Are some Democratic legislators who are squabbling over health care secret supporters of the Taliban? Are some Republican legislators in cahoots with Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?Gosh, I’m surprised that Rubin didn’t tell us whether or not Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud supports a single-payer bill or not.
I'm dead serious when I ask those questions, as we pass another anniversary of 9/11.
President Obama must make critical decisions this fall about policies toward Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran - decisions forced on him early in his term because of wrongheaded policies by the previous administration.
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A U.S. president who fails on his signature issue - health care - won't have the strength and public support to deal with new challenges by Islamists. He will be seen at home and abroad as seriously weakened. Yet neither party seems much bothered by this threat.
Seriously, this is truly shocking nonsense coming from a pro like Rubin. Yes, no one wants to “weaken” the President, but that doesn’t mean that intelligent dialogue on this issue should be stifled either (of course, one problem is that there really hasn’t been much intelligent dialogue from the anti-reform crowd). And I don’t believe a thoughtful exchange would damage Obama’s standing, since, like most politicians, he seems to thrive on it.
I fervently hope and pray that the bill that eventually emerges from all of this includes a public option as part of genuine reform. However, if it doesn’t and Obama is somehow “weakened” as a result, he will have only himself to blame (as opposed to those “unwitting assistants” of the Taliban who actually supported something else instead).
(And by the way, speaking of the public option, it looks like the Wal-Mart twins, Mark Pryor and Blanche Lincoln, are out of step with their constituents once more based on this.)
And in the midst of his column, Smerky informed us of the following…
…according to two experts I spoke to last week, there remains a practical contradiction between the 1986 law and excluding illegals from the health-care umbrella.As far as I’m concerned, the “stupidity defense” on the part of employers for hiring illegals has never been a good excuse before, and it certainly isn’t now.
Dr. Gail Wilensky is no fan of the president's health-care prescriptions. Wilensky managed Medicare and Medicaid under George H.W. Bush and advised Sen. John McCain's campaign in 2008. She is now a senior fellow at Project HOPE, an international health education foundation.
By promising to follow the 1986 law and prohibit illegal immigrants from receiving health coverage, she told me, the president was "not quite explaining the facts" in terms of emergency situations.
"We do provide some care to illegal immigrants," she said. "There's not intended coverage under the proposals, but hospitals and workers or employers may not know that some of their employees are here illegally. And the fact is coverage at some level will be provided because people don't know that they're providing coverage to illegal immigrants. It will not be done intentionally."
Though the Obama Administration has stepped up enforcement against employers for hiring illegals (here), this tells us that, as recently as 2005 (and probably later), employers faced little in the way of penalties for doing so. So if “hospitals and workers or employers” don’t know if some of their employees are here illegally, then they should face the full weight of the law for their noncompliance.
And by the way, even though I disagree with him, I’m not sure what it says about Smerky that he’s actually criticizing the right wing’s most exalted figure (and regarding the way Smerky ended his column, I’d have payed good money to watch what happened to The Bad Joe Wilson if he’d yelled out “You lie” to The Gipper...of course, knowing the right-wing media echo chamber, they would have put out the story that Tip O’Neill put it up to it, or something).
Older Americans are more likely to oppose Mr. Obama’s (health care) initiative than any other age group. The White House views this dynamic as one of the biggest obstacles to tamping down public concerns about its approach and assembling a legislative coalition to get a bill passed in Congress.Really? This story in the Bucks County Courier Times yesterday told us the following…
Seniors who are forced to pay a large part of their income for prescriptions want the health care reform bill passed.Maybe before Nagourney decides to write about “older Americans” again, it would do him some good to actually go out and talk to a few of them first.
Evelyn Gordon's passion for health care reform gained strength after her father died needlessly, she said.
Shortly before he turned 65 and became eligible for Medicare, he suffered kidney failure because he wasn't able to afford the needed treatment.
"Because of his history of heart disease and two bypass surgeries, his health care wouldn't pay for (his needs). He couldn't afford the premiums. If he'd had access to affordable health care, he'd be alive today," said Gordon, of Morrisville.
