Got Insurance?

I am in the process of writing a paper on Healthcare Reform and looked to your article for information. I currently do not prefer one candidate's plan over the other, and I will not pretend to know alot about this issue. Although, I found your article to be very one-sided, and I am very sure we all know which side that is! Of course, you have the right to print what you like, but it is sad that your article is not a fair assessment of both proposals, since it seems to be comparing the two.

THE AFFIRMATIVE ACTION CANDIDATE!

NEVER IN THE HISTORY OF THIS COUNTRY HAS A PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE BEEN GIVEN SUCH A FREE PASS BY THE PRESS AND JUST ABOUT EVERYONE ELSE!

I AM WAITING FOR A BLACK PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE TO MAKE IT ON HIS OWN MERIT.

COLIN POWELL COMES TO MIND!

They harassed her until she registered to vote six times!:
http://www.foxnews.com/video2/video08.html?maven_referralObject=3145562&maven_referralPlaylistId=&sRevUrl=http://www.foxnews.com/politics/

"Not all Democrats agree with Mr. Frank that such policies are off-limits to criticism. Last week Rep. Artur Davis of Alabama said in a statement: 'Like a lot of my Democratic colleagues I was too slow to appreciate the recklessness of Fannie and Freddie. I defended their efforts to encourage affordable homeownership, when in retrospect, I should have heeded the concerns raised by their regulator in 2004. Frankly, I wish my Democratic colleagues would admit when it comes to Fannie and Freddie, we were wrong.'

"Mr. Davis is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus."

'Rank snobbery'

Camille Paglia, who supports Sen. Barack Obama, has nothing but scorn for the way the media has treated Sarah Palin.

"The mountain of rubbish poured out about Palin over the past month would rival Everest. What a disgrace for our jabbering army of liberal journalists and commentators, too many of whom behaved like snippy jackasses," Miss Paglia writes at www.salon.com.

"The bourgeois conventionalism and rank snobbery of these alleged humanitarians stank up the place. As for Palin's brutally edited interviews with Charlie Gibson and that viper, Katie Couric, don't we all know that the best bits ended up on the cutting-room floor? Something has gone seriously wrong with Democratic ideology, which seems to have become a candied set of holier-than-thou bromides attached like tutti-frutti to a quivering green Jell-O mold of adolescent sentimentality."

Beauty and the Beast unleashed their inner pit bulls and are attacking Obama with their same old tricks- character assassination, lies and distortion. But Joe Six Pack isn't fooled.

This is a quote from foxnews.com:

"The analysis also concluded that in the latest period, nearly 100 percent of the McCain's ads were negative, compared to 34 percent of Obama's ads."

McCain has nothing good to say about himself. How pathetic.

Beauty and the Beast unleashed their inner pit bulls and are attacking Obama with their same old tricks- character assassination, lies and distortion. But Joe Six Pack isn't fooled.

This is a quote from foxnews.com:

"The analysis also concluded that in the latest period, nearly 100 percent of the McCain's ads were negative, compared to 34 percent of Obama's ads."

McCain has nothing good to say about himself. How pathetic.

The Antichrist!:
When George Soros failed to obtain the election of his candidate, John Kerry, in 2004, he brooded for a while, even said he might get out of politics altogether, but he just couldn???t stop himself. He has stated publicly that he wishes to burst the ???bubble of American supremacy,??? because he says our preeminence in the world is a detriment to global ???equilibrium.??? So far, he has failed, but he keeps on trying.

And Mr. Soros has made no secret either of the fact that he sees the shortest way to effect political shake-ups, what he terms ???regime changes,??? is through very difficult economic conditions.

America has not yet felt the full force of Soros style economic shock treatment. But others have.

Soros made his first billion in 1992 by shorting the British pound with leveraged billions in financial bets, and became known as the man who broke the Bank of England. He broke it on the backs of hard-working British citizens who immediately saw their homes severely devalued and their life savings cut drastically in comparative worth almost overnight.

When the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997 threatened to spread globally, George Soros was right in the thick of it. Soros was accused by the Malaysian Prime Minister of causing the collapse with his monetary machinations, and he was branded in Thailand as an ???economic war criminal??? who ???sucks the blood from the people.??? Right in the middle of this crisis, Soros dashed off his book, The Crisis of Global Capitalism, which demanded a ???third way??? toward economic stability.

