Lets begin with the very interesting story of Argentina which is also a member of the IMF.
President Peron ruled Argentina in its golden years. He invested heavily in public works, and gave rights to the working class such as the right to organize for better working conditions. As a result Argentina prospered and had the largest middle class in South America. It was an upcoming economic success to match Canada and other Capitalistic countries. Argentina was a rich Country made poor.
In the 1990’s President Carlos Menem also transformed Argentina by following the policies of the IMF. He implemented every “business friendly policy” in it all at one time…downsizing, corporate handouts, and selling off of public assets, and Washington approved. (Note The following was taken from the IMF website: “The IMF was conceived in July 1944, when representatives of 45 governments meeting in the town of Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in the northeastern United States, agreed on a framework for international economic cooperation. They believed that such a framework was necessary to avoid a repetition of the disastrous economic policies that had contributed to the Great Depression of the 1930s. “http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/exrp/what.htm ). The policy turned into a disaster.
When workers protested for better working conditions the factory owners simply closed the doors and moved to countries offering a cheaper more compliant labor force. They left behind gutted empty factories, and the jobless.
While people where without work, money was free to travel. Argentinean currency started to faultier. So national banks moved forty billion dollars out of the Country, and froze all bank accounts in the dead of night with the support of judges, politicians and the police force. The rich were able to travel to obtain money, but the average citizen was robbed of their life savings in that one night. IMF policies destroyed the Argentinean middle class. Once they ate in fancy restraints. Now they rummaged their dumpsters for food. The IMF policies are not limited to Argentina. They are global stretching from Seattle Washington to South Africa. But the beauty of the Argentinean people began to rise from the ashes of that disaster.
A group of women from a closed garment manufacturing company were the first to take action. They showed up for work anyway, and ran the company themselves. Under the women the company was a bigger success than ever before. The reasons they gave: “we do not have excessive pay to anyone (CEOs), everyone is treated equally, and we do not send profits out of the Country.” They were surprised to find out how easy it actually was to run the factory they had worked in. But their efforts were not without resistance. Factory owners hearing of their success wanted their factories back. The original owners felt those factories belonged to them as it was their investment that made it all possible.
Others followed the example of the women. Even closed schools were opened this way by parents and teachers uniting.
Argentina went through five presidents in three weeks. Menem had exited the country, but returned for elections. He promised change, and the return of prosperity. He promised to put the people back to work. Some refused to vote complaining that all of their presidential choices where only men that had caused the problem in the first place. Sound familiar? Menem won the election by a small margin.
As soon as he took office he began to reward those who had financed his campaign. Factories were taken from the control of the people, and returned to the original factory owners. The first one to go was the women’s garment factory.
One can learn much more form the documentary called “The Take.”
http://www.thetake.org/
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0218-31.htm
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
How unions gave my redneck family a chance at the American dream
How Unions Gave My Redneck Family a Chance at the American Dream
By Joe Bageant, AlterNet
Posted on June 22, 2009, Printed on June 24, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/140797/
In looking back on growing up, I always remember 1957 and 1958 as "the two good years." They were the only years my working-class redneck family ever caught a real break in their working lives, and that break came because of organized labor.
After working as a farmhand, driving a hicktown taxi part time and a dozen catch-as-catch-can jobs, my father found himself owning a used semi-truck and hauling produce for a Teamster-unionized trucking company called Blue Goose.
Daddy was making more money than he'd ever made in his life, about $4,000 a year. The median national household income at the time was $5,000, mostly thanks to America's unions. After years of moving from one rented dump to another, we bought a modest home ($8,000) and felt like we might at last be getting some traction in achieving the so-called American Dream.
Yup, Daddy was doing pretty good for a backwoods boy who'd quit school in the sixth or seventh grade -- he was never sure, which gives some idea how seriously the farm boy took his attendance at the one-room school we both attended in our lifetimes.
This was the golden age of both trucking and of unions. Thirty-five percent of American labor, 17 million working folks, were union members, and it was during this period the American middle class was created.
The American middle class has never been as big as advertised, but if it means the middle third income-wise, then we actually had one at the time. But whatever it means, one-third of working folks, the people who busted their asses day in and day out making the nation function, were living better than they ever had. Or at least had the opportunity to do so.
From the Depression through World War II, the Teamsters Union became a powerful entity, and a popular one, too, because of such things as its pledge never to strike during the war or a national emergency. President Roosevelt even had a special-designated liaison to the Teamsters.
But power and money eventually drew the usual assortment of lizards, and by the mid-'50s the Teamsters Union had become one corrupt pile of shit at the top level. So rotten even the mob enjoyed a piece of the action.
The membership, ordinary guys like my dad, was outraged and ashamed, but rendered powerless by the crooked union bosses in the big cities.
My old man was no great follower of the news or current events, but he tried to keep up with and understand Teamster developments. Which was impossible since his reading consisted of anti-union Southern newspapers, and the television coverage of Teamster criminality, including murders and the ongoing courtroom trials.
All this left him conflicted. His Appalachian Christian upbringing defined the world in black-and-white, with no gray areas. Inside, he felt he should not be even remotely connected with such vile things as the Teamsters were associated with. And he sometimes prayed for guidance in the matter.
On the other hand, there was the pride and satisfaction in providing for his family in ways previously impossible. He'd built a reasonable, working-class security for those times and that place in West Virginia. Being a Teamster certainly made that possible. But for damned sure no one had handed it to him. He drove his guts out to get what he had.
There were rules and log books and all the other crap that were supposed to assure drivers got enough rest., and ensure road safety and fairness for the truckers. Rural heartland drivers saw it for the bullshit it was, but it was much better-paying bullshit. For a little guy hauling produce from Podunk, USA, to the big cities, it still came down to heartburn, hemorrhoids and longer hauls and longer hours than most driver's falsified log books showed. And sometimes way too much Benzedrine, or "bennies."
Bennies were a type of speed commonly used by truckers back then because of the grueling hauls. As a former doper who has done bennies, I can avow they are some gritty, nerve-jagging shit. Their only virtue is making you wide awake and jumpy, and after you've been awake on them a couple of days, which many drivers were, crazier than a shithouse rat.
Nearly every truck stop sold bennies under the counter. Once, while hallucinating on bennies, Daddy nearly wiped out a roadside joint. He recalled “layin' on the jake brake, down shifting and watching hundreds of the witches like in The Wizard of Oz come down out of the sky in the dark." Somehow he got 30,000 pounds back onto the road while several folks inside the diner were pissing themselves in the windowside booths.
My daddy ran the eastern seaboard in a 12-wheeler -- there were no 18-wheelers yet. It had polished chrome and bold letters that read "BLUE GOOSE LINE." Parked alongside our little asbestos-sided house, I'd marvel at the magic of those bold words, the golden diamond and sturdy goose. And dream of someday "burning up Route 50" like my dad.
Old U.S. Route 50 ran near the house and was the stuff of legend if your daddy happened to be a truck driver who sometimes took you with him on the shorter hauls: "OK boy, now scrunch down and look into the side mirror. I'm gonna turn the top of them side stacks red hot." And he would pop the clutch and strike sparks on the anvil of the night, downshifting toward Pinkerton, Coolville and Hanging Rock. It never once occurred to me that his ebullience and our camaraderie might be due to a handful of bennies.
