Clipmarks | masbury's 'healthcare' clips

Watch for Palin-speak in debate

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 02:10:39 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: Will the press call her on non-answers?

Clip Source: sage

I should know. I've debated Governor Palin more than two dozen times. And she's a master, not of facts, figures, or insightful policy recommendations, but at the fine art of the nonanswer, the glittering generality. Against such charms there is little Senator Biden, or anyone, can do.

Palin is a master of the nonanswer. She can turn a 60-second response to a query about her specific solutions to healthcare challenges into a folksy story about how she's met people on the campaign trail who face healthcare challenges. All without uttering a word about her public-policy solutions to healthcare challenges.

This tape is stunning. She can't name another Supreme Court case that she disagrees with

But notice what she does

she instead

mentions of the "great history of America," launches into some sort of half-assed states rights screed, throws in

"so privileged" to be elected with John McCain

tries to assert that she'd then be in a position to change the decisions she doesn't know about

Gibberish

Tags: palin, debate

Presidential Candidates’ Healthcare Plans Compared

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 03:34:17 GMT

clipped by: pitim

Clip Source: www.researchrecap.com

The health care plans proposed by John McCain and Barack Obama come under scrutiny by the Tax Policy Center and Health Affairs. The Wall Street Journal offers a summary of the two critiques:

John McCain’s health-care plan would make only a small dent in the ranks of the uninsured, at best covering about five million more people, two new reports conclude.

Barack Obama would cover more people — eventually adding about 34 million, according to one of those reports, by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center

Writing in Health Affairs Joseph Antos, Gail Wilensky and Hanns Kuttner say the Obama plan amounts to a significant amount of new regulation, driving up the cost of insurance. In another Health Affairs article, Thomas Buchmiller, Sherry A. Glied 2, Anne Royalty and Katherine Swartz argue that higher administrative costs in the open market will make coverage more expensive and less generous under the McCain plan.

Mark V. Pauly combines elements of both plans to create a compromise proposal

McCain's record on veterans "dismal"

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 02:29:57 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: Has consistently voted against expansion of VA funding; ignored IAVA pleas at RNC; skipped GI Bill vote

Clip Source: www.alternet.org

In April, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America delivered a petition signed by 30,000 veterans to McCain's office, urging him to get behind the GI Bill. McCain refused, and on the day of the vote, rather than vote "nay," he skipped it altogether.

At a town hall meeting this summer, McCain made a show of selecting a self-identified veteran from the audience, who ended up questioning the senator's lack of support for the Webb GI bill, along with other legislation. " … We haven't heard an explanation of why you voted against your colleagues' proposals to increase healthcare funding in 2004, '05, '06, and '07, when we had troops coming back from two wars," he said

"Sen. McCain has consistently voted against expansion of VA funding," Reickhoff said. "So if he says the VA's not working, it's in part because he hasn't funded it properly."

Clip Source: www.alternet.org

the media has yet to take McCain to task for his dismal record on veterans' issues

displays of indifference the senator has shown towards soldiers

Tags: mccain, veterans

McCain advisor: Stop calling people un-insured

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 23:39:37 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: Wants executive order requiring the Census Bureau to "cease and desist" from describing any American as uninsured. "Will cost not one thin dime," he brags. Problem solved.
Really, he says that!

Clip Source: www.dailykos.com

As the Census Bureau reports that California has the highest number of uninsured people, and Texas has the highest percentage of residents, a McCain adviser utters some remarkably stupid analysis:

But the numbers are misleading, said John Goodman, president of the National Center for Policy Analysis, a right-leaning Dallas-based think tank. Mr. Goodman, who helped craft Sen. John McCain's health care policy [the McCain camp distances themselves], said anyone with access to an emergency room effectively has insurance, albeit the government acts as the payer of last resort

"So I have a solution. And it will cost not one thin dime," Mr. Goodman said. "The next president of the United States should sign an executive order requiring the Census Bureau to cease and desist from describing any American – even illegal aliens – as uninsured.

Instead, the bureau should categorize people according to the likely source of payment should they need care.

"So, there you have it. Voila! Problem solved."

Tags: healthcare, insurance

A female Democrat's take on Sarah Palin

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 20:21:29 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: At the end of the day, it's still about what kind of country you want

Clip Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

The media is swirling: Was it smart? Was it dumb? Will she gets votes? Will she lose votes?

at the end of the day, it's not about gender, race or even age. It's about what kind of country you want for yourself, and your children.

We're tired of living in a world where jobs get shipped overseas, hardworking-families are going broke, children are going without healthcare, and our best and brightest are dying in a ill-conceived war based on misinformation and ego.

So, yes it's nice that John McCain put a woman in the number two spot on his ticket.

If I ever meet her I'd be delighted to take her to lunch, or have her on my PTA.

But the future of our country is at stake here people.

I have two daughters, ages 10 and 15, and the last thing I want is to have to wake them up on Nov 5th and tell them that we're going to have four more years just like the last eight.

