Which Medical Condition is the Worst?

If you had to guess which medical condition was the worst, which one would you pick?

Most people’s thoughts would go immediately to the most widely publicized: the disease advertised as the most painful and deadliest of all diseases. Cancer.  With pancreatic cancer, the victim suffers prolonged agony, relieved only by colossal injections of pain medication, until finally he expires, leaving his cancer-ridden body once and for all.  The worst possible disease, some would say.

Many would choose Alzheimer’s disease as the worst disease.  Your mind slowly loses memory, forgetting things and people and places. Eventually, your heart “forgets” to beat, and you pass on, leaving a wake of pain and suffering by your loved ones.  Because you generally become less aware of your surroundings as time goes by, and because the deterioration happens over years or even decades, the pain and suffering are felt more by your family and friends than you.

Some would say that Lou Gherig’s Disease, also known as ALS, is the worst. Like Alzheimer’s, your body slowly forgets to function, but unlike Alzheimer’s, your mind works perfectly.  The result is a little like waking up in the middle of a surgery, and being unable to communicate to the staff that you are awake. Your body is paralyzed, but your brain is wide awake. Thankfully (or not), death is generally relatively quickly.

Others would say that a stroke is the worst, for reasons similar to ALS. Your mind is generally awake, but your body is unable to communicate that awareness to the world at large. Thinking that your brain has turned to mush because you undergo the humility of wearing diapers and eating baby food,  your family may treat you like you’re a piece of furniture, or as if you’re an infant. Unable to communicate your complete awareness to them, you suffer for years or even decades in silence.

As the worst possible disease, mental illness isn’t even on most people’s radar. But consider, for a moment, the facts.

One of the problems is that unlike cancer, mental illness has a lousy public relations campaign. It doesn’t have a public personality attached to it- at least nobody positive. There’s no Lou Gherig or Lance Armstrong or Stephen Hawking to bring a sense of empathy to the masses. Unlike breast cancer, hundreds of millions of dollars aren’t spent on events to publicize mental illness- events like the Susan G. Komen Walk for the Cure – where the color pink has come to symbolize breast cancer in everything from headbands to hand mixers. Unlike Lance Armstrong’s Livestrong cancer campaign, where yellow bracelets signify triumph over cancer, there is no little plastic bracelet color for mental illness awareness. In fact, because of its enormous stigma, you would be hard-pressed to find victims and family members willing to take the spotlight for mental illness.

Everyone recognizes that the term “cancer” is a blanket term for a multitude of illnesses all sharing the same basic characteristic: improper cell division. Unlike cancer, the general public doesn’t perceive mental illness as a blanket name for illnesses caused by improper brain chemistry. Both are breakdowns of normal bodily functions, yet cancer doesn’t have the reputation of being a character flaw or a sign of moral bankruptcy that mental illness does.

Patients with cancer are not embarrassed to tell their friends and family their diagnosis. They aren’t afraid of being thought less of as a person for that diagnosis, that somehow they fell short. But with mental illness, the stigma is so great that the fear of rejection and isolation is a legitimate concern.  You just don’t tell anyone.

Because their loved one’s illness isn’t associated with moral bankruptcy and character flaws, friends and relatives of cancer victims don’t have the same incentives to keep anyone from knowing their loved one has cancer. Protecting themselves from the unspoken charge of moral bankruptcy by association isn’t a top concern of the families of cancer patients.

Other diseases, like cancer or ALS or a stroke, don’t cause its victims to commit heinous crimes.  You don’t see a breast cancer victim as the lead-in story on the nightly news because she murdered a bunch of school children. You don’t hear about a stroke victim trying to assassinate the President. A lung cancer victim doesn’t jump off a bridge to get away from the voices in his head. And yet the connection between these types of actions and mental illness, if the news media even bothers to make one, is voyeuristic rather than sympathetic.

No legitimate insurance company would dare decline to authorize or pay  for mainstream treatment of a cancer victim, but most insurance companies have little or no such coverage for mainstream treatment of mental illness, reasoning that it isn’t, after all, a real physical illness. If they do cover it, it’s under a separate policy from “physical” health, called “Behavioral Mental Health”.  We don’t see major insurance companies splitting off cancer from a list of diseases, calling it “Cell Divisional Health”, severely restricting its access, and farming out its administration to an entirely separate company.

When it comes time for hospitalization, there isn’t a question of whether a cancer victim or stroke victim even needs to go to a hospital. If they’re seriously ill, a cancer patient doesn’t have to be at death’s door before he’s admitted to the hospital. But a mentally ill victim has to either be about to hurt or kill himself or others (as determined by a third party) or needs to have tried (and failed) to kill himself before a mental hospital will consider admitting him.

If they’re hemorrhaging, but not near death, a cancer patient isn’t turned away for lack of space. Cancer patients don’t have to wait until there’s room for them at a hospital. Unlike hospital space for the mentally ill, hospital space for cancer victims hasn’t decreased over the past 20 years.