Yessir, Old 50 was a mighty thing, a howling black slash through the Blue Ridge Mountain fog. A place where famed and treacherous curves made widows, and truck stops and cafes bloomed in the tractor trailers' smoky wakes. A road map will tell you it eventually reaches Columbus and St. Louis, places I imagined had floodlights raking the skies heralding the arrival of heroic Teamster truckers like my father. Guys who'd fought in Germany and Italy and the Solomon Islands and were still wearing their service caps these years later, but now pinned with the gold steering wheel of the Teamsters Union. Such are a working-class boy's dreams.
I have two parched photos from that time. One is of me and my brother and sister, ages 10, 8 and 6. We are standing in the front yard, three little redneck kids with bad haircuts squinting for some faint clue as to whether there was really a world out there, somewhere beyond West Virginia.
The other photo is of my mother and the three of us on the porch of that house on Route 50. On the day my father was slated to return from any given run, we'd all stand on the porch listening for the sound of air brakes, the deep roar as he came down off the mountain. Each time, my mother would step onto the porch blotting her lipstick, Betty Grable-style hair rustling in the breeze, and say, "Stand close, your daddy's home."
And that was about as good as it ever got for our family. Daddy's heart later gave way to a congenital defect, and he lost everything. He was so scrupulously honest about debts, he could never recover financially. Unable to borrow money, uneducated and weakened for life, he set to working in car washes and garages.
After his union trucking days were over, we were assigned to the margins of America, a million miles from the American Dream, joining those people never seen on television, represented by no politician and never heard from in halls of power.
Now it was only a little house by the side of the road with not enough closets and ugly asbestos shingle siding. But it was ours, just like the truck and the chance to get ahead that it offered. And we had felt like we were some small part of America as it was advertised. All because of a union job during the heyday of unions in this nation.
It was also a period of Teamsters Union corruption, replete with criminal moguls such as Dave Beck, George Meany and Jimmy Hoffa. Yet the history of the few top lizards on the national rock of greed is not the history of the people.
If a few pricks and gangsters have occasionally seized power over the dignity of labor, countless more calculating, bloodless and malevolent pricks -- the capitalist elites -- have always held most of the cards, which is why in 1886, railroad and financial baron Jay Gould could sneer, "I can always hire one-half of the working class to kill the other half." And why a speaker at the U.S. Business Conference Board in 1974 could arrogantly declare, "One man, one vote has undermined the power of business in all capitalist countries since World War II." And why that same year, Business Week magazine said, "It will be a hard pill for many Americans to swallow -- the idea of doing with less so that big business can have more. Nothing in modern economic history compares with the selling job that must now be done to make people accept this new reality."
The new reality is here, and has been since 1973, the last year American workers made a wage gain in real dollars. Hell, it's been here so long, we accept it as part of America's cultural furniture. Only about 12 percent of American workers are unionized, and even with a supposedly union friendly Democratic Congress, unions are still fighting to exist (although government employees are unionized at 36 percent, because the Empire allows some leeway for its commissars).
In fact, things are worse than ever. Employers can now force employees to attend anti-union presentations during the workday, at captive-audience meetings in which union supporters are forbidden to speak under threat of insubordination. Back in 1978, when I was working to organize the local newspaper, the management was not even allowed to speak to the workers on the matter until after the union vote results were in.
Then there's President Barack Obama, the guy soft-headed liberals think is going to turn this dreadful scenario around. He talks a good game about unions, when he is forced to. But Obama is working on the things that will "create a legacy," such as health care (which is simply a new way to pay the insurance industry's blackmail) or the economy (by appointing the same damned people who fucked it up to fix it), and immigration reform, a nicely nebulous term that can mean whatever either side of the issue wants it to mean.
Obama's not going to publicly ignore the unions. But he's not going to sink much political capital into this corporatized nation's most radioactive issue either. For him, union legislation is just a distraction from the "legacy building" of a very charming, savvy and ambitious politician. That is the assessment of Glenn Spencer of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, one of the most anti-union institutions in America. (Many thanks to Washington writer Ken Silverstein for publishing Spencer's astute observations.)
Things are changing though. Union membership climbed 12 percent last year. Twelve percent of 12 percent ain't shit, but at least it's forward motion. At that rate, it will only take us 21 years to get back to the 1956 level of union membership.
We can expect no miracles, top union leaders are still among the Empire's elites. And they are still technically accountable to whatever membership will still have jobs when the 2012 elections roll around. The least they could do is make it harder for Obama to lick off those millions of hard-earned union-support dollars from the top of the campaign contribution ice cream cone as he did in '08.
But who can be sure? Because the new union elites and their minions are lawyers and marketing professionals. They've never come down off the mountain with both stacks red hot, or gathered on the porch of a crappy but new roadside bungalow, proud because they owned it, and stood up straight because, "Boys, your daddy is coming home."
I'm not going into the current brouhaha about the Employee Free Choice Act or the "card check" bullshit here. Because what it's gonna take to restore dignity to laboring America ain't gonna be more legislative wrangling. What it takes won't be pretty, maybe not even legal in this new police state, and sure as hell won't be "within the system." Because the system is the problem.
So it will be up to us, just like it always has been … the writer, the Nicaraguan janitor, the 40-year-old family man forced to bag groceries at Wal-Mart, the pizza delivery guy, the welder and the certified nurse … the long-haul trucker and the short-order cook. And they will snicker at us from their gilded roosts on Wall Street and Pennsylvania Avenue.
Some people are bound to get hurt in the necessary fight. In fact, people need to be willing to get hurt in the fight. That's the way we once gained worker rights, and that's the way we will get them back. The only way to get rid of the robbers' roost is to burn the fucker down.
Anyone got a match?
Joe Bageant is author of the book, Deer Hunting With Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War (Random House Crown), about working-class America. A complete archive of his online work, along with the thoughts of many working Americans on the subject of class may be found on his Web site.
© 2009 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/140797/
By Joe Bageant, AlterNet
Posted on June 22, 2009, Printed on June 24, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/140797/
In looking back on growing up, I always remember 1957 and 1958 as "the two good years." They were the only years my working-class redneck family ever caught a real break in their working lives, and that break came because of organized labor.
After working as a farmhand, driving a hicktown taxi part time and a dozen catch-as-catch-can jobs, my father found himself owning a used semi-truck and hauling produce for a Teamster-unionized trucking company called Blue Goose.
Daddy was making more money than he'd ever made in his life, about $4,000 a year. The median national household income at the time was $5,000, mostly thanks to America's unions. After years of moving from one rented dump to another, we bought a modest home ($8,000) and felt like we might at last be getting some traction in achieving the so-called American Dream.
Yup, Daddy was doing pretty good for a backwoods boy who'd quit school in the sixth or seventh grade -- he was never sure, which gives some idea how seriously the farm boy took his attendance at the one-room school we both attended in our lifetimes.
This was the golden age of both trucking and of unions. Thirty-five percent of American labor, 17 million working folks, were union members, and it was during this period the American middle class was created.
The American middle class has never been as big as advertised, but if it means the middle third income-wise, then we actually had one at the time. But whatever it means, one-third of working folks, the people who busted their asses day in and day out making the nation function, were living better than they ever had. Or at least had the opportunity to do so.