My girls deserve better than that. And so do you.

Tags: palin, women, politics

Bring single-payer healthcare to DNC Platform

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 01:52:55 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: Links to encourage your area's delegates to sign their support. A bill already exists in the House, with 90 co-sponsors.

Clip Source: www.alternet.org

nationwide efforts are underway to bring grassroots views on health care into the 2008 Democratic Party Platform

urges the convention to adopt a platform plank to "guarantee accessible health care for all"

to "create a single standard of high quality, comprehensive, and preventive health care for all" -- and to "eliminate financial barriers that prevent families and individuals from obtaining the medically necessary care they need."

H.R. 676 -- the single-payer bill introduced by Rep. John Conyers that now has 90 co-sponsors in the House -- would guarantee publicly funded, privately delivered health care for everyone in the United States.

"the U.S. Conference of Mayors, at its June 2008 national meeting, passed a resolution in support of single-payer health care" and that "35 state AFL-CIO organizations support single-payer health care."

Click here and find the names of your area's delegates to the Democratic National Convention.

Contact those delegates

Any delegate can

become a signer

Tags: democratic

Protesters to Rally Against Health Insurance Companies

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 00:45:50 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: "because they profit by denying care to our patients—not by providing it" - CA Nurses Assn

Clip Source: www.democracynow.org

Protesters to Rally Against Health Insurance Companies

Protests are being held across the country today calling for a single-payer healthcare system. Demonstrations will target the headquarters of several health insurance companies, including Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Aetna, Humana and United Health Group, as well as the annual convention of the insurance industry lobbying group America’s Health Insurance Plans in San Francisco. Malinda Markowitz of the California Nurses Association said, “We are calling a national protest against these insurance companies, because they profit by denying care to our patients—not by providing it."

Tags: healthcare

Why universal healthcare is a better deal for the USA

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 02:42:50 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: Jane Bryant Quinn: And we already have a working model

Clip Source: masbury.wordpress.com

“[W]e have an excellent template for universal care right under our noses: good old American Medicare

the government pays for health care delivered in the private sector

one set of comprehensive benefits, with premiums, co-pays and streamlined paperwork

“Health insurers hate this model, which would end their gravy train

objections

costs too much. No—

United States spent 15.3 percent of gross domestic product on health care for only some of us. France spent 10.7 percent and covered everyone.

Medicare’s overhead is just 1.5 percent, compared with 13 to 16 percent in the private sector

taxes would go up!

Congressional Budget Office and the General Accounting Office have testified that the United States could insure everyone for the money we’re spending now

We get world-class care

we don’t. International surveys put France in first place

long waiting times

Many countries that cover everyone

report no

waits at all

people get care even if they’re uninsured. They don’t. They

are sicker, suffer more

die sooner

Tags: heatlhcare

Elizabeth Edwards' healthcare questions for McCain

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 22:37:09 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: She writes as one with a pre-existing condition, asking for straight answers from the straight talker. Worth noting is the fact that McCain would be virtually un-insurable were he not on the government's insurance plan.

Clip Source: thinkprogress.org

1. Under your plan, Senator McCain, would any health insurer be required to sell you or me (or those like us with pre-existing conditions) a health insurance policy?

2. You say your plan is going to increase competition to the point that it actually lowers costs. Isn’t there competition today

Haven’t costs continued to go up despite that competition?

3. You say that under your plan everyone is going to pay less for health insurance

Are you talking about cheaper overall or just a cheap policy that doesn’t kick in until after thousands of dollars of deductibles have been paid?

4. Isn’t the type of competition you are talking about really a rush to the bottom? As long as you allow insurers to underwrite and deny access, you encourage insurers to offer plans that may be cheap, but that get that way by avoiding people with cancer or other high-cost diseases

As one of those with a pre-existing condition, I sure would like some straight talk.

Tags: mccain, healthcare, insurance

Young, American, and Uninsured: on the rise

Fri, 30 May 2008 19:20:06 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: And it simply doesn't happen in most developed nations. 30% of uninsured from 17% of under-65 pop.; non-whites worse off; could easily face a lifetime of debt or denial of care; 2/3 have had trouble because of cost. And it simply wouldn't happen in most developed nations.

Clip Source: www.commondreams.org

Young, American, and Uninsured: Number of Uninsured US Young Adults Grows

13.7 million people aged 19 to 29 had no health insurance, either public or private, in 2006, up from 13.3 million in 2005

17 percent of the under-65 U.S. population, but made up almost 30 percent of the uninsured

If you ask young adults

if you’ve ever had problems accessing health care because of cost — not filling a prescription, not seeing a specialist — two thirds of uninsured young adults say yes

23 percent of whites ages 19 to 29 lacked insurance, the figure was 36 percent of blacks and 53 percent of Hispanics

uninsured rate rises dramatically at age 19 — from 12 percent of children up to age 18 up to 30 percent among men and women aged 19 to 29

Many jobs available to young adults tend to be low-wage or temporary, the type often unlikely to provide health coverage.