Alzheimer’s patients aren’t routinely discharged from hospitals onto the streets, left to fend for themselves. Cancer patients aren’t routinely discharged before they are stabilized. And yet the mentally ill are routinely discharged out onto the streets all of the time. Who do you think the homeless people are?

The cancer patient doesn’t have to give up his civil rights in order to be treated. He can leave the hospital whenever he wants to. But in order for a mentally ill patient to be treated, he has to give up his civil rights. Mental patients are locked in, physically unable to leave the hospital until someone else- the attending psychiatrist- says they can go- however long that takes.

Once in a hospital, a cancer patient has the option to discontinue medication at any time. Again, a cancer patient doesn’t have to give up his civil rights in order to be treated.  Mentally ill patients, on the other hand, must leave their civil rights at the door when they enter a mental hospital. Whether they want to or not, they are forced to continue medication while they are hospitalized.

Comparing the physical pain of the cancer or the effects of cancer treatment with the effects of mental illness is in some ways like comparing apples to oranges.  Whereas the cancer victim fights for her life, the severely depressed victim fights to kill herself.  Is the physical pain of cancer worse than the emotional pain of continually hearing voices in your head nonstop? Is radiation sickness worse than lithium side effects?  Is prostate cancer preferable to schizophrenia?

I’m not trying in any way to minimize the pain and suffering that these diseases engender. My point is that each of these diseases -all of them- including mental illness-engenders tremendous pain and suffering. None of them- including mental illness- is any less severe than any other.

I

For too long, mental illness has been a quiet disease. Quietly terrible, but still quiet.  This is a disease- or a family of diseases- on par with cancer and ALS and strokes, and yet there is a huge vacuum out there. Nobody even thinks about mental illness as a true physical disease. It’s not even on the radar. This needs to change. We need to raise people’s consciousness about mental illness, and give it the parity it deserves.  We’ll know we’ve done our job when “mental illness” takes its rightful place on the list of Terrible Diseases in the public consciousness.

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Have a Blessed Day,

Max Baucus is a busy man. He appears to have the stamina of a much younger man, what with screwing one of his assistants while simultaneously screwing millions of Americans.

Max should be a paid spokesperson for Viagra. That would dovetail nicely with all of the campaign contributions he’s received from the hospitals, insurers and other medical interest groups hoping to shape the legislation to their advantage.
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Baucus Nominated Girlfriend for U.S. Attorney

Dec. 4, 2009, 10:32 p.m.
By John Stanton
Roll Call Staff

Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus’ office confirmed late Friday night that the Montana Democrat was carrying on an affair with his state office director, Melodee Hanes, when he nominated her to be U.S. attorney in Montana.

According to a source familiar with their relationship, Hanes and Baucus began their relationship in the summer of 2008 – nearly a year before Baucus and his wife, Wanda, divorced in April 2009. (In other words, he committed adultry.) The Senator had informally separated from his wife in March 2008 and they were living apart when he began dating Hanes, according to Baucus’ office.

Hanes ended her employment with Baucus in the spring of this year.

Hanes, who is divorced and now lives with Baucus in the Eastern Market neighborhood of Washington, D.C., ultimately withdrew her name from consideration for the U.S. attorney position in order to move to Washington, and she now works in the Justice Department’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention as a counselor to the administrator. (How do you suppose she got that job?)

Baucus spokesman Tyler Matsdorf said the relationship was not the cause of Baucus’ divorce and that Baucus did not arrange for her current position with DOJ. (The 1st statement I might believe, but the 2nd, not so much.)

“In no way was their relationship the cause of their respective divorces. When Senator Baucus and Melodee Hanes, his former state director, realized that their relationship was developing beyond a purely professional nature, Melodee began the process of resigning her Senate employment,” Matsdorf said.

“After withdrawing from consideration for U.S. Attorney, Ms. Hanes independently applied for her current position at the Department of Justice. Having extensive experience and qualifications in the field, Ms. Hanes was awarded the position based solely on her merit. Since then she has excelled in her role,” he added. (Based solely on the merit of how well she “performed” under pressure (and between the sheets).)

Hanes was one of three names Baucus forwarded to the White House for consideration as Montana’s U.S. attorney. President Barack Obama ultimately tapped one of Baucus’ nominees, Mike Cotter, for the position.

Hanes has had a long professional relationship with Baucus, working as field director and counsel to his office between 2003 and 2005 and then as state director and counsel between 2005 and this spring. She also worked as the regional finance director for Baucus’ 2002 re-election campaign. Prior to that, Hanes was a deputy county attorney in Yellowstone County, where she primarily prosecuted felony sexual assault and child abuse cases. Hanes also teaches a class in child abuse law at Drake University Law School in Des Moines Iowa.

