Jon Stewart's takes on Ted Cruz's filibuster. Very funny.

From friend of blog Jerry: A look at health care from front lines (an original post)

There seems to be be concerted effort to break apart Medicare into two groups. One group is the one who is drawing upon Medicare currently, and who the Privatizers would like to say "don't worry nothing will change with regards to your plan"; and the younger one who will get a voucher which, in current climate of rising health care cost, will appear to be almost valueless. In some ways this can be seen as a way to break the younger and healthier of the heard; off from older and sicker. After these changes have gone through (on a purely selfish level) there will be reason for their kids to support their more sickly parents after they have just bee sold out by them. In this way the Privatizers will have just destroyed the institution Medicare in two easy steps to the detriment of everyone except the insurance companies. 

It is a similar plan to the one that was tried in 2004-2005 George W. Bush spearheaded a drive to wipe out Social Security. That one was dreamed up in a Republican think tank, as I remember reading about the plan before it was ever rolled out. The one thing that the Privatizers hadn't counted on was that these elders seemed to like Social Security and they just didn't want to sell out their children when it came to this benefit. From here I asked a person who is drawing from Medicare now what his thoughts on the institution were. Here's what he wrote:

Medicare, The view from here.

I was asked recently what I thought about changes that might be coming for Medicare. My first thoughts are that with all the talk about it going broke, there may be a need to change some parts of the program. I say may, because the changes may not need to be made to the program, just a new way of funding it. There’s an easy repair, but it involves drastically hiking taxes, so voters aren't hearing about it on the campaign trail. Under federal law, millionaires and billionaires get to dodge payroll taxes on a substantial percentage of their salaries. Employers and workers are charged payroll taxes on salaries up to $110,100 a year, meaning anything above that —a category that includes some of the middle class — is payroll-tax free. Simply lifting that cap would cover about 90 percent of the projected shortfall over 75 years, according to forecasts by the Social Security Administration ( I would recommend the same payroll tax rate applying to capital gains as well, otherwise the Mitts (Romney) of the country get off free)

At 78 years of age I am much more concerned as to how Medicare will be handled for my children, now averaging 49 years of age. I can see some perceived unfairness with the suggestion that radical change may come only to those under fifty-five years of age i.e., some type of voucher program, which until fully described, cannot be fully imagined. I assume it will come as a check which we are told we will buy insurance from various insurance companies. The companies will have a range of policies with various deductibles. I’m afraid I am at a loss to know how an effective voucher can work and I can see how this program could favor the insurance companies unless the vouchers were drawn with very tight specifications as to what range and cost of service they would pay for. (Think how many jobs this would create for the thousands of lobbyist the insurance companies would hire to design this voucher.)

What I can say about the current program is that it has seen me through, a hip replacement, a pulmonary embolism, prostate cancer, and bladder cancer. OMG, have I lived through all that. That said, all of the foregoing was covered as well by private insurance costing in excess of $450 per month. Imagine what Medicare would cost if a great many didn’t have supplemental insurance.

One thing I have become very much aware of is the vast amount of fraud now existing in the current program. Not millions but billions of dollars are being stolen from the taxpayers. A group was discovered in North Carolina in a twenty million dollar scam involving medical equipment. On 60 minutes an interviewer asked a jailed participant in the scam if they were jacking the price of the wheelchairs up and charging Medicare exorbitant prices for them. He answered promptly that no; there weren’t any wheelchairs involved, they were just billing for fictitious people or participants that were paid a small amount to allow their Medicare numbers to be used in the billing process. Asked if any of his friends could start this scam up again, he replied that it would not be a problem. Fraud prevention should be enhanced tremendously .

I think the Affordable Care Act should continued to be activated with the mandate included and then modified over a period of years as we see how it works. So much political activity has taken place already; surely we need to go awhile with what we have already voted on. It appears to be the Democrats, who I favor after forty years of voting for the Republicans, should be explaining how the Affordable Care Act incorporates Medicare and broadens it scope and longevity. This, to me, is not being adequately being explained. Perhaps we could put a White Board like Mitt and use fewer words like: Obamacare, Passed and Solvent …MittPaulCare, Who the Hell Knows? 