38 percent of high school graduates who do not attend college and 34 percent of college graduates spend some time uninsured in the year after graduation

Tags: healthcare

KU KLUX KLAN WON'T ENDORSE OBAMA!

Wed, 28 May 2008 05:01:04 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: Excellent satire - read the whole thing! Healthcare, it is assumed, is their point of disagreement. And "Noting her strength with the broad swaths of people who have no intention of actually voting for her, Senator Clinton also feels Obama's weakness with people who hate both of them with a passion should give unpledged superdelegates pause."

Clip Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

Dateline - Lynchburg, Virginia

In a surprising move, which some are calling a deathblow to his candidacy, the Ku Klux Klan today decided to not endorse Senator Barack Obama in his bid for the Presidency of the United States. Seeming to validate Hillary Clinton's assertion that Obama cannot win the all-important poor white racist vote which had became the cornerstone of her support, many are now speculating that rejection by the influential domestic terrorist organization could spell the end for the Illinois Democrat's race for the White House.

At his armed camp outside of Shepherdstown, West Virginia, Imperial Grand Wizard Gomer Bath explained the Klan's decision. "Our secret membership just did not feel that Senator Obama was addressing our core values." he said during press conference to a group of blindfolded reporters.

I don't know about the others," he continued, "but for myself it really came down to health care

we took a hood count, and voted unanimously against endorsement

Tags: satire, politics, obama, race, humor

1948: Struggling for national health care

Tue, 27 May 2008 21:40:51 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: President Harry Truman has national health care as part of his platform - sixty years ago!

Clip Source: www.pbs.org

Excerpts from Truman's Address to the Democratic Convention
July 15, 1948

I have repeatedly asked the Congress to pass a health program. The Nation suffers from lack of medical care. That situation can be remedied any time the Congress wants to act upon it.

Tags: healthcare, insurance, truman

PBS Frontline Healthcare around the World

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 03:12:39 GMT

clipped by: Kauaiguy
clipper's remarks: FRONTLINE presents
SICK AROUND THE WORLD
Tuesday, April 15, 2008, at 9 P.M. ET on PBS

Clip Source: www.pbs.org

FRONTLINE TRAVELS TO FIVE COUNTRIES IN SEARCH OF A UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE SYSTEM THAT COULD WORK IN THE U.S.

FRONTLINE teams up with T.R. Reid, a veteran foreign correspondent for The Washington Post, to find out how five other capitalist democracies--United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, Taiwan and Switzerland--deliver health care and what the United States might learn from their successes and their failures. In Sick Around the World, airing Tuesday, April 15, 2008, at 9 P.M. ET on PBS (check local listings), Reid turns up remarkable differences in how these countries handle health care--from Japan, where a night in a hospital can cost as little as $10, to Switzerland, where the president of the country tells Reid it would be a "huge scandal" if someone were to go bankrupt from medical bills.

7 Senators stall President's AIDS relief plan

Mon, 26 May 2008 05:12:07 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: And some Democrats playing politics, reluctant to do things that make the President look good

Clip Source: blog.beliefnet.com

The president recently proposed an increase in funding for PEPFAR (President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.) But it's not going anywhere. Why?

Seven Republican senators -- Tom Coburn, Jim DeMint, Jeff Sessions, Saxby Chambliss, David Vitter, Jim Bunning, and Richard Burr -- have placed a hold on the reauthorization.

The seven, led by Coburn, complain that the reauthorization is too costly.

politics is at play. Gerson writes that some Democratic senators have no interest in passing something that would give credit to the president.

[S]upporters of the PEPFAR reauthorization now estimate a 50 percent chance it will be shelved until next year. Without a five-year U.S. commitment on AIDS funding, other countries would be reluctant to put new people on treatment. And lives would be lost.

Surely this is one place where saving lives should outweigh politics. It's time for something Washington knows less and less of: bipartisan politics on key moral issues.

Tags: aids, politics, healthcare

"If Cheney were a regular American, he'd probably be dead"

Tue, 13 May 2008 06:11:27 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: despite four major heart attacks and other serious coronary issues, Cheney "can't be denied health insurance no matter how serious his heart condition is" because he is a U.S. government employee. But you'd be dead.

Clip Source: rawstory.com

The report cites the high quality, condition-free medical insurance enjoyed by the likes of Vice President Dick Cheney, who, despite four major heart attacks and other serious coronary issues, "can't be denied health insurance no matter how serious his heart condition is" because he is a U.S. government employee.

The California Nurses Association (CNA) criticizes such "Cadillac healthcare" favoritism and contrasts it to the limited options afforded to the majority of Americans. The CNA has launched an ad campaign saying that "if Cheney were just a regular American, he'd probably be dead by now."

The CNA's executive director rues the "double standard," saying, "There should be an excellence in care that applies to all people. We, as the public, pay for Dick Cheney's care. ... Why is the government not providing the same type of care to all Americans?"

Tags: healthcare, news