From the Depression through World War II, the Teamsters Union became a powerful entity, and a popular one, too, because of such things as its pledge never to strike during the war or a national emergency. President Roosevelt even had a special-designated liaison to the Teamsters.
But power and money eventually drew the usual assortment of lizards, and by the mid-'50s the Teamsters Union had become one corrupt pile of shit at the top level. So rotten even the mob enjoyed a piece of the action.
The membership, ordinary guys like my dad, was outraged and ashamed, but rendered powerless by the crooked union bosses in the big cities.
My old man was no great follower of the news or current events, but he tried to keep up with and understand Teamster developments. Which was impossible since his reading consisted of anti-union Southern newspapers, and the television coverage of Teamster criminality, including murders and the ongoing courtroom trials.
All this left him conflicted. His Appalachian Christian upbringing defined the world in black-and-white, with no gray areas. Inside, he felt he should not be even remotely connected with such vile things as the Teamsters were associated with. And he sometimes prayed for guidance in the matter.
On the other hand, there was the pride and satisfaction in providing for his family in ways previously impossible. He'd built a reasonable, working-class security for those times and that place in West Virginia. Being a Teamster certainly made that possible. But for damned sure no one had handed it to him. He drove his guts out to get what he had.
There were rules and log books and all the other crap that were supposed to assure drivers got enough rest., and ensure road safety and fairness for the truckers. Rural heartland drivers saw it for the bullshit it was, but it was much better-paying bullshit. For a little guy hauling produce from Podunk, USA, to the big cities, it still came down to heartburn, hemorrhoids and longer hauls and longer hours than most driver's falsified log books showed. And sometimes way too much Benzedrine, or "bennies."
Bennies were a type of speed commonly used by truckers back then because of the grueling hauls. As a former doper who has done bennies, I can avow they are some gritty, nerve-jagging shit. Their only virtue is making you wide awake and jumpy, and after you've been awake on them a couple of days, which many drivers were, crazier than a shithouse rat.
Nearly every truck stop sold bennies under the counter. Once, while hallucinating on bennies, Daddy nearly wiped out a roadside joint. He recalled “layin' on the jake brake, down shifting and watching hundreds of the witches like in The Wizard of Oz come down out of the sky in the dark." Somehow he got 30,000 pounds back onto the road while several folks inside the diner were pissing themselves in the windowside booths.
My daddy ran the eastern seaboard in a 12-wheeler -- there were no 18-wheelers yet. It had polished chrome and bold letters that read "BLUE GOOSE LINE." Parked alongside our little asbestos-sided house, I'd marvel at the magic of those bold words, the golden diamond and sturdy goose. And dream of someday "burning up Route 50" like my dad.
Old U.S. Route 50 ran near the house and was the stuff of legend if your daddy happened to be a truck driver who sometimes took you with him on the shorter hauls: "OK boy, now scrunch down and look into the side mirror. I'm gonna turn the top of them side stacks red hot." And he would pop the clutch and strike sparks on the anvil of the night, downshifting toward Pinkerton, Coolville and Hanging Rock. It never once occurred to me that his ebullience and our camaraderie might be due to a handful of bennies.
Yessir, Old 50 was a mighty thing, a howling black slash through the Blue Ridge Mountain fog. A place where famed and treacherous curves made widows, and truck stops and cafes bloomed in the tractor trailers' smoky wakes. A road map will tell you it eventually reaches Columbus and St. Louis, places I imagined had floodlights raking the skies heralding the arrival of heroic Teamster truckers like my father. Guys who'd fought in Germany and Italy and the Solomon Islands and were still wearing their service caps these years later, but now pinned with the gold steering wheel of the Teamsters Union. Such are a working-class boy's dreams.
I have two parched photos from that time. One is of me and my brother and sister, ages 10, 8 and 6. We are standing in the front yard, three little redneck kids with bad haircuts squinting for some faint clue as to whether there was really a world out there, somewhere beyond West Virginia.
The other photo is of my mother and the three of us on the porch of that house on Route 50. On the day my father was slated to return from any given run, we'd all stand on the porch listening for the sound of air brakes, the deep roar as he came down off the mountain. Each time, my mother would step onto the porch blotting her lipstick, Betty Grable-style hair rustling in the breeze, and say, "Stand close, your daddy's home."
And that was about as good as it ever got for our family. Daddy's heart later gave way to a congenital defect, and he lost everything. He was so scrupulously honest about debts, he could never recover financially. Unable to borrow money, uneducated and weakened for life, he set to working in car washes and garages.
After his union trucking days were over, we were assigned to the margins of America, a million miles from the American Dream, joining those people never seen on television, represented by no politician and never heard from in halls of power.
Now it was only a little house by the side of the road with not enough closets and ugly asbestos shingle siding. But it was ours, just like the truck and the chance to get ahead that it offered. And we had felt like we were some small part of America as it was advertised. All because of a union job during the heyday of unions in this nation.
It was also a period of Teamsters Union corruption, replete with criminal moguls such as Dave Beck, George Meany and Jimmy Hoffa. Yet the history of the few top lizards on the national rock of greed is not the history of the people.
If a few pricks and gangsters have occasionally seized power over the dignity of labor, countless more calculating, bloodless and malevolent pricks -- the capitalist elites -- have always held most of the cards, which is why in 1886, railroad and financial baron Jay Gould could sneer, "I can always hire one-half of the working class to kill the other half." And why a speaker at the U.S. Business Conference Board in 1974 could arrogantly declare, "One man, one vote has undermined the power of business in all capitalist countries since World War II." And why that same year, Business Week magazine said, "It will be a hard pill for many Americans to swallow -- the idea of doing with less so that big business can have more. Nothing in modern economic history compares with the selling job that must now be done to make people accept this new reality."
The new reality is here, and has been since 1973, the last year American workers made a wage gain in real dollars. Hell, it's been here so long, we accept it as part of America's cultural furniture. Only about 12 percent of American workers are unionized, and even with a supposedly union friendly Democratic Congress, unions are still fighting to exist (although government employees are unionized at 36 percent, because the Empire allows some leeway for its commissars).
In fact, things are worse than ever. Employers can now force employees to attend anti-union presentations during the workday, at captive-audience meetings in which union supporters are forbidden to speak under threat of insubordination. Back in 1978, when I was working to organize the local newspaper, the management was not even allowed to speak to the workers on the matter until after the union vote results were in.
Then there's President Barack Obama, the guy soft-headed liberals think is going to turn this dreadful scenario around. He talks a good game about unions, when he is forced to. But Obama is working on the things that will "create a legacy," such as health care (which is simply a new way to pay the insurance industry's blackmail) or the economy (by appointing the same damned people who fucked it up to fix it), and immigration reform, a nicely nebulous term that can mean whatever either side of the issue wants it to mean.
Obama's not going to publicly ignore the unions. But he's not going to sink much political capital into this corporatized nation's most radioactive issue either. For him, union legislation is just a distraction from the "legacy building" of a very charming, savvy and ambitious politician. That is the assessment of Glenn Spencer of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, one of the most anti-union institutions in America. (Many thanks to Washington writer Ken Silverstein for publishing Spencer's astute observations.)