T-Paw says Romney and Ryan plan will give insurance company unlimited money and calls it good medical policy

Republican Congress vote to increase their own insurance while cutting the Americans insurance

WASHINGTON -- Democrats are mocking Republicans in the House of Representatives for voting to repeal the health care reform law and keep their own enhanced medical care.

When Congress passed the health care law, it required members of Congress to get their insurance on exchanges with the rest of the public. But in voting to repeal that law, Republicans and a handful of Democrats were also voting to go back to the old system where the lawmakers get a sweeter deal than most of the rest of the country.

They also voted against a Democratic motion that said members of Congress who support repealing the health care law must also repeal the good stuff they get, such as lifetime care and insurance regardless of pre-existing conditions.

Democrats tried to demonstrate how Republicans distanced themselves from voting to protect their own deal by capturing a slew of GOP members on video saying they didn't vote to protect their own care, as seen below. The clip features a number of Republicans in tight races this year, as well as GOP budget guru, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.

“House Republicans refuse to admit they voted to give themselves taxpayer funded lifetime guaranteed health care instead of having the same health care as their constituents,” said Jesse Ferguson, spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, referring to the fact that members of Congress are eligible for retirement benefits after just five years.

“House Republicans didn’t just vote to protect insurance company campaign donor profits this time, they’re even helping themselves to lifetime taxpayer-funded government health care and now they need to be honest with their constituents and admit it,” Ferguson said.

originally posted here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/16/health-care-democrats-gop-repeal-vote_n_1675551.html

Image: death due to lack of health coverage

Image from Daily Kos. Proud to come from Massachusetts in this. The question is how many more people does the Supreme Court feel like killing.

Yes mom and dad...I'm a democrat

1994 Mitt Romney Debates Ted Kennedy on Healthcare

Mitt Romney in 1994 was a big spending liberal. I think whatever you believe in you can find a Romney that you can believe in somewhere between the years of 1994 and 2012. His positions are like a continuum of American thought for the years on both end of the year 2000.

Through the looking glass: dinner with the tea party

For some reason the government should have let Detroit go bankrupt because all they are doing is bailing out the CEOs. I wonder how if they put all those people out of work how that would possibly have helped the economy? I also wonder how rolling back one hundred years of labor law that went along with those jobs would help either. My friend appears indifferent as to the ripple effect that this would have on the Michigan economy. These laid off people would no longer be unable to buy things at stores and restaurants. This is a position that shows very little concern on empathy to the people lives while totally valuing the cerebral thought of economic austerity.

The most important right that the federal government provides is the second amendment: the right to bear arms and defend yourself. All's I know is I heard how tough it was to buy a gun in certain states - why don't you want me to have a gun - no, I really don't care if you have one. Thanks NRA for the talking points. Machine gun like weapons, that spray more bullets than water from a water hose, can't be regulated because of the "slippery slope" from banning one M-16 to leaving the citizenry defenseless with sling shots. They live in an area where they can't leave their first floor windows open and they're arming themselves against the hoards,  hoards which are usually off-white, that are coming. If the area is that bad then I don't think I'd be saving up for a gun but more likely for a U-haul.

They vote for politicians who are totally in the tank for Wall Street banks in order to teach Wall Street  banks a lesson.

They think George Soros is the scariest man in the world, and I don't know why. They don't say it but you know they are one step removed from declaring Obama to be a Kenyon Nationalist Socialist Muslim though you really think the Republican national committee would have Obama to serve one term before they tortured him..

They might not like being labelled as the pull yourself up by the bootstraps crowd though everything about them promotes pulling yourself up by the bootstraps. That's what happened in the seventies when their parents separated. When you ask them how much worse it is today than it was in the seventies they have no idea. The answer is that the seventies is when  the factories began to pack up and leave for places like China in the "original rust belt" states (PA, OH, MI, NY). Or the free market regulators who allowed the country to bleed jobs into Mexico. Just between 2001-2009 the US lost six million manufacturing jobs (CNN). Those jobs often have higher wages and benefits than the ones who replaced it. In real spending money the Americans are going backwards.

