Obama cancels events to attend grandmother's failing health.

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I feel very bad that she is terminally ill. I have lost many close relatives myself and those have been the worst of times for me.

Put it this way, if it was me and I found out my grandmother was so sick, I would have been on the first plane there (I don't have my own jet). What if she died before he got there? As I said, there were a few days of a delay in there where the situation has been reported repeatedly. If she was so sick, he should have just gone. Everyone would have understood.

There. I said it. Many may think it was heartless thing to say, but wouldn't you have just dropped everything and gone?

With all the hoop-lah about Obama "refusing" to submit to interview with Focks, seems McCain is throwing another temper tantrum (which I did see on CNN, but could not find to include in this post. He cancelled his scheduled appearance on Larry King over what he considered to be an "over-the-top" inerview between Campbell Brown and Tucker Bounds.

Here's a link to an article about the cancellation. I could not get good audio on their link to the interview video, so I am providing this second link where I could:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/17/eveningnews/realitycheck/main4530306.shtml

By Phil Kerpen

Lie Number 1: I Won�t Tax Your Health Benefits

What Obama said on the campaign trail (Newport News, Va., October 4, 2008):

�So here�s John McCain�s radical plan in a nutshell: he taxes health care benefits for the first time in history� Well, I don�t think that�s right.�

What Obama says now:

Obama ally Sen. Max Baucus told the Washington Post that Obama is now willing to tax employer-provided health benefits. Baucus said: �Yeah, it�s something that he might consider. That was discussed. It�s on the table.�

Limiting or ending the tax-free status of health benefits makes sense if it�s used to cut other taxes and put all health insurance�employer-provided or not�on a level playing field. The existing benefit is an artifact of World War II-era price controls and creates a tax penalty for people who buy their own insurance.

But unlike the McCain plan, which would have taxed employer-provided health benefits and used the money to pay for a new health care tax credit, the plan now being considered by Democrats, including Obama, would tax employer-health benefits to fund increased government health care spending. For the 250 million-plus Americans who already have health insurance, this is a raw deal�they pay more taxes and get nothing in return.

Lie Number 2: I Won�t Force You to Buy Health Insurance

What Obama said on the campaign trail (Janesville, Wis., February 13, 2008):

�The main difference between my plan and Senator Clinton�s plan is that she�d require the government to force you to buy health insurance and she said she�d �go after� your wages if you don�t.�

What Obama says now:

President Obama sent a letter to Democratic Senators Ted Kennedy and Max Baucus yesterday that says�using the new code word �responsibility� to refer to the same kind of mandate he slammed in Hillary�s plan:

�I understand the Committees are moving towards a principle of shared responsibility � making every American responsible for having health insurance coverage, and asking that employers share in the cost. I share the goal of ending lapses and gaps in coverage that make us less healthy and drive up everyone�s costs, and I am open to your ideas on shared responsibility.�

While President Obama did say he would like a waiver process in hardship cases, there is no reason to have a mandate other than to force people to buy insurance who don�t want to, mostly young people who are healthy and want to spend their limited income on their young careers and families. According to the Census Bureau, about 60 percent of the uninsured are under age 35, with the highest rates in the 18-24 bracket (28.1 percent uninsured) and the 25-34 (25.7 percent uninsured) bracket. This is about forcing some people who don�t want health insurance to pay for other people through a new government program. It�s more spreading the wealth around.

President Obama is poised to accept this provision for the same reason Sen. Clinton proposed it�to buy off insurance companies. Democrats learned a lesson from the 1993 HillaryCare fight when the insurance companies stopped a Washington health care takeover. The mandate is a giveaway to insurance companies to buy their support this time by forcing healthy young people who use less health care to pay insurance premiums.

Lie Number 3: If You Aren�t Rich, I Won�t Raise Your Taxes

What Obama said on the campaign trail (September 12, 2008, Dover, N.H.):

�I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.�

What Obama says now:

Well, it�s hard to keep up because new ideas are floated every day, but they all would involve taxing people who make less than $250,000. In fact, even his income tax hikes for the rich have now been dropped down to start at $235,000. Then there�s the soft drink excise tax, the cap-and-trade energy taxes, and most recently the VAT, a form of national sales tax. And of course the tax on health benefits I mentioned above would also break the only-tax-the-rich pledge.

