From his own mouth on 60 Minutes a few months ago...

• The Pickens Plan - sm
  • Why isn't Obama looking into this - sm
  • From his own mouth on 60 Minutes a few months ago... - Just one thing wrong with it
    • I'd say that is a rather significant drawback......... sm - m
      • Don't you have to be compensated - sm
        • Basically, you do have to be compensated......... sm - m
  • Wind turbines. They are on top of a mountain - Backwards typist
    • but they will also provide - sm
    • I saw acres and acres of them...... - sm
      • Thought Lake Erie was pretty well cleaned up? - Backwards typist
        • The Lake is just fine - sm
  • Now THAT's the smartest thing I've read in a long time! nm - sm
    • Kinda makes me rethink the whole stimulus package........ - sm

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mr Mcclain said he had no problem with going to war with Russia as per NATO if they attack Georgia again.  I dont know even where Georgia is so I was not sure I would agree the US should have a war with the big country over some were I don't know even where it is.  Aren't we enough war already?

...Sunday night about the cancer clinic that's closing due to lack of funds?  I can't begin to describe how angry I became when I saw this. 

After greedy, immoral Wall Street crooks created a worldwide economic crisis, while walking away with millions or billions, there are Americans who have been handed death sentences because of lack of MONEY.

I believe the entire health "insurance" industry needs to become extinct (except for maybe one or two companies for the "elite" in this country who believe they're superior and can afford astronomical rates). These links are a little old, but they give you an idea of how much healthcare "insurance" executives earn: http://blogs.webmd.com/mad-about-medicine/2007/08/ceo-compensation-who-said-healthcare-is.html and http://www.harp.org/hmoexecs.htm.

Certainly, these outrageous salaries, combined, plus all the other auxiliary costs that go along with this "industry" would go a long way toward funding a single-payer NONprofit healthcare plan.  No doubt that much of their income comes as an incentive for denying benefits to patients.

You insure your car because you MIGHT have an accident someday. You insure your home because you MIGHT need to file a claim someday. The premiums are based on overall risk.  However, EVERYONE will become ill at some point in his/her life, and we have now become a country that will only accept "survival of the fittest," while systematically "thinning out the herd" based on who has the least amount of income.  To "insure" health is like buying an insurance policy to insure that your bread won't go stale at some point after you buy it; it's completely irrelevant to whether a person has a job.  And if that person, God forbid, LOSES that job, then COBRA kicks in with usually much more expensive premiums.  So once again, if someone has no or little income, it costs MORE to insure his/her health.

Capitalism is good for some things, but it's the absolute most immoral idea that one's ability to live or die in a country like America is contingent on how rich that person is. Left unchecked, these companies, in my opinion, are well on their way to becoming the next AIG that the government will bail out because they're "too big to fail," while leaving millions of people to die.

It's pretty bad when someone like Hugo Chavez, who provides healthcare to the citizens of his country, treats sick people much better than Americans do. 

Nixon had a different "mindset" about health insurance back in the 1970s when he discovered with glee that insurance companies could make more money by denying services, so HMOs were invented.  It's again time to adopt a different mindset, one that's moral and one that doesn't literally leave Americans to die.  (Reagan had the bright idea to "deregulate" banks, an idea which Clinton enthusiastically embraced and Bush was only too happy to continue, and we see where that got us:  The Wall Street crooks won, and the people who trusted them with their money lost.)

After I saw this segment, I've NEVER been so ashamed to be an American. This has to stop.

GET RID OF HEALTH INSURANCE COMPANIES ALTOGETHER.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/04/03/60minutes/main4917055.shtml?source=RSSattr=HOME_4917055

P.S.  Sorry for the rant and sorry if my words might not make sense in some spots, but this really upsets me because I'm one of those people.  I don't qualify for Medicaid and can't afford or can't obtain (preexisting conditions) private or work-offered health insurance.

Lately, people will do anything to get their own "15 minutes of fame." That's why you have so many reality shows.

I think it's all despicable and they should not have shown that on TV. Now every other "15 minute" famer will do something on the same order to see if they can get in the newspapers or on TV. Watch and see. There's still 6 days left.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0BTlZjNC84&feature=related

Absolutely got a kick out of the next one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pp2PbOPX_8k&NR=1

I watch Olbermann.  Sometimes I agree with him.  Sometimes I don't.