Everyone on welfare is automatically a moocher who wants nothing but to stay on welfare. My friend doesn't believe in the working poor who work two or three jobs and still can't get by. They offer no stats or data to back up this point and all's they offer is anecdotal evidence, namely theirs. For some reason they appear to be a lot more upset over a person stealing an extra bag of cheese doodles, with their food stamps, than they are with a guy who parks his millions in a Cayman bank.

Hilary Rosen  was dead wrong about Ann Romney. How dear she attack a woman, Ann Romney, who has survived both MS and breast cancer. The way she says it you know she believes that Rosen is actually working directly for Obama rather than just being someone who actually draws a check from CNN. You forget to tell your friend that Ann Romney is lucky to be married to former governor of Massachusetts. Under her husbands plan, she would have pre-existing condition and wouldn't qualify for health care if she wasn't. The ones who would qualify if they got as sick would be people, like my friend, a poorly paid Romney supporter.

Scott Brown says daughter insured under health law - Boston.com

Scott Brown says daughter insured under health law - Boston.com:

'via Blog this'

One young person on her father's government insurance, as her father fights to take away insurance from freeloaders like her. She should just go out in the private market and make the best deal she can get.

Senator Scott Brown, who won office vowing to be the 41st vote to block President Obama’s health care law and who has since voted three times to repeal it, acknowledged Monday that he takes advantage of it to keep his elder daughter on his congressional health insurance plan.

“Of course I do,’’ the Massachusetts Republican told the Globe.

Brown is insuring his daughter Ayla, a professional singer who is 23 years old, under a widely popular provision of the law requiring that family plans cover children up to age 26.

Brown said the extended use of his congressional coverage is not inconsistent with his criticism of the federal law, enacted over his objection after he won a special election in 2010, because the same coverage could be required by individual states.

On the campaign trail this year, Brown has said he still wants to repeal the law, which he argues is inferior to the health care law enacted by Massachusetts in 2006.

“I’ve said right from the beginning, that if there are things that we like, we should take advantage of them and bring them back here to Massachusetts,’’ the senator said.

As to whether the federal law should be repealed or rewritten, Brown replied: “I’ve already voted to repeal it. You know where I stand on this. This isn’t news.’’

His political opponent said that Brown is being hypocritical.

U.S. health care is a 'subtle form of corruption' says leading cancer doctor | MinnPost

U.S. health care is a 'subtle form of corruption' says leading cancer doctor | MinnPost

U.S. health care is a 'subtle form of corruption' says leading cancer doctor

By Susan Perry | 04/24/12

cancer.org

Dr. Otis Brawley

Dr. Otis Brawley, an oncologist and chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society, has long been an outspoken critic of unnecessary medical tests and procedures.

On this topic, he is perhaps best known for his opposition to the routine screening of men for prostate cancer, pointing out repeatedly that the scientific evidence does not support it — and stating that anybody who says otherwise is “not telling the truth.”

Earlier this week, Brawley spoke before a group of medical reporters at the annual conference of the Association of Health Care Journalists in Atlanta. Although I didn’t attend the event, I watched Brawley’s on-the-record speech on YouTube.
Once again, he didn’t mince words.

The Anniversary of Romneycare

Obama Campaign Celebrates 'Romneycare' Anniversary

Obama Campaign Celebrates 'Romneycare' Anniversary

Thank you real Mitt Romney from April 12th 2006. I'm against the other guy who stole your body and denounced you six years later.

The Obama campaign isn't about to let Mitt Romney forget about his health care law -- or that the president used it as a model for the Affordable Care Act.

Obama for America released a video on Thursday for the sixth anniversary of "Romneycare," the health care law signed by the then-Massachusetts governor. The three-minute video highlights some of the men who helped craft both "Romneycare" and "Obamacare," as well as the first woman to enroll in the Massachusetts program.

"[Romney] believed what we were doing in Massachusetts could be a good national model," John McDonough, who helped create both health care plans, says in the video.