Things are changing though. Union membership climbed 12 percent last year. Twelve percent of 12 percent ain't shit, but at least it's forward motion. At that rate, it will only take us 21 years to get back to the 1956 level of union membership.
We can expect no miracles, top union leaders are still among the Empire's elites. And they are still technically accountable to whatever membership will still have jobs when the 2012 elections roll around. The least they could do is make it harder for Obama to lick off those millions of hard-earned union-support dollars from the top of the campaign contribution ice cream cone as he did in '08.
But who can be sure? Because the new union elites and their minions are lawyers and marketing professionals. They've never come down off the mountain with both stacks red hot, or gathered on the porch of a crappy but new roadside bungalow, proud because they owned it, and stood up straight because, "Boys, your daddy is coming home."
I'm not going into the current brouhaha about the Employee Free Choice Act or the "card check" bullshit here. Because what it's gonna take to restore dignity to laboring America ain't gonna be more legislative wrangling. What it takes won't be pretty, maybe not even legal in this new police state, and sure as hell won't be "within the system." Because the system is the problem.
So it will be up to us, just like it always has been … the writer, the Nicaraguan janitor, the 40-year-old family man forced to bag groceries at Wal-Mart, the pizza delivery guy, the welder and the certified nurse … the long-haul trucker and the short-order cook. And they will snicker at us from their gilded roosts on Wall Street and Pennsylvania Avenue.
Some people are bound to get hurt in the necessary fight. In fact, people need to be willing to get hurt in the fight. That's the way we once gained worker rights, and that's the way we will get them back. The only way to get rid of the robbers' roost is to burn the fucker down.
Anyone got a match?
Joe Bageant is author of the book, Deer Hunting With Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War (Random House Crown), about working-class America. A complete archive of his online work, along with the thoughts of many working Americans on the subject of class may be found on his Web site.
© 2009 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/140797/
*****How Money Is Created
I finally found something that explains the Federal Reserve to me and how it does things. I knew allot of money was being created but I didn't know the governing rules and it how this was being done .
Following sent in by Jess:
I knew money was being created because our ever growing amount of goods and services in an ever growing population should create deflation if the amount of money remains constant. In fact if money was constant instead of a bell pepper costing $1.79 today and $.05 in 1913 it should only cost a penny today (approximate figures). Although I never saw a government pie chart that showed created money as a part of our revenue.
The following link explains this well. http://www.livevideo.com/video/walkinturtle2u/2F3DE48315C642B2A846A587534159EB/money-as-debt.aspx
After you open it up, wait on it and give it a chance to load.
This is a great video of how this is done. I have read allot on this but never felt I understood it well. This is a great explanation. Look at it. This should be taught in every public school.
Love, Jess
Following sent in by Jess:
I knew money was being created because our ever growing amount of goods and services in an ever growing population should create deflation if the amount of money remains constant. In fact if money was constant instead of a bell pepper costing $1.79 today and $.05 in 1913 it should only cost a penny today (approximate figures). Although I never saw a government pie chart that showed created money as a part of our revenue.
The following link explains this well. http://www.livevideo.com/video/walkinturtle2u/2F3DE48315C642B2A846A587534159EB/money-as-debt.aspx
After you open it up, wait on it and give it a chance to load.
This is a great video of how this is done. I have read allot on this but never felt I understood it well. This is a great explanation. Look at it. This should be taught in every public school.
Love, Jess
Monday, June 22, 2009
Good Step? Or not enough?
WASHINGTON -- President Obama announced Monday that drug companies have agreed to close the "donut hole" in Medicare coverage by providing $80 billion in cheaper drugs over the next decade.
Obama said closing the gap in Medicare drug coverage will help make health reform more possible.
The "donut hole" refers to the gap in prescription drug coverage after the first $2,700 in yearly prescription costs is covered by Medicare. Then patients have to pay their own costs for drugs until costs exceed $6,100.
"This gap in coverage has been placing a crushing burden on many older Americans who live on fixed incomes and can't afford thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket expenses," Obama said.
"I'm pleased to report that over the weekend we reached an understanding that will help close the notorious donut hole in Medicare Part D. This is a significant breakthrough on the road to health care reform, one that will make the difference in the lives of many older Americans," he said.
The president invited Barry Rand, head of the senior citizens' advocacy group AARP, to appear with him. The deal was struck with Democratic Sen. Max Baucus, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, as well as the White House.
AARP spokesman Ken Johnson said there are other parts to the agreement that have still not been completed, but he declined to provide details.
The president used the opportunity to make his sternest call yet for action, saying the drug agreement is one piece of "health care reform I expect Congress to enact this year."
Obama said the move on Medicare will help correct an anomaly in the program that provides a prescription drug benefit through the government health care program for the elderly and disabled. Under the deal, drug companies will pay part of the cost of brand name drugs for lower and middle-income older people in the so-called "doughnut hole."
The drug companies' investment would reduce the cost of drugs for seniors and pay for a portion of Obama's proposed revamping of health care.
Under the agreement, part of the $80 billion would be used to halve the cost of brand name drugs for Medicare recipients when they are in a coverage gap of the program. AARP, which represents 40 million older Americans, has long lobbied to eliminate that coverage gap completely.
The deal would affect about 26 million low- and middle-income recipients of the program's enrollees, AARP said. It would apply to brand name and biologic drugs, but not generics, the group said, and likely take effect in July 2010, assuming drug overhaul legislation becomes law.
Obama said closing the gap in Medicare drug coverage will help make health reform more possible.
The "donut hole" refers to the gap in prescription drug coverage after the first $2,700 in yearly prescription costs is covered by Medicare. Then patients have to pay their own costs for drugs until costs exceed $6,100.
"This gap in coverage has been placing a crushing burden on many older Americans who live on fixed incomes and can't afford thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket expenses," Obama said.
"I'm pleased to report that over the weekend we reached an understanding that will help close the notorious donut hole in Medicare Part D. This is a significant breakthrough on the road to health care reform, one that will make the difference in the lives of many older Americans," he said.
The president invited Barry Rand, head of the senior citizens' advocacy group AARP, to appear with him. The deal was struck with Democratic Sen. Max Baucus, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, as well as the White House.
AARP spokesman Ken Johnson said there are other parts to the agreement that have still not been completed, but he declined to provide details.
The president used the opportunity to make his sternest call yet for action, saying the drug agreement is one piece of "health care reform I expect Congress to enact this year."
Obama said the move on Medicare will help correct an anomaly in the program that provides a prescription drug benefit through the government health care program for the elderly and disabled. Under the deal, drug companies will pay part of the cost of brand name drugs for lower and middle-income older people in the so-called "doughnut hole."
The drug companies' investment would reduce the cost of drugs for seniors and pay for a portion of Obama's proposed revamping of health care.
Under the agreement, part of the $80 billion would be used to halve the cost of brand name drugs for Medicare recipients when they are in a coverage gap of the program. AARP, which represents 40 million older Americans, has long lobbied to eliminate that coverage gap completely.
The deal would affect about 26 million low- and middle-income recipients of the program's enrollees, AARP said. It would apply to brand name and biologic drugs, but not generics, the group said, and likely take effect in July 2010, assuming drug overhaul legislation becomes law.
Good Globalization and Lies
The heroic Iranians are using Twitter and Face Book to communicate and to organize. Now that is true Globalization. That is a natural result of the communication age.
