Category: Health Care

If you’re on Facebook, you’ve got to check out this group:

http://www.facebook.com/group….

For too long now, fire departments across the United States have been socialist organizations, resulting in taxes on the American people.

FACT: Most Americans never use the socialized services of the fire department. The Obama administration has been very clear about keeping the status quo when it comes to taxpayer-funded fire departments.

It is time to open the fire department up to private industry. We have the best fire departments in the world in the US, but that doesn’t mean that anyone (even non-US citizens) should be able to dial up and have fires put out, etc. There are private companies (Halliburtion, Etc.) who could step in tomorrow and take over every fire department in America and charge the consumer directly.

This is AMERICA. NO FREE FIRE SAFETY.

“Better DEAD than fire truck RED.”

-member D.J. Hostettler

Please tell everyone you know about this group!

Is Joe Moshe just another “terrorist” or a whistleblower caught in the dragnet.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

Is Joe Moshe Bar a leading bioscientist who knows what purpose the bird/swine/unicorn vaccine program will serve.

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/…

So, I’m not Uri Geller who claimed to bend spoons with his mind. I’m not exceptional in my paranormal episodes yet last night, the dreams, the visions.

Not good at all.  

Cross-posted at Daily Kos.

The non-profit, non-partisan group Families USA has begun releasing state-by-state reports comparing the rise in health insurance premiums against the rise of wages from 2000 to 2009. So far 18 state reports have been released, with the remaining states coming over the next few weeks.

Copies of reports for each state, in pdf format, can be found here.

The reports specifically look at premiums for families, and compare the increase in those family premiums with the rise in median income. And, surprise surprise, health insurance rates have skyrocketed compared to average wage increases. On average, for the 18 states reported on so far, family premiums increased 4.4 times as much as median wages between 2000 and 2009. The following is a spreadsheet I put together to summarize the results of each report:

[ratio is how many times faster premiums have risen compared to wages]

Since the GOP is fond of saying that “the USA has the Best Health Care System in the World”, I decided to do a little Fact Checking. … And according to the World Health Organization:

Health Performance Rank By Country

United States of America:

Performance: On level of health : 72nd

Performance: Overall health system: 37th

Health expenditure per capita in international $’s

Country Rank:  USA: 1st

http://www.photius.com/ranking…

We’re Number One! alright — BUT only in terms of HOW MUCH WE PAY PER PERSON, for our Health Care! (1st in the World, in terms of Cost)

That’s sounds like a contest, that we just don’t want to keep winning!

Thanks for the bump to the FP, Buhdy

Crossposted at Daily Kos

Frank Luntz, Republican Strategist:      It’s one of the most important points in this entire debate. If you call it a public option the American people are split. If you call it a Government Option than the public is overwhelmingly against it.  

Sean Hannity, RW Mouthpiece, Fox News Host:     You know, that’s a great point. From now on I am going to call it a Government option.

more Fail and Balanced strategery below the fold

Every thinking person agrees that the health care (actually, sick care) system in the United States is not performing as well as it should.  I say “every thinking person”, because special interest money can turn off one’s thinking cap very quickly.  This is what is happening now.

People, by our genetic makeup and millennia of experience, are averse to change.  We like thinks to be predictable, especially when it is fundamental to our survival.  We like our homes, familiar abodes of safety, just as well today as we liked our caves, or our hunting and gathering grounds, or any number of things that gave us a sense of security thousands of years ago.  Change, and the uncertainty associated with it, is scary for most of us.

I wrote this at Bartcopnation on Tue Mar-22-05 10:22 PM

I am not a good writer, it can take me a week and still come out garbled.

I hope someone here will look into this information and write about it so it will come out for the entire country to see.

This came out during the Schiavo circus.

The GOP use angry mob rule to thwart & impede town hall meetings for health care & climate change. These are not isolated events. Since the Clinton years, the GOP has used thuggery to castrate a President, derail election recounts, succeed in midterm elections and impede legislative reforms.

In intimidation thuggery, the GOP encourage blindfaithers to disrupt democratic processes by intimidation & threatened violence. The current town hall thuggery is based on the Gore recount riots as precedent.  Instead of public debate whether thuggery is a crime that should be investigated, the GOP win “immunity” by successfully framing thuggery as political rhetoric. Democrats are then forced to extinguish sham fires rather than move the debate forward.

In political thuggery, the GOP promote conspiracy theories used to pummel & weaken Clinton and now Obama is their target. This strategy was also effective for significant GOP success in the 1994 midterms, and may be the GOP’s desperate roadmap again.

