Tea Party "Protests"
"A staffer for Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) told reporters that Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) had been spat on by a protestor. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a hero of the civil rights movement, was called a 'ni--er.' And Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) was called a "faggot," as protestors shouted at him with deliberately lisp-y screams."
WHAT?!
"But Clyburn was downright incredulous, saying he had not witnessed such treatment since he was leading civil rights protests in South Carolina in the 1960s. "
40 years ago, these kinds of epithets were spewed at people, in hatred, distrust, and fear. But that's not how we do things today, is it? Is this how we try to talk to our representatives? Is this how we talk to each other? Will this be how we teach our children to talk?
This is deeply troubling to me. Check this out:
Tea Party = Ku Klux Klan
Yes, it's propaganda. Until today, and the news that these wretched words were hurled at our representatives, I thought the analogy went a bit far. Now, I'm not sure. Does the phrase "mob mentality" mean anything? First signs, then words; actions aren't far behind.
If you visit any right-wing website, you'll find more racist, sexist diatribes than you ever thought existed. You won't find this kind of conversation on left-wing sites. Where is civil discourse?
Does anyone remember civil discourse? It is a back-and-forth conversation "that stays within the realm of rational decency. For a discourse to stay within the realm of rational decency, the people involved must follow the requirements of sound rational thinking enough to fit the occasion - even when conforming is inconvenient. Civil discourse is a non-totalitarian approach to mutual problem solving. It is a looser term than 'sound rational thinking' but presupposes enough commitment to sound reasoning to resolve the problem at hand in a cordial manner. Civil discourse can accommodate minor infractions and still be civil. Civil discourse is a moral interaction because it presupposes ethical standards that those involved should follow."
The Roots of Sound Rational Thinking
These people really scare me.
Swirls
Saturday, March 20, 2010
When the Circuses Came to Town
New Left Media, a couple of earnest-looking chaps with cameras and a microphone, wander out among the protesters in front of the Capitol building and take the temperature. Worth checking out:
Two Circuses, complete with two sets of Clowns.
This NEW LEFT MEDIA film was produced and edited by Chase Whiteside (interviewer) and Erick Stoll (camera operator) with additional camera work from Zac Sleeth. Don't you just wish you could've tagged along?
Two Circuses, complete with two sets of Clowns.
This NEW LEFT MEDIA film was produced and edited by Chase Whiteside (interviewer) and Erick Stoll (camera operator) with additional camera work from Zac Sleeth. Don't you just wish you could've tagged along?
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Health Care Reform: Lies and the Truth
Here are some of the lies I've heard:
There is no health care crisis.
The Truth: Roughly 25 million Americans were under-insured in 2007.
The health care system currently works fine.
The Truth: Insurance companies currently cancel policies when their insured customers need treatment.
Health care reform will impose rationing.
The Truth: Insurance companies already ration care.
Health care reform provides for “death panels.”
The Truth: "Death panel" claims have been conclusively discredited—what it does is make end-of-life discussions with doctors be paid for by health insurance.
Under health care reform, you will be denied care, and it will be given to undocumented immigrants instead.
The Truth: The bill stipulates that those "not lawfully present" may not receive subsidies to purchase insurance.
Health care reform will raise your taxes.
The Truth: Not unless you earn over 350,000 a year jointly, or 280,000 as a single filer.
Health care reform would add $1 trillion-plus to deficit.
The Truth: CBO found that House bill would increase the federal budget deficit by $239 billion over 10 years -- not $1 trillion.
House bill would ban private individual insurance.
The Truth: Individual private health insurance plans that do not meet the "grandfather" conditions would still be available for purchase, but only through the exchange and subject to those regulations. The bill does not "outlaw" private individual insurance.
President Obama and the Democrats are pushing "socialized medicine."
The Truth: But as the Urban Institute wrote in an April 2008 analysis, "socialized medicine involves government financing and direct provision of health care services," and therefore, recent progressive health-care reform proposals do not "fit this description." The Veteran Health Administration has a truly “socialized medicine system.”
Government can't be trusted to run a health care program.
The Truth: Medicare costs have risen more slowly than private insurance, and the government, through the Veteran Health Administration, currently provides the "best care anywhere."
The health care reform will put the government between my doctor and me.
The Truth: Insurance companies, entities that make decisions based on cost, not health, are already “between my doctor and me.” There is corruption, incompetency, and greed everywhere, so if the choice is between a for-profit company and a not-for-profit government agency to decide what I need, I think the choice should be obvious.
