BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

In the late 1980s, two friends of mine died waiting for SSDI benefits from AIDS related cancers. They were hard working, smart people who had savings but blew through them... waiting. I, myself, had a good nestegg when I fell ill in 1995. It was two years before I finally got SSDI. Only then with the help of attorney because I was too gravely impaired to fight for myself. My nestegg was gone to medical expenses. My group disability demanded I pay them back every penny when SSDI kicked in finally. This is not unusual, people - check your policies - that is STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE! You have to pay it back! EVERYONE does ! I have never applied for State Aid, Food Stamps or Section 8 Housing help. Nor would I. I only applied for what I put in for the 22 years I worked and only because I needed it. I am now surviving on less income than I made in 1979. I can't sit up too long, it's painful to walk for long, my hands hurt and I have severe headaches. I still ...

I've had my ups and downs with Paul Krugman over at the NYTimes. But when he gets it right - he REALLY gets it right! He Wasn’t The One We’ve Been Waiting For by Paul Krugman Health care reform — which is crucial for millions of Americans — hangs in the balance. Progressives are desperately in need of leadership; more specifically, House Democrats need to be told to pass the Senate bill, which isn’t what they wanted but is vastly better than nothing. And what we get from the great progressive hope, the man who was offering hope and change, is this: I would advise that we try to move quickly to coalesce around those elements of the package that people agree on. We know that we need insurance reform, that the health insurance companies are taking advantage of people. We know that we have to have some form of cost containment because if we don’t, then our budgets are going to blow up and we know that small businesses are going to need help so that they can provide health insuranc...

ObamaCare: NO EXIT by SCOTT GOTTLIEB Perhaps the most common question I'm asked about ObamaCare is: "Will I be able to buy my way out of it?" The answer is: "Not unless you're very rich." The plan before the Senate creates a set of 50 state-based insurance "exchanges" that are established as markets for health plans. Consumers must buy policies from their employers or through the exchanges — but, either way, their choice of coverage is limited to one of four basic insurance plans that the government sanctions. Private insurers will still compete to offer policies but must model their coverage on one of these four templates. In short, the Senate bill explicitly standardizes health benefits and then establishes elaborate mechanisms (including subsidies and penalties) to pay for them. Here's the rub: While these four plans vary from low- to high-cost options, the benefits offered under them are pretty much the same. The difference between the chea...

from (major HAT TIP!) DEADENDERS: When you don’t listen to 75% of your state you know somethings fishy. Sen. Ben Nelson (Neb.), the final Democratic holdout on health care, announced to his caucus Saturday morning that he would support the Senate reform bill, clearing the way for final passage by Christmas. “We’re there,” said Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), as he headed into a special meeting to outline the deal. Democratic leaders spent days trying to hammer out a deal with Nelson, and worked late Friday night with him on abortion coverage language that had proved the major stumbling block. Nelson also secured other favors for his home state. Under the new abortion provisions, states can opt out of allowing plans to cover abortion in insurance exchanges the bill would set up to serve individuals who don’t have employer coverage. Plus, enrollees in plans that do cover abortion procedures would pay for the coverage with separate checks – one for abortion, one for rest of health-care service...

ABSOLUTELY CRIMINAL FOR THE U.S.! Uninsured patients with traumatic injuries, such as car crashes, falls and gunshot wounds, were almost twice as likely to die in the hospital as similarly injured patients with health insurance, according to a troubling new study. The findings by Harvard University researchers surprised doctors and health experts who have believed emergency room care was equitable. "This is another drop in a sea of evidence that the uninsured fare much worse in their health in the United States," said senior author Dr. Atul Gawande, a Harvard surgeon and medical journalist. The study, appearing in the November issue of Archives of Surgery, comes as Congress is debating the expansion of health insurance coverage to millions more Americans. It could add fodder to that debate. The researchers couldn't pin down the reasons behind the differences they found. The uninsured might experience more delays being transferred from hospital to hospital. Or they might g...

JUST CLICK HERE ASK THE OBAMA-MAGIC 8-BALL! O.K. So it's the Onion... still closer to the truth than MSNBC or Fox. Obama: Health Care Plan Would Give Seniors Right To Choose How They Are Killed President Barack Obama held a nationally televised address Tuesday to "clarify any misunderstandings" about his health care proposal, assuring Americans that under the new bill senior citizens—and not the federal government—will have the right to choose how they are executed. Enlarge Image Obama The president vows to systematically eliminate all American seniors in a manner of their choosing by 2011. "Let me dispel these ridiculous rumors once and for all and set the record straight: Under my plan, seniors are going to be killed the way they want to be killed, end of story," said the president, who acknowledged that "wiping out" the nation's elderly population has always been his No. 1 priority. "If your grandmother would rather be euthanized in the pri...

