A leading Republican US Senator on Wednesday sharply assailed a White House request for supporters to help track “fishy” claims about President Barack Obama’s plans to overhaul US health care.
”I am not aware of any precedent for a president asking American citizens to report their fellow citizens to the White House for pure political speech that is deemed ?fishy? or otherwise inimical to the White House?s political interests,” John Cornyn of Texas wrote US President Barack Obama.
God, the Nerve, the President wants to know what are the latest Right Wing Lies to derail Health Care Reform? What was he thinking?
Maybe what he was thinking is that being fore-warned is being fore-armed, that knowledge is the primary path to power and effectiveness, and the truth is stronger than fiction?
I've been taking a peak at Faux News this morning with Cavuto and Beck and their are practically Livid that their fellow Americans might be telling the White House what they're saying.
Despite all the hysteria, this is what the White House actually said.
Opponents of health insurance reform may find the truth a little inconvenient, but as our second president famously said, "facts are stubborn things."
Scary chain emails and videos are starting to percolate on the internet, breathlessly claiming, for example, to "uncover" the truth about the President’s health insurance reform positions.
In this video, Linda Douglass, the communications director for the White House’s Health Reform Office, addresses one example that makes it look like the President intends to "eliminate" private coverage, when the reality couldn’t be further from the truth.
For the record, the President has consistently said that if you like your insurance plan, your doctor, or both, you will be able to keep them. He has even proposed eight consumer protections relating specifically to the health insurance industry.
There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.
So let me get this straight, the people who said when it was revealed that President Bush was illegally surveiling The Entire Country, with special attention to spying on journalists are now Outraged - OUTRAGED that President Obama has an email address for tracking false propaganda?
You guys should be happy he's not just telling the NSA to take it rout out of your Email Mailbox the way that Bush did. Besides if you've done and said nothing wrong, "why should you be worried about it" - isn't that what everyone (at Fox) said about Bush's Spy program?
"Only the Bad Guys Should be Worried?"
I guess we can see who the bad guys are now pretty clearly.
They want to pretend that Obama's plan - which is really Congresses Plan at this point - is a "Government Takeover" when Single Payer is Off the Table and that it's just a secret plot to Euthanisze the Elderly and that these are "legitimate concerns by Average Americans".
They are not.
I'm not so ridiculous as to proclaim that some of these people aren't sincere, because being sincerely misinformed is not a crime. But more than few of them really are being driven by Right-Wing Lobbyist Groups such as Dick Armey's Freedom Works who pushed the "Tea Parties" and now have an Action Plan to Stop Socialized Medicine.
But you see the real problem is that Liberals are just so Mean!
Beck and his ilk are already saying this is just like "community organizing" by Acorn - except it's not legitimate community organizing to accomplish positive goals, it's the deliberate exploitation of false fears to create an angry uninformed mob to INTIMIDATE congress by criminal corporations who want to protect their profits and stock price at the expense of American Lives.
Sorry but just like some of the Tea Partiers really were Racist, some of these people are propelled by completely INSANE fears of "Socialism".
No, not all of them are "Crazy" - but some of them are.
And if they don't like being called "Crazy" - then they should STOP ACTING LIKE IT! If they don't want to be connected with crazy people and ideas they should stop supporting nutty ideas.
To this they respond that the Administration is "Marginalizing Them".
Well, if their concerns were close to "Legitimate" they wouldn't be Marginalized. Single Payer is not on the table. Euthanasia is not on the table. You can't have a rational conversation with someone screaming the equivelent of Bigfoot and and Roswell conspiracies at you. All the real data shows that America spends twice as much on Private Health care as most countries and gets about half the quality for it. Our most effective delivery systems are the VA and Tricare - both are government run.