If the rule of law is not enforced, thuggery can impede any legislative measures regardless of how many more and better Democrats sit in Congress or the White House.  

Organic Diet on a Less Than Whole Foods Budget

I know, I know. There’s Town Hall Madness, high dudgeon political theater, a boycott of Whole Foods, and it’s hot in August. But there aren’t any Town Halls by my rep this year. He’s a blue dog who will vote however the caucus tells him to vote. They never intended to give us shit, the insurance companies just need a bailout and Obama can’t just run that by anybody like he did for Wall Street’s wealthiest and crookedest players. Just another tax hike around here when forced to buy junk insurance, less money we’ll have for actually going to a doctor if we need to. Oh, well.

And there’s no Whole Foods anywhere near me that I know of, so who cares how much of a jerk the CEO may be? Are his employees happy with their health care? Then let ’em keep it. From what I hear it’s purely a Yuppie-Haven, nicknamed “Whole Paycheck.” Out here where organics are a regular way of life, I can say again, who cares? We’ve great farmer’s markets, tailgates, and plenty of small farms everywhere you look where you can pick your own, buy at a stand near the driveway, or off a pickup on the side of the road. Most garden/farm “naturally” even without organic certification. Apples are ripening fast, who the hell would grow a GMO apple anyway, for goodness’ sake!?

We’ve had a cool year. Sure, we get a few hot days, but usually not without a nice rain (we’re averaging an inch a week or more) and it’s never hot at night in these mountains. So the tomatoes have been pretty much a bust all around, only started getting ripe after they’d developed blight. Pumpkins are ripening early, but I think that’s because I planted them early. They’re quite tasty, can keep a long time in the field even after the greenery’s gone. My eggplant experiment doesn’t look promising but the potatoes are going great guns, the peppers are fruiting fine, and the herbs are thick this year.

My apples have been ripening for a couple of weeks. They either have to fall, or I get somebody to shake the tree and I play catch. Granny Smiths and Macintosh, I have used my self-constructed solar dryer – for which I sacrificed no digits to power tools – to dry as fast as they come in. Have jars and jars and several old coffee tins full, I figure a pie apiece if I can keep the boys out of ’em. They consume vast quantities right out of the jar for snacks.

Crossposted at Daily Kos

    My father committed suicide over 13 years ago. If he had gotten mental health care maybe it would not have been so.

    My mother had a stroke 2 years ago. When she first felt a shock in her arm she went to a doctor. The doctor told her “Change your lifestyle.” They did not take more tests than the first one. Two weeks later she had a massive stroke. She is diabled and paralyzed on her left upper body to this day.

   My Grandmother (my fathers mother) is 75. Her basic insurance eats up more than a third of her retirement income. Her mortgage eats one half and her medication eats up the rest.

   My step uncle (my fathers half brother) is chronically sick with liver problems and suffers from mental health problems. He is in the hospital right now with gallstones. He suffers from intense paranoia, depression and other mental disorders.

   My sister suffers from anxiety and depression because of my fathers tragic death. She was only 6 when it happened. Now she is 20. I want her to find help, and I need the same help myself. Neither of us can afford it. We need reform NOW, for health care, both physical and mental.

   This fight for Health Care Reform is VERY personal for me. I will not back down, and neither should you.

Embark on Cross Country Care-A-Van to Demand Single-Payer from Congress

Frustrated with the health care ‘options’ coming out of Washington, D.C., six “Mad as Hell” Oregon physicians are taking an unprecedented road trip across America to lobby Congress for a single-payer health care system.

Portland, OR (PRWEB) August 13, 2009 — Frustrated with the health care ‘options’ coming out of Washington, D.C., six “Mad as Hell” Oregon physicians are taking an unprecedented road trip across America to lobby Congress for a single-payer health care system. A big part of their plan is to take the entire country with them.

We’ve all been hearing the “Town Hall Meeting” stories the past few days, and the images presented have been of gatherings where you might see some current or former official “death panel” for the benefit of the crowd, where the few people who shout the loudest bully the rest into silence, and where threats of physical intimidation are part of the debate.  

I attended one of these meetings, and based on what I saw I’m here to tell you that it is possible to hold an event that features none of the images previously described.

Instead, what I say was an event where people asked their questions, the Congressman answered-and from time to time the angry members of the audience got their shout on, too…but not in a way that was able to ever take control of the venue.

There were helpful lessons that can be applied by others who want to have these meetings, and today’s conversation examines what can be done to make them work for you, too.