feet on the street wednesday september 2
August 30, 2009
MoveOn.org has a —
Candlelight health care reform vigil scheduled in Hollywood California at Hollywood & Highland Wednesday September 2nd at 7:30 PM.
moyers & maher
August 30, 2009
Boy if one person can totally sum up the health care sitch in the U.S., that person is Bill Moyers. This interview with him by Bill Maher is about ten minutes long. It is also, if you are a U.S. citizen trapped in the snarl of health care politics, right now ten of the most important minutes you may spend in your life.
time for something fun
August 28, 2009
It is totally time for something fun. [Politics are fecking grueling ahhh!] Louis CK is totally fun. Yay!
We will return to universal health care shortly.
we are not out of lions
August 26, 2009
So, people keep asking, Who will champion universal health care now? Someone is championing universal health care now: Anthony Weiner.
:::anthony weiner:::
the liberal lion
August 26, 2009
Senator Edward Moore “Ted” Kennedy, 1932 – 2009
:::nytimes retrospective:::
where the art work comes from :
doug mills, nytimes
senator kennedy’s political works :
a nytimes video
senator kennedy’s cause :
universal health care speech
senator kennedy’s nytimes obituary :
edward kennedy, senate stalwart, dies
condition critical
August 25, 2009
The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation —
Offers these five facts about the uninsured :
• Most of the uninsured are in working families and do not have access to employer-sponsored insurance.
• More than eight in ten of the uninsured are in low- or moderate-income families.
• Most low- and moderate-income uninsured adults are not eligible for Medicaid.
• The uninsured suffer from negative health consequences due to their lack of access to necessary medical care.
• Medical bills are a burden for the uninsured and frequently leave them with debt.
Additional facts from POV’S CRITICAL CONDITION site :
• 80% of the uninsured are adults. Young adults (ages 19-24) are at greatest risk of being uninsured and make up more than one of every three uninsured adults.
• The majority of uninsured adults (75%) have gone without coverage for a period of at least one year.
• The average total annual cost of employer-sponsored family coverage in 2007 was $12,106 — seldom affordable to low-wage workers without sizable contributions from their employers.
POV’s CRITICAL CONDITION site tallied up the costs of the uninsured :
• The lost productivity of uninsured Americans costs the economy up to $130 billion dollars a year — more than the estimated cost to cover the uninsured.
• Covering the bills of the uninsured increases the annual health premiums for the average family by $922.
• Hospitals typically charge uninsured patients 2.5 times what they charge privately insured patients.
• Uninsured adults are 4.5 times more likely to go without medical care than insured adults.
• Uninsured cancer patients are nearly twice as likely to die within five years as insured patients.
• Over half a million Americans are currently battling cancer without insurance.
• Among non-elderly adults, the lack of health insurance is the sixth leading cause of death in America.
where that info comes from :
those links and that info comes from bill moyers
where the art work comes from :
that is from pictures of detroil
republicans, religion and the triumph of unreason
August 22, 2009
“18,000 US citizens die every year needlessly, because they can’t access the care they require. That’s equivalent to six 9/11s, every year, year on year. Yet the Republicans have accused the Democrats who are trying to stop all this death by extending healthcare of being “killers” – and they have successfully managed to put them on the defensive.”
:::read the entire article:::
where that article comes from :
that is from johann hari at the independent
cartoon day yay!
August 22, 2009
Okay not totally cartoon day, but still, a cartoon. Yay!
bye bye death panel mccaughey
August 21, 2009
Former Lieutenant Governor of New York and adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute Betsy “Death Panel” McCaughey has resigned from her position as Director of Cantel Medical Corp. after her appearance on The Dailey Show with Jon Stewart. It is amazing to me Jon Stewart, on a comedy show, is doing more to expose the false claims of opponents to health care reform than any actual news anchor out there with the one exception of Bill Moyers.
BIG NOTE: Update Sept 1, 2009 sorry these youtubes are down — I will try to find new links but meanwhile you may watch :::part i::: and :::part ii::: on site at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
part i :
part ii :
ten awesome things….
