Myth: Health care reform is socialized medicine.
Fact: Health care reform will preserve the employer-based health care system, meaning an estimated 200 million Americans will continue to get their coverage through their employers.
Fact: For people buying coverage for themselves, there would be a range of private health plans to choose from. Also, the so-called "public plan" option would seek to give American consumers another choice if they can't find affordable, quality coverage in the private insurance market. The goal of the "public plan" is to give consumers the best value for their money and force greater competition among insurance plans for our business.
Fact: Every proposal that Congress is considering would allow people to choose their own doctors and hospitals.
Bottom Line: Health care reform isn't about a government takeover. It's about guaranteeing all Americans a choice of health care plans they can afford.
Myth: Health care reform means rationed care.
Fact: None of the health reform proposals being considered would stand between individuals and their doctors or prevent any American from choosing the best possible care.
Fact: Health care reform will NOT give the government the power to make life or death decisions for anyone regardless of their age. Those decisions will be made by an individual, their doctor and their family.
Fact: Health care reform will help ensure doctors are paid fairly so they will continue to treat Medicare patients.
Bottom Line: Health reform isn't about rationing; it's about giving people the peace of mind of knowing that they will be able to keep their doctors and that they will always have a choice of affordable health plans.
Myth: Health care reform will hurt Medicare.
Fact: None of the health care reform proposals being considered by Congress would cut Medicare benefits or increase your out-of-pocket costs for Medicare services.
Fact: Health care reform will lower prescription drug costs for people in the Medicare Part D coverage gap or "doughnut hole" so they can get better afford the drugs they need.
Fact: Health care reform will protect seniors' access to their doctors and reduce the cost of preventive services so patients stay healthier.
Fact: Health care reform will reduce costly, preventable hospital readmissions, saving patients and Medicare money.
Fact: Rather than weaken Medicare, health care reform will strengthen the financial status of the Medicare program.
Bottom Line: For people in Medicare, health care reform is about lowering prescription drug costs for people in the "doughnut hole", keeping the doctor of your choice, improving the quality of care, and eliminating billions in waste that is causing poor care and medical errors.
Myth: Health care reform is too expensive – we can't afford it.
Fact: The President and Congress have committed to producing legislation that will be paid for so it won't saddle our children and grandchildren with debt.
Fact: If we do nothing to fix health care, families with Medicare or employer-based health coverage will likely see their premiums nearly double again in the next seven years.
Fact: If we do nothing to fix health care, the share of your income spent on health care will nearly double in the next seven years.
Bottom Line: When one in three Americans say someone in their family skipped pills, postponed or cut back on needed medical care due to the cost; when countless bankruptcies are related to medical expenses; when the number of uninsured approaches 50 million; when government spending on health programs rises so rapidly that it jeopardizes other priorities; and when employers struggle to pay for the costs of health care, the fact is, we can't afford not to fix health care.
Myth: Health care reform means the government can make life-and-death decisions for you.
Fact: Health care reform will NOT give the government the power to make life-and-death decisions for anyone regardless of their age. Those decisions will be made by individuals, their doctor and their family.
Fact: No one, including the government or your insurance company, will be given power to make life-and-death decisions for you.
Bottom Line: Health care reform isn't about putting the government in charge of difficult end of life decisions. It's about giving individuals and families the option to talk with their doctors in advance about difficult choices every family faces when loved ones near the end of their lives.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Fossil Fuels vs Renewable Energy
Burning Fossil Fuels:
1. Contributes to global climate change.
2. Causes health problems such as heart disease and lung disease
3. Increases health care costs for all of us.
4. Pollutes streams, destroys forests, destroys wildlife, removes mountains.
5. Leaves the USA dependent on the whims of foreign governments that hate us.
6. Sends money back to countries that finance international terrorism.
7. Causes huge destructive fluctuations in our economy when gas goes way up.
8. Requires dangerous mining and drilling resulting in frequent deaths.
9. Requires delivery via ships and trucks that pollute and use additional resources.
10. Subject to spills which are difficult, expensive, and often impossible to clean up.
Renewable energy
1. Once Solar panels are installed they require no ongoing mining or drilling for resources. You only have to truck a solar panel once to its destination (once every thirty years).