Frankly, I am of the mind that this entire business of a “mandate” requiring people to pay an insurance company for health coverage is an unconstitutional mess to begin with.. I think Madison hit it right on the head. He seems to be saying that government can inadvertently give too much power to a private concern in its zeal to legislate certain rights. In our case, that would be the present Health-Care legislation being debated.
Bill of Attainder
Definition: A legislative act that singles out an individual or group for punishment without a trial.
The Constitution of the United States, Article I, Section 9, paragraph 3 provides that: “No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law will be passed.”
“The Bill of Attainder Clause was intended not as a narrow, technical (and therefore soon to be outmoded) prohibition, but rather as an implementation of the separation of powers, a general safeguard against legislative exercise of the judicial function or more simply – trial by legislature.” U.S. v. Brown, 381 U.S. 437, 440 (1965).
“These clauses of the Constitution are not of the broad, general nature of the Due Process Clause, but refer to rather precise legal terms which had a meaning under English law at the time the Constitution was adopted. A bill of attainder was a legislative act that singled out one or more persons and imposed punishment on them, without benefit of trial. Such actions were regarded as odious by the framers of the Constitution because it was the traditional role of a court, judging an individual case, to impose punishment.” William H. Rehnquist, The Supreme Court, page 166.
“Bills of attainder, ex post facto laws, and laws impairing the obligations of contracts, are contrary to the first principles of the social compact, and to every principle of sound legislation. … The sober people of America are weary of the fluctuating policy which has directed the public councils. They have seen with regret and indignation that sudden changes and legislative interferences, in cases affecting personal rights, become jobs in the hands of enterprising and influential speculators, and snares to the more-industrious and less-informed part of the community.” James Madison, Federalist Number 44, 1788.
Supreme Court cases construing the Bill of Attainder clause include:
• Ex Parte Garland, 4 Wallace 333 (1866).
• Cummings v. Missouri, 4 Wallace 277 (1866).
• U.S. v. Brown, 381 U.S. 437 (1965).
• Nixon v. Administrator of General Services, 433 U.S.425 (1977).
• Selective Service Administration v. Minnesota PIRG, 468 U.S. 841 (1984).
See also, SBC v. FCC. : SBC Communications v. FCC, U. S. Supreme Court Docket No. 98-652

http://www.techlawjournal.com/glossary/legal/attainder.htm

What is of particular note here is the last half of the last paragraph. It is for this reason alone that I would challenge this shoddy piece of legislation being foisted on the American people by an uncaring group of so-called “people’s representatives.” They haven’t been our representatives for some time now.

So, why hasn’t anyone challenged this? Are we so desperate for any sort of victory that we would even accept this as a solution? That is not progress. We should be demanding what is ours by right, by virtue of the fact we are supposedly masters of our government. Yet, we act like its servants. We even allow our legislature to pass retroactive, ex post facto laws immunizing it from the consequences of its own actions, and we say nothing. Need I point out the part of the definition that states “No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law will be passed.” Constitution of the United States, Article I, Section 9, paragraph 3. Yet, we allowed our Congress to pass a law retroactively immunizing known criminals in the Bush administration from any consequence of their illegal wire-tapping and torture policies.

Have we finally reached the point where even our own Constitution is just a worthless scrap of paper to be hauled out only when our thoroughly corrupt, corporate-bought-and-paid-for legislature wants to justify some new outrage on us? This egregious giveaway to the insurance industry needs to be fought against tooth-and-nail until we get what we asked for in the first place: a single-payer system.

Obama to Capitol Hill
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama plans to go to Capitol Hill on Sunday to rally Democratic senators at a crucial time in the health care debate.
Obama plans to speak at the caucus meeting, scheduled for 2 p.m., as senators work through the weekend on overhaul legislation.

source:

Snowe Rejoins Dems At Public Option Negotiating Table
In a breakthough in Senate negotiations around a public health insurance option, Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) sat down with centrist conservative Democrats for the first time Saturday since the bipartisan Gang of Six broke up shortly after returning from the August recess.

source:

It’s pretty nice hearing about the White House “party crashers” again for the 8000th time in the last 2 days, but it’s also delightful hearing about Tiger Woods quite a bit, although 900 times every day isn’t quite up to par. Oprah ending her show, which I have never watched, is also hugely momentous and fascinating. Very much less riveting is the fact that 30,000 new soldiers will be shipped off to evade death in Afghanistan. Even less attention-grabbing is the fact that the senate won’t pass a health bill before 2070 and I just got a $500 hospital bill for getting stitches 6 months ago.  

