Day: January 7, 2011

Irony Of Republican Attempt To Repeal Obama Health Care Plan: It Would Add To National Debt, Raise Health Care Costs, and Be A Job Killer! :(

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The House Republicans are attempting to repeal the Obama Health Care legislation, which will fail, in any circumstances, with the Democratic controlled Senate and President Barack Obama standing in the way!

But the irony is that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office makes it clear that doing such a repeal would add to the national debt, raise the cost of health care for everyone, and be a job killer to boot! 🙁

Medical spending would go up by $125 billion by the end of this decade; add $2,000 annually to each family’s health care premiums; and destroy 250,000 to 400,000 jobs annually over the next decade.

As Democrats have also pointed out, it would help promote more deaths of people who have no access to health care; would take away coverage of young people to the age of 26; would restore pre-existing conditions as a method insurance companies could use to deny health care coverage to millions, including many children; and open up the “donut hole” for medications for seniors, which is starting to close up, with 50 percent cut in the cost of brand name prescriptions newly instituted.

The truth about the Republicans is that they have no concern that millions have been denied health care coverage! They also have no concern that transplant patients in Arizona are being denied the ability to survive, with two already having died because the Republican Governor, Jan Brewer, has no compassion or interest in helping sick people, all over budget issues, when one can be sure there are other ways to cut budgets besides setting up what are the equivalent of “death panels”! 🙁

It is extremely ironic that Republicans argued about so called “death panels’ in the Obama Health Care legislation, which did not exist at all, but yet now REAL “death panels” are occurring in Arizona, and probably soon elsewhere! 🙁

Where are these Republicans now, including Speaker of the House John Boehner, Arizona Senators John McCain and Jon Kyl. and former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin? Why is it that they are not outraged by this, and feel the need and moral standing to speak up for LIFE, particularly when they are all supposedly PRO-LIFE for fetuses, but not apparently for sick people of all ages?

The Republican Party should be condemned for their lack of compassion, empathy, and concern for those who are sick!:(

They forget: “There but for the grace of God go I!”!

Just What Is Needed? Donald Trump For President? NO! :(

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Every day now it seems another public figure comes out and talks about possibly pursuing the Presidency in 2012.

Speculation developed in the past week about Jon Huntsman, Jeb Bush and Michele Bachmann. Now Donald Trump has started to talk as if the nation needs him to run!

Is that what we need? Do we need a real estate mogul, who is extremely cocky, arrogant, self serving, loves publicity, has his own show where he can fire people, narcissistic and has gone bankrupt with no apologies?

Donald Trump is a brilliant, intelligent person, certainly admirable in many ways, but what we do not need is another businessman running for President, as despite what people often say, a government is NOT a business, and businessmen do not have the proper training nor empathy to understand human needs, as all that matters to them is making profit and avoiding taxation.

Such a combination will NOT solve the problems of this country, and Donald Trump would be even more insufferable as President than he is right now! 🙁

Florida Governor Rick Scott: A Disaster In The Making! :(

Ronald 1 Comment

Rick Scott, who spent $73 million of his own fortune, and was CEO of the disgraced for profit hospital chain, Columbia-HCA, which was fined the largest fine ever for Medicare fraud, became Governor of Florida this week, and the state faces a true disaster with his coming into leadership of state government! 🙁

Scott, with no political experience, and attacking the GOP establishment in the state, ended up winning by the smallest margin in Florida history, about 50,000 votes, way behind the other state Republican election victory margins. He proceeded to have a lavish inauguration and has cozied up to all the GOP establishment that he condemned during his campaign.

Scott has made it clear that he wants to run Florida as a business, and is out to destroy public education as quickly as he can!

He has pledged to create 700,000 private sector jobs in seven years, a very tall order, hard to imagine being accomplished.

He and the heavily GOP legislature must figure out a way to cut $3 billion from the state budget, in order to balance the budget, and has made it clear that he wants to promote corporate interests, while destroying labor unions, the Medicaid program, and the whole pension system for state workers, along with cutting the work force of state government, despite the constantly growing population.

Scott is hobnobbing with business interests and lobbyists, and has made it clear that he wants to streamline government regulations. He also wants to slash $1 billion from the state prison system, which sounds unrealistic considering the large number of prisoners Florida has, as compared to most states.

Discussion of cutting business income taxes and property taxes sounds impossible, as they are already low, and as more taxes are cut, the state budgetary situation will be more desperate, and social services, already far from adequate, will be harmed further.

He has found it difficult to staff his administration due to the notoriously low pay scale in Florida government employment, even though there have been constant attacks on state workers as somehow being overpaid, which is preposterous.

Scott also is the kind of leader who has demonstrated unwillingness to be open and accessible to the news media, as during his campaign, he refused to have many contacts with journalists, showing a high level of arrogance.

Florida is in for a true disaster in the making, as Scott should not be Governor, but instead should be in prison for his financial irregularities which have put others, far less abusive, in state and federal prison.

Will Florida be better off with this man as Governor? To believe that is to believe in the tooth fairy, and it will only add to Florida’s reputation as a state which is moving backward, rather than forward! 🙁

The Crisis Of The States: The Worst Is Yet To Come! :(

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With Republicans taking over the House of Representatives and many state governorships and state legislatures, the center of crisis will descend upon many of the states of the Union! 🙁

A Census Bureau report demonstrates that the Great Recession caused the loss of 30 percent of the states’ revenues in 2009, due to the high unemployment rate, the dramatic rise in foreclosures of housing, and the tremendous investment losses in the state pension funds.

The result is large budget deficits and increasing social service demands. Unemployment benefits, medicaid, and workers compensation needs became dramatically higher.

The year 2011 will be the worst ever in pressures on states, with the need to have tax increases and service cuts to deal with the largest budget deficits ever seen.

Forty states have reported a combined total of $113 billion in deficits, and the federal stimulus aid that the Obama Administration gave in the past year to avoid the loss of jobs and services in the public sector now is coming to an end. The Republicans show no interest in the suffering that will occur, that will cause many more unemployed people and horrific cuts in services, including education, health care, police and fire protection! 🙁

The only rhetoric we hear is that there must be reduction of federal spending and overcoming the federal budget deficits, as no one is thinking about the human costs that will occur across the country! 🙁

The budget gaps are particularly dramatic in California, New York and Illinois, and it will affect not just the general public in these and other states, but also the issue of state pensions and state worker employment.

So the economic crisis is far from over, and will almost certainly be reaching its peak over the next few years! 🙁