(Information from Media Matters for America)
Below is a summary of a summary by Mike Kruger, from the following website:
http://edlabor.house.gov/blog/2009/10/affordable-health-care.shtml
The key components of the Affordable health Care for America Act include:
Increasing choice and competition. The bill will protect and improve consumers’ choices.
• If people like their current plans, they will be able to keep them.
• For individuals who aren’t currently covered by their employer, and some small businesses, the proposal will establish a new Health Insurance Exchange where consumers can comparison shop from a menu of affordable, quality health care options that will include private plans, health co-ops, and a new public health insurance option.
• This Exchange will create competition based on quality and price that leads to better coverage and care.
• Patients and doctors will have control over decisions about their health care, instead of insurance companies.
• It will end increases in premiums or denials of care based on pre-existing conditions, race, or gender, and strictly limit age rating.
• The proposal will also eliminate co-pays for preventive care.
• It will cap out-of-pocket expenses to protect every American from bankruptcy.
• Guarantees that every child in America will have health care coverage that includes dental, hearing and vision benefits.
• Provides better preventive and wellness care. Every health care plan offered through the exchange and by employers after a grace period will cover preventive care at no cost to the patient.
• Increases the health care workforce to ensure that more doctors and nurses are available to provide quality care as more Americans get coverage.
• Strengthens Medicare and Medicaid and closes the Medicare Part D ‘donut hole’ so that seniors and low-income Americans receive better quality of care and see lower prescription drug costs and out-of-pocket expenses.
• Employers can continue offering coverage to workers, and those who choose not to offer coverage contribute a fee of eight percent of payroll.
• All individuals will generally be required to get coverage, either through their employer or the exchange, or pay a penalty of 2.5 percent of income, subject to a hardship exemption. Think about car insurance. The more people paying in, the less our premiums go up.
• The federal government will provide affordability credits, available on a sliding scale for low- and middle-income individuals and families to make premiums affordable and reduce cost-sharing.
• Provides transparency in plans in the Health Exchange so that consumers have the clear, complete information, in plain English, needed to select the plan that best meets their needs.
• Establishes consumer advocacy offices as part of the Exchange in order to protect consumers, answer questions, and assist with any problems related to their plans.
• Simplifies paperwork and other administrative burdens. Patients, doctors, nurses, insurance companies, providers, and employers will all encounter a streamlined, less confusing, more consumer friendly system.
• Increases funding of efforts to reduce waste, fraud and abuse; creates enhanced oversight of Medicare and Medicaid programs.
• The legislation will be entirely paid for – it will not add a dime to the deficit.
• It will also put Medicare and Medicaid on the path to a more fiscally sound future, so seniors and low-income Americans can continue to receive the quality health care benefits for years to come.
• Pays for the entire cost of the legislation though a combination of savings achieved by making Medicare and Medicaid more efficient – without cutting seniors’ benefits in any way – and revenue generated from placing a surcharge the top 0.3 percent of all households in the U.S.(married couples with adjusted gross income of over $1,000,000) and other tax measures.
• The Congressional Budget estimates the bill will reduce the deficit by at least $100 billion over ten years.
• Estimates also show the bill will slow the rate of growth of the Medicare program.
It doesn’t include a public option (“socialized”: like the VHA); it doesn’t include a single payer system (like Medicare and Medicaid). It isn’t a simple bill; it tries to do a lot of things. Maybe it will need to be revised almost immediately. But if we don’t do something, this whole country goes down in economic flames, leaving the insurance companies with the pot of gold. Of course, it isn't a good long-term strategy, is it, if eventually no one can afford their policies.
There is no health care crisis.
The Truth: Roughly 25 million Americans were under-insured in 2007.
The health care system currently works fine.
The Truth: Insurance companies currently cancel policies when their insured customers need treatment.
Health care reform will impose rationing.
The Truth: Insurance companies already ration care.
Health care reform provides for “death panels.”
The Truth: "Death panel" claims have been conclusively discredited—what it does is make end-of-life discussions with doctors be paid for by health insurance.
Under health care reform, you will be denied care, and it will be given to undocumented immigrants instead.
The Truth: The bill stipulates that those "not lawfully present" may not receive subsidies to purchase insurance.
Health care reform will raise your taxes.
The Truth: Not unless you earn over 350,000 a year jointly, or 280,000 as a single filer.
Health care reform would add $1 trillion-plus to deficit.
The Truth: CBO found that House bill would increase the federal budget deficit by $239 billion over 10 years -- not $1 trillion.
House bill would ban private individual insurance.