2. Sunlight and wind are delivered to your home everyday for free by mother nature. No ships and trucks are required to deliver the energy to your home.
3. Solar panels do not give off harmful disease causing pollutants or stinky smoke while in use. Nothing is burned.
4. Installed renewables help stabilize the economy by stabilizing the price of energy.
5. Renewable energy will help clean the air and help health care costs go down.
6. Using renewable energy will mean fewer coal miners will be killed or trapped.
7. Renewables owned and operated by Americans means foreign governments will not be able to hold us hostage to their oil.
8. Renewable energy products made in Western Countries will not be sending money to terrorists.
9. Renewable energy will help turn around global climate change if we act quickly.
10. Fewer oil spills destroying eco systems will occur.
1. Contributes to global climate change.
2. Causes health problems such as heart disease and lung disease
3. Increases health care costs for all of us.
4. Pollutes streams, destroys forests, destroys wildlife, removes mountains.
5. Leaves the USA dependent on the whims of foreign governments that hate us.
6. Sends money back to countries that finance international terrorism.
7. Causes huge destructive fluctuations in our economy when gas goes way up.
8. Requires dangerous mining and drilling resulting in frequent deaths.
9. Requires delivery via ships and trucks that pollute and use additional resources.
10. Subject to spills which are difficult, expensive, and often impossible to clean up.
Renewable energy
1. Once Solar panels are installed they require no ongoing mining or drilling for resources. You only have to truck a solar panel once to its destination (once every thirty years).
2. Sunlight and wind are delivered to your home everyday for free by mother nature. No ships and trucks are required to deliver the energy to your home.
3. Solar panels do not give off harmful disease causing pollutants or stinky smoke while in use. Nothing is burned.
4. Installed renewables help stabilize the economy by stabilizing the price of energy.
5. Renewable energy will help clean the air and help health care costs go down.
6. Using renewable energy will mean fewer coal miners will be killed or trapped.
7. Renewables owned and operated by Americans means foreign governments will not be able to hold us hostage to their oil.
8. Renewable energy products made in Western Countries will not be sending money to terrorists.
9. Renewable energy will help turn around global climate change if we act quickly.
10. Fewer oil spills destroying eco systems will occur.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
See me, Feel me, Touch me, Heal me
Forty years ago in 1969 The Who released an album called Tommy about a deaf, dumb, and blind kid, who is abused as a child and becomes a pinball wizard.
See me, feel me, touch me, heal me.
My sincere hope is that congress does not believe the path to enlightenment is to continue to abuse its constituents until we are all deaf, dumb, and blind, and forced to do nothing but play pinball.
See me, feel me, touch me, heal me.
Please do not be deaf to our requests for health care. The military continues to rake in a trillion dollars a year off of the American tax payers while 47 million Americans have no health insurance at all.
See me, feel me, touch me, heal me.
Please do not be dumb. Speak up for the American people you represent and pass a single payer health care system that has no preexisting conditions clause and make it available to all Americans.
See me, feel me, touch me, heal me.
We are not blind to the fact that the wealthy continue to become wealthier from banking ponzi scams and the military industrial complex.
See me, feel me, touch me, heal me.
Right behind us there are millions who can either become healthy productive members of society or become slum dogs.
Health care is a human right and it is what we all need.
Please pass a single payer health care system with no preexisting conditions for all Americans. If there are enough tax dollars to pay for torture and wars and weapons we don’t need, then there should be plenty of tax money for health care. Or please just cancel the torture and the wars and weapons effective immediately and fund health care instead.
See me, feel me, touch me, heal me.
My sincere hope is that congress does not believe the path to enlightenment is to continue to abuse its constituents until we are all deaf, dumb, and blind, and forced to do nothing but play pinball.
See me, feel me, touch me, heal me.
Please do not be deaf to our requests for health care. The military continues to rake in a trillion dollars a year off of the American tax payers while 47 million Americans have no health insurance at all.
See me, feel me, touch me, heal me.
Please do not be dumb. Speak up for the American people you represent and pass a single payer health care system that has no preexisting conditions clause and make it available to all Americans.
See me, feel me, touch me, heal me.
We are not blind to the fact that the wealthy continue to become wealthier from banking ponzi scams and the military industrial complex.