Back to the White House party crashers, however. Man, is this a big deal. Can you believe that these absolute nobodies were able to skate themselves through the sacred White House checkpoint and mingle with all of these gleaming, top echelon Washington socialites, many of which who have enough money, power, and influence to easily have me killed, dismembered, and the murder covered up if it suited their needs? God, the stinking nerve of these fame-hungry Salahi characters to sneak into such prestigious, outer-worldly event. Even worse is this Tiger Woods business. Can you even fathom the fact that a near-billionaire, nationally idolized sports star like Tiger Woods would dare break the sacred institution of marriage? I would have definitely never guessed that someone who is treated like a god by every single person around him and who could have sex with anyone and anything he wanted and then buy them or it a Ferrari and a coat made of human skin would ever dare to have intercourse with anyone other than his wife, with whom I’m sure he has a very deep emotional bond — the foundation of all celebrity marriages. (By the way, I’m pretty sure he and his Swedish model wife have never had a conversation.) The whole thing is truly, truly inconceivable. It just doesn’t make any sense at all. I mean, you would just think that the all-holy, widely-revered, and pristine institution of marriage, which most of the time ends in divorce or a grisly homicide-suicide in the United States, could possibly be overshadowed by something as absolutely mundane and unimportant as a few millions of dollars, stardom, god-like treatment, the capacity to have sexual intercourse with anyone and anything you want, and boundless national adoration. Did I mention that Tiger Woods could easily have sex with an array of animals or stationery objects if he wanted? I was trying to be subtle, but I don’t want the suggestions to go entirely unnoticed. He also has enough money and power to give coats made of human skin to his mistresses, a fact I briefly touched upon above. 

Anyhow, the whole thing deserves nothing less than the most earnest news coverage and analysis, much more so than some unimaginative tale of 30,000 kids going to obliterate their young lives on the other side of this fair planet. B-o-r-i-n-g. Oprah will also be missed, as will my $500 dollars. 

No matter what the Unemployment Rate in San Jose is, there are a lot of vacant job openings available  in a population of 950,000 people – over 41,000 jobs!  Jobs increased in all 20 Top College Towns (Forbes.com) from 2008 – 2009, including San Jose and the trend is continuing into 2010.

Because San Jose is home to so many online companies like Yahoo and SimplyHired, many jobs are available in Information Technology in Computers/Networks/Software Development.  Other positions are open in healthcare, sales, engineering, and business development.

For the full city review, visit:

Hot Jobs in San Jose 

No, not immoral. Capitalism, like money, like a hammer or a car, is ammoral. It has no morality, neither good, nor bad.  It’s a tool, nothing more.  And like any tool, it can be used for good, or not so much good.

Human beings are by nature driven primarily by self-interest.  Even greed.  That’s a fact of life.  An immutable rule.  If this were not the case, our holy scriptures and religious texts would not preoccupy themselves so much with condemning greed, and teaching selflessness.  We struggle to overcome greed and self-interest, but it will always be part of our genetic code.

And although capitalism has no morality, it works.  And it works precisely because it harnesses our inherent self-interest and greed, and produces a benefit out of it.  A great benefit.  As in ‘prosperity the likes of which has never been seen in human history’ benefit.  And that is certainly true in the case of our healthcare system.

I have been reluctant to insert myself into this debate because I see the pros and cons to both arguments, and I’m too ignorant on the specifics.  I always tilt towards capitalism and away from statism, but I am also concerned about the uninsured.  Yet Jon Stossel is just too good to ignore here.  He’s always amazing.

Now, as good judeo-christians, we are ever mindful of those who go without.  And we do want to help cover those currently without healthcare.  But is the DESTRUCTION of our current healthcare system the way to do it?  Or does it call for REFORM.  There is a difference.

“The people of Afghanistan don’t want to be saved by us, they want to be saved from us.”
- US Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH).

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. The cliché begs repeating because history has shown that no one has ever won in Afghanistan.

Almost everyone knows that the USSR was defeated there, resulting in the bankruptcy and collapse of the Soviet Union. We saw their troops leaving on the news in 1989. No, sorry – they didn’t leave because we sent John Rambo.

The British also failed to conquer Afghanistan – THREE separate times. The bloodiest massacre of British troops occured in Afghanistan. Other empires who tried include Alexander the Great, Mahmud of Ghazni, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, the Seljuks, the Hotaki Dynasty, the Moghul Empire, and the Ilkhanate; all fell to the proud and unconquerable people of Afghanistan. That’s why it’s called “The Graveyard of Empires”. Seems yet another empire is picking out its gravestone there now.

“War is Peace” – the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive wars, occupation and bombing of nations that pose no threat to us continues.

Please watch this short video and if you think this war is wrong – call and write to your Congressperson and tell him or her to vote NO on any spending bill that would send more troops to Afghanistan. They have the power to stop this escalation.

The Nobel “Peace” Prize winner wants to use your taxes to bomb Afghanistan further to peace…or rather to pieces. Our country will not become safe if we bomb Afghanistan, or send more drones into Pakistan to kill people in mud huts with our $2 million dollar missiles. They will only create more suicide bombers, terrorists and resistance will esalate putting our troops at risk. Not to mention bankrupt our nation, the great empires of the past collapsed because they couldn’t pay for their wars and occupations. We can use that money to re-invest in our country wisely.

