Health Care Reform

House Republicans’ War Against Health Care Legislation! :(

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House Republicans have announced that they will hold a vote on January 12 on repeal of the Obama Health Care legislation, which is just beginning to go into effect as the new year begins.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has made it clear that the US Senate will NOT support repeal, and of course, it is obvious that President Obama will veto any such legislation, were it to reach his desk.

So what is the point of such a vote, which Michele Bachmann and others says will be brought up weekly if it does not pass? 🙁

It is to please the Tea Party Nation activists who want to destroy everything positive that has been done by the Obama Administration in the first two years of the Obama Presidency. It is a right wing attempt to help powerful special interest groups that want to further the aim of making the top few percent of the nation richer than ever, as if there is not enough stratification of the society already, much more than any nation that is said to be democratic in nature in this world! 🙁

The Republican Party is warring on the American people and their best interests, and they are demonstrating very clearly that they have no agenda other than to put America back to the year 2008, as if Barack Obama had never been elected President. 🙁

Their efforts will be unproductive, until if they win control of the Senate and the White House, and by 2013, it will be clear that public opinion does not wish a repeal of the health care legislation.

The House Republicans are fighting a rear guard action which will just be for propaganda reasons, and health care will survive, including a Supreme Court decision probably by the end of 2012, and the GOP will look in history as against a necessary reform, advocated for a century and long overdue!

Republicans Gone Mad: Jan Brewer And Mitt Romney Go Neanderthal! :(

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It is very obvious that the next two years of Republican control of the House of Representatives is going to be a literal “nightmare” for the country, and the attempt to promote “compromise” or “common ground” as Speaker to be John Boehner terms it, is almost certain to fail, and not because Barack Obama is causing it.

But it is not just Congress that will be a center of conflict. It is already showing up in other ways that are very alarming! 🙁

We have Arizona Governor Jan Brewer denying transplants to about 100 very sick people, and saying they should ask the federal government for more stimulus money, something the GOP has been totally against until now! 🙁

But the cost involved for these approximately 100 patients is only 5 million dollars! So Republican Governor Jan Brewer does not believe in the “right to life” for transplant candidates, but insists that every fetus must come to term! And this is the party of Sarah Palin who talked about Obama’s health care plan promoting “death panels”! And what is this going on in Arizona, and probably soon in other states? Have we lost all our humanity? 🙁

Then, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, seen by many intelligent, rational people as probably the best potential nominee for President in his party, including the author, suddenly starts to appeal to the extreme right wing of his party by proposing that unemployment compensation be privatized, a shocking idea that people should open up accounts for the threat of unemployment in the future, with their own investments in the stock market, similar to what George W. Bush proposed for Social Security in 2005, which if it had been done, would have totally destroyed Social Security in 2008 when the stock market crashed! 🙁

If Romney is trying to appeal to the hard right of his party, heaven help us! Who is there out there that we can call a sane, civilized candidate who this nation could live with? Has Mitt Romney gone mad in his quest to be President, that now he backs away from his own state health care plan in Massachusetts, and obviously will now promote privatizing of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid? How will he differentiate himself from the “loonies’ in his party if he is to adopt every demagogic concept they advocate? 🙁

This is not just being partisan, what Brewer and Romney are advocating, it is TOTAL INSANITY! 🙁

It is attempting to take all morality, all decency, out of American politics!

It is aiming to destroy the New Deal and Great Society which has humanized this nation over the past 75 years!

It is saying everyone is in this world just for himself, and to hell with anyone who is suffering from illness, unemployment, poverty, deprivation!