What all these proposals have in common: we all pay, big-time, likely trillions of dollars in higher taxes for �free� government health care. In fact, that�s probably the biggest lie of all�that government health care is free.

to understand is why the world's problems in fact become a US problem. Why is it that when we are struggling economy wise, we are giving millions, if not billions to other countries for healthcare etc? Here's a clue for these countries we are basically supporting. STOP HAVING BABIES! So this is all wraped up in a nice little healthcare package with a pretty little bow on it? The US is the #1 supporter of other countries in that we give them free money and expect nothing in return. Obama and his cabinet need to worry about US and the US first and foremost.

I have had a hard time since before the elections understanding how tax cuts are going to happen when one package after another is signed for aid for this money for that, oh and let's not forget national healthcare, etc etc etc. And then to hear that creepy Biden say paying taxes is the patriotic duty? Which one is it?

I see again that everyone is talking about President Obama's plan for universal health care and I once again feel the need to distinguish between universal health care and what the plan is that President Obama has campaigned for. I have copied and pasted part of the web page, but also included the link at the bottom of this for you to see the whole plan.

President Obama does not ask for universal health care where the government is in charge - he just wants the government to ensure that everyone has access to medical care and health insurance. Why is it so difficult to understand that this is not socialized medicine, government run healthcare, or universal coverage plans?

Barack Obama and Joe Biden's Plan

On health care reform, the American people are too often offered two extremes - government-run health care with higher taxes or letting the insurance companies operate without rules. Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe both of these extremes are wrong, and that�s why they�ve proposed a plan that strengthens employer coverage, makes insurance companies accountable and ensures patient choice of doctor and care without government interference.

The Obama-Biden plan provides affordable, accessible health care for all Americans, builds on the existing health care system, and uses existing providers, doctors and plans to implement the plan. Under the Obama-Biden plan, patients will be able to make health care decisions with their doctors, instead of being blocked by insurance company bureaucrats.

Under the plan, if you like your current health insurance, nothing changes, except your costs will go down by as much as $2,500 per year.

If you don�t have health insurance, you will have a choice of new, affordable health insurance options.

I figure either one of two things will happen. Either the US will go to a single payer system, i.e., national health care covering all through federal taxes and cost control by the government, or therre will be an implosion of the private system in x number of years with something different emerging from the ashes.

With the exhorbitant cost of health insurance, mandating coverage is not an answer. Anything can be mandated. The question is how does one pay for it?Massachusetts mandated individual coverage, and already has had to exclude 20% due to the cost of a policy, anywhere from $1,200 to $1,400 a month for family coverage. Employers cannot afford to cover employees either due to the cost of health insurance. The current system? Well, insurance companies can charge $3,000 a month for a health insurance policy, health care providers can charge $800,000 for a 3-day hospital stay, etc. In the end no one, businesses or otherwise, will be able to keep "feeding the beast" and the current system will implode.

I think the proposal of being able to buy into Medicare is a noble one, but president Clinton pushed that years ago, and with much opposition and to no avail at that time.

I don't mean to sound so pessiimistic. Actually I'm not. There are 300 million people in this country, they have the ability to change anything, and hopefully they will take the initial steps to do that in November.

I'm sorry, but if my grandmother died, I'd be one of the first people there and cancel everything. In due respect, did he go to Hawaii? Who knows? All we're hearing is the same old, same old.

My grandmother said they did not agree on politics and she would never vote for the same person he did, so therefore her vote would cancel his out and she felt like that was wrong because he was the head of the household!!! Can you believe - as soon as he died, she never missed voting again for who she wanted.

are just killing me. I keep staying up to watch and then I stay up later to hear the media discuss everything. Why must this stuff be so addicting? I know I should just go to bed because it will be repeated 1,000 times the next day......but I can't help myself. I'm going to go hook up my coffee IV to keep me awake this morning.

you could tell that Joe Biden really did think she was joking because the question was so ridiculous, about Obama being a Marxist. No wonder these things get so inflated by the right-wing media. Ridiculous questions don't deserve to be acknowledged. What a waste of time. Someone needs to ask SP why her own home newspaper in Anchorage is supporting Obama, because she is considered too risky to be in a position a heartbeat away from the Oval Office, and the McCain campaign aides have referred to her a rogue diva. Ouch, that must have hurt! Now there are some FACTS for you!!

we are all driving basically the same model and we are insuring it for what could possibly happen, not what will or actually does.

Way back in the 1960s when I first started working, my company's health insurance did not cover single women for most 'female' issues, especially birth control and/or pregnancy-related issues, which has since been deemed discriminatory. Now you must cover everyone equally for every contingency.

The only way to individually ajust coverage costs would to be to exclude coverage based on genetic testing and/or family history, or maybe lifestyle issues such as alcohol or tobacco use or risky behavior like sky diving, which consumers have been fighting for years. This would probably also be deemed discriminatory.