See me, feel me, touch me, heal me.
Right behind us there are millions who can either become healthy productive members of society or become slum dogs.
Health care is a human right and it is what we all need.
Please pass a single payer health care system with no preexisting conditions for all Americans. If there are enough tax dollars to pay for torture and wars and weapons we don’t need, then there should be plenty of tax money for health care. Or please just cancel the torture and the wars and weapons effective immediately and fund health care instead.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Why the Central Banking System is dangerous
The FED creates money from nothing with the click of the mouse! First there was no money, then poof! There is money! Next they loan the fake money to the commercial banks and ask for all of it to be paid back plus interest. Only when we pay the money back, we pay it back with REAL MONEY (as in the kind of money you work for every day and pay your taxes with and pay your mortgage with).
The FED creates fake money and we pay it back with REAL MONEY. Am I the only one that sees something wrong with this picture? Do you really trust the FED?
Next, all the REAL MONEY is taken away. Whooosh! It’s gone. What are they doing with it? Where does it go?
Since the FED is a private banking system linked to the IMF, BIS, and World Bank, they just suck the money right out of the country, finance wars, play god, loan it to the socialists, the communists, the capitalists, the fascists, the terrorists, they don’t care. They just want to make more money. No matter who wins the war the Central bank wins because they finance all sides of the war.
Congress has the authority to print money as well. It makes more sense to have congress print debt free money than to borrow it from the FED. If Congress prints the money it stays right here in this country and circulates and that’s what we need.
The FED also has the power to raise and lower interest rates. Why do we let them do that to us?
Some people are telling me that the FED has actually been the cause of all of the depressions and recessions. There is a pattern of abuse that has been detected with the FED contracting the money supply just when we need it most to avert a depression.
The FED creates fake money and we pay it back with REAL MONEY. Am I the only one that sees something wrong with this picture? Do you really trust the FED?
Next, all the REAL MONEY is taken away. Whooosh! It’s gone. What are they doing with it? Where does it go?
Since the FED is a private banking system linked to the IMF, BIS, and World Bank, they just suck the money right out of the country, finance wars, play god, loan it to the socialists, the communists, the capitalists, the fascists, the terrorists, they don’t care. They just want to make more money. No matter who wins the war the Central bank wins because they finance all sides of the war.
Congress has the authority to print money as well. It makes more sense to have congress print debt free money than to borrow it from the FED. If Congress prints the money it stays right here in this country and circulates and that’s what we need.
The FED also has the power to raise and lower interest rates. Why do we let them do that to us?
Some people are telling me that the FED has actually been the cause of all of the depressions and recessions. There is a pattern of abuse that has been detected with the FED contracting the money supply just when we need it most to avert a depression.
How to get rid of the FED and the National Debt
1. Pay off the debt with debt free U.S. notes (If the us can issue a dollar bond it can issue a dollar bill).
2. Abolish Fractional Reserve Banking. As the debt is paid off, the reserve requirements of all banks and financial institutions would be raised proportionally at the same time to absorb the new U.S. notes which would be deposited and become the banks new increased reserves.
3. Repeal of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 and the National Banking act of 1864. These acts delegate the money power to a private banking monopoly. These acts must be repealed and the money power handed back to the treasury where it was under Abraham Lincoln. No banker or any person affiliated with private lending institutions should be allowed to regulate banking.
4. Withdraw the U.S from the IMF, the BIS, and the World Bank. These institutions like the Federal Reserve are designed to further consolidate the power of the central bankers over the world economies.
5. Any increase in the money flow should be done so at a rate of about 3% or in conjunction with the increase in population. This would ensure a steady stable money growth. All treasury meetings would be transparent to the public unlike how they are conducted now.
Issuing money was advocated by Jefferson, Madison, Jackson, and Lincoln.
Congress has the authority by the constitution to issue currency.
2. Abolish Fractional Reserve Banking. As the debt is paid off, the reserve requirements of all banks and financial institutions would be raised proportionally at the same time to absorb the new U.S. notes which would be deposited and become the banks new increased reserves.
3. Repeal of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 and the National Banking act of 1864. These acts delegate the money power to a private banking monopoly. These acts must be repealed and the money power handed back to the treasury where it was under Abraham Lincoln. No banker or any person affiliated with private lending institutions should be allowed to regulate banking.
