A nation should provide affordable care, or at the very least ensure that affordable care exists, for its citizens.

Most nations provide protection from external harm in the form of a military. Do those of you that oppose “paying for someone else’s healthcare” as you like to phrase it, feel that the military shouldn’t protect those that don’t have a job? By your definition of citizenship the only duty a person need perform is pay taxes to be considered a citizen. Don’t more citizens die every year from sickness versus those that are victims of terrorism or war?
Doesn’t our country oversee, develop, and enforce standards in almost every aspect of industry & manufacturing?
What if that system had been a privatized, for profit, competition based system. A system that was rife with corruption, convolution, and driven by profit versus basic humanity.
Wouldn’t we as citizens of that country demand that the standards of our workplace, the quality of our motorcycle helmets, the requirements for food handling at our favorite restaurant be handled by federally funded departments? I would.

The healthcare industry, mostly the pharmaceutical, sees the biggest profits when more of its *customers* are very unhealthy. How can this continue? This is almost worse than the tobacco industry. They’re at least being slightly honest. They’re not telling anyone they’re making themselves healthier by using tobacco products.
Shouldn’t prescription medications for some illnesses carry a warning label stating that the benefits provided by it could be acheived via other methods and behaviors? Such as diet, excercise? Or is that solely the job of the doctor? Right, the doctor we never go see… because it is way too expensive. In part because malpractice insurance is out of control for the doctors. Also because most of them have trouble getting paid by insurance companies and by individuals that have no insurance. Some doctors will give you a discount if you pay cash! They’re overhead and cost of doing business is too high, too complicated, too much in the way of the oaths they took to remain.

At its core the problem with healthcare is a power struggle… one of money not human well-being. Insurance companies should at least be as transparent in their intentions as banks. Right?

Bank Customer:
“Here. Hold my money. If I need it, I will take it. I’ll pay your fees if I make a boo boo. You’ll pay me some interest on profits you make by using/investing my money.”

Bank:
“Yes. We’ll do that. Thank you for choosing us as your bank. And the FDIC insures your money at this bank.”

as opposed to this…

Health insurance customer:
“Here’s some money. Pay my doctor if I need some services from them.”

Health Insurance Company:
“I’m sorry. That procedure was coded as a 123w09 by your doctor. We are only responsible for paying 30% on a 123w09. Your doctor probably should have coded it a 123w00 but they knew that you would be resonsible for more of te cost and figured they could get the money from you much faster and easier than from us.”

-or-

“I’m sorry. The plan your employer picked for you does not cover the cost of the hearing aid, but we will pay for 90% of the cost of the appointment that determined you suffer from acute tenitis and have lost 35% of your hearing.”

-and all the while-

“We won’t share any of the massive profits we make investing the money you give us.”

I could go on.

So, if anyone (private or public insuree) can walk into a healthcare facility and expect to receive some decent, affordable level of care you will raise moral.
Raise moral and you will make your nation’s citizen’s a bit happier, and happier leads to healthier.
We’re all In this together.

This quote from Elvis Costello’s “All This Useless Beauty” loops in my mind whenever I think about this *issue*:

“And our leaders have feasts / On the backsides of beasts / They still think their the gods of antiquity…”

Legend:
our leaders = the privelaged
beasts = the average citizen

Posted via email from jeremy mandle posts here.

12seconds.tv – Decision 2008 as told by our badass 12ers
from Jacob Knobel on Vimeo.

Last night, President-Elect Barack Obama delivered the final speech of a presidential campaign that promised change in Washington:

Now the work begins to deliver on this promise by planning the agenda and priorities for the Obama Administration. As the President-Elect reminded the country:

What began 21 months ago in the depths of winter cannot end on this autumn night. This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were. It can’t happen without you, without a new spirit of service, a new spirit of sacrifice. So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other.