Think about it – would you want your country occupied and bombed by foreign troops? Afghans are a very proud people, why would they? We spend more money on “defense” and “peace” wars than the rest of the world combined. One has to be crazy to think that USA – the “world’s only superpower” surrounded by oceans on its East and West, and puppet states on the North and South needs a military budget that huge to defend the nation against people living in mud huts half way the world across.

www.bendib.com – America’s Most Wanted Cartoonist.
The pen is funnier than the sword. Cartoons that speak truth to power.

The United States of America’s health care system is in the emergency room. Decades of negligence and harmful behavior have inflicted upon our health care a dire situation that has only recently received a proper diagnosis. Symptoms are advanced but treatable. Health care has a pre-existing condition in need of immediate attention.

If the recent statistics regarding our health care system are any indication, the richest industrialized nation in the world is also one of the worst places to require medical attention. Indeed, the U.S. is considered the global leader in medical innovation and new drug creation. The U.S. also spends the most money per person on health care, approximately 16% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP); the second wealthiest nation, Japan, spends only 8% of its GDP on health care. In 2007 alone, U.S. health care spending was an astounding $2.26 trillion dollars, or about $7,500 per person.

Despite these seemingly generous numbers, the U.S. ranks 50th in the world for life expectancy, according to the CIA World Factbook. The World Health Organization has ranked the U.S. health care system 37th in overall performance, its citizens coming in at 72nd in overall level of health.

That’s not to mention the 15% of the U.S. population that are uninsured; that’s 45.7 million Americans, according to the U.S. Census Bureau in 2007. It is estimated that the number has since grown tremendously due to various effects of the current recession. Many Americans have recently lost their jobs and, hence, health insurance. The costs of health insurance have risen quicker than wages or inflation, which has caused some working Americans to drop their plans.

Recent studies have shown that medical debt is a leading cause of personal bankruptcy in the U.S.; this phenomenon is almost unheard of elsewhere in the developed world. A 2009 Harvard study found that 44, 800 deaths occur annually in the U.S. due to a lack or insufficiency of health insurance.

It’s a broken system, destined to become worse if left the way it is. Of all the things that government shouldn’t interfere with and spend more money on, this is one area in which we could use the assistance. Without the health of its people, a nation cannot accomplish much else.

Statistical References

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/

http://siteresources.worldbank.org/DATASTATISTICS/Resources/GDP.pdf

http://www.cms.hhs.gov/NationalHealthExpendData/25_NHE_Fact_Sheet.asp

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2102.html

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/152741.php

http://www.photius.com/rankings/who_world_health_ranks.html

http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/p60-235.pdf

http://www.familiesusa.org/assets/pdfs/americans-at-risk.pdf

http://pnhp.org/excessdeaths/health-insurance-and-mortality-in-US-adults.pdf

‘Twas the night of reform when all in the House

Were Tweeting and blogging and squawking like grouse

Their bill filled with zeroes and commas and flair

In hopes that the Senate would soon be there

The voters were restless, and in need of good care,

And they whined and they pleaded and they yelled ‘don’t you dare’

“Don’t sidestep this issue, don’t do it for votes”

“Don’t kowtow to payors or we’ll be at your throats.”

With Pelosi and her Botox and while Reid took his nap

Didn’t care if the people put up with their (you rhyme it, I’m pretending to be neutral)

The docs sat on the sidelines, bemoaning their fate,

While payors dressed like succubi caroled “ain’t this great?”

On the lawn of the White House there arose such disdain

As the public fought reform from ‘Frisco to Maine.

MSNBC, neigh now Comcast, buttressed their base,

And Fox, aka Rupert, said it was all a disgrace.

The words on the pages of the newly printed bill,

Hid nuance, erudition, obfuscation, and skill,

Do not read the details, adjectives and signs,

Do not worry how it impacts your bottom line.

We are here to pretend we did that of import,

To Hell with Medicare, Medicaid and the sort

It’s voters we want, It’s our doxology, our mantra,

And this year silly people, this year WE are Santa

On Boxer, on Biden on Fienstein they came,

And we chortled, berated, and chided by name.

“What about seniors, and sick people” we cried?

“What about uninsured, don’t you care if they died”

“This is about people you meet on the street.

People who must choose between their meds and to eat

It’s about Lipitor, Xanax, Prozac and Viagra,

It’s about doing what’s right, do what’s right or we’ll bag ‘ya”

And then in a twinkling I heard in my head,

The gnawing and chiding of Congress, who said,

We cavorted and sucked up, the best we knew how,

We spent bucks, made payoffs, and said the time is now.

Festooned all in new regs from NHS to VA

There were those who suggested, this is not going to play,

HITECH and ARRA are not making it fun,

RHIOs and RECs will soon come undone,

We’re paying the hospitals to do EHR

We know it seems silly, like we lowered the bar

If that doesn’t work we will tax them instead,

Make them spend gobs of money, make their budgets bleed red.