4. Withdraw the U.S from the IMF, the BIS, and the World Bank. These institutions like the Federal Reserve are designed to further consolidate the power of the central bankers over the world economies.
5. Any increase in the money flow should be done so at a rate of about 3% or in conjunction with the increase in population. This would ensure a steady stable money growth. All treasury meetings would be transparent to the public unlike how they are conducted now.
Issuing money was advocated by Jefferson, Madison, Jackson, and Lincoln.
Congress has the authority by the constitution to issue currency.
Deregulation and re-regulation
There were sound business reasons to deregulate much of industry during the '70s, '80s and '90s, just as now there are great reasons to re-regulate business. But regulation is not a panacea that magically makes everything better just as waving the flag of socialism is not nearly enough to make a difference either. Flag-waving is a gesture at best.
During the 1950s you could not buy and hook up an answering machine to your telephone line because the regulatory laws from the FCC said that only the telephone company could do that and the telephone company at that time did not make answering machines, or voice mail or any of the products we have now. If you hooked something up to your telephone line, the telephone company would come out and disconnect it. You couldn't even buy your own phone and hook it up. It was a big problem. Manufacturing companies, the electronics industry and the computer industry were introducing new products that could not be used and the phone company was not having any of it; if it wasn't made by Western Electric, the phone company refused to use it or let anyone else use it either.
The Carterfone decision of 1968 set the precedent, and what followed was a brand new industry that previously did not exist--customer-owned equipment and, later, private networking. Interconnect telephone companies sprang up all over the place. I worked in this industry myself for many years.
Much of the telephone company itself remained tightly regulated and the Public Utilities Commission would act as an advocate for the consumer in every state.
Every service the telephone company sells is "tariffed" and must be approved by a very slow-moving public utilities commission. Rates are controlled by the PUC.
A customer who has issues with the telephone company such as billing problems or service issues can write to the public utilities commission and the telephone companies will bow to the PUC. I have written to the PUC myself and have received rate adjustments and rebates.
Therein lies the difference between the banking industry and the telecommunications industry. Where is the PUC-type function in the banking industry? Who is the hammer that the consumer, the borrower, can use as an advocate when the banking industry steps out of line? The credit card companies do whatever they want to. The banks make up the rules as they go along.
We need a PUC-type operation that can hold the feet of the banking industry to the fire and say, No, you are not going to make adjustable rate loans to borrowers. We are going to have public hearings and then we will tell you what kind of loans you can make. And this new function needs to have teeth in the form of prison terms for those laws that are violated.
During the 1950s you could not buy and hook up an answering machine to your telephone line because the regulatory laws from the FCC said that only the telephone company could do that and the telephone company at that time did not make answering machines, or voice mail or any of the products we have now. If you hooked something up to your telephone line, the telephone company would come out and disconnect it. You couldn't even buy your own phone and hook it up. It was a big problem. Manufacturing companies, the electronics industry and the computer industry were introducing new products that could not be used and the phone company was not having any of it; if it wasn't made by Western Electric, the phone company refused to use it or let anyone else use it either.
The Carterfone decision of 1968 set the precedent, and what followed was a brand new industry that previously did not exist--customer-owned equipment and, later, private networking. Interconnect telephone companies sprang up all over the place. I worked in this industry myself for many years.
Much of the telephone company itself remained tightly regulated and the Public Utilities Commission would act as an advocate for the consumer in every state.
Every service the telephone company sells is "tariffed" and must be approved by a very slow-moving public utilities commission. Rates are controlled by the PUC.
A customer who has issues with the telephone company such as billing problems or service issues can write to the public utilities commission and the telephone companies will bow to the PUC. I have written to the PUC myself and have received rate adjustments and rebates.
Therein lies the difference between the banking industry and the telecommunications industry. Where is the PUC-type function in the banking industry? Who is the hammer that the consumer, the borrower, can use as an advocate when the banking industry steps out of line? The credit card companies do whatever they want to. The banks make up the rules as they go along.
