Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Happy Father’s Day!
Father’s – Take a break from your norm and allow yourself to Enjoy the Day !
Something out the norm – Enjoy & share if you like…
More than 200 dancers were performing their version of “Do Re Mi”, in the Central Station of Antwerp. with just 2 rehearsals they created this amazing stunt! Those 4 fantastic minutes started the 23 of march 2009, 08:00 AM. It is a promotion stunt for a Belgian television program, where they are looking for someone to play the leading role, in the musical of “The Sound of Music”.
Inside the Baucus Single Payer Meeting – What’s Next!
Inside the Baucus Single-Payer Meeting – What Was Said, What’s Next
by National Nurses Movement // Wed Jun 03, 2009
Today’s meeting of the nation’s leading single payer activists with Sen. Max Baucus was historic, and a recognition of the power of the tens of thousands of nurses, doctors, and grassroots activists across the country who have been turning up the heat on the policy makers in Washington.
Make no mistake – your voices are being heard. And, the protests and pressure will continue.
As Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, told Baucus, “there is a groundswell” across the country that will continue to press for single payer reform, and Baucus and other policy makers in Washington “are going to get to know us very well.” In a later press conference, DeMoro blasted the conventional wisdom that single payer is not politically viable. “Is it politically viable to let people die and suffer from a lack of political will?” Noting the fight for women’s suffrage and the civil rights movement, she emphasized, “we’re going to have to turn up the heat. Women did not get the right to vote by voting on it.”
National Nurses Movement’s diary :: ::
Today’s gripping meeting was in itself an important part of that campaign, with leaders of the CNA/NNOC, Physicians for a National Health Program, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, author of a single payer bill in the Senate, S 703, making a forceful, unfiltered case to one of the top power brokers in the Senate, Max Baucus, for single payer as the only reform likely to actually fix our broken healthcare system and effectively control costs. A couple of photos from the press conference afterwards are here.
For the first time, Baucus, who has been deluged with protests inside his Senate Finance Committee which has been in the forefront of drafting legislation and in town hall meetings at home in Montana, was apologetic. “I made a mistake,” he said, “I should have left it (single payer) on the table, front and center with everything else.”
Baucus talked about his own positive experiences in Canada where he inspected the Canadian healthcare system first hand, “I was very impressed,” during the healthcare debate in the early 1990s, noting the contrast between a Montana hospital which has an “entire floor” of people devoted to billing, and other administrative paper work, and a nearby Canadian hospital which does it all “in one room. (read more)
Keep the Preasure On – ASAP – Call, write, fax or e-mail all your representatives and tell them they need to support Single Payer HR676. LINK
Now Call or Fax Senator Max Baucus and tell him that SINGLE PAYER is indeed on the table & let him know how much you “don’t respect” his performance! And, he is representing the country, NOT the health insurance & pharma industry in Healthcare reform! Phone: (202) 224-2651 (Office) // (202) 224-9412 (Fax)
And one more– Call President Obama at the White House (202-456-1414 or 202- 456-1111) and tell him what a mess Senator Max Baucus is making, arresting Doctors and Nurses… then remind him he said, “everyone would have a seat at the table”, tell him Single Payer is not for later, the time is NOW!
Visit the Healthcare-Now and the Physicians for a National Health Program web sites to learn more!
Healthcare Reform? Bend Over America…!
Middle Class Healthcare Reform? Bend Over…
by Donna Smith
It’s coming. You and me and every middle class, working person in this nation is about to start handing over more and more of their hard earned cash to the private insurance industry, courtesy of our own elected members of Congress and our very popular President. Fire up those Treasury Department presses. We’re going to be printing and providing money for insurance companies like no bail-out we’ve seen yet this economic crisis cycle.
The healthcare legislation under design and so far under wraps for the American people is slowly being leaked via carefully staged forum and meetings and a few well-timed hearings and grand press announcements. Much of the work is still going on behind closed doors in private meetings attended by those who are deemed appropriate participants and industry friends.