Spend it, refund it, and print new money now,

Buying Canada would be cheaper and easier but wow

They want to sign something, sign it soon, sign it fast,

But don’t assume that they’ve read it from first page to last,

We could’a been more like France, like the Swiss or the British

Make us more European, make our rich people skittish,

The tall socialist exclaimed as the dems shifted right,

Will Obamacare fail, have I lost all my might?

Craven Cowards 

The elected officials have become supine, lying in the dirt they helped create and whining. None stand up and bar the way. Oh there is one here and there who get to their knees and make half-hearted noises about this is the wrong path, we need a bipartisan efforts—whatever passes for politically correct and nothing dangerous to their power, prestige or privilege.

This is a dangerous time in our history. We, as a people, are being driven down a road that FDR started- Socialism. With the attack on Christianity, the seizure of our money, our freedoms and our civilization, the enslavement of the most free , most generous and bravest people in the history of the world is nearly complete.

Where is the Daniel Webster who stood to thunder “God grants liberty only to those who love it and are always ready to guard and defend it.”

Where is the Lincoln who stated “Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.”

Where is the Patrick Henry to boom out “I know not what path others may take but as for me Give me liberty or give me death?”

I know the spirit of these men still lives in the hearts of the American people. It lives in me. I am exhausted watching the Republicans scurry around the edges, trying hard not to offend the powers that be, running right up to the edge of standing in the way of their country’s and their own destruction only to equivocate, excuse and explain before running away.

In case there is anyone who has not listened to the constant flow of cowardice from the Republicans in Washington let me give you the three things that convinced me that they are the most self protecting, cowardly group that this country has ever been saddled with.

The first instance is the fact that in the House of Self Interest which used to be known as the House of representatives-when the health care bill was being debated and voted on and they knew it was going to crammed down our throats regardless of the town halls, tea parties and drumbeat of the peoples voices what did they do? They whined and wept and wistfully opined that this is not good—they have other options—the American people don’t like this—it’s not bipartisan. What should they have done? The “leadership” should have risen on their hind legs and boldly said that they will not sit in this house while the Democrats force feed the people this tripe and that any republican left in that room is no longer a republican and as a group march out the doors and announce to the press that this is being forced through against the will of the people and in such a way that a thief in the night might wonder what’s the hurry?

The same thing happened in the Senate only this time one of the traitors was “negotiating” with them, and another voted with them.

Hadn’t the American people made it clear or weren’t you listening?

My patience was nearing its end.

The second was the trial in New York City of those who have admitted being responsible for 9/11. Americans are a tolerant and charitable group, we help those in need and are willing to give the benefit of the doubt to most people. But when the violent Islamic extremists who are by their own admission guilty of murdering our fellow citizens and attacking our land, we have no wish to extend to them our best wishes or OUR rights. Where were the outcries and demands for a trial for those traitors who made this decision. Make no mistake this is about letting these men go. Two of the most powerful men in this country who are both lawyers have deliberately and with malice both tainted the jury pool and made it plain that these murders are to be treated the same as if they had stolen a handbag. New York is my hometown and I know how it works. The judges—one more liberal than the next– and this trial becomes a showcase of hate spewing invective against the United States. And what did our brave patriotic and worthy representatives do? Cue the crickets– if they could have been more silent or more compliant they would be Gumby dolls.

Didn’t you hear us or weren’t you listening?

The final straw for my ability to maintain any respect for any member of the state politburo came with watching a republican from Indiana explain why three Navy Seals should be held for a courts-martial over the capture of a terrorist pig who had tortured, mutilated and hung from a bridge, fellow Americans and civilians. Now the fact that this subhuman arrived alive is testimony to the restraint and discipline of these men. They were told to capture it and they did. And returned it for trial. Then some sniveling species of snitch advised the commanders that they treated it too roughly. Refusing to take a career ending letter in their files—like men, they stood up and said take us to court. This insignificant slug of a politician got in front of a camera and said surely this could have been handled differently. He’s right, but the MEN involved in this said you will not do away with us under cover of night. They stood, true to their training and their American spirit and said no. Where are the screams of outrage from the American Legion, the VFW and most of all from Congress? We all sleep free because rough men stand ready. Are we ready to stand?

Can you hear me now?

Please support and join me in bringing Accountability to Congress!

ECONOMY
Focus on sustainable growth and job creation!
No new or higher taxes.
No more spending BILLIONS to bail out large corporations.
No more spending without checks and balances and with no regard to accountability. It is time to audit congressional spending!

TAXES & FISCAL POLICY
The burden the federal tax system places on our families and businesses, is ever increasing. Now more than ever, the American people need leaders to represent and reform our tax system.