Wake up, America, before it is too late!!!!

Everyone who is under a group plan is covered no matter what conditions they have or had. It is the smaller percentage of people with self-pay individual plans that are forced to take the pre-existing conditions policies. Firstly, since about 85% of America's insured have group policies without any pre-existing conditions clauses, it clearly would not bankrupt the industry to extend this to the self-pay individuals. Secondly, to refuse to extend this to self-pay people is terrific discrimination, especially when you consider that the self-pay people are paying ALOT more for their insurance than the group plan people, who have negotiated low premiums by buying in bulk. Thirdly, insurance companies routinely use the self-pay pre-existing conditions clause as a scam. I've known many patients who purchase self-pay policies which say that after two years of paying their premiums, the insurance company will then allow their pre-existing conditions to be covered. At one year and 11 months they get a letter in the mail telling them that their policy has been cancelled. This is not fair.

Many people think that Obama's plan will socialize medicine. Nothing is further from the truth. This is just more of the misleading lies that are being spewed by the McCain campaign (thank you, Karl Rove).

My personal opinion is that it is disgustingly immoral to make corporate sized profits off of the backs of sick people. I myself would be in favor of socialized medicine in America, even if it would lower my income. However, neither candidate is suggesting this option.

Here's the difference between McCain's and Obama's plans:

McCain wants to deregulate the industry and tax your benefits. The $5,000 per family tax break he recommends for self-pay individuals does not come anywhere near the cost of a policy for a family. Employers would throw millions of workers off of their insurance plans, so we would end up with even MORE people who are uninsured. And McCain's deregulation would be a disaster. This industry is already taking unfair advantage of it's customers, reaping huge profits and delivering increasingly sub-standard care. Imagine how bad it would get if suddenly there were no rules? Kinda like how Wall Street turned out.

Obama wants to regulate the industry to make it fair for all Americans. Everyone gets the same price when they purchase an equivalent policy. And all children are automatically covered, which only makes since, since childhood health care is essential if you want strong citizens.

The GOP is grasping at straws. They have nothing substantive against Obama, but boy are they good at making up lies. This has been a leading Karl Rove tactic for years, and if America falls for this again we should be ashamed of ourselves. Not to mention the obvious fact that this is all a smokescreen to keep the focus off of the fact that Palin and her Alaska associates are in contempt of court for refusing to testify in the Troopergate hearings. After Nixon and Clinton, Americans are to some extent jaded, but really, would you want a VP who refuses to attend hearings in her own defense, and instructs her employees not to testify? That smells like guilt. It surely doesn't give the impression that she has done no wrong and has nothing to hide.

This year, the GOP offers you an angry old man and a woman who, while personable, is desperately uniformed about national and international issues. Both of them are far right politically. McCain used to be a maverick, but since 2004 he's voted 90% with Bush. McCain's policies are not original or reformist, despite how he's tried to co-opt Obama's popular message of change. Please go to the websites of both of the candidates and read their platforms. Obama's Blueprint for Change has more good ideas than McCain's plan. Compare them yourself. Obama's basic premise is that tax dollars should be spent to make America stronger and to improve the lives and well being of our people. For example, he uses education programs to train a new technology workforce, contributing to energy independence, creating jobs and improving the economy. When you read McCain's plan you will find no over-arching design to get America back on track. Instead you'll find more tax cuts for the wealthy, de-regulation of the health care industry, and a stated intent to overturn Roe v. Wade.

I'm a Republican. Although I embrace some forward-thinking social values, in the past I've rarely voted Democrat. My thinking was that since Republicans grow robust economies, by voting Republican I'd be endorsing a plan that would grow wealth for our nation, and then we'd be able to afford social programs. It was a good strategy for a couple decades, but I have to say that the tenure of W. Bush has changed my mind. Not only is there nothing fiscally responsible about today's GOP, the insidious alignment of the party with religious intolerance has really turned me off.

