Healthcare Reform in the US

I usually try to keep my political views out of this blog, but in this case I think that the issue is important enough to break that code. President Obama and his staff are trying to reform the health care system in the United States. There's a lot that I think is broken, and though I am happy with my current coverage for the most part (a price break would be nice, though), there are millions of people without health care in this great nation of ours.

The Obama administration is feeling a little headwind on their plans for reform -- some from the health care industry who would have to clean up their act and play fairly, at some loss of revenue, and some by those who are just opposed to anything that the Democrats do. There's a lot of fighting, discussing, arguing, debating, posturing and politicking going on all over right now.

The American Medical Association has weighed in on the new Obama health care proposals.

The Allergists voted to scratch it, but the Dermatologists advised not to make any rash moves. The Gastroenterologists had sort of a gut feeling about it, but the Neurologists thought the Administration had a lot of nerve.

The Obstetricians felt they were all laboring under a misconception. Ophthalmologists considered the idea shortsighted. Pathologists yelled, "Over my dead body!" while the Pediatricians said, "Oh, Grow up!"

The Psychiatrists thought the whole idea was madness, while the Radiologists could see right through it. Surgeons decided to wash their hands of the whole thing. The Internists thought it was a bitter pill to swallow, and the Plastic Surgeons said, "This puts a whole new face on the matter...."

The Podiatrists thought it was a step forward, but the Urologists were pissed off at the whole idea. The Anesthesiologists thought the whole idea was a gas, and the Cardiologists didn't have the heart to say no.

In the end, the Proctologists won out, leaving the entire decision up to the asses in Washington...

'Nuff said.

Wanda Sykes continues the laughs...

Part 1

Part 2

THIS President is funny too!

...but in a different way :-)

Part 1

Part 2

Promises, Promises

The campaign trail was full of promises this past year. At least one promise was kept - Change! How many of President Obama's other promises have been kept?

The folks over at Politifact have been keeping track. They collected more than 500 promises made by then-Presidential hopeful Obama and have been tracking actions made to fulfill those promises.

As of this posting, he looks like he and his administration have a good start with a certainly greater percentage of truthfulness and action that most politicians I can think of.

There are a lot of people that said he'd not be able to keep a lot of his promises because of political roadblocks, legal challenges, etc. I'm sure it's not been an easy couple of months so far, but I don't see those challenges stopping progress so far.

Keep up with the rest of his promise chart at the Obameter site, provided by Politifact.

Brother, can you spare a dime?

Most Americans are seeing a little (or a lot) less green in their pockets these days. Hundreds of thousands of people have lost their jobs, and even their houses in the last few years. Thankfully, I've lost neither yet. Times are definitely tight, though. Well, unless you're the CEO of a major company.

Corporate excess has been around for a long time. Corporate greed has been around for even longer. People who have it, like to flaunt it. That's most of the fun in having it for them. I understand that. When a company is doing good, and rolling in dough (though legitimate means), I have no problem with that. It's a fact of life. But… When your company is bleeding red ink, and jobs just as fast, you need to have a bit of humility and compassion.

The banking industry is the first recent example. Million dollar golden parachutes, millions in bonuses, even as they are seeking (and got) $700 Billion, that's Billion with a capital 'B', from the Government. No wait, the government is handing it out, but it's us taxpayers who they're actually getting the money from… After receiving the bailout, the big-wigs went on an executive retreat costing more than a few bucks. Can you say "rub salt in the wounds?"

Then, after everyone swallowed that reality came the Automotive industry looking for $25B in governmental assistance. Whether it's a loan or a bailout is still a toss-up. But they still live in the public eye as wealthy barons. The automotive CEOs took a lot of heat on Capitol Hill yesterday. I caught one quote last night that really seemed to sum up the complaints. To paraphrase, "you guys rolled in here in Rolls Royces with a tin can held out looking for assistance." I can picture that in my head. And that's the same image I had ahead of time, too.

When one Senator (?) proposed that each of the CEOs take a pay cut from the millions they are currently paid to a more reasonable $1 given the current situation, two of the three said "No thanks." COME ON! You think that they would seriously be impacted, I mean down to the level that the rest of us peons are surviving on, if they gave up their salaries for a year or two?! Their interest on investments alone make more in a day than most of us make in a year! Heaven forbid they might actually not be able to eat $250 dinners EVERY night any more. They might have to cut back a little.

Once they get that silver spoon in their mouth, they just don't wanna let go. I understand, but that says a lot about their character. 'Nuf said.

As for the bailout, I'm still on the fence. I'm mad as hell about the bank bailouts, and the possibility of the Auto bailout. Toss that 700 BILLION over to us that need it a little more and we'll jump start the economy! The banks will get a lot of it anyway as we pay off our growing credit card debt, our mortgages that are bigger than our house valuations. The retail and service outlets will see their share as well as we repair/replace all the things that are falling apart that we've not been able to afford for several years. Even the retail food industry will benefit as people actually have the money to "splurge" and eat out again as a release from the stresses of debt.

I'm not an economist, and I have never played one on TV. I'm not a psychologist, but I've listed to many people complain about their situation. I know very little about high finance, investments and how the "world really operates," but I can tell you this – I'm not alone in my thoughts that the arrogance of people with money does nothing to endure them to us at lower end of the economy. Their day will come. I just hope that our day will come too – soon…

Snapshots of History

Earlier this week, Barack Obama made history when he was elected President of the United States. Regardless of who you voted for, it was a significant achievement for America.