The Truth: Individual private health insurance plans that do not meet the "grandfather" conditions would still be available for purchase, but only through the exchange and subject to those regulations. The bill does not "outlaw" private individual insurance.
President Obama and the Democrats are pushing "socialized medicine."
The Truth: But as the Urban Institute wrote in an April 2008 analysis, "socialized medicine involves government financing and direct provision of health care services," and therefore, recent progressive health-care reform proposals do not "fit this description." The Veteran Health Administration has a truly “socialized medicine system.”
Government can't be trusted to run a health care program.
The Truth: Medicare costs have risen more slowly than private insurance, and the government, through the Veteran Health Administration, currently provides the "best care anywhere."
The health care reform will put the government between my doctor and me.
The Truth: Insurance companies, entities that make decisions based on cost, not health, are already “between my doctor and me.” There is corruption, incompetency, and greed everywhere, so if the choice is between a for-profit company and a not-for-profit government agency to decide what I need, I think the choice should be obvious.
(Information from Media Matters for America)
Below is a summary of a summary by Mike Kruger, from the following website:
http://edlabor.house.gov/blog/2009/10/affordable-health-care.shtml
The key components of the Affordable health Care for America Act include:
Increasing choice and competition. The bill will protect and improve consumers’ choices.
• If people like their current plans, they will be able to keep them.
• For individuals who aren’t currently covered by their employer, and some small businesses, the proposal will establish a new Health Insurance Exchange where consumers can comparison shop from a menu of affordable, quality health care options that will include private plans, health co-ops, and a new public health insurance option.
• This Exchange will create competition based on quality and price that leads to better coverage and care.
• Patients and doctors will have control over decisions about their health care, instead of insurance companies.
• It will end increases in premiums or denials of care based on pre-existing conditions, race, or gender, and strictly limit age rating.
• The proposal will also eliminate co-pays for preventive care.
• It will cap out-of-pocket expenses to protect every American from bankruptcy.
• Guarantees that every child in America will have health care coverage that includes dental, hearing and vision benefits.
• Provides better preventive and wellness care. Every health care plan offered through the exchange and by employers after a grace period will cover preventive care at no cost to the patient.
• Increases the health care workforce to ensure that more doctors and nurses are available to provide quality care as more Americans get coverage.
• Strengthens Medicare and Medicaid and closes the Medicare Part D ‘donut hole’ so that seniors and low-income Americans receive better quality of care and see lower prescription drug costs and out-of-pocket expenses.
• Employers can continue offering coverage to workers, and those who choose not to offer coverage contribute a fee of eight percent of payroll.
• All individuals will generally be required to get coverage, either through their employer or the exchange, or pay a penalty of 2.5 percent of income, subject to a hardship exemption. Think about car insurance. The more people paying in, the less our premiums go up.
• The federal government will provide affordability credits, available on a sliding scale for low- and middle-income individuals and families to make premiums affordable and reduce cost-sharing.
• Provides transparency in plans in the Health Exchange so that consumers have the clear, complete information, in plain English, needed to select the plan that best meets their needs.
• Establishes consumer advocacy offices as part of the Exchange in order to protect consumers, answer questions, and assist with any problems related to their plans.
• Simplifies paperwork and other administrative burdens. Patients, doctors, nurses, insurance companies, providers, and employers will all encounter a streamlined, less confusing, more consumer friendly system.
• Increases funding of efforts to reduce waste, fraud and abuse; creates enhanced oversight of Medicare and Medicaid programs.
• The legislation will be entirely paid for – it will not add a dime to the deficit.
• It will also put Medicare and Medicaid on the path to a more fiscally sound future, so seniors and low-income Americans can continue to receive the quality health care benefits for years to come.
• Pays for the entire cost of the legislation though a combination of savings achieved by making Medicare and Medicaid more efficient – without cutting seniors’ benefits in any way – and revenue generated from placing a surcharge the top 0.3 percent of all households in the U.S.(married couples with adjusted gross income of over $1,000,000) and other tax measures.
• The Congressional Budget estimates the bill will reduce the deficit by at least $100 billion over ten years.
• Estimates also show the bill will slow the rate of growth of the Medicare program.
It doesn’t include a public option (“socialized”: like the VHA); it doesn’t include a single payer system (like Medicare and Medicaid). It isn’t a simple bill; it tries to do a lot of things. Maybe it will need to be revised almost immediately. But if we don’t do something, this whole country goes down in economic flames, leaving the insurance companies with the pot of gold. Of course, it isn't a good long-term strategy, is it, if eventually no one can afford their policies.
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