Fewer and fewer of our health care dollars are being used by the insurance industry to cover medical care. A little over 15 years ago, the insurance industry was spending 95 cents of every dollar given in health insurance premiums toward health care. Currently, the insurance industry spends only 80 cents of every dollar on health care coverage. We are spending more than ever on health care insurance premiums, but we are getting less and less back for our health care dollar. Where does that 20 cents on the...

As Gomer Pyle would say, “Surprise, Surprise!”. Sarah Palin, who burst onto the national scene claiming she was against the “Bridge to Nowhere”, ignored that she had been for the bridge and the earmarks being offered to her state.  Only after Congress nixed the ear-mark for the bridge, did Sarah say that she had always been against it. Guess who scrubbed her web page that included a proclamation about the need for “end-of-life” counseling.  You betcha!  Sarah Palin actually declared August 16,...

Sarah Palin, unwilling to ever back down about anything, or keep from responding to what she feels is an attack, went on the offensive saying that the health care reform bill *does* indeed contain language about “Death Panels”. The provision that President Obama refers to is Section 1233 of HR 3200, entitled “Advance Care Planning Consultation.”  With all due respect, it’s misleading for the President to describe this section as an entirely voluntary provision that simply increases the information...

I’ve been wondering why the so-called Christians on the Right oppose health care reform. They seem to care nothing about the 50 million Americans that are uninsured and the millions more under-insured. Now the Christian Liberals are getting involved in the Health Care debate in a positive way: DALLAS (Reuters) – Liberal religious groups announced on Monday they are teaming up with President Barack Obama in a national campaign to counter the surprisingly vehement conservative opposition to his...

AARP has joined the fight for health care reform, hoping to dispel the myths that have been put out by right-wing fringe groups, as well as the insurance and big Pharma lobbyists. Welcome to the Fight! Don’t Let the Myths About Health Care Reform Scare You. There are special interest groups trying to block progress on health care reform by using myths and scare tactics. Like the notion that health care reform would ration your care, hurt Medicare or be a government takeover. Actually, these are false...

Hunter, at the Daily Kos, pretty much sums up what I have been trying to express all of the last week. Here’s his entire post.  Please feel free to publish this elsewhere.  This needs to be seen and read (emphasis mine):  The Rise of A Postmodern Racist Movement? A Friday email cited by Ta-Nehisi Coates, at the Atlantic… Yesterday evening I was to attend to the Health Care summit with(D) Rep Betty Reed and(D) Rep Kathy Castor, I’m a Precinct Captain (203) in Tampa and...

Look, we all know that the groups being bused to Town Halls in the South are there at the direction of the Republicans and their insurance and big Pharma corporate masters. However, the news media has to fill a 24-hour cycle of air-time, so these town hall disruptions are getting an inappropriate amount of exposure on TV and in print. To the general public, it appears that we are losing the health care reform debate. Each time a story is reported on, it is couched in the frame of supporters of health care...

In the U.K., the reason for the rabid protests in the United States about Obama’s birth certificate are clear. The message is that Southern White Republicans still cannot accept that we have an African-American President. Their unwillingness to accept the results of a democratically-held Presidential election transcends reason and implies that some “patriot” may try to overturn the results of the election through violence. For some reason, the refrains of Neil Young’s “Southern Man” are...

Where do you begin with this kind of statement? Since Sarah Palin is an avowed non-reader, she repeats the kind of non-sense that others have conjured up to scare people away from Health Care Reform. By the way, Sarah. The phrase, “we’re saying not just no, but hell no!” has been uttered by you regarding so many issues, that the words have lost their meaning. Let’s do this slowly, Sarah, so you can keep up. 1. If you like your private insurance, you get to keep it. 2. If you don’t like a Corporate...

Robert Greenwald, from Brave New Films, exposes the terrible truth behind the corporate denial of health care to Americans that have been paying their premiums. How can a person working for the insurance company have the final say over whether a treatment *recommended* by the patient’s *own doctor* is deemed medically necessary or “experimental”? If you buy auto insurance, you do so because you want to have coverage in case of an accident.  If you are involved in a car accident, and you have paid for...

Press Release: Today the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) took an important step towards that goal when it released its latest version of health care reform legislation. “We must not settle for legislation that merely gestures at reform. We must deliver on the promise of true change.” – Chairman Ted Kennedy and Senator Chris Dodd President Obama and our Democratic leaders in Congress have been working to pass health care reform legislation before the end of...

I worked hard to get Obama elected and it pains me that so many oppose him out of deep-seated fear and racial hatred. Frank Schaeffer wrote an excellent article about how he used to be on the GOP-side of things, sending out shock troops much the same way the corporate lobbyists for the insurance and drug industries are doing today.  He points out that much of what is going on is directly traceable to Obama’s race. Here are some excerpts and my thoughts follow.  I encourage you to read...

It is certainly okay for Republicans, Democrats, or Independents to attend town-hall meetings.  But with the focus on the corporate and GOP-backed protesters disrupting meetings, it seemed a little odd that this woman, who was well-known in the area, would deny being a part of the GOP.  An attentive reporter at NBC26 News tracked down the truth. After doing some searching on the Internet, he found that she was Heather Blish, a member of the RNC last year, and involved in the 2008 Republican campaign for...

There were violent protests in Tampa, Fla., today as people, admittedly spurred on by local GOP groups and Glenn Beck, descended on a peaceful town hall meeting for a discussion of health care reform issues concerning the citizens of Tampa. Nothing is more antithetical to democracy than to silence people attempting to communicate with their Representative or Senator from Congress. Equally undemocratic is the squelching of dissent, so why are these protests not being greeted warmly, like civil rights marches,...

Well, just when you thought that the “birther” controversy had died down, the intrepid reporters from the Right-wing fringe have uncovered my birth certificate claiming that it shows that I was born in Kenya. I have proudly considered myself an American and am a natural-born citizen of the United States. Examine this for yourself, and see if you don’t believe that it is a fake and downright forgery: