I was a health planner and a health policy analyst. We have always known the only way to contain cost is single payer. So has the President known this and so does congress know this but they refuse to do the right thing because all they care about is getting reelected. Our corrupt congress is not about to bite the finger that feeds them no matter how bad health care gets or how many people die. On 9/11 less than 3000 people died and their families received compensation - some got huge amounts. But since 9/11 almost 500,000 Americans have died from lack of medical care. I mean premature deaths here - preventable deaths and untold suffering but no compensation for their families by our corrupt congress or the White House.
Unfortunately PR will not work because in fact the people who might support it don't have a voice. The doctor who was supporting Single Payer was not even allowed into the congressional hearings on health care reform. Obama and the congress just slammed the door in their faces (and this after the president lied that he would support single payer. Isn't anyone in governmentn ever held responsible for what they push out their mouths knowing they are lying. Candidates for office should have to be sworn in during their campaigns to tell the truth, the whole truth and only the truth. That would certainly cut down on the ridiculous amount os money wasted on 4 and more years of campaigning. And one upside might be that we wouldn't have to crawl under mounds of lies to get to the real news like what new laws are being passed and where the US is warring and killing millions of innocent people. They always manage to kill those news stories by making endless campaign promises (lies) the stupid CAble news. And FOX doesn't broadcast any news at all - just crazy people screaming and interrupting guests. It is a circus without the talent and fun.
So the health insurance industry wrote the bill for Obama's pretend reform and although it is a very bad bill except that people with "pre-existing conditions can now get insurance if they can afford it or they will have to pay $5,000 to $10,000 deductibles and huge co pays. All this is the same as having no insurance at all. But no worry the bill will not be voted out (perhaps changed like no preexisting conditions being reinstated a insurance company jargon for kill the sick). The Republicans will not vote it out because their masters, the health insurance industry like those 30 million new customers. When did we turn out government and country over to the corporations? Answer: over many years of voluntary public ignorance. Still people claim they are not political as they are robbed blind. In addition to a dumbed down educational system.
Welcome to the UNITED CORPORATIONS OF AMERICA and their congressional and executive lackies.
The thing is, knowing that this is occuring is in itself shocking, but not surprising.
I say this because frankly I feel powerless to take any action to stop it. I suspect those Americans who find out about it - and think it's wrong - would likely feel the same way (i.e. outraged but otherwise helpless to do anything other than let others around them know what's going on).
Immigration is not a left-wing issue. This article's sentiments are echoed in a variety of commentaries from right-leaning, libertarian-oriented organizations.
See, for example, articles from the Reason Foundation:
http://reason.org/news/show/legalize-immigration
http://reason.org/news/show/1007628.html
(criticizing stimulus spending on border security as "not an efficient use funds from a cost-benefit analysis perspective")
And from the Cato Institute:
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/to-control-the-border-first-reform-immigration-law/
While I do not consider myself a conservative, the father of modern conservatism, William F. Buckley, famously said: "A conservative is someone who stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it." Our current approach to border security is wasteful, ineffective, counter-productive, and contrary to American values; our country needs more people yelling "Stop," even if certain sectors have little patience with those who urge it.
It is peculiar, here in Santiago de Chile, in formal and informal conversations (colleagues, relatives or friends) shows how much we struggle to understand the culture of the armed citizenry of the gringos. What to say supremacist or extremist rhetoric! Situations or arguments that Anna tells "We came unarmed (this time), able to frighten the observer, from the antipodes, notes with interest the course of American civic culture.
We hope that this tragic event import an inflection point in public opinion and decision makers. We look forward to Obama's words the next day 25. Greetings from a summer city of Santiago, Jorge .-
The thing is, knowing that this is occuring is in itself shocking, but not surprising.
I say this because frankly I feel powerless to take any action to stop it. I suspect those Americans who find out about it - and think it's wrong - would likely feel the same way (i.e. outraged but otherwise helpless to do anything other than let others around them know what's going on).
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