"Massachusetts is a model for getting everybody insured," Romney then says in a news clip.

Or as fictional character Don Draper says, when given the problem of selling dog food that the consumers have turned against because it's made of horse meat, just change the label. Draper is someone who lies and cheats and is talented enough to stay on top, which means he might have a slightly higher moral center than Mitt Romney.

Don Draper: "The product is good. It's high quality. Dogs love it, but the name is poisoned."

Client: "That name got us where we are. Do you think that was just luck?"

Don Draper: "I'm not saying a new name is easy to find. And we will give you a lot of options. But it's a label on a can. And it will be true because it will promise the quality of the product that's inside." -- Mad Men, episode 3.11

Don Draper delivers that advice with the gravity of a doctor telling his patient about their tumour. Bad press can kill you, but there's a solution: re-brand. Sell the same horse meat as dog food under a different name and you'll stay in business. A brand can make a company and a fortune, but it can also break it.

http://thetyee.ca/Books/2011/04/07/LoveThatBrand/

What kind of government health care do these public servants have?

Ann Romney Wouldn't Find Free-Market Health Care Without Mitt Romney's Millions

Ann Romney Wouldn't Find Free-Market Health Care Without Mitt Romney's Millions

If Ann Romney weren't wealthy, she might have even more in common with Kelly Gaeckle.

Both women suffer from multiple sclerosis, a chronic neurological disorder that impairs motor function, cognitive abilities and vision and can cause uncontrollable muscle spasms, fatigue and dizziness. Patients eventually can lose the ability to walk.

Romney, whose husband is Mitt Romney -- the leading Republican presidential contender, the ex-governor of Massachusetts and a former corporate honcho worth as much as $250 million -- presumably doesn't struggle to pay for her treatments, even if she doesn't consider herself wealthy.

Romney, who turns 63 later this month and also has a history of breast cancer, would likely be in dire straits if she had to turn to the open market for health insurance -- without her husband's millions.

"Ann Romney would literally be unable to get health insurance in most states in America and if she could get it, she'd pay an unbelievable price," said Jonathan Gruber, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. And it probably wouldn't cover treatments for M.S. and cancer, he said. Gruber helped develop both the Massachusetts health reform law signed by then-Gov. Mitt Romney in 2006 and the national law enacted by President Barack Obama two years ago.

If The Supreme Court Strikes Down The Affordable Care Act, The Conservative Justices Will Do Lasting Damage To The Institution's Legitimacy | The New Republic

If The Supreme Court Strikes Down The Affordable Care Act, The Conservative Justices Will Do Lasting Damage To The Institution's Legitimacy | The New Republic

Before this week, the well-being of tens of millions of Americans was at stake in the lawsuits challenging the Affordable Care Act.

Now something else is at stake, too: The legitimacy of the Supreme Court.

Nobody knows how the justices will rule. And nobody can know, not even the justices themselves. On Friday morning, perhaps by the time you read this, they will meet privately to take their first vote. More often than not, this first vote determines the final verdict. But there are exceptions and Anthony Kennedy, on whose decision the outcome presumably depends, has a reputation for long deliberation and changes of heart—particularly in major cases like this one.

That’s good. With the result apparently in doubt—smart money still says the chances of the full law surviving are about 50-50—Kennedy should think long and hard about how he wants the Court to rule. So should Chief Justice John Roberts, who appeared more skeptical of the government’s case during oral arguments but nevertheless indicated that he, like Kennedy, understood the government’s premise—that health care was a special market, perhaps requiring special intervention.

If that concern is not enough to sway the chief justice, than perhaps his frequently professed concern for the court’s respectability will.

Those esteemed justices don't want any competition when it comes to free coverage

Walker Responds : "Certainly not aware of that"

It look like the rats are leaving the ship, leaving only the king rat on the ship.

Should Supreme Court Find Insurance Mandate Unconstitutional?

Funny or die: Women experts discuss women's health

Women's Health Experts Speak Out from Judd Nelson

Good editorial on a single health plan