However it is a lie when we are told illegal immigration, outsourcing, so called Free Trade, and H1 B Visas are a natural result of the communication age. They are an exploitation of the working classes all over the world: cheap labor.
We are being sold a bundle of propaganda (false ideas) when we are told
However it is a lie when we are told illegal immigration, outsourcing, so called Free Trade, and H1 B Visas are a natural result of the communication age. They are an exploitation of the working classes all over the world: cheap labor.
We are being sold a bundle of propaganda (false ideas) when we are told
- "Americans won't do the work",
- "In this economy one must have a college education to get a job (what about teacher layoffs, and college educated who are flipping hamburgers),
- "The factories will not return", (being dependant of other Countries for basic needs is suicide)
- "Government can solve the problem" (heck they created it)
- "We need Comprehensive Amnesty" (Read this independent study; http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html )
- "We don't need those jobs" (What an ego.)
- Our leaders are "World Leaders" (What an ego..They can't run the U.S. effectively let alone the world. )
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Video: Ron Paul on Medical Care
In the video attachment below, Ron Paul talks about why medical care is too expensive now, socialized medicine, and recommended solutions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foXQbmZxWYY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foXQbmZxWYY
1871 A Black Man Speaks About Today
In 1871 a black man, Fredrick Douglass, said it like it is about cheap labor. Here are just pieces of what he said:
- How vast and bottomless is the abyss of meanness, cruelty, and crime sometimes concealed under fair-seeming phrases. Take the one we have made the caption of this article as an illustration (Cheap Labor by Fredrick Douglass)
- Cheap Labor, is a phrase that has no cheering music for the masses. Those who demand it, and seek to acquire it, have but little sympathy with common humanity. It is the cry of the few against the many. When we inquire who are the men that are continually vociferating for cheap labor, we find not the poor, the simple, and the lowly; not the class who dig and toil for their daily bread; not the landless, feeble, and defenseless portion of society, but the rich and powerful, the crafty and scheming, those who live by the sweat of other men's faces, and who have no intention of cheapening labor by adding themselves to the laboring forces of society.
- It means that condition of things in which the laborers shall be so largely in excess of the work needed to be done, that the capitalist shall be able to command all the laborers he wants, at prices only enough to keep the laborer above the point of starvation. It means ease and luxury to the rich, wretchedness and misery to the poor.
Bill Gates is asking for more H1 B visas. History repeats itself
More at this link: http://www.numbersusa.com/content/nusablog/cbreiter2/june-17-2009/frederick-douglass-cheap-labor.html?jid=170650&lid=9&rid=1704&tid=814673
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Illegal Aliens off limits, but Teacher Lay Offs OK
Schwarzenegger proposed cutting teachers, closing schools, closing day care centers for althimers patients....but claims subsidies to illegal aliens is off limits. He is "happy to be able to provide them the services."
http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2009/may/26/schwarzenegger-to-reveal-deeper-budget-cuts/
http://www.californiahealthline.org/Articles/2009/6/16/Panel-Rejects-Schwarzeneggers-Proposal-to-Cut-Healthy-Families.aspx
http://www.alipac.us/article4277.html
http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2009/may/26/schwarzenegger-to-reveal-deeper-budget-cuts/
http://www.californiahealthline.org/Articles/2009/6/16/Panel-Rejects-Schwarzeneggers-Proposal-to-Cut-Healthy-Families.aspx
http://www.alipac.us/article4277.html
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Why Audit The Federal Reserve
No one has the authority to keep track of what the Federal Reserve has done with trillions of lost dollars: See video linked below
http://www.campaignforliberty.com/#19980
This is a good one to pass on to others
http://www.campaignforliberty.com/#19980
This is a good one to pass on to others
***A Doctor And Congressman on Obama Med. Plan
Video of Ron Paul who is a Doctor and a Congressman talking about Obama's Medical Insurance Plan:
http://www.campaignforliberty.com/
http://www.campaignforliberty.com/
Obama Ready to Announce His Surrender to Big Business Lobby and Gut Workplace Verification?
Obama Ready to Announce His Surrender to Big Business Lobby and Gut Workplace Verification? Numbers USA
http://www.numbersusa.com/content/nusablog/beckr/june-11-2009/obama-ready-announce-his-surrender-big-business-lobby-and-gut-workplace-?jid=166109&lid=9&rid=1674&tid=814673
http://www.numbersusa.com/content/nusablog/beckr/june-11-2009/obama-ready-announce-his-surrender-big-business-lobby-and-gut-workplace-?jid=166109&lid=9&rid=1674&tid=814673
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Help for Those Loosing Homes
the following is from Sandy:
Foreclosure? 1)
Are You in Foreclosure? Demand to see the Note:Interesting. ..a Congresswoman is saying the same thing, stay in your house~ Know anyone needing help with possible Foreclosure?http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=YUZdANb6UaY
Foreclosure? 1)
Are You in Foreclosure? Demand to see the Note:Interesting. ..a Congresswoman is saying the same thing, stay in your house~ Know anyone needing help with possible Foreclosure?http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=YUZdANb6UaY
E-Verify Update
Congress voted Friday to keep Americans jobless so multitudes of illegal aliens could keep fed jobs
By Roy Beck, Friday, June 12, 2009, 6:47 PM
http://www.numbersusa.com/content/nusablog/beckr/june-12-2009/look-their-names-they-voted-today-keep-americans-jobless-so-multitudes-i
By Roy Beck, Friday, June 12, 2009, 6:47 PM
http://www.numbersusa.com/content/nusablog/beckr/june-12-2009/look-their-names-they-voted-today-keep-americans-jobless-so-multitudes-i
Thursday, June 11, 2009
More on Genitically Engineered seed: "Terminator Gene"
Monsanto is in the process of acquiring and patenting their newest technology, known as "Terminator Technology."
Billions of people on the planet are supported by farmers who save seeds from the crops and replant these seeds the following year. Seeds are planted. The crop is harvested. And the seeds from the harvest are replanted the following year. Most farmers cannot afford to buy new seeds every year, so collecting and replanting seeds is a crucial part of the agricultural cycle. This is the way food has been grown successfully for thousands of years.
With Monsanto's terminator technology, they will sell seeds to farmers to plant crops. But these seeds have been genetically-engineered so that when the crops are harvested, all new seeds from these crops are sterile (e.g., dead, unusable). This forces farmers to pay Monsanto every year for new seeds if they want to grow their crops.
"It's terribly dangerous," says Hope Shand, "half the world's farmers are poor and can't afford to buy seed every growing season, yet poor farmers grow 15 to 20% of the world's food and they directly feed at least 1.4 billion people - 100 million in Latin America, 300 million in Africa, and 1 billion in Asia. These farmers depend upon saved seed and their own breeding skills in adapting other varieties for use on their (often marginal) lands.
"What is even more frightening is that traits from genetically-engineered crops can get passed on to other crops. Once the terminator seeds are released into a region, the trait of seed sterility could be passed to other non-genetically-engineered crops making most or all of the seeds in the region sterile. (This has the potential of making our food source dependant on patented seeds from major corporations like Monsanto; much like our medications are now)
To read more: http://www.ethicalinvesting.com/monsanto/terminator.shtml
Billions of people on the planet are supported by farmers who save seeds from the crops and replant these seeds the following year. Seeds are planted. The crop is harvested. And the seeds from the harvest are replanted the following year. Most farmers cannot afford to buy new seeds every year, so collecting and replanting seeds is a crucial part of the agricultural cycle. This is the way food has been grown successfully for thousands of years.