Barack’s Bullshit Healthcare Bamboozlement By Larry Johnson What garbage!!! Oh, it was smooth. It had some soaring rhetoric. But we’ve seen this tap dance before. The most egregious is his utter nonsense about “working with Republicans.” Sorry, Barry, but if you meant what you said then you would not have convened a Democrats only meeting at the White House yesterday. CLICK HERE IF YOU'RE ON AN AGGREGATOR TO VIEW THE ABOVE VIDEO If you meant what you said you would not have allowed your Administration officials to go out and savage Americans who dared speak up at town halls. If you meant what you said you would have invited John McCain to the White House last week or last month to make a genuine push for bipartisan reform. But you did not. You sat on your hands as the various monster plans were exposed for the chicanery they contained. And then you promise to pay for this mess by producing gold out of cow dung. You promise to pay for this program but fail to make clear how. Oh, you...

By pm317 Caring for disabled children must be stressful for parents. While they worry about their own mortality as they age, they have the additional burden of worrying about the future of their children who completely depend on them. One such parent is Mike Sola, who lost his cool in a town hall meeting with his congressman, John Dingell. Do we blame him for being disruptive or recognize that he is just frustrated with these two-timing politicians? A must-see video below. IF YOU ARE READING THIS ON AN AGGREGATOR - CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE ABOVE VIDEO Pelosi and Hoyer have written an op-ed in the USA Today branding people like Mike Sola as disruptive, un-American and so on. What I see in Sola is an angry parent, helpless and worried. Where the hell is the compassion for his plight? If Obama has answers to Mike Sola’s situation, why are we not hearing it? As indicated in the video, Congressman Dingell lied about an amendment to that effect. But I agree with Mr. Sola that if the bill is wr...

By CRAIG DELLA PENNA “The Health Insurers Have Already Won” reads the Business Week title. Go here for article. “Is Obama Punking Us?” reads the title of Frank Rich’s column in the NYT. Go here for article and please see Ani’s post here for a more in-depth look at Rich’s column. Rich actually has an epiphany: “The larger fear is that Obama might be just another corporatist, punking voters much as the Republicans do when they claim to be all for the common guy.” All I can say, Frank is “Well… Duh!” it only took you 545 days to figure out what we knew and told you way back in February 2008. No grass grows under your toes, boy. These are the latest in a growing stream of pundits experiencing the OMO (‘Oh, My Obama’ – formerly ‘Omigod’) syndrome, they’re waking up and saying ”Wha.. wha happened?”. The answer, of course, is: “Well, while you were stoned on your acid-infused Kool-Aid, somebody stole your country, guess who?” So, here’s the skinny on the healthcare reform ‘debate’, as ...

Update: SEIU gets phone call “threatening to teach union officials a thing or two about ‘the Second Amendment’” Brian Beutler reported at Talking Points Memo on Friday that a health care protester in New Mexico had been encouraging those following him on Twitter to bring their guns to town hall meetings — and use them if provoked. “If ACORN/SEIU attends these meetings for disruptive purposes, and you have a license to carry….carry,” Scott Oskay wrote in one tweet. In another, he suggested, “Stop being peaceful, and hurt them. Badly.” The Service Employees Industrial Union (SEIU) appears to be the latest bogeyman for the anti-health care protesters. Conservative blogger Michelle Malkin, for example, claimed on Friday that “SEIU thugs rolled up their sleeves and attacked a black conservative protester in St. Louis.” As described by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, however, the facts of the incident cited by Malkin were far less clearcut. Out of the half a dozen people arrested following a to...

In Germany they first came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me — and by that time no one was left to speak up. - Pastor Martin Niemöller I am a disabled - woman - over 50. Three strikes? Are they coming for me? then you? Why everyone in the heath care fight—including Obama—plays on the anxieties of the elderly. By Christopher Beam First came the "birthers." Now, as President Obama makes a final push for health care reform, we have the deathers. Many senior citizens are concerned that health care reform would mean cuts to Medicare. That much was clear at a town-hall meeting hosted Tuesday by the American Association of Retired Persons at wh...

Before digesting the below, take a couple minutes to read Chaim's great post on "Obamacare" - Here. by Bronwyn's Harbor At the top of PBS’s latest Bill Moyers Journal , Moyers chose clips of the “usual suspects” opposed to Obama’s health care proposal - a Republican legislator shouting “socialism,” Glenn Beck, Michael Steele, and Bill Kristol, who worked to “drive a stake through” the heart of health care reform in 1993 and 2009. The problem with the GOP’s stock opposition language is that it inaccurately describes what’s really wrong with Obama’s plan, which enriches the profit-motivated private sector and strengthens its controls over policies, at the expense of average Americans forced to sign up. The real reason insurance companies brought back “Harry & Louise” ads: Obama’s plan rewards private health insurance companies with expanded enrollments but little reward for the Americans “mandated” (forced) to buy these plans. (See Paul Krugman’s blog post, “ Why m...