After getting fed up with seeing examples of people whose health care plans failed them, Gordon joined a group of seniors Saturday who gathered at the Lower Bucks Senior Activity Center in Bristol to hear Congressman Patrick Murphy, D-8, speak in support of the health insurance reform bill.
Murphy focused on how the plan would close the widening coverage gap in the standard Medicare drug benefit.
Currently, seniors on Medicare get coverage for up to $2,700 per year in prescription drug payments. Coverage does not begin again until the recipient's drug costs exceed $6,100 annually, so seniors must pay out-of-pocket for all costs in between. This "doughnut hole" has been getting wider for years, leading some seniors to scrimp on their prescriptions or fall into financial turmoil.
Across the country, 27 million seniors depend on Medicare's prescription drug program, with 11,200 of them in Bucks County, said Murphy.
The reform bill President Barack Obama has been pushing will immediately start closing the coverage gap by providing a discount of at least 50 percent on prescription drugs for those whose spending falls within the gap.
An unidentified American sports fan, caught in the uncomfortable perils of global warming and climate change, awaits emergency federal guidance from the Obama White House on how best to combat the sun's glare at an afternoon athletic contest.So now it’s “jokes” about potential skin cancer, huh Malcolm?
After eight years of failed Bush-Cheney Republican policies, potentially millions of Americans like this remain uncovered and in similar straits threatening their basic healthcare, a predicament the protective Democratic administration finds unacceptable in an era of rapid change for a country that can put a man on the moon.
According to uninformed Washington sources, under the multi-billion-dollar Cash for Caps program being discussed, American residents who qualify (including illegal immigrants) will receive personalized instruction for up to six weeks on precisely how to properly position a visored cap to protect the face against the harmful sun's ruthless rays.
This tells us the following…
THURSDAY, Jan. 8 (HealthDay News) -- New cases of the deadly skin cancer melanoma are increasing among men and women in the United States, particularly among older men, researchers report.And as noted here (didn’t edit this much)…
Whether the increase in melanoma signals an epidemic is a matter of debate. However, the rate is increasing among all Americans and cannot be due to better screening alone, the researchers contend.
"Melanoma rates are still going up, especially among older white men," said lead researcher Dr. Eleni Linos, from the dermatology department at Stanford University Medical Center. "This calls for greater awareness for patients, their families and physicians."
…
Rates of melanoma increased by 3.1 percent a year, the researchers found. The increased rate was for all types of melanoma and for all thicknesses of tumors. Moreover, the rate of melanoma doubled in all socioeconomic groups, while deaths from the disease did not increase significantly.
"Scientists have debated whether the rising statistics for melanoma are skewed, as doctors detect more benign cancers earlier through screening," Linos said.
Melanoma rates are going up among all socioeconomic groups, which is a marker for access to physician care, and across all levels of tumor thickness, which is a marker of severity of this disease, Linos noted. Among men age 65 and older, the rates of melanoma have reached more than 125 cases per 100,000 men.
"Because the incidence has gone up for both men and women of all social groups and across all levels of cancer thickness, we believe this represents a genuine increase in melanoma cases, not just a sign of better screening," she said.
Although Sun is the main factor for the existence of life on earth, but scientist believe that continue(d) depletion of (the) ozone layer has significant negative impact on our skin too. Ultra violet rays are subdivided into three categories depending on their wave lengths, UVA-400-320 nm; UVB-320-290 nm; UVC-290-200 nm. Among all UVB radiation is by far the most harmful radiation that directly affect the skin causing different pigmentation disorder and increase risk of skin cancer. As ozone layer control the radiation, but recent depletion of ozone layer has increased the chances of many skin disease. Scientists believe that increase of temperature by 2% for a long-term due to changes of climate, might increase the carcinogenic effect of ultraviolet radiation by 10%.I don’t know if Malcolm is 65 or older or not, but given that “older Americans” are at more of a risk from melanoma now than ever before, he should probably act on some of this information (even if warnings come from a liberal infidel like yours truly).
And besides, I think his “Cash for Caps” is a total non-starter, as they say. However, maybe paying right-wing ideologue pundits not to spew their drivel could be a “stimulus” also (of common sense, that is).
“Cash for Hacks,” anyone?
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