With Monsanto's terminator technology, they will sell seeds to farmers to plant crops. But these seeds have been genetically-engineered so that when the crops are harvested, all new seeds from these crops are sterile (e.g., dead, unusable). This forces farmers to pay Monsanto every year for new seeds if they want to grow their crops.
"It's terribly dangerous," says Hope Shand, "half the world's farmers are poor and can't afford to buy seed every growing season, yet poor farmers grow 15 to 20% of the world's food and they directly feed at least 1.4 billion people - 100 million in Latin America, 300 million in Africa, and 1 billion in Asia. These farmers depend upon saved seed and their own breeding skills in adapting other varieties for use on their (often marginal) lands.
"What is even more frightening is that traits from genetically-engineered crops can get passed on to other crops. Once the terminator seeds are released into a region, the trait of seed sterility could be passed to other non-genetically-engineered crops making most or all of the seeds in the region sterile. (This has the potential of making our food source dependant on patented seeds from major corporations like Monsanto; much like our medications are now)
To read more: http://www.ethicalinvesting.com/monsanto/terminator.shtml
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
India Saying No to Large International Corporation: Genetically Engineered Seeds
Farmers in India are loosing farms, and protesting Monsanto as a result of their genetically engineered cotton seeds. Monsanto ran adds convincing farmers to buy the more expensive genetically engineered cotton seeds saying it would eliminate the need for pesticides, and produce higher yields. However after the cotton was planted neither of these claims panned out, and the result put many in foreclosure.
Even worse these seeds have begun to bleed over into the natural cotton fields, altering them, and destroying the safety in diversity. Some farmers are working hard to make sure the natural seed production is not lost, and are protesting Monsanto's reckless implementations of untested procedures. You can read more in the following links:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/monsanto/indiacotton.cfm
http://www.poptel.org.uk/panap/latest/mondia.htm
It seems that large international businesses are having their way all over the world at the expense of mankind. Thank God for those who are saying no more. Hopefully our politicians will jump on board soon.
Even worse these seeds have begun to bleed over into the natural cotton fields, altering them, and destroying the safety in diversity. Some farmers are working hard to make sure the natural seed production is not lost, and are protesting Monsanto's reckless implementations of untested procedures. You can read more in the following links:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/monsanto/indiacotton.cfm
http://www.poptel.org.uk/panap/latest/mondia.htm
It seems that large international businesses are having their way all over the world at the expense of mankind. Thank God for those who are saying no more. Hopefully our politicians will jump on board soon.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Socialized Medical Insurance?
The following is from KJ for Obama's health Plan, and below that is Rick against Obama's Plan, and with another idea:
Hi Roma,
Just something from the other side of the fence in regards to the Health Care Reform
BACKGROUND QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
ON HEALTH CARE PLAN
Q. I like my current insurance coverage. Will I have to change plans?
A. No, you will not have to change plans. For those who have insurance now, nothing
will change under the Obama plan – except that you will pay less. Obama’s plan will
save a typical family up to $2,500 on premiums by bringing the health care system into
the 21st century: cutting waste, improving technology, expanding coverage to all
Americans, and paying for some high-cost cases.
Q. How will I be able to sign up?
A. Signing up for the plan will be easy. You will be able do it on your tax return, on the
Internet, on forms you can get from your employer, in churches, libraries, motor vehicle
bureaus and all sorts of places.
Q. How will the mandate that children be covered affect me?
A. When children are born, their parents will be assisted in signing them up for
affordable, high quality coverage, either through their own employer-sponsored insurance
plans, through Medicaid or SCHIP, or through options established by the Obama plan.
We will continue to make sure that children are covered, which may include verification
when parents sign them up for daycare or school. Obama’s plan will help parents make
sure their children get the care they need, at the time they need it.
Q. I am on Medicaid / my family is on S-CHIP. Will I be able to stay on these
programs?
A. Yes. The Medicaid and SCHIP programs are examples of successful state-federal
partnerships, covering millions of low-income children, adults, disabled individuals and
seniors, including many seniors in nursing homes. As we work to expand health
coverage to every American, it makes sense to build upon these successful partnerships,
and equally important, to increase the funding to keep them sustainable, instead of
dismantling them. The Obama plan would actually expand Medicaid and S-CHIP to
cover more families and working people.
Q. Won’t my employer drop coverage?
A. No. Employers who do not offer meaningful coverage to their employees will have to
contribute a percentage of their payroll to help offset the cost of providing coverage to all
Americans. In most cases, this will eliminate an employer’s incentive to drop coverage.
Some small employers will be exempt from this requirement.
Q. Obama says his plan will save $2,500 annually for my family. How?
A. Through a combination of developing efficiencies in the system, expanding
coverage to all Americans, and picking up the cost of some high-cost cases.
Specifically:
𐀁 Health IT investment, which will reduce unnecessary and wasteful
spending in the health care system. Examples include extra hospital stays
because of preventable medical errors and duplicative diagnostic tests;
𐀁 Improving prevention and management of chronic conditions;
𐀁 Increasing insurance industry competition and reining in the abusive
practices of monopoly insurance and drug companies;
𐀁 Providing reinsurance for catastrophic cases, which will reduce insurance
premiums; and
𐀁 Ensuring every American has health coverage, which will reduce spending
on the “uncompensated” care of uninsured people who end up in
emergency rooms and whose care is picked up by institutions and then
passed through higher charges to insured individuals.
Q. I have insurance, but I spend so much money on deductibles, premiums and copays
that I can’t afford anything else. Will Obama’s plan help me?
A. Yes. The Obama plan is designed to help people exactly like you. His plan will help
the millions of families who currently have health insurance from their employer, but
nonetheless are feeling squeezed by fast-rising premiums, co-pays, and deductibles.
Nearly 11 million insured Americans spent more than a quarter of their salary on health
care last year. Obama’s plan will reduce a typical family’s premium by up to $2,500 by
reducing costs, improving technology, and reigning in the power of insurance companies.
Q. I don’t want the government telling me which doctors to see or what treatments
to get. Will the Obama plan force these kinds of decisions on me?
A. Senator Obama agrees with you. His plan will not tell you which doctors to see or
what treatments to get. Under the Obama health care plan, you will be able to keep your
doctor and your health insurance if you want. No government bureaucrat will secondguess
decisions about your care.
Q. Will I still have choice in health plans?
A. Yes. Obama’s plan actually will increase the choices available to you. If you like the
insurance you have now, nothing will change under the Obama plan, except that you will
pay less. If you do not have insurance you can choose to enroll in the new public plan,
which will offer benefits similar to what every federal employee and member of
Congress gets. Or you can choose private plan options through the national health
exchange. But none of the plans will be allowed to drop you just because you get sick.
Q. I am a business owner, how does the Obama plan affect my company and the
economy in general?
A. By reducing health care costs, the Obama plan will save employers $140 billion
per year.