August 21, 2009
So —
Ten Awesome Things That Would Happen if Health Care Reform Passes
[That is a link, that is why it is blue, punch that.]
It appears the GOP’s statistics are pretty damn questionable since insurance companies, unable to beat statistics, just went ahead and bought the company that provided statistics in order to bury numbers they do not like —
Research Firm Cited by GOP Is Owned by Health Insurer
[Yes, another link, notice the blue.]
It might be eye opening to notice an organization originally set up to provide medical care to third world countries like, oh, Africa, is having to cut Africa loose in order to address a population in more trouble: The people of The United States of America:
Third World Scene With an American Setting
Is that right? The United States of America is in worse shape than Africa? Yes. Exactly.
[I do not have to mention the blue thing again do I?]
Two Democrats are not lying down. Yay! Barney Frank — who is Jewish AND gay. He is from Massachusetts. [Wow I hope I spelled that right.]
[I wonder how much Barney Frank dug being asked why he is supporting Nazis? Jewish AND gay in Nazi Germany means a yellow star AND a pink star right?]
Anthony Weiner. Anthony Weiner is the Pitt Bull of health care reform. I cannot imagine him ever running out of energy — or contempt for the “Repub” party. He is from New York.
[I so wish he was from California. Feinstein is totally embarrassing me with her "not decided" sash --- do not think ANYONE is going to forget your "not decided" ways Feinstein.]
where the art work comes from :
that is from library of congress
freaks
August 20, 2009
I have a new follower –
On Twitter. Probably to keep an eye on me. I am vocally pro health reform enough it is catching some people’s attention and not all of them are happy with me.
This follower falls into the unhappy category. Someone with an entire Twitter page about not passing health care reform. The reason is, if I am reading that page right —
If the fifty million uninsured and more than fifty million underinsured in this country had access to medical treatment, um, one of them might try to get an abortion!
I see. Millions of American’s should live [or die] without medical care to stop a few from possibly trying to obtain an abortion.
Say has it ever occurred to one of you troglodytes if people had medical care they could maybe afford to bring a baby to term?
I thought not.
Freaks.
who’s really against health care reform
August 17, 2009
This is probably —
One of the most — possibly the most — important interviews to watch today with the health care reform bill facing so much opposition in Washington. It is an interview between Bill Moyer and former Head of Public Communications for the CIGNA insurance company Wendell Potter.
It is not a short sound bite, it is the full interview on the PBS site so will take a half hour to watch. Please make the time. It provides an insider’s view into why insurance companies oppose health care reform and, for that matter, any public health plan, and what that is costing Americans.
:::bill moyer interviews wendell potter former CIGNA head of public communications:::
Another important interview by Moyer is his interview with David Frum, a conservative Republican and former speech writer for George Bush who believes, if Republicans block President Obama’s attempts at health care reform, the entire nation will pay a very big price, Republicans and Democrats alike.
:::bill moyer interviews david frum former george bush speech writer:::
*note, that first link gave me a lot of grief and was not working at first, that is fixed now*also please take a moment to sign :::governor howard dean’s petition:::
where the art work comes from :
that is from pictures of detroit
the u.s. death toll
August 15, 2009
So, I was —
Accused of being. Um. “Hyperbolic.”
[Ooh la la. That is a five dollar word.]
[Also that is someone calling me hysterical and a chick right? Just checking. Anyway.]
This is because I said hundreds of thousands of people are dying in the U.S. because of lack of medical care.
You do not have to take my word for it. You can take someone else’s word for it. Like, um, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Excerpted from “The Inhuman State of U.S. Health Care” :
“The most credible estimate of the number of people in the United States who have died because of lack of medical care was provided by a study carried out by Professors David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler (New England Journal of Medicine 336, no. 11 [1997]). They concluded that almost 100,000 people died in the United States each year because of lack of needed care — three times the number of people who died of AIDs.”
*by the way i wonder how many of the elderly in that article are either skipping or halving their meds just so they can eat or going without food in order to pay for their meds?, that never killed anyone right, going without food or medicine?*by by the way, note the years there, 2003 address and 1997 study