The message being sent is that this is a country of, by, and for the wealthy, and the “American dream” is to take as much as one can gain, no matter how it is acquired, as basic common decency no longer applies! To hell with those less fortunate or needy, as this is unadulterated laissez faire capitalism at its best! 🙁

The GOP is declaring war on common decency and morality and ethics, and the fight must begin to overcome this threat to our principles! The future of this nation as a beacon of freedom and opportunity is at stake! 🙁

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli And The Health Care Legislation

Ronald 1 Comment

Yesterday, a Virginia District Court judge appointed by President George W. Bush ruled that the Health Care reform law passed by Congress was unconstitutional, because it would require citizens, who could afford it, to buy health care insurance by 2014.

This decision was the first by the opponents of Health Care reform, after two other district court judges, one in Virginia and one in Michigan, declared the law constitutional.

This decision yesterday was hailed by conservatives and Republicans who want the Health Care reform repealed by Congress.

It was also a victory for Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli who led the fight to bring about this result.

Cuccinelli’s contention is that the federal government cannot force anyone to buy health care insurance, and compared it to requiring that a person buy a particular car. 🙁

This is totally preposterous as a comparison, and forgets that if one does not purchase health insurance, then when such an individual suddenly has health care issues, WE THE PEOPLE pay for them, adding to everyone’s tax burden! 🙁

Is that responsible, Mr. Cuccinelli, that all of us have to pay for the irresponsibility of others to avoid being concerned with their own health? What is more important in a person’s life than his or her own health care? 🙁

Going by Mr. Cuccinelli’s reasoning, why should anyone pay taxes? Why should anyone in the time of a military draft have to serve? Why should anyone have to pay auto insurance, which most states require, and in the cases of those states which don’t demand auto insurance coverage, all of the rest of the population sees their insurance rates go sky high to cover for the irresponsibility of those who will not buy such coverage? 🙁

Part of the responsibility of every individual is to take on the understanding that necessities come before pleasure, a hard concept for many in this society! 🙁

If one can afford ipods, iphones, ipads, fancy cars, smoking, drinking, etc, one must understand that one MUST pay for health care coverage so as to take the burden off the rest of us! 🙁

And why is it Ken Cuccinelli and other conservatives are only too willing to control our social existence, as with abortion, gay rights, etc, but refuse to see that economic regulation is also necessary in the public interest? 🙁

And also, Mr. Cuccinelli, are you really wishing to promote “welfare”, where we all have to pay for others? Is that a conservative belief? You would say OF COURSE NOT, but yet that is the effect of what you are advocating, along with denying other aspects of the health care law that might also be ruled unconstitutional by the courts, including pre-existing conditions no longer being covered, which seems not to bother you! 🙁

Is this a government of WE THE PEOPLE, or only WE THE RICH PEOPLE who shall have health care , Mr. Cuccinelli? 🙁

Tenth Anniversary Of Bush V. Gore Supreme Court Decision: Its Effect On America! :(

Ronald 1 Comment

This weekend marks the tenth anniversary of the Supreme Court intervention in the 2000 Presidential Election, the infamous case of Bush V. Gore.

The Republican majority Supreme Court took an unconstitutional action, unprecedented in American history, when it interfered in the vote recount in Florida to declare George W. Bush the winner over Al Gore by the measly margin of 537 votes despite a substantial popular vote lead of Gore, throwing the 25 electoral votes of Florida into the Bush camp, and making him the closest winner of the Electoral College since the 1876 Presidential Election, when Rutherford B. Hayes was declared the winner of the electoral college by one vote, despite a popular vote lead by Samuel Tilden.

There was nothing in the Constitution that provided for such a Supreme Court intervention, and for a Court with Antonin Scalia preaching “originalism”, it was a shocking abuse of power, but with no recourse by Gore or anyone else, as the old adage of Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes reverberated: “The Constitution is what the Supreme Court says it is!”

The effects of eight years of the George W. Bush Presidency have been massive, most of it bad, and one has to wonder how the nation would have been under eight years of Al Gore.

Of course, conservatives and Republicans will be praising the fact that Al Gore never made it to the White House, but it is clear that in many ways, life would have been different in America had Gore taken the oath of office.