First, Obama’s plan includes a reinsurance pool for employers. If employer health care
costs exceed a certain amount, the federal government will pick up the tab, as long as the
employer agrees to pass the savings onto their employees. That helps businesses who
have that one sick employee to be able to continue offering health insurance to their
employees and keep their doors open.
Second, Obama’s plan goes beyond short-term fixes to address the main cost drivers in
health care, which will help to stabilize the rising costs of health care, which are simply
unsustainable over the long term. The Obama plan makes a real investment in health IT
and other health system changes, which will dramatically improve quality and efficiency
of the health care system, bringing it into the 21st century. The Obama plan will also
aggressively hold the insurance and pharmaceutical industries accountable for unfair and
abusive practices that are raising prices for families and employers. Finally, Obama will
invest in prevention and public health systems, which will help Americans stay healthy
and lower costs from having to treat preventable diseases.
Third, for employers that already offer coverage to their employees, Obama’s plan will
make it less costly for them to continue to do so, because every American will be
covered. The health care costs of the uninsured will no longer be passed along to those
who do have health insurance, which will drive down health insurance premiums.
The Obama plan will also help employers that are unable to offer health coverage to their
employees right now. The main reason employers do not offer health coverage to their
employees is because it is simply too expensive. Obama’s plan directly addresses the
cost issue by allowing small employers to purchase a new public plan with subsidies for
those who need it. For those who want private insurance, the Obama plan creates a
National Health Insurance Exchange, which will act as a watchdog group and help reform
the private insurance market by creating rules and standards for participating insurance
plans to ensure fairness and to make coverage more affordable and accessible.
Q. I own a small business but don’t offer insurance. How much will I have to
pay for each employee? And how does the Obama plan help my small business?
A. Obama’s plan will help small employers that are unable to offer health coverage to
their employees right now. The main reason small employers do not offer health coverage
to their employees is because it is simply too expensive. The Obama plan allows small
employers to enter the National Health Insurance Exchange to purchase either a new
public plan or a private plan for their employees, who will be eligible for subsidies if they
need them. Very small businesses and start-ups will be exempted from the obligation to
pay into the system or provide meaningful coverage for their employees.
The reinsurance proposal will also reduce the volatility of premiums for small businesses.
For small businesses, having a single employee with catastrophic expenditures can make
insurance unaffordable for all of the workers in the firm. The Obama plan would
reimburse employer health plans for a portion of the catastrophic costs they incur above a
threshold if they guarantee such savings are used to reduce the cost of workers’
premiums. Offsetting some of the catastrophic costs will make health care more
affordable for employers, workers, and their families.
Q. What if I am self-employed?
A. Then you know how hard it is for self-employed people to buy affordable health
insurance today. Obama’s plan will ensure that small businesses and those who are selfemployed
have affordable health care. Obama's new health plan will give individuals the
choice of buying affordable health coverage that is similar to the plan available to federal
employees and members of Congress or a private health insurance plan through an
insurance market place known as the Health Insurance Exchange. The insurance will be
affordable for all Americans and the insurance companies will not be allowed to deny
you coverage or drop you because you get sick, the way they do now.
Q. What if I have a pre-existing condition?
This guaranteed eligibility will apply to all private and public insurance plans, whether
they are offered in the National Health Insurance Exchange or outside of it. No insurance
companies will be allowed to discriminate because of a previous bout with cancer or
some other pre-existing illness.
Q. Does the Obama plan support mental health parity?
A. Yes. Under the Obama plan, private insurance offered by employers and both the
private and public insurance plans will include coverage of all essential medical services,
including mental health care. Obama is a strong supporter of mental health parity and he
believes that serious mental illnesses must be covered on the same terms and conditions
as are applicable to physical illnesses and diseases. He does not think health insurance
companies should be allowed to discriminate against the mentally ill.
Q. How much will it cost us taxpayers?
A. The Obama plan will cost between $50-65 billion a year when fully phased in.
Q. How will we pay for the Obama plan?
A. The Obama plan will realize tremendous savings within the health care system to help
finance the plan. The additional revenue needed to fund the up-front investments in
technology and to help people who cannot afford health insurance is more than covered
by allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire for people making more than $250,000 per year,
as they are scheduled to do.
On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 11:00 AM, Roma Cox <romacox2000@yahoo.com> wrote:
Following from Rick
Feel free to click on the below web site to sign a petition against federal run health care.....
http://www.freeourhealthcarenow.com/
Your voice matters! To learn more about Healthcare Reform that is GOOD for America, click the link below. http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/Ten_Steps.pdf.
Hi Roma,
Just something from the other side of the fence in regards to the Health Care Reform
BACKGROUND QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
ON HEALTH CARE PLAN
Q. I like my current insurance coverage. Will I have to change plans?
A. No, you will not have to change plans. For those who have insurance now, nothing
will change under the Obama plan – except that you will pay less. Obama’s plan will
save a typical family up to $2,500 on premiums by bringing the health care system into
the 21st century: cutting waste, improving technology, expanding coverage to all
Americans, and paying for some high-cost cases.
Q. How will I be able to sign up?
A. Signing up for the plan will be easy. You will be able do it on your tax return, on the
Internet, on forms you can get from your employer, in churches, libraries, motor vehicle
bureaus and all sorts of places.
Q. How will the mandate that children be covered affect me?
A. When children are born, their parents will be assisted in signing them up for
affordable, high quality coverage, either through their own employer-sponsored insurance
plans, through Medicaid or SCHIP, or through options established by the Obama plan.
We will continue to make sure that children are covered, which may include verification
when parents sign them up for daycare or school. Obama’s plan will help parents make
sure their children get the care they need, at the time they need it.
Q. I am on Medicaid / my family is on S-CHIP. Will I be able to stay on these
programs?
A. Yes. The Medicaid and SCHIP programs are examples of successful state-federal
partnerships, covering millions of low-income children, adults, disabled individuals and
seniors, including many seniors in nursing homes. As we work to expand health
coverage to every American, it makes sense to build upon these successful partnerships,
and equally important, to increase the funding to keep them sustainable, instead of
dismantling them. The Obama plan would actually expand Medicaid and S-CHIP to
cover more families and working people.
Q. Won’t my employer drop coverage?
A. No. Employers who do not offer meaningful coverage to their employees will have to
contribute a percentage of their payroll to help offset the cost of providing coverage to all
Americans. In most cases, this will eliminate an employer’s incentive to drop coverage.
Some small employers will be exempt from this requirement.
Q. Obama says his plan will save $2,500 annually for my family. How?
A. Through a combination of developing efficiencies in the system, expanding
coverage to all Americans, and picking up the cost of some high-cost cases.
Specifically:
𐀁 Health IT investment, which will reduce unnecessary and wasteful
spending in the health care system. Examples include extra hospital stays
because of preventable medical errors and duplicative diagnostic tests;
𐀁 Improving prevention and management of chronic conditions;
𐀁 Increasing insurance industry competition and reining in the abusive
practices of monopoly insurance and drug companies;
𐀁 Providing reinsurance for catastrophic cases, which will reduce insurance
premiums; and
𐀁 Ensuring every American has health coverage, which will reduce spending
on the “uncompensated” care of uninsured people who end up in
emergency rooms and whose care is picked up by institutions and then
passed through higher charges to insured individuals.