On the other hand, the intelligent luminous thought of Barack Obama has ignited my passion for politics and my patriotism. I want a President who puts America first and can get the economy back on track. In my mind, values voting takes a back burner when we are faced with a meltdown of the economy. It is time for a change, a real change. The Republicans have controlled the Presidency for 38 of the past 50 years, but they have fallen down on the job. The Democrats have a stellar candidate this year, and I am voting for Obama.

he ACORN does not fall from the tree:
http://justsaynodeal.com/acorn.html

McCain is delutional.


When the people ask for a tax cut, they are asking for their families. However, McCain's tax cut is for insurance companies if you sign up. And it will cover less than 50% of the cost.

This is one of the few Democrats that I am proud of!:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZR5ekEuGyvk

This is one of the few Democrats that I am proud of!:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZR5ekEuGyvk

A man of great wisdom:
http://www.atlah.org/broadcast/manningreport.html

Where are those great Anita Smith commercials where she talks about how wonderful Blue Cross is and how affordable it is, how it takes great care of our children. Heck, Blue Cross is great-if you can afford it, I certainly cannot. Blue Cross is at least 1500.00 per month for a family and that's not even their best plan. I have lousy insurance which leaves thousands behind for us to pay and barely covers anything, but that's what we can afford. And we're not stupid or lazy or fat or the many other adjectives the reporters use on Fox news to describe people who don't have insurance or have low quality insurance. We're just middle class, do not live extravagantly and have both worked for 25 years, but are not offered insurance at work. And I have numerous patients who have no insurance and they are decent working class and middle class people who simply cannot afford it. When the monthly insurance plan is more than your mortgage payment, that is absolutely ridiculous. Yes, doctors make too much, hospitals charge too much and the pharmaceutical industry is out of control with the cost of research and development which trickles down to the cost of the medication. No, we don't need more antidepressants or more antihypertensives or even over the counter pain medications or hypnotics or anxiolytics, but they keep developing these which costs billions. That money should be going towards developing better medications for cancer, HIV, Parkinson's, MS, Cystic Fibrosis and other disease processes that still claim high mortality.

McCain wants all to put their retirement money in the stock market instead of social security. But we just lost $1trillion in the stock market.

In considering how to tackle the access/quality/cost problems of our health care ???system??? one must avoid starting with the wrong question. The goal should not be ???to give health insurance to more people???, since that goal implies that insurance, with its inherent profit obsession, is a fundamental ingredient to the solution we seek. Instead of further committing America???s health care to some variation of a failed approach, we ought to first examine the root causes of the current crisis.

The fact is: a majority of players who make a living out of directly or indirectly helping patients are afflicted by greed. Most medical insurance, pharmaceutical, medical supply and hospital executives, as well as a distressing number of researchers and clinicians, are driven by a counter-productive level of greed.
If the system???s goal is to help patients, how can we justify so many insurance and pharmaceutical executives making hundreds of millions of dollars in yearly income? Is there any excuse for hospital CEO's being paid over a million dollars a year? Can we really excuse Neurosuregeons generally making over a million? Can we justify Radiologists starting at about $ 500,000? Can we continue to tolerate "researchers" in the pocket of the pharm industry? Should we continue to wink at "academic" practices in our Teaching Hospitals where trainees continue to be used mostly as cheap labor, and their training remains the discredited "see one, do one, teach one"? Is the concern about quality of care best demonstrated by the emergence of "hospitalists", "nocturnists" and, (soon enough) "week-endists??? and ???holidayists"? Do we really seek quality of care when we continue to count on the Joint Commission of Hospital Accreditation to come by and give hospitals the customarily empty "seal of approval", one of the ???hardest to flunk??? requirements of any industry?

Let's face it: like the financial "industry", the Health Care "industry" is overdue for a correction of significant dimensions. Granted, some Americans get superb health care, but that does not begin to compensate for the unforgivably bad care that can be found anywhere in America, to say nothing of the non-care. Those of us, who insist in the disproportionate privilege that the broken-unfair-immoral system has allowed us, would do well in voting not for McCain, much less for Obama. Those afraid of reform should vote instead for Karl Rove: he is the one who trained McCain to raise the false specter of socialized medicine, a very effective way of helping the friends of his friends the lobbyists to continue to unload above par the junk bonds that our ???health care system" has issued.
Ricardo L. Sánchez, M.D., M.P.H.