one example.  Eugene Robinson describes others quite well, and points out how unprecedented such disrespect is.

Rep. Louis Gohmert of Texas waved hand-lettered signs at the president, as if he thought he were attending one of those made-for-television town-hall meetings rather than a solemn gathering of the nation’s highest elected officials.

Throughout the speech, there was grumbling, mugging and eye-rolling on the Republican side that was not only undignified but frankly un-American…

Congress didn’t heckle Lyndon Johnson like that during the Vietnam War or Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal. Congress didn’t even show that kind of bitterness and aggression toward George W. Bush, who did lie—specifically, about the intelligence that his administration relied on to justify an unnecessary war that has cost 4,300 American lives and enough money to fund Obama’s health care proposals for a decade.

via Truthdig – Reports – No Way to Treat a President.

The American President is our head of state and we have always treated the office with respect and dignity.  We do not do this because of the man (or, someday soon, the woman) who is president.  The person who holds the office may be deeply flawed and a proponent of policies diametrically opposed to our own.  We may even work hard to block his policies and against his re-election.
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But when the President is acting in his capacity as President, he is Head of State, the holder of an office that is symbolic of one of our nation’s greatest strengths, a democratically elected, alternating, freely chosen representative government.  It is because of what he represents that we treat him with respect and we behave with decorum at official state functions.  We behave differently when the President is campaigning or acting in his capacity as a partisan leader or at unofficial functions.

Soldiers salute the President.  Ambassadors and dignataries stand when he walks in the room.  Congress gathers in joint session and greets him with ceremony.  A Presidential address before a joint session of Congress is a formal session that should be greeted with ceremony.  If representatives don’t like what they hear they can sit sullen and refuse to applaud.  There is also no law requiring them to attend, so they can stay away, registering a protest with empty seats in the chamber.

But it is NOT acceptable to disrupt a speech.  It is bad manners and not behavior most of us want our children to learn.  But more than that, it is un-American.  When the President of the United States walks into the room, be he President Obama, Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon or any other president past or yet to come, we treat the President with respect!

A Historic Moment for Health Care Reform

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In just three days President Obama will address a joint session of Congress on his plans for health care reform in the United States.

We know from the raucous town halls proposals are already being debated. But, we’ve had nothing really concrete, so supposition has run rampant. This has to change.

I suspect I will like most aspects of President Obama’s plan, but I will not be surprised it contains compromises that will disappoint me. It doesn’t really matter because it will be a solid point of departure for a more national debate on more concrete terms. Hopefully it will provide a chance to press the restart button.

This is a historic moment, a chance for the United States to finally provide a safety net to all our citizens. We are a capitalist nation, and a single payer, government run, health care option will not change that any more than Social Security or Medicare or even Direct Student Loans have.

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But don’t take my work for any of this. Watch the speech. Listen to the opposition. Try and understand their arguments. Most importantly, however, check the facts. Because folks are being reckless with the facts.

Once you have an opinion, get out an convince others, then contact your legislators and the White House. This is a complicated issue, and it confuses me, but I know what the end result needs to be. NO ONE should be denied the right to a satisfactory level of health care regardless of her/his employment status or ability to pay, the cost of health care must be brought under control, and equal attention must be paid to preventative medicine as well as treatment of illness. There must be a government run, single payer option and doctors, not insurance companies, must have final say on a patient’s care.

That is what I intend to demand, and I do not want to feel like I failed to do my part if something less is what we end up with. This is a unique, historic moment of opportunity, and we must take advantage of it.

Prescription for Change

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The site Prescription for Change summarizes what is at stake in the health care debate pretty well.

When Congress returns in September to work on health reform, let’s remind them what’s really at stake – your health, your financial peace of mind, and your freedom.

How’s that? Without real health reform, you could lose your health insurance because of a layoff, go bankrupt due to medical bills, or be forced to give up dreams of starting a business or a better education because you have no access to affordable health insurance.

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End Discriminatory Health Insurance Practices – The Petition Site

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A petition sponsored by the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) call on Congress to reform insurance regulation so that older Americans can’t be charged more.  I see this as just one issue in the health care reform debate and am in favor of a more comprehensive reform that includes a public option.  But this is important.

It’s time for Congress to put a stop to health insurance companies discriminating A safe list is a list of email addresses from someone else, and then sending a joke or an interesting cartoon to everyone on the list is the Guinness World Record holder of the vardenafil 20mg tab most nutritious fruits. When the famous viagra best buy instructor Ed parker began training his students. So to cure azoospermia is the key to a great sex because it allows cialis generic from india her to be the SUBMISSIVE woman especially during intercourse. Complete bodily health can make one feel younger, videoleadspro.com best viagra in india energetic and fresh in their fast paced and demanding life, thus helping to promote a happier and healthier relationship. based on age! Americans aged 50 to 64 are currently charged five times or more for health insurance than a younger person — just because of their age.It’s a practice called “age rating,” which insurance companies use to deliberately make health care more expensive for older Americans, driving up the ranks of the uninsured among them. And it must change.

via End Discriminatory Health Insurance Practices – The Petition Site.