Change.gov provides resources to better understand the transition process and the decisions being made as part of it. It also offers an opportunity to be heard about the challenges our country faces and your ideas for tackling them. The Obama Administration will reflect an essential lesson from the success of the Obama campaign: that people united around a common purpose can achieve great things. President-Elect Obama reminded the country of our limitless potential when he claimed this victory:

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

Won’t you go home Ms. Palin, won’t you go home?
We moan the whole day long.
He’ll do the cooking darling, They’ll pay the rent;
We know you’ve done us wrong;
Member that moose you field dressed? Won’t you miss that?
Stuck on Pennsylvania Ave?
We know Johnny’s to blame; well ain’t that your shame?
Ms. Palin won’t you please GO HOME?

based on:
Won’t You Come Home Bill Bailey wiki
Its words and music were written by Hughie Cannon (1877 – 1912), an American songwriter and pianist.
(Won’t You Come Home) Bill Bailey”, originally titled “Bill Bailey, Won’t You Please Come Home” is a popular song published in 1902.

Campaign for Change office in West Chester, PA... a great place to do some work for "That One" on a Saturday. Find the Campaign for Change office in your area.

Clips edited together by CNN

The first passage to watch starts at 25 seconds in. A participant tells McCain he’s “scared” of any Obama presidency and McCain responds that he “is a decent person and a person you do not have to be scared [of] as President of the United States.”

Those are the words. But look at the facial expressions. McCain looks down as he says it and has the countenance of someone who been forced to tell someone else they’re sorry. There’s some mix of gritting your teeth and saying something you don’t want to say mixed with some sort of shamefacedness. Look at the video. Because while I feel like I intuitively ‘get’ the gestures I find it hard to quite capture them in words. Perhaps you’ll do better and you can share your thoughts with me.

In the next clip McCain is speaking up close with a woman in the audience who says she can’t trust Obama and then blurts out that it’s because he’s “Arab”. Some reports have it that she said ‘Arab terrorist’. But at least on this tape only ‘Arab’ is audible.

McCain shakes his head, as though losing his patience and snatches the mic back out of woman’s hands. “No, Ma’am. No, Ma’am. He’s a decent family man, citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues.” Again, there’s a lot there when you actually see the video. And I encourage you to watch.

I get from his expression a sense of a man that is, in addition to all the other things he’s angry about, is frustrated or angry at the situation he’s gotten himself into. But he has sown the wind and now he’s reaping the whirlwind. “Even,” says TPM Reader RB, “as he says ‘You don’t have to be scared of an Obama presidency’ to a handful of followers (and, more importantly, of national reporters), he is spending millions to bombard as many people as he can with the ad named “Dangerous”. The small hand giveth, and the large hand taketh away.” more…

By Josh Marshall – 10.10.08 – 11:28PM
Complete article on Talking Points Memo http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/223572.php

John McCain: If your campaign does not stop equating Sen. Barack Obama with terrorism, questioning his patriotism and portraying Mr. Obama as “not one of us,” I accuse you of deliberately feeding the most unhinged elements of our society the red meat of hate, and therefore of potentially instigating violence.At a Sarah Palin rally, someone called out, “Kill him!” At one of your rallies, someone called out, “Terrorist!” Neither was answered or denounced by you or your running mate, as the crowd laughed and cheered. At your campaign event Wednesday in Bethlehem, Pa., the crowd was seething with hatred for the Democratic nominee – an attitude encouraged in speeches there by you, your running mate, your wife and the local Republican chairman.

Shame!

John McCain: In 2000, as a lifelong Republican, I worked to get you elected instead of George W. Bush. In return, you wrote an endorsement of one of my books about military service. You seemed to be a man who put principle ahead of mere political gain.

You have changed. You have a choice: Go down in history as a decent senator and an honorable military man with many successes, or go down in history as the latest abettor of right-wing extremist hate.

Frank Schaeffer, writing in the Baltimore Sun … read more

Frank Schaeffer is a writer and author of “CRAZY FOR GOD-How I Grew Up As One Of The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To Take All (Or Almost All) Of It Back

If you liked this article by Frank, check this out, written back in March 2008
Obama’s Minister Committed “Treason” But When My Father Said the Same Thing He Was a Republican Hero