Among the differences:

1. The war in Afghanistan would have been on the front burner, not on the back burner, and Osama Bin Laden would likely have been captured or killed, instead of being allowed to escape.
2. The Iraq War would likely have not been waged, and instead the problem of Iran likely would have been addressed in a way whereby Iran would not be the major menace it is today in international affairs, as the Iraq War only strengthened Iran in the Middle East.
3. The reaction to Hurricane Katrina would have been far different, and New Orleans would be further along toward recovery with far less loss of life at the time of the tragedy.
4. The national debt would not have been doubled, as it was from 5 to 10 trillion under Bush, as the massive Bush tax cuts would not have occurred, and the massive spending on two wars at the same time would not have been done.
5. The Medicare Part D legislation would not have occurred, but if it developed in any form, would have been paid for, not adding massively to the national debt.
6. Torture would not have been endorsed by President Gore as it has been by President George W. Bush.
7.We would not have witnessed the abuse of power by Vice President Dick Cheney, who scarred the Vice Presidency’s reputation.
8. There never would have been a second time in the Defense Department for Donald Rumsfeld, who served earlier under President Gerald Ford, and that would have been good for the military who go into our combat operations.
9. Movement on the environment, particularly on global warming and climate change, would have been further accomplished than it has been.
10. The issue of poverty, which was being pursued as a future subject for consideration by Bill Clinton in his last year as
President, would have been a major agenda item by a President Gore.
11.The Gore Presidency would have been, generally, another age of progressive reform, more the true successor to the Great Society of Lyndon B. Johnson, than the comparatively disappointing Presidencies of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton in the eras of domestic reform.
12. Health care reform would likely have been passed years earlier than it has been under President Barack Obama.

It is clear that America today would be a very different country had only the Supreme Court stayed out of the Presidential Election of 2000, and the nation today suffers from the tragedy of eight years of George W. Bush! 🙁

“Death Panels” And “Pulling The Plug”: The Ultimate GOP Hypocrisy! :(

Ronald 1 Comment

During the long debate over the Obama Health Care reform legislation, the nation heard from Iowa Republican Senator Chuck Grassley and former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, among others, that President Obama was promoting “death panels” and “pulling the plug on Grandma”! These were, of course, totally false accusations, but since when does the GOP care about the truth? 🙁

But now, it turns out that the state of Arizona is indeed promoting the equivalent of “death panels” and “pulling the plug” in order to cut Medicaid services for their poorest citizens! 🙁

The cut involves withdrawing Medicaid coverage of certain kinds of transplants as a way to save the state money. But it is also saying life is not important if you are poor and cannot afford such surgery because you lack the ability to pay for health care coverage! 🙁

Suddenly, the “right to life” comes after saving money, but do you hear Senator Grassley or former Governor Palin or Arizona Senators John McCain or Jon Kyl speaking up in outrage? 🙁

Does one hear Governor Jan Brewer show any concern about the death warrant the cut in Medicaid services brings? 🙁

There is a 32 year old man in Arizona who desperately needs a liver transplant, has a wife and four children, but lost his job and medical coverage, came under Medicaid, and now is told he can only have transplant surgery if he comes up with $200,000 as a deposit to the hospital! 🙁

Is this the kind of country we want to become, where money stands in the way of saving lives? Are we comfortable with a young man in his thirties with children to have to die while the government stands by and does nothing for him? 🙁

A thought crosses the mind, considering we are talking about Arizona! Could it be that there is lack of concern in that state, the infamous one of the new illegal immigration law designed against Latinos now being contested in the courts, BECAUSE the young man in his thirties is a Latino? Good question to wonder about, heh? 🙁

And what about all those “good Christians” out there who claim to care about life, and are not yet rushing to provide financial support for this young man? How about it, don’t just preach and moralize, and take some action to back up your rhetoric! Don’t bet on it! 🙁

What a total example of hypocrisy by Republicans, conservatives and “good Christians” who claim to be against so called “death panels” and “pulling the plug”! 🙁