UN Ranks of Public vs Private Health Care Costs as percentage of GDP
| HDI Rank | Expenditure on health (% of GDP) | Public | Private | Combined |
| 12 | United States | 6.9 | 8.5 | 15.4 |
| 106 | Occupied Palestinian Territories | 7.8 | 5.2 | 13 |
| 164 | Malawi | 9.6 | 3.3 | 12.9 |
| 88 | Lebanon | 3.2 | 8.4 | 11.6 |
| 7 | Switzerland | 6.7 | 4.8 | 11.5 |
| 123 | Sao Tome and Principe | 9.9 | 1.6 | 11.5 |
| 150 | Timor-Leste | 8.8 | 2.4 | 11.2 |
| 22 | Germany | 8.2 | 2.4 | 10.6 |
| 10 | France | 8.2 | 2.3 | 10.5 |
| 15 | Austria | 7.8 | 2.5 | 10.3 |
| 1 | Iceland | 8.3 | 1.6 | 9.9 |
| 4 | Canada | 6.8 | 3 | 9.8 |
| 29 | Portugal | 7 | 2.8 | 9.8 |
| 86 | Jordan | 4.7 | 5.1 | 9.8 |
| 2 | Norway | 8.1 | 1.6 | 9.7 |
| 17 | Belgium | 6.9 | 2.8 | 9.7 |
| 3 | Australia | 6.5 | 3.1 | 9.6 |
| 38 | Argentina | 4.3 | 5.3 | 9.6 |
| 9 | Netherlands | 5.7 | 3.5 | 9.2 |
| 34 | Malta | 7 | 2.2 | 9.2 |
| 6 | Sweden | 7.7 | 1.4 | 9.1 |
| 70 | Brazil | 4.8 | 4 | 8.8 |
| 20 | Italy | 6.5 | 2.2 | 8.7 |
| 23 | Israel | 6.1 | 2.6 | 8.7 |
| 27 | Slovenia | 6.6 | 2.1 | 8.7 |
| 14 | Denmark | 7.1 | 1.5 | 8.6 |
| 121 | South Africa | 3.5 | 5.1 | 8.6 |
| 19 | New Zealand | 6.5 | 1.9 | 8.4 |
| 66 | Bosnia and Herzegovina | 4.1 | 4.2 | 8.3 |
| 46 | Uruguay | 3.6 | 4.6 | 8.2 |
| 110 | Nicaragua | 3.9 | 4.3 | 8.2 |
| 13 | Spain | 5.7 | 2.4 | 8.1 |
| 16 | United Kingdom | 7 | 1.1 | 8.1 |
France and Canada pay a fraction of what we do for Health Care and have far better outcomes, England pays half - literally HALF - what we pay and nearly equals our results. It should be a source of national shame and disgrace.
We simply can not afford to continue being gouged for Health Care at this rate by Private Companies. They're DROWNING THE NATION in Red ink. We simply can't afford to keep doing what we have been.
What do these people who just love these corporations have to say the families of people like Eric De La Cruz and Nataline Sarkisyan after their care was Rationed by Private Insurance accelerating their untimely deaths?
GLENDALE, Calif. - The family of a 17-year-old girl who died hours after her health insurer reversed a decision and said it would pay for a liver transplant plans to sue the company, their attorney said Friday.
Nataline Sarkisyan died Thursday at about 6 p.m. at the University of California, Los Angeles Medical Center. She had been in a vegetative state for weeks, said her mother, Hilda.
Attorney Mark Geragos said he plans to ask the district attorney to press murder or manslaughter charges against Cigna HealthCare in the case. The insurer "maliciously killed her" because it did not want to bear the expense of her transplant and aftercare, Geragos said.
What do they say to the other 18,000 people this happens to per year while the Health Care Industries continue to Rank in 3 of the Top Ten Slots for profitable companies on the Fortune 500?
| 1 | Network and Other Communications Equipment | 28.8% |
| 2 | Mining, Crude-Oil Production | 23.8% |
| 3 | Pharmaceuticals | 15.8% |
| 4 | Medical Products and Equipment | 15.2% |
| 5 | Oil and Gas Equipment, Services | 13.7% |
| 6 | Commercial Banks | 12.6% |
| 7 | Railroads | 12.4% |
| 8 | Entertainment | 12.4% |
| 9 | Insurance: Life, Health (stock) | 10.6% |
| 10 | Household and Personal Products | 10.2% |
How could a Public Option NOT cost less and be more efficient than this?
A Private Option might have saved Eric and Nataline at least for a while longer - no one lives forever - but it would have dipped into the profit of these companies. Which do you think should be our most important issue? Profit or Life?
We need the courage for a paradigm shift forward, not fear mongering to hold us back.
I don't think that's too much to ask.
Vyan
1 comment:
We first heard from the birthers, with their fake “birth certificate” in hand and with their fake outrage. These are the same under tones that you saw from Republicans during the confirmation hearings for Sonia Sotomayor, "you are not like us" or "you are too different", “you are not main stream”. And then they act surprised when people do not vote with them, they are lost, no core beliefs, too bad.
In my opinion the Republican Party has been taken over the most extreme religious right (people who love to push their beliefs on others while at the same time trying to take away their rights) and that’s who they need to focus on if they real want to win. Good Luck, because as they said in WACO, “We Ain’t Coming Out”.
It’s funny we hear Republicans say that they do not want “faceless bureaucrats” making medical decisions but they have no problem with “private sector” “faceless bureaucrats” daily declining medical coverage and financially ruining good hard working people. And who says that the “private sector” is always right, do we forget failures like Long-Term Capital, WorldCom, Global Crossing, Enron, Tyco, AIG and Lehman Brothers. Of course the federal government will destroy heathcare by getting involved, Oh but wait our military men and women and the Senate and Congress get the best heathcare in the world, and oh, that’s right, its run by our federal government. I can understand why some may think that the federal government will fail, if you look at the past eight years as a current history, with failures like the financial meltdown, Katrina, and the Walter Reed Scandal but the facts is they can and if we support them they will succeed.
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