Each year, changes are made to tax codes and the Internal Revenue Service grows. The federal tax system is so complicated, that most citizens have to pay service providers and software companies to comply with our own law. Our current system is not just a personal finance impact; it has become a job creation issue. Many businesses actually delay growth and expansion due to increased tax liability – more employees can equal higher taxes.

There is a strong need to reform the current 6,000+ pages of U.S. tax code and bring transparency to a very convoluted system. Though many of our politicians claim the current tax code is targeting the wealthy, it actually targets the poor. Individuals who have the ability to pay accountants are able to take advantage of loopholes in the system and pay a reduced amount of tax. Those who can’t afford accountants, end up paying the base rates.

We need FairTax.

As important, if not more, is the rate in which Congress is spending the hard earned dollars of the American people. Though Congress regulates fiscal responsibility with publically traded and financial companies, to protect the American people, they fail to put the same level of fiscal responsibility upon government spending. Until Congress puts in place the same fiscal guidelines and rules to govern spending of tax dollars, we continue to harm and put our children in harms way.

NATIONAL SECURITY
We must keep our country safe and support the people who have and who serve this great country. Defense spending should be used more effectively, but never cut below 4% of GDP.

The fight against Islamic Fascism is real and is global. We must not forget the fight brought to the American soil and the lives lost on 9/11. Fight the extremists wherever it is a threat to the United States of America. Let our intelligence agencies and our military organizations do their jobs.

HEALTH CARE
So much of the current Health Care Bill is about control, cutting care, increased spending and TAXES. It lacks common sense and sensibility. Simply put, you don’t blow up a boat or add weight to a boat to fix it. You must repair the structure and repair the leaks first.

I will work to bring efficiency driven reform that creates Quality Health Care, Innovation, Employment Opportunities and Accountability! The American people deserve more and do not need government bureaucracy to cloud access to quality care and step between patient and doctor privileges.

ENERGY INDEPENDENCE
Strategically maximize the use of all our natural resources in the United States, we must reduce our dependencies on foreign oil, these countries are not necessarily our friends.

Invest in innovation, but be realistic and don’t go broke going “green”. Each of us can do our part to help the environment, but we cannot kill jobs, increase energy costs and increase taxes to do so. The current “Cap & Trade” bill in Congress will eliminate jobs and increase the cost of energy for every individual in the United States. This is the wrong approach and will hurt the American People.

OUR CHILDREN OUR FUTURE
We must quit talking and take action for our children. Education standards must be increased and we must work to create opportunity for the next generations. Our children will not have the opportunities that we have enjoyed, if we do not create safer environments and challenge their thinking.

Programs that create dependencies, instead of elevate and create opportunity need to be revised. We cannot suppress the future of any generation.

LIFE, LIBERTY and the PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS
Our forefathers fought for our rights of representation and our liberties. We must defend the Constitution and all of its Amendments.

by Neerja Singh | Destinations of the World News

In late July this year, Swiss Reinsurance company, one of the world’s largest reinsuring companies, tied up with World Medassist, a US-based medical tourism company to provide employers with the option to save on medical bills by sending employees abroad for treatment. Swiss Re is one of the nation’s largest corporate insurers, and services federal employees and large national companies.

It is the first time a major insurance company in the US has deigned to acknowledge a trend that the medical fraternity largely sniggers at. Ken Erickson, CEO of US-based Global Choice Healthcare says: “This medical tourism thing is nothing. It’s not happening. People who don’t have insurance are travelling abroad for treatment, but there is no large movement, no corporation is involved. It’s either recreation or desperation. It doesn’t count for anything.”

Sniggers and jibes aside, the fact remains that over 50 million people in the US are without insurance, and the issue is emotional enough to form a large part of the electoral agenda for both parties as the US goes to the polls in November. The irony is, the poorest who are living on state welfare are taken care of by Medicaid. Of those remaining, the luckier ones work in companies that shoulder the cost of paying the insurance premium, an average of US$5,900 per annum for a family of four. Those whose employers do not provide this facility either choose to go without insurance because they believe they are healthy, or sometimes just cannot afford it. Also, older people over 55 do not receive insurance even if they have the money. It is these two groups that make up the target market for medical tourism operators.

Please Click here to read more…

In a Cato podcast, I explain why government-run healthcare system will be vastly more expensive than we are being told. This covers some of the same material that is in my recent video, but there’s no need to see my face (and if you don’t like my voice or want to see my face, you can read a two-page report on the topic from Cato).

Back to morning posts, on the weekends at least.

Four stories at the Times that caught my eye:

Max Baucus, the execrable blue dog bastard who shoved phony health care reform up our nation’s ass, pushed an attorney he was porking to become the new U.S. Attorney for Montana

Italian court sentences Amanda Knox to 26 years in prison for the murder of Meredith Kercher following a trial that could have been held in Texas

New Harvard doctorate degree in Education Leadership threatens to do to education what the Harvard MBA did to business

Charles Blow on the exploitation of the internet/corporate news by racists

I’m back on green tea but even so I was outraged by these stories, speaking clearly as they do to the fact that not much has changed since the 2008 election. More on Baucus and his former staffer Melodee Hanes from the WaPost, and a picture from the Billings Gazette:

Add to this the rumor that Max Baucus was the real murderer of Meredith Kercher, and I think we may have a shot at electing a real Democrat to represent Montana come 2014.