However, last night he hit it into the park with his attempt to review what Bush did in the last eight years into eight minutes; he ran over time a little bit because there was so much to say.

I would strongly urge anyone who is not too busy whining, moaning, groaning, hating and raging about Obama -- anyone who is truly interested in the future of America -- to watch this, from beginning to end -- especially at the end (since this is done chronologically, not by matter of importance).

THESE are the reasons people voted for Obama.  THESE are the reasons that Obama supporters cannot understand why Bush worshippers still support him and reject the man who might undo the wreckage of Bush.

BUSH is the man who claimed to have a direct line to GOD.  Obama never claimed anything of the sort; if he had, I probably would not have voted for him for that very reason -- because it creeped me out so much when Bush did it.  So the assertion that Obama supporters are "worshippers" is ridiculous, when, in fact, it seems that those who still support Bush (the closest thing to the Anti-Christ that I'VE ever seen) are the ones who seem to think Bush is some sort of god.

Please watch every single SECOND of this video.  It will give you just a taste of the grueling task ahead of Obama in trying to correct all the damage that Bush has done.  We may, in fact, never know the full extent of the damage because Bush (as is mentioned in the video) has "exempted" himself from the Presidential Records Act.

THIS is why every truly honest, patriotic, honorable American who voted for Obama is so relieved he won.  Not so much "happy" -- but RELIEVED -- hoping (yes, HOPING) that our country may once again resemble the USA that once held respect throughout the world, the USA where hard work was once rewarded, the USA where families could afford to feed their children, and the USA where one's ability to obtain something as basic as healthcare wasn't only limited to the wealthy.  I'm not naive enough to believe this can all be fixed in four (or even eight) years, because Bush has been like a four-year-old sociopath that was armed with Daddy's credit card, an AXE and an arrogant giggle, each of which he used to its full capacity, and that's a LOT to clean up.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/#28699663

c'mon people. I'm starting to see more and more vile comments on here in the past day or 2 than discussing the issues. Don't get sidetracked. Keep with the issues.

No reason to call someone names because their view is different than yours. Just because we still have freedom of speech doesn't give you the right to call someone else names.

Discuss the issues. That's what this board is supposed to be about. Iif you can't discuss issues, maybe you should find a board that will take your name-calling and snide remarks. Beating a dead horse is not helping matters.

It's getting out of hand again. Let's stop it now. PLEASE.

You won!  More accurately, we have all lost because they just won't leave, because in their twisted peasized brains, they believe they have the right to run this board, as well.  They're like filthy roaches that just won't go away.

In case you didn't notice, gt, we called a truce, which you just blew. sm

[Post a Reply] [View Follow Ups]      [Politics] --> [Liberals]

Posted By: sm on 2005-09-18,
In Reply to: respectful? You? LOL! - gt

I have been off this board a long time and was just discussing with another poster here calling a truce and I was VERY respectful in these posts, but, of course, you had to start up again.  To the other poster who I made the truce with, can you see now why there can never be a truce here?  

I am looking forward to watching this interview because I am truly interested in hearing what this man has to say.

I can recall as a child growing up to the tune of We have to fight Vietnam because the Communists want to take over the world.  During those times, the worst thing a person could be called in the USA was a Communist. 

It seems to me these days the USA is the one that wants to take over the world.  It has no respect for any government that cares about its poor people or even America's poor, for that matter.  (For example, Chavez tried to provide cheap oil to the poor last winter while Bush didn't care if poor Americans froze to death.)  Any country that removes the profit incentive from medicine or education for its citizens is a terrorist nation in Bush's eyes.  We're quickly approaching the day when most of us will be poor as the middle class continues to disintegrate before our eyes.

I am suspect of everyone Bush labels as terrorist these days, and I want to hear both sides.  Bush refuses to sit down diplomatically and listen to what Ahmadinejad has to say, so I'm grateful that Mike Wallace took the time to do so.

The health-care reform debate is in full roar with the arrival of Michael Moore's documentary Sicko, which compares the U.S. system unfavorably with single-payer systems around the world. Critics of the film are quick to trot out a common defense of the American way: For all its problems, they say, U.S. patients at least don't have to endure the endless waits for medical care endemic to government-run systems. The lobbying group America's Health Insurance Plans spells it out in a rebuttal to Sicko: "The American people do not support a government takeover of the entire health-care system because they know that means long waits for rationed care."

