Are You a Better Listener than a Fifth Grader?

Thanks to Seeing Eye Chick over at Apocalyptics Anonymous II for posting this (and sending me an email about it, too).



The video speaks for itself. Love the "whelp" and "woof" reference...

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HELP: A Potential Solution to Health Care Reform?

According to an item on yesterday's Huff Post, the Democrats have come up with a new HC reform bill that would cover 97% of Americans and cost $400 million less than the previously proposed plan.

From the article:

"Additionally, the revised proposal calls for a $750 annual fee on employers for each full-time worker not offered coverage through their job. The fee would be set at $375 for part-time workers. Companies with fewer than 25 employees would be exempt. The fee was forecast to generate $52 billion over 10 years, money the government would use to help provide subsidies to those who cannot afford insurance. The same provision is also estimated to greatly reduce the number of workers whose employers would drop coverage, thus addressing a major concern noted by CBO when it reviewed the earlier proposals."

[...]

"In their letter, Kennedy and Dodd said the Congressional Budget Office 'has carefully reviewed our complete bill, and we are pleased to report that CBO has scored it at $611.4 billion over 10 years, with the new coverage provisions scored at $597 billion. ...The completed bill virtually eliminates the dropping of currently covered employees from employer-sponsored health plans.

'In addition, our bill, combined with the work being done by our colleagues in the Finance Committee, will dramatically reduce the number of uninsured _ fully 97 percent of Americans will have coverage, a major achievement.' "

Guess we'll see if the majority in both houses has the cojones to act on this change so many Americans desperately need.

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With or Without You (Congress)?

One of my professors (who just so happens is Iranian-born) said: "Americans live with the illusion of democracy. The pretense of choice. We choose between two (or three) people. That's choice?"

I was doing some dishes yesterday and thinking about the sad state of things given that we sent our leaders a pretty strong mandate last November.

I am not sure what the rest of you voted for, but I voted for these things ( short list to be sure):

1. To close Guantanamo Bay.

2. To give those inmates fair trials under US law.

3. Health care reform.

4. Education reform.

5. Ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

6. Getting American manufacturing back on track.

7. Working toward peace in the Middle East and ending bigotry against all peoples.

8. Gay Marriage and gay rights in every sense of that term.

9. Lower taxes for the working and lower classes.

10. Better environmental policies that at least *attempt* to minimize the damage that global climate change is having and will continue to have for centuries (any f*ckwad who wants an argument about that, I'm the lass that'll oblige you. My husband [a physicist] works on ice core samples from Antarctica with a group at Berkeley. Climate change is not a hoax or some political ploy to get you scared into recycling and using less carbon fuel).

So, as I pondered how slowly things change, if at all, a thought occurred to me: Why should the "powers that be" give the people *anything* they want?

Why?

What would happen if they did?

It would put them out of business and make their roles as wedge-drivers obsolete.

They would actually have to get real jobs and get in the trenches with the rest of us.

And the media?

What would they have left to do?

DING, DING, DING, DING.

Nothing.

Once they are in their ivory towers up on the hill, within the beltway, they live in a bubble that mutes all the cries of suffering and anguish and anger of their countrymen and fellow citizens of the world.

I suppose I am going through a phase of disillusionment. I don't expect our President to fix everything instantly. I did expect him to be different. To hold himself to higher standards and maintain his integrity.

Our country is having an identity crisis. Are we the moral compass of the world? (See any number of family-men-politicians who have gotten caught diddling someone other than their wife. The answer: Ummm, no.) Are we peace-makers or bullies? Do we care about our fellow countrypeople and want everyone to have a shot at a decent life beyond the worries of health care and shelter and food and a decent education? Do we give two shits about what is happening to our climate and the burden our actions are placing on generations across the world?

Why should things change?

Because its about the f*ck time things changed.

If our politicians won't wake up, Americans must recommit to making things change, with or without them. Even if we have to drag them kicking and screaming like children.

The time for the tug-o-war is over.

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If You Need More Proof

Thanks to Seeing Eye Chick over at Apocalyptics Anonymous for emailing me the link to this article.

Some quick excerpts from the Reuters' piece:

"WASHINGTON - Americans are struggling to pay for health care in the ongoing economic recession, with a quarter saying they have had trouble in the past 12 months, according to a survey released on Monday.

Baby boomers — the generation born between 1946 and 1964 — had the most trouble and were the most likely to put off medical treatments or services, said researchers at Center for Health Care Improvement, part of the health care business of Thomson Reuters.

The study found that 17.4 percent of households reported postponing or delaying health care over the past year."

[...]

"Thomson Reuters — the parent company of Reuters news agency — used its annual Pulse survey that queries 100,000 households to get information about health behavior.

Gary Pickens, George Popa and colleagues at the Michigan-based center interviewed more than 6,000 people in March and April about job losses, what health care they had used and their plans for future treatment."

40 % of those surveyed plan to postpone medical treatment over the next three months.

Think about that for a moment.

Unemployed people, already under economic stress, are being forced to stop taking medication for chronic illnesses, like diabetes, asthma, etc.

Consumer Reports Health Blog reports that medical related bankruptcies are up 50% since 2001 according to an identical survey done by the same researchers of the American Journal of Medicine. 62% of bankruptcies in 2007 were due to illness and/or medical bills.

If you haven't yet signed the petition I created online, please sign.

I am researching ballot initiatives and am working on a post about it.

Thanks to those who have signed and to those who have passed on the link to others. I created a red button for the petition that you are welcome to download and post to your blog. Depending on your blog-platform, you may also be able to link to the petition via the button.**

We need to reclaim our national legacy of a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people" (Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address, 1863).

**[For blogger bloggers, right-click on the button and then highlight and click the "save image as" option and save it wherever you want on your computer. In the layout screen of your blog, click "Add a Gadget" wherever you want the button to go. Add it as a "picture." A box titled "Configure Picture" should pop up. Upload the image from your computer using the "browse" button to locate it where you saved it. Then you can copy and paste the petition link into the "link" box and the petition will then be linked to the button on your blog.]

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