Doesn’t it sound like a good idea for the US government to fix

The VA
Indian Health Care
Medicare

BEFORE they touch anything else?

As the healthcare debate edges nearer to an outcome that will result in universal health coverage for all American citizens, insurance companies find themselves digging in for a battle that will see them lose million of dollars in profits.

Perhaps in response to that reality, Aetna is forcing over 650,000 of their customers to drop health covering in an effort to raise additional revenue to meet shareholder demands.

An announcement by the healthcare giant revealed that the company would also be raising existing healthcare prices for customers that will not be affected by the drop in 2010.

The percentage increase is has not been revealed.

“We view 2010 as a repositioning year, a year that does not fully reflect the earnings potential of our business. Our pricing actions should have a noticeable effect beginning in the first quarter of 2010, with additional financial impact realized during the remaining three quarters of the year,” said Aetna CEO Ron Williams via press release. “The pricing we put in place for 2009 turned out to not really be what we needed to achieve the results and margins that we had historically been delivering,”

And people say that there is no need for a public option????

Suddenly, the need to get the Health Club for Men is so urgent that votes on amendments will take place over the weekend

The entire weekend. Saturday AND Sunday.

You’d think that having convinced 100 senators to show up on Saturday and Sunday would mean they’d be done with it. Or at least with the amendments part of it. Or you’d think that at least the Democrats are all on the same page.

But then, at the end of the article comes this enlightening paragraph

Two major issues, how to prevent federal money from being spent on abortion services and whether to create a government-run public option health insurance program, continue to divide the Democratic caucus. Democrats continued throughout Friday to work on compromises to both issues but neither will likely be debated on the Senate floor over the weekend.

Right there – it appears like an either/or proposition: do you people want a public option or do you want women to keep control of their body by having access to reproductive healthcare? It almost sounds like that dreaded word “choice” which they keep trying to replace with “abortion”.

Hmmmm…I wonder which one B0bots will go for. I wonder which one  Reid will go for. Any guesses?

because you know we are not getting both, and Stupak already made it easy for the Senators to leave us under the bus.

Hey, remember us?

GPs ’should offer climate change advice to patients’ – Telegraph

Now tyou would think the MDs or Gps’ in England would be more concerned about taking care of people under the wonderful, rationed, controlled by the Guv’mint, National Health Care they have! But no!! Now they think they can offer advice on Global War….errr ClimateChange to patients also? How dumb is that!! I mean that would be like going to your Insurance agent and asking them advice on how to save money…on your insurance costs!!

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How many healthcare plans do you have to choose from when shopping for insurance? Go ahead and search the internet, I’ll wait……

Now, go here: http://www.opm.gov/INSURE/HEALTH/ click on compare plans, type in your zip code, and include nationwide plans. That’s how many more plans your local federal employees have to choose from.

Earlier, when I asked you to search the web for healthcare plans, how many of those were nationwide plans? Zero, right? Now, how many were nationwide for your local federal employees? For my location it was somewhere between 11 & 17.

So, by allowing true competition for federal health benefits, federal employees are able to choose from an array of plans from across the country. But us normal folk have to choose from plans in our little area. We can’t even shop in neighboring states for insurance.

Let’s face it: the left in D.C. that are pushing for a public option are really pushing for a single-payer system. But they fail to properly disclose who’s going to fund this takeover. First, they’ll make an estimated $500 billion in cuts to Medicare (cut Medicare to pay for an expanded Medicare system…makes perfect sense). Next, there will be an incremental surtax on incomes in excess of $250,000, I believe up to or starting at 5.4% (remember, in 2007 the top 1% of earners paid a tax rate of 22.45%, so a 5.4% increase takes them to 27.85%. Just over a quarter of their income).

But let’s be honest. The true cost, even according to CBO, will be a 10% or more increase in premiums. Don’t worry, though. The government will give you subsidies to offset the increase.

The really scary part? There are several actually. 1. The government will get involved in your hcr decisions. There’s no way around that. 2. Zeke Emmanuel (sp?) and John Holdren are on record describing how best to ration hcr in an emergency situation. People between the ages of 15-40 would get service first (because they’re the productive members of society), everybody else later. But who determines emergency situations? Why, the government of course.

But I’m a hate monger, a Nazi, a holocaust denier because I raise valid concerns over a government takeover of yet another industry. No one argues the facts I bring up. They only throw out the vague “we have to do something” or start the name calling. I agree we need to do something, but shouldn’t that something be Constitutional?