In reality, both data and anecdotes show that the American people are already waiting as long or longer than patients living with universal health-care systems. Take Susan M., a 54-year-old human resources executive in New York City. She faithfully makes an appointment for a mammogram every April, knowing the wait will be at least six weeks. She went in for her routine screening at the end of May, then had another because the first wasn't clear. That second X-ray showed an abnormality, and the doctor wanted to perform a needle biopsy, an outpatient procedure. His first available date: mid-August. "I completely freaked out," Susan says. "I couldn't imagine spending the summer with this hanging over my head." After many calls to five different facilities, she found a clinic that agreed to read her existing mammograms on June 25 and promised to schedule a follow-up MRI and biopsy if needed within 10 days. A full month had passed since the first suspicious X-rays. Ultimately, she was told the abnormality was nothing to worry about, but she should have another mammogram in six months. Taking no chances, she made an appointment on the spot. "The system is clearly broken," she laments.

It's not just broken for breast exams. If you find a suspicious-looking mole and want to see a dermatologist, you can expect an average wait of 38 days in the U.S., and up to 73 days if you live in Boston, according to researchers at the University of California at San Francisco who studied the matter. Got a knee injury? A 2004 survey by medical recruitment firm Merritt, Hawkins & Associates found the average time needed to see an orthopedic surgeon ranges from 8 days in Atlanta to 43 days in Los Angeles. Nationwide, the average is 17 days. "Waiting is definitely a problem in the U.S., especially for basic care," says Karen Davis, president of the nonprofit Commonwealth Fund, which studies health-care policy.

All this time spent "queuing," as other nations call it, stems from too much demand and too little supply. Only one-third of U.S. doctors are general practitioners, compared with half in most European countries. On top of that, only 40% of U.S. doctors have arrangements for after-hours care, vs. 75% in the rest of the industrialized world. Consequently, some 26% of U.S. adults in one survey went to an emergency room in the past two years because they couldn't get in to see their regular doctor, a significantly higher rate than in other countries.

There is no systemized collection of data on wait times in the U.S. That makes it difficult to draw comparisons with countries that have national health systems, where wait times are not only tracked but made public. However, a 2005 survey by the Commonwealth Fund of sick adults in six nations found that only 47% of U.S. patients could get a same- or next-day appointment for a medical problem, worse than every other country except Canada.

The Commonwealth survey did find that U.S. patients had the second-shortest wait times if they wished to see a specialist or have nonemergency surgery, such as a hip replacement or cataract operation (Germany, which has national health care, came in first on both measures). But Gerard F. Anderson, a health policy expert at Johns Hopkins University, says doctors in countries where there are lengthy queues for elective surgeries put at-risk patients on the list long before their need is critical. "Their wait might be uncomfortable, but it makes very little clinical difference," he says.

The Commonwealth study did find one area where the U.S. was first by a wide margin: 51% of sick Americans surveyed did not visit a doctor, get a needed test, or fill a prescription within the past two years because of cost. No other country came close.

Few solutions have been proposed for lengthy waits in the U.S., in part, say policy experts, because the problem is rarely acknowledged. But the market is beginning to address the issue with the rise of walk-in medical clinics. Hundreds have sprung up in CVS, Wal-Mart (WMT ), Pathmark, (PTMK ) and other stores—so many that the American Medical Assn. just adopted a resolution urging state and federal agencies to investigate such clinics as a conflict of interest if housed in stores with pharmacies. These retail clinics promise rapid care for minor medical problems, usually getting patients in and out in 30 minutes. The slogan for CVS's Minute Clinics says it all: "You're sick. We're quick."

at our current rate of usage - it's basically a drop in the bucket.  And to get all the equipment in place to extract it and refine it would take approximately four years or more.

And that "desolate wasteland" is one of the last pristine areas left in the world.  Does man really have to desecrate every square foot of this earth to satisfy his own greed and consumption?  Guess so.

and she cannot find anyone hiring in her area or anywhere near her area.  She is a registered nurse and is in the process of a divorce and is trying to raise 2 little girls. 

Remember when RNs were needed everywhere?  Now they can't even find jobs.