Q. I have insurance, but I spend so much money on deductibles, premiums and copays
that I can’t afford anything else. Will Obama’s plan help me?
A. Yes. The Obama plan is designed to help people exactly like you. His plan will help
the millions of families who currently have health insurance from their employer, but
nonetheless are feeling squeezed by fast-rising premiums, co-pays, and deductibles.
Nearly 11 million insured Americans spent more than a quarter of their salary on health
care last year. Obama’s plan will reduce a typical family’s premium by up to $2,500 by
reducing costs, improving technology, and reigning in the power of insurance companies.
Q. I don’t want the government telling me which doctors to see or what treatments
to get. Will the Obama plan force these kinds of decisions on me?
A. Senator Obama agrees with you. His plan will not tell you which doctors to see or
what treatments to get. Under the Obama health care plan, you will be able to keep your
doctor and your health insurance if you want. No government bureaucrat will secondguess
decisions about your care.
Q. Will I still have choice in health plans?
A. Yes. Obama’s plan actually will increase the choices available to you. If you like the
insurance you have now, nothing will change under the Obama plan, except that you will
pay less. If you do not have insurance you can choose to enroll in the new public plan,
which will offer benefits similar to what every federal employee and member of
Congress gets. Or you can choose private plan options through the national health
exchange. But none of the plans will be allowed to drop you just because you get sick.
Q. I am a business owner, how does the Obama plan affect my company and the
economy in general?
A. By reducing health care costs, the Obama plan will save employers $140 billion
per year.
First, Obama’s plan includes a reinsurance pool for employers. If employer health care
costs exceed a certain amount, the federal government will pick up the tab, as long as the
employer agrees to pass the savings onto their employees. That helps businesses who
have that one sick employee to be able to continue offering health insurance to their
employees and keep their doors open.
Second, Obama’s plan goes beyond short-term fixes to address the main cost drivers in
health care, which will help to stabilize the rising costs of health care, which are simply
unsustainable over the long term. The Obama plan makes a real investment in health IT
and other health system changes, which will dramatically improve quality and efficiency
of the health care system, bringing it into the 21st century. The Obama plan will also
aggressively hold the insurance and pharmaceutical industries accountable for unfair and
abusive practices that are raising prices for families and employers. Finally, Obama will
invest in prevention and public health systems, which will help Americans stay healthy
and lower costs from having to treat preventable diseases.
Third, for employers that already offer coverage to their employees, Obama’s plan will
make it less costly for them to continue to do so, because every American will be
covered. The health care costs of the uninsured will no longer be passed along to those
who do have health insurance, which will drive down health insurance premiums.
The Obama plan will also help employers that are unable to offer health coverage to their
employees right now. The main reason employers do not offer health coverage to their
employees is because it is simply too expensive. Obama’s plan directly addresses the
cost issue by allowing small employers to purchase a new public plan with subsidies for
those who need it. For those who want private insurance, the Obama plan creates a
National Health Insurance Exchange, which will act as a watchdog group and help reform
the private insurance market by creating rules and standards for participating insurance
plans to ensure fairness and to make coverage more affordable and accessible.
Q. I own a small business but don’t offer insurance. How much will I have to
pay for each employee? And how does the Obama plan help my small business?
A. Obama’s plan will help small employers that are unable to offer health coverage to
their employees right now. The main reason small employers do not offer health coverage
to their employees is because it is simply too expensive. The Obama plan allows small
employers to enter the National Health Insurance Exchange to purchase either a new
public plan or a private plan for their employees, who will be eligible for subsidies if they
need them. Very small businesses and start-ups will be exempted from the obligation to
pay into the system or provide meaningful coverage for their employees.
The reinsurance proposal will also reduce the volatility of premiums for small businesses.
For small businesses, having a single employee with catastrophic expenditures can make
insurance unaffordable for all of the workers in the firm. The Obama plan would
reimburse employer health plans for a portion of the catastrophic costs they incur above a
threshold if they guarantee such savings are used to reduce the cost of workers’
premiums. Offsetting some of the catastrophic costs will make health care more
affordable for employers, workers, and their families.
Q. What if I am self-employed?
A. Then you know how hard it is for self-employed people to buy affordable health
insurance today. Obama’s plan will ensure that small businesses and those who are selfemployed
have affordable health care. Obama's new health plan will give individuals the
choice of buying affordable health coverage that is similar to the plan available to federal
employees and members of Congress or a private health insurance plan through an
insurance market place known as the Health Insurance Exchange. The insurance will be
affordable for all Americans and the insurance companies will not be allowed to deny
you coverage or drop you because you get sick, the way they do now.
Q. What if I have a pre-existing condition?
This guaranteed eligibility will apply to all private and public insurance plans, whether
they are offered in the National Health Insurance Exchange or outside of it. No insurance
companies will be allowed to discriminate because of a previous bout with cancer or
some other pre-existing illness.
Q. Does the Obama plan support mental health parity?
A. Yes. Under the Obama plan, private insurance offered by employers and both the
private and public insurance plans will include coverage of all essential medical services,
including mental health care. Obama is a strong supporter of mental health parity and he
believes that serious mental illnesses must be covered on the same terms and conditions
as are applicable to physical illnesses and diseases. He does not think health insurance
companies should be allowed to discriminate against the mentally ill.
Q. How much will it cost us taxpayers?
A. The Obama plan will cost between $50-65 billion a year when fully phased in.
Q. How will we pay for the Obama plan?
A. The Obama plan will realize tremendous savings within the health care system to help
finance the plan. The additional revenue needed to fund the up-front investments in
technology and to help people who cannot afford health insurance is more than covered
by allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire for people making more than $250,000 per year,
as they are scheduled to do.
On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 11:00 AM, Roma Cox <romacox2000@yahoo.com> wrote:
Following from Rick
Feel free to click on the below web site to sign a petition against federal run health care.....
http://www.freeourhealthcarenow.com/
Your voice matters! To learn more about Healthcare Reform that is GOOD for America, click the link below. http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/Ten_Steps.pdf.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
*****Blessing in Disguise
Jeff Rubin, a major economists, argues (in his book "The World is About To Get a Whole Lot Smaller")
- that oil is on the rise, and will continue to rise, and it is a blessing in disguise.
- When we ship food that use to be produced here (and other products) from China (and other Countries) it gives cheaper labor prices, but it is also more polluting, and it costs more to ship from that distance than it does to produce it here.
- He points out when we ship chicken wings they must come to us by refrigerated ship which is all effected by fuel prices. As gas rises the cost of shipping and refrigeration rise above the benefit of cheap labor. Steel will cost $90.00 more per tun to ship it as apposed to producing it here.
- Thus he contends we will see an end to globalization, and a return to manufacturing in the U.S. because of the price of oil. One of the big benefits will be less pollution.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Seven Bahia Killed Because of Beliefs
The following sent in by Nadar:
This video had me in tears… I hope you too will appreciate it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6LwbauCrG8
Loving Regards,
Nader S. Ashchi, Licensed Consultant
www.NaderAshchi.LifeSuccessConsultants.com
This video had me in tears… I hope you too will appreciate it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6LwbauCrG8
Loving Regards,
Nader S. Ashchi, Licensed Consultant
www.NaderAshchi.LifeSuccessConsultants.com
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