If you want to see how the rest of the world is viewing this presidential selection, jump on over to Newseum's collection of front page newspaper covers for the day after the election.

US Election explained in plain English

My daughter is leaning about politics in her school class. We were talking the other night about who gets to decide who's President. Yes, simplistically, I explained that we, as US citizens, get to vote to see who's elected, but I also explained a bit about the Electoral College. I had to explain that it's not jsut who gets the most votes (think Election 2000).

I don't think I did a thorough job, and I wasn't sure that she compeltely got it. I ran across this video on CommonCraft the other day that explains the US Election process in plain English. Very timely. After watching it, I think she got it.





There are a lot of other useful, plain English videos at CommonCraft as well that might be worth a look.

Political observations

Two things keep coming up in the very few conversation I have had about politics recently.

First, regardless of who wins the US presidential elections shortly, history will be made. We will either have 1) the oldest elected President and a female Vice President, or 2) the first Black President.

Second, the people that we vote to put into office do not run the country (by themselves). As a friend of mine so eloquently stated today, I paraphrase, "One good apple does not turn a bushel of bad apples good."

American politics, like most other politics I suspect, is going to take a long time to right itself in the eyes of the People.

Politics

Detroit Politics are so absurd they are mashing up songs about it's mayor... This is the clean one of the bunch -- Take A Bow, by Rihanna, mixed by a local radio station.

More Presidential coverage

It's been so hard to get any information on the current presidential contenders here in the US. The news media just refuses to cover it... NOT! Even so, I thought you could use some more political information

According to The Book of Useless Information, by Noel Botham

• More presidents have been born in the state of Virginia than in any other state.
  
• David Rice Atchinson was president of the United States for exactly one day.
  
• George Washington had to borrow money to go to his own inauguration.
  
• Abraham Lincoln's famous Gettysburg Address consisted of just 272 words.
  
• Herbert Hoover was the first US president to have a telephone in his office.
  
• Jimmy Carter was the first US president to be born in a hospital.
  
• Ronald Reagan married his first wife, Jane Wyman, at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California.

I profess no political affiliation in this blog, just thought the above were interesting...

There are three kinds of lies...

"This well-known saying is part of a phrase attributed to Benjamin Disraeli and popularized in the U.S. by Mark Twain: There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics" according to Wikipedia. Based on my recent experiences I'd like to amend this a little bit.

There are four kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, statistics, and political polls.

In the US, the political campaigns are in full swing as presidential hopefuls try to convince us citizens that they are the best ones to guide us as a nation into the future. With so many candidates to choose from, and the primaries and caucuses going on, the field is pretty crowded still. That will change in the coming months as the two primary parties select their delegates.

Trying to keep up with all of the candidates is still pretty tough. A number of them have something of interest. A number of them have things on their platform that really scare me. Sometimes, unfortunately it comes down to a lesser-of-two-(or more)-evils. Trying to see how the candidates stack up against the issues most important to me, I decided to take a few on-line polls. The polls asked my feelings on several issues and how strongly I felt about those issues. Pretty standard polling method. But what the polls revealed was a lot more than I was expecting. According to the polls, I'm a "Demo-Inde-Publican."

I'm a what?!

Each poll I answered had ideal candidate different. On one poll, I was very much entrenched in the Democratic camp. The next one had me on the exact other end of the spectrum. Still a third had me off the two-party system completely saying that one of the potential independent candidates most matched my presidential objectives. I knew that there would be some differences (OK, a lot of differences) between the candidates, but I didn't expect as much in polling. These weren't "Joe's Political Polls" questionnaires. These were national, and international, well-known sites offering to help me find the best person to lead this country.

True, the sites asked slightly different sets of questions, so that might skew the results a little based on my answers, but skew so much that I ended up at opposite ends of the spectrum? It made me think a little more about the motives of the pollsters. And in questioning their motives for the polls, I started to question their motives for the content of their other publication's content (newspapers, web sites, etc).

I admit that I am swayed by the public presentation of the candidates. That's the first step in rehabilitation. I've done some research, and I know that if I don't participate I can't complain after the fact if things don't turn out as I would like. That won't stop anyone from complaining no matter who wins, but... I can't stand to watch the debates live. I can't stand to see everyone in defense mode. I'd rather see them when they can present their views and plans without the "distraction" of everyone else. I've watched several candidates being interviewed alone. In each of those interviews, I caught something that made me think that the candidate really knew what they were talking about, or made it readily apparent that they were only saying what their handlers had told them to say -- that they really didn't know how to react when the interviewer went off script.

I can't say that I have a favorite candidate yet. I have several that scare me, but thankfully, they're dropping in the polls enough that my fear is subsiding. But, the election polls aren't closed yet -- not by a long shot -- so anything can happen.

Regardless of who wins in November, they will have an uphill battle in front of them. A battle to convince all of the people, not just those who didn't vote for them, that they really do know what needs to be done and can make it happen. They need to do it for all of US, and for the rest of the world that depends on us or despises, or just puts up with US.

I hope they can do it.

Political Donations

Ever wonder which way your neighbors lean? Do they care enough about a particular candidate to financially contribute to their hopefully successful campaign? The folks over at Political Base have a handy Google Maps mashup that lets you visualize the political contributions to the 2008 US Presidential race. See the money from from each state all the way down to your local neighborhood. You might be surprised.

They also have a section that allows you to see contributions by "famous people." See who your favorite star is supporting. It might make you view them in a whole new light.