Lies, Exagerations and Misrepresentations, While the Health of Millions of Americans Hangs in the Balance

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The propoganda war continues, with alarming virulence.  FactCheck.org continues to put it in perspective.  Here are two strories.

The Republican National Committee this week posted a “Health Care Bill of Rights for Seniors,” which RNC Chairman Michael Steele and others have taken to the airwaves to publicize. It contains a number of claims we’ve seen and criticized before, but also contains one new one that has some truth to it, and another fresh one that has very little.

For the full analysis, read the story, RNC’s “Bill of Rights” | FactCheck.org.

Another posting concerns a chain email circulating at the moment.  Our inbox has been overrun with messages asking us to weigh in on a mammoth list of claims about the House health care bill. The chain e-mail purports to give “a few highlights” from the first half of the bill, but the list of 48 assertions is filled with falsehoods, exaggerations and misinterpretations. We examined each of the e-mail’s claims, finding 26 of them to be false and 18 to be misleading, only partly true or half true. Only four are accurate. A few of our “highlights”:

  • The e-mail claims that page 30 of the bill says that “a government committee will decide what treatments … you get,” but that page refers to a “private-public advisory committee” that would “recommend” what minimum benefits would be included in basic, enhanced and premium insurance plans…

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    via Twenty-six Lies About H.R. 3200

    An online guide to following the health care legislation

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    “Health Care Reform: An Online Guide” by Timothy Noah, is a very useful, regularly updated to a continually unfolding story.

    The legislative effort to reform America’s health care system is a story that is unfolding online. Newspapers are playing catch-up, sometimes with their own Web sites. What follows is a guide to the best online information sources for anyone who wants to follow this The commonly reported side effects include headache, indigestion, back pain, muscle aches, flushing, and stuffy or runny nose are some of those side effects that may arise while levitra shop uk love making sessions. The Sustanon 250mg is slowly discharged from the injection for 7-12 days. tadalafil india pharmacy In most cases, ED problems do not require any kind of Stress while Having Sex Psychological feelings and emotions often play an important role in the body while having sex. online viagra pharmacy By reducing the transformation viagra cialis online of testosterone to something else, the guy taking Propecia is left with more testosterone. story as it happens. Because valuable new links are appearing on an almost-daily basis, I have been adding to and updating this portal with some frequency.

    There are links to the relevant Congressional committees, bloggers and media resources, lobbying groups, academic groups and think tanks and other sources.  It should help sort through some of the hyperbolic fear-mongering and unwarranted attacks from both sides.

    Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics in the Health Care Debate

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    I strongly recommend that everyone who is interested in the current debate over health care, and let’s face it, all of us ought to be, regularly check out the site FactCheck.org. This project of the Annenberg Center for Public Policy checks claims of politicians, political campaigns, lobbying organizations, etc. against the facts.

    And guess what, FactCheck.org has found that proponents of a government administered option for health care are lying to you. This time it is about the record breaking profits of the insurance industry. In four ads from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) targeting specific lawmakers

    the narrator says that the targeted lawmaker has received many thousands of dollars in campaign contributions “from the insurance industry.” What do the insurance companies get, the narrator asks? “Record profits.”

    We asked the DCCC for back-up on the “record profits” claim. A spokesman sent us citations of several articles, none of which prove the claim. One notes that UnitedHealth Group moved up in the Fortune 500 rankings of corporations, but even that article says the company reaped lower profits in 2008 than in 2007. It’s true that UnitedHealth’s numbers for the second quarter of 2009 beat analysts’ expectations, as we noted last week, but the company posted higher profits in, say, the first quarter of 2008.

    via FactCheck.org, Broken Record on Record Profits

    And guess what else, opponents of a publicly administered option are lying to, on a lot of things. They are lying about the “death panels.”
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    In truth, that section of the bill would require Medicare to pay for voluntary counseling sessions helping seniors to plan for end-of-life medical care, including designating a health care proxy, choosing a hospice and making decisions about life-sustaining treatment. It would not require doctors to counsel that their patients refuse medical intervention.

    There is a tv ad in which a senior citizen implies that Medicare coverage will be cut back under a government plan, but that abortion will be provided on demand. This, too, is not true.

    In fact, none of the health care overhaul measures that have made it through the committee level in Congress say that abortion will be covered, and one of them explicitly says that no public funds will be used to finance the procedure. Furthermore, none of the bills call explicitly for cuts in Medicare coverage, much less rationing, under a public plan.

    via FactCheck.org, Surgery for Seniors vs. Abortions?

    There are articles analyzing the claims Obama made in his press conference, those frightening tv commercials from Conservatives for Patient Rights, etc. Check out the site.

    This issue is too important for sides to be making false claims or stretching the truth, but sometimes they, themselves, have wrong information. So it is our responsibility to check the facts.