The Harsh Reality: The Republicans Control The Senate, Even Though They Do Not Have The Majority Of Seats! :(

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The vote this morning in the Senate on the tax cut extension legislation proves what many do not want to admit! 🙁

The Republican Party controls the Senate, even though they do not have the majority of seats! 🙁

So the Republican Party will control what goes on in both houses in the 112th Congress, despite the fact that the Democrats will have 53 seats in the new Senate! 🙁

At this point, with more seats than they will have next year, the Democrats were unsuccessful in their goal of stopping tax cuts for the top two percent of the population, while continuing it for the other 98 percent of the population!

The amendment by Montana Senator Max Baucus to retain the tax cuts for individuals earning up to $200,000 and for couples earning up to $250,000 failed miserably! 🙁

But also, New York Senator Chuck Schumer proposed a modified deal, which would have kept tax cuts for incomes up to $1 million, meaning only the top ONE percent earning more than a million dollars would have seen their taxes increase, and still it was unattainable in a Senate with more Democrats than will be present next year! 🙁

Of course, the culprit is the Senate filibuster, which requires 60 votes to stop a filibuster, impossible almost always with 59 Senators who were Democrats and Independents, but certainly inconceivable with only 53 Democrats and Independents in the Senate for the next two years! 🙁

There will be a move in the new Senate by younger Democratic Senators to change the rules of the Senate to lower the number needed to overcome a filibuster, but it can be seen that it is highly doubtful that any change will occur, so reality is: The Republicans will control both chambers of Congress effectively for the next two years, and will do everything conceivable to prevent any successes for President Obama’s agenda, as their only goal is his defeat in 2012 and the destruction of the Obama Health Care legislation and other reforms in 2013, when they hope to win the Presidency and the Senate, and take us back to the past! 🙁

The Hypocrisy Of Freshman Republican Congressman Andy Harris On Health Care! :(

Ronald 1 Comment

Congressman elect Andy Harris of Maryland is a doctor who ran for Congress opposed to the Obama Health Care reform legislation!

Harris seems to have forgotten the Hippocratic Oath, as he was unconcerned about the reality of 30 million and more Americans lacking any health care, many with pre-existing conditions! 🙁

Instead, he has subscribed to the Hypocritical Oath–to condemn health care while being a doctor by profession, but complaining that the government sponsored health care plan for Congressmen does not kick in for a month after he takes the oath! 🙁

Harris had the gall at an orientation meeting for new members of Congress to complain about having no health care coverage for a month, when many have not had it for many years, and will continue to be in that state if the repeal of health care legislation ever comes about!

One would think that Dr. Harris should have enough wealth that he can afford to cover his own health care for a month!

In fact, one has to suggest why Harris would want to expect taxpayers to cover his health care costs, when he has plenty of assets to afford it on his own, unlike the millions of Americans who lack any ability to pay for health care!

Why doesn’t Harris think of government paid health care for him as “socialism”, and reject it?

In fact, why don’t the American people demand that all critics of the Obama Health Care plan be denied coverage, whether already in Congress or newly elected?

In other words, Republican naysayers, practice what you preach! Turn down any “handouts” from the government, and save taxpayers money!

Why The 111th Congress Will Be Seen Positively In American History Despite Election Results!

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A question that has arisen recently is how to judge the actions of Congress in historical terms.

If a party loses control of Congress after bringing about historic legislation, does that mean it should be regarded as a failure for the party historically?

Many are saying that Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Party have failed, because they have lost control of the House of Representatives by the biggest margin since 1938!

Others would, however, say that in the long run of history, the fact of repudiation means nothing, as the health care legislation and other massive changes passed by the 111th Congress will be long lasting, and eventually be seen as positive upon reflection!

Are momentary reactions to leadership always seen as accurate in historical terms? If that were true, then Abraham Lincoln and Harry Truman would still be regarded as among the worst Presidents we have had, instead of being ranked in the top five of our Presidents, with Lincoln first and Truman fifth!

