YOU MIGHT CALL IT TREASON

The Chamber of Commerce is one who is undermining our political system.

All the following quotes are from the article written by Iron Knee

“We don’t have to worry about foreign countries attacking us. They’ve already bought us, courtesy of the USCC.”

“The USCC has become a blatantly partisan organization, running the largest campaign against Democrats in the upcoming election: spending more than $75 million and as of September 15, airing more than 8,000 ads on behalf of GOP Senate candidates alone.”

“As a non-profit trade association, the USCC can raise unlimited funds without ever disclosing any of its donors,”

“The USCC used their offices in other countries to actively solicit funds from foreign corporations, including ones directly controlled by foreign governments.”

“For example, USCC operates an office in Bahrain, which collects over $100,000 a year in “dues” from foreign-owned businesses. The membership form stipulates that money should be sent directly to the US Chamber of Commerce, and also explicitly states that foreign-owned firms are welcomed.”

“During the health care debate, it was discovered that health insurance companies like Aetna pumped $20 million into the USCC to pay for attack ads aimed at killing reform, while publicly claiming that they supported health care reform.”

“US law forbids foreign corporations from being involved in American elections.”

For the full article go to: http://politicalirony.com/2010/10/07/you-might-call-it-treason/

This was written by Iron Knee. Posted on Thursday, October 7, 2010, at 1:28 am. Filed under Irony. Tagged Elections. Bookmark the permalink. Follow comments here with the RSS feed. Post a comment or leave a trackback.

MASS DOCTORS SNUB STATE'S HEALTH REFORM as MODEL for COUNTRY, PICK SINGLE-PAYER SYSTEM INSTEAD

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Oct. 22, 2010 
BOSTON – For the first time the Massachusetts Medical Society has asked doctors what they think about health reform in its annual “Physician Workforce Survey” of 1,000 practicing physicians in the state, and the results may strike some as surprising. 
 
A plurality of the physician respondents, 34 percent, picked single-payer health reform as their preferred model of reform, followed by 32 percent who favored a private-public insurance mix with a public option buy-in. Seventeen percent voted for the pre-reform status quo, including the permissibility of insurers offering low-premium, high-deductible health plans. 

Remarkably, only 14 percent of Massachusetts doctors would recommend their own state’s model as a model for the nation. A small number of respondents, 3 percent, chose an unspecified “other.” 

In other words, the doctors with the most on-the-ground experience with the Massachusetts plan, after which the Obama administration’s new health law is patterned, regard it as one of the least desirable alternatives for financing care. 

The findings contrast with an earlier survey of Massachusetts physicians’ opinions on health reform funded by the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. 

That survey, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in October 2009, found that three-fourths of doctors in the state support the Massachusetts reform law. However, the survey did not allow respondents to express their preference for alternative models of health reform. 

Dr. Rachel Nardin, chair of neurology at Cambridge Hospital and president of the Massachusetts chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program, said: "Massachusetts physicians realize that the state's health reform has failed to make health care affordable and accessible, and won't work for the nation. These findings show the high support for single-payer Medicare for all by physicians on the front lines of reform."

While many in the country look to Massachusetts as a role model for the country, Dr. Patricia Downs Berger, co-chair of Mass-Care, the single-payer advocacy coalition in Massachusetts, and a member of the Massachusetts Medical Society, notes, “Physicians in Massachusetts, particularly after health reform, know from experience that the current health care system is not sustainable and is not addressing the deep inequalities and high costs faced by patients, and they are calling for a more fundamental change.” 
 
A survey published in the Annals of Internal Medicine in April 2008 showed that 59 percent of U.S. physicians support government action to establish national health insurance, an increase of 10 percentage points over similar findings five years before.