We need a PUC-type operation that can hold the feet of the banking industry to the fire and say, No, you are not going to make adjustable rate loans to borrowers. We are going to have public hearings and then we will tell you what kind of loans you can make. And this new function needs to have teeth in the form of prison terms for those laws that are violated.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Green Economic Stimulus
I support a green economic stimulus plan based on clean, safe, renewable energy, such as solar, wind, and geo thermal.
For years business has been dumping poison into the air and into the ground creating very expensive health care problems for the rest of us. By turning off the coal plants, gasoline powered cars, and nuclear power plants, and turning up renewable energy we can create a new picture of health for America.
The price of crude oil going up ruined our economy in the 1970s and it has done it again here in 2008 -2009. When the price of gasoline increased 500% during the Bush years, it was inevitable that a downward turn in the economy would follow. A dramatic increase in the basic costs of goods we all use without an equivalent rise in wages will result in an economic recession.
It is now possible to heat homes, provide electricity, and power cars, and keep fuel costs at a constant rate. Once the solar panels are installed it makes little difference what OPEC charges for oil. The sun shines for free.
By purchasing oil from oil rich countries that sponsor terror we are literally financing our own destruction.
Budgeting for the green industry will create jobs and provide economic stimulus; it will provide stability for our economy; it will save lives and reduce health care costs; and provide energy independence from foreign countries that are hostile to the United States
For years business has been dumping poison into the air and into the ground creating very expensive health care problems for the rest of us. By turning off the coal plants, gasoline powered cars, and nuclear power plants, and turning up renewable energy we can create a new picture of health for America.
The price of crude oil going up ruined our economy in the 1970s and it has done it again here in 2008 -2009. When the price of gasoline increased 500% during the Bush years, it was inevitable that a downward turn in the economy would follow. A dramatic increase in the basic costs of goods we all use without an equivalent rise in wages will result in an economic recession.
It is now possible to heat homes, provide electricity, and power cars, and keep fuel costs at a constant rate. Once the solar panels are installed it makes little difference what OPEC charges for oil. The sun shines for free.
By purchasing oil from oil rich countries that sponsor terror we are literally financing our own destruction.
Budgeting for the green industry will create jobs and provide economic stimulus; it will provide stability for our economy; it will save lives and reduce health care costs; and provide energy independence from foreign countries that are hostile to the United States
National Health Care System
Dear Senator Boxer,
I am writing you in support of a single payer health care system and John Conyers bill HR676.
A national health care system is an economic stimulus because it gets the cost of health care off the backs of both business and workers. Without the cost of health care on the backs of business and workers, business can lower the cost of goods and consumers will have more money to acquire consumable goods.
Thomas Jefferson wrote in the constitution that we are all entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Many people today, such as my wife and child, have no health insurance. How can you have life if there is no health care to make you better when you get sick?
Many other countries already have a national health care system that works well.
We spend more money on defense than all of the other countries combined and we don’t have a national health care plan. That’s an embarrassment and proves our national priorities are skewed in the wrong direction. We are more focused on killing people than on saving lives.
I paid taxes for more than 27 years when I was working and I was glad to do it. I believe U.S. citizens should have a say as to how tax dollars are spent. If I have a say, then I believe tax dollars should be spent on a national health care system.
A single payer health care system would stimulate the economy, provide insurance for those who have none today, bring the United States current with other countries, and contribute to the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, for all Americans.
I am writing you in support of a single payer health care system and John Conyers bill HR676.
A national health care system is an economic stimulus because it gets the cost of health care off the backs of both business and workers. Without the cost of health care on the backs of business and workers, business can lower the cost of goods and consumers will have more money to acquire consumable goods.
Thomas Jefferson wrote in the constitution that we are all entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Many people today, such as my wife and child, have no health insurance. How can you have life if there is no health care to make you better when you get sick?
Many other countries already have a national health care system that works well.
We spend more money on defense than all of the other countries combined and we don’t have a national health care plan. That’s an embarrassment and proves our national priorities are skewed in the wrong direction. We are more focused on killing people than on saving lives.
I paid taxes for more than 27 years when I was working and I was glad to do it. I believe U.S. citizens should have a say as to how tax dollars are spent. If I have a say, then I believe tax dollars should be spent on a national health care system.
A single payer health care system would stimulate the economy, provide insurance for those who have none today, bring the United States current with other countries, and contribute to the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, for all Americans.
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