Is the only purpose of holding power to continue to win elections, or to bring about reforms that affect the country long term?

Despite the results of the election, it is still a fact that the present Congress has accomplished more good for the nation than any since 1965-1966, 1933-1934, and 1913-1914, and despite much rhetoric in the past against those Congresses, what they did has had a long range impact on the nation, as this Congress will have, when we look back in future generations, and wonder why there was such short sightedness and anger over the good actions taken in the midst of economic hard times!

History will record that it was the Democratic Party under Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Barack Obama which brought about fundamental change in so many ways, and that it was the Republican Party which stood in the way of reform, but despite later Congressional gains, failed to repeal the reforms that have made America a better place for the middle and lower classes, even as the upper class wealthy condemned what was happening as “socialism”!

So forget all the rhetoric of the campaign, and the pledges to “repeal” what has happened, as it will NOT happen, and the Republican Party will suffer as it attempts to destroy the changes that the Democratic Party has courageously brought about!

Nancy Pelosi may be condemned by many, but she will remembered as the Speaker of the House who historians will record as the path breaking Speaker who will compete with Sam Rayburn and Thomas “Tip” O’Neill as the greatest Speaker in the past one hundred years!

Obama Appointment Of Medicare-Medicaid Administrator By Recess Appointment Totally Justified!

Ronald 1 Comment

President Obama has appointed Donald Berwick as the head of the Center For Medicare and Medicaid Services as a means to move ahead on the reforms brought about in the Health Care Reform legislation signed into law in March!

The Republicans in the Senate were intending to block the appointment by use of the filibuster, as they have done on many judicial nominees! Their intention has been to do everything to prevent enforcement and establishment of the changes required by the law, as a first step to what they hope is repeal of the legislation!

So Obama is playing “hardball”, not bending anymore to the GOP opposition! By doing this, he may alienate the Republicans, but what is new, as they have shown no intention to cooperate!

Also, recess appointments are nothing new, as past Presidents, and particularly President George W. Bush, utilized this tactic on a regular basis!

Even though there may be some animus created, it is important for President Obama to show that he is not going to be “pushed around” and blocked from doing what is necessary to accomplish his goals in office!

Imagining Speaker Of The House John Boehner: Not A Pleasant Thought! :(

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Congressman John Boehner of Ohio, the Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, has served in Congress for twenty years. He is the Speaker in waiting, meaning if his party wins 39 or more seats beyond what they have now, then he will become Speaker of the House for the 112th Congress in 2011-2012!

The question that arises is what kind of Speaker he would be if the GOP did indeed gain 39 or more seats and have a majority!

Would John Boehner be any less partisan than Nancy Pelosi, Denny Hastert, or Newt Gingrich before him? Based on observations of others and the record of how he has conducted himself in opposition during the 18 months of the Obama Administration, the answer is NO!

Would he accomplish positive change for the nation, including cutting spending and promoting movement toward a balanced budget? Based on the GOP experience for the twelve years (1994-2006) that they controlled the House, the answer is NO!

The reality is that Boehner’s intention is to repeal the Health Care Reform law, and cut back ruthlessly on the entitlements brought about by the New Deal and the Great Society! It is no secret that the aim of the GOP leadership is to be negative, and begin the attack on the Democrats and President Obama, in order to get ready for a full scale assault in the Presidential Election of 2012! 🙁

There is no good will, no desire to compromise, no willingness to concede in any form, on the part of John Boehner and his colleagues! 🙁

If the American people allow themselves to believe that a GOP takeover will bring heaven on earth, they will have a rude awakening come January 2011! And as outgoing GOP Senator Robert Bennett has stated, the Republicans might win, but then rapidly lose power, if they continue to have no vision, no agenda, no program, other than to block any change or progress promoted by Barack Obama and the Democratic Party! 🙁