Link to the 2010 Physician Workforce Survey (relevant pages: 86-90): http://www.massmed.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Research_Reports_and_Studies2&TEMPLATE=/CM/HTMLDisplay.cfm&ContentID=36167
 
Link to 2009 Blue Cross Blue Shield survey of Massachusetts physicians:
http://healthpolicyandreform.nejm.org/?p=2133&query=home
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/2009-releases/three-fourths-of-mass-physicians-health-reform-law.html

Link to April 2008 survey in the Annals of Internal Medicine:
http://www.pnhp.org/docsurvey/annals_physician_support.pdf

Contact:
Rachel Nardin, M.D., chair of neurology, Cambridge Hospital; president, 
Massachusetts Physicians for a National Health Program
Patricia Downs Berger, M.D., retired internist; co-chair, 

Mass-Care: The Massachusetts Campaign for Single Payer Health Care

Benjamin Day, executive director, Mass-Care: The Massachusetts Campaign for Single Payer Health Care

Ten immediate benefits of HCR

http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/what-you-get-when-hcr-passes

By karoli  March 21, 2010 05:45 PM

Here are ten benefits which come online within six months of the President's signature on the health care bill:

1. Adult children may remain as dependents on their parents’ policy until their 26th birthday

2. Children under age 19 may not be excluded for pre-existing conditions

3. No more lifetime or annual caps on coverage

4. Free preventative care for all

5. Adults with pre-existing conditions may buy into a national high-risk pool until the exchanges come online. While these will not be cheap, they’re still better than total exclusion and get some benefit from a wider pool of insureds.

6. Small businesses will be entitled to a tax credit for 2009 and 2010, which could be as much as 50% of what they pay for employees’ health insurance.

7. The “donut hole” closes for Medicare patients, making prescription medications more affordable for seniors.

8. Requirement that all insurers must post their balance sheets on the Internet and fully disclose administrative costs, executive compensation packages, and benefit payments.

9. Authorizes early funding of community health centers in all 50 states (Bernie Sanders’ amendment). Community health centers provide primary, dental and vision services to people in the community, based on a sliding scale for payment according to ability to pay.

10. AND no more rescissions. Effective immediately, you can't lose your insurance because you get sick.

 

In our community - half-rural and half-suburb -- 50 community health centers will receive funding to provide health and preventive services to people with no access right now. And that's just one benefit. They're all valuable.

cross-posted at USHealthCrisis.com

AWAKE AT 3:30AM AGAIN

Since I am doomed to be awake for the rest of the night...
I thought I’d catch up on my FB pages.  I subscribe to several online newspapers. And tonight there is a distressing amount of news from Boston.com to the LA times.

Though the news and video of the soldiers who murdered Afghanistan civilians was on the web last night, it is in the Prime Time News today.  News like this takes me back to the 60’s and 70’s.  

The 60’s is known for the Civil Rights movement, the Anti Vietnam movement and the Sexual Revolution that helped gays and the greater populous to see sexual orientation is part of the normal spectrum. 

The Afghanistan tragedy is shades of “My Lai,” Vietnam, all over again and shame on us all.  Then there is the story form LA with regard to the sexual orientation of the LA Chief Justice Judge Vaughn Walker, who correctly struck down Prop 8 calling the law “Unconstitutional,” who is being held by a different standard in his ruling because of his sexual orientation. 

It is like reliving the 60’s again and again. When one thinks that finely, maybe, we are making some small progress, it all comes back to haunt us. There’s the possibility of the Healthcare Bill coming out of Committee without the Single Payer Option included. You may not realize this but this too is an old subject.

With the 70’s there was hope. Nixon ran on the promise of bringing home the troops and, believe-it-or-not,’ Universal Health Care.  He was intrigued with the idea of the HMO model.  Had he not been caught up in the Watergate Scandal we would have Universal Health Care now.

The legislative process seems to take 20 years to bring legislation to a vote but it takes another 20 years before it comes up again.  So we seem to have a history of not passing important legislation that effects us all for 20 years and more.  

We Americans have a very short memories. When it comes to war, we didn’t learn our lesson in Vietnam and went headstrong into war in Iraq and now Afghanistan with the same disastrous results.  The troops are no better trained to be warrior today then they were in the 40’s, 50’s or 60’s. 

As for civil rights, they again are being questioned of hampered by obsolete laws and prejudice.  Why do we fight this one over and over again?

Then there is health care where millions have died because the people we put in office don’t have the guts to do the right thing. Where greed has taken over Congress and the Senate; where we again have Wall Street and corporations dictating to us and leaving our rights to blow in the wind…

The reoccurring news gets me down… I must be tired, 

Sleep tight. Don’t let the bedbugs bite, See you tomorrow...

Sleepy Sally Sandman

Sep 28,2010 3:39 am