Remember how open these proceedings were to be following all the Clinton plan debacles of the early 90s? Well, today’s stagings are far more sophisticated and planned out. So learning did occur by the industry giants and their political friends over these last 17 years, I will give them that.
And what do we know so far about what middle class Americans can expect from the legislation being privately crafted?
First, no matter what percentage of your take home pay it takes, you will be legally required to buy private health insurance. Second, if all you can afford is a policy that leaves you financially exposed to bankruptcy and foreclosure, then you will still be legally required to purchase that private insurance product. Third, should you fail to buy a policy, you will pay a fine.
Like it so far? Feeling free and protected? Like the choices so far? It gets better. (Read the rest, you won’t like it either…)
Is there time to STOP this MADNESS? – Maybe!
Call or Fax Senator Max Baucus and tell him that SINGLE PAYER is indeed on the table & let him know Americans will not stand for a health insurance and pharma bailout! Phone: (202) 224-2651 (Office) // (202) 224-9412 (Fax)
And one more – Call President Obama at the White House, the Senator’s boss in this matter and tell him the same! Also tell him Single Payer is not for later, the time is NOW! // (202-456-1414 or 202- 456-1111)
May 30: National Day of Action
Events Being Planned Nationwide
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Senator Max Baucus is on who’s payroll?
He takes money from the industry and does their bidding
The Senators Career Campaign Contributions:
From the insurance industry: $1,170,313.
From the health professionals: $1,016,276.
From the pharmaceuticals/health-products industry: $734,605.
From the hospitals/nursing homes: $541,891.
From the health services/HMOs: $439,700.
Baucus’ Raucous Caucus
By Amy Goodman // truthdig.com
Barack Obama appeared this week with health-industry bigwigs, proclaiming light at the end of the health-care tunnel. Among those gathered were executives from HMO giants Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Health Net Inc., and the health-insurance lobbying group America’s Health Insurance Plans; from the American Hospital Association and the American Medical Association; from medical-device companies; and from the pharmaceutical industry, including the president and CEO of Merck and former Rep. Billy Tauzin, now president and CEO of PhRMA, the massive industry lobbying group. They have pledged to voluntarily shave some $2 trillion off of U.S. health-care costs over 10 years. But these groups, which are heavily invested in the U.S. health-care status quo, have little incentive to actually make good on their promises.
This is beginning to look like a replay of the failed 1993 health-care reform efforts led by then-first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. Back then, the business interests took a hard line and waged a PR campaign, headlined by a fictitious middle-class couple, Harry and Louise, who feared a government-run health-care bureaucracy.
Still absent from the debate are advocates for single-payer, often referred to as the “Canadian-style” health care. Single-payer health care is not “socialized medicine.” According to Physicians for a National Health Program, single-payer means “the government pays for care that is delivered in the private (mostly not-for-profit) sector.”
A February CBS News poll found that 59 percent in the U.S. say the government should provide national health insurance. (Read the whole story)
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Mothers Day!
Thanks Much Mom’s!
Hope the day was good…
As economy plummets, child abuse escalates?
Child Abuse Escalates as Parents Face Overwhelming Economic Stress
Sometimes it’s an overwhelming sense of stress on the parents’ part. Sometimes it’s the overwhelming press of poverty. And sometimes it’s the overwhelming sense of hopelessness compounded by the absence of humility enough to ask for help. It doesn’t really matter what the overwhelming emotion, medical records are proving that, as adults are becoming more deeply engulfed by the ravages of the economic recession, the very youngest members of the family are paying dearly.
As the nation’s economy has plummeted, child abuse has escalated…
– Unfortunately, as the recession lingers, the numbers are increasing everywhere.
– It’s not just hospitals noticing this heartbreaking trend; of 607 sheriffs, chiefs of police, and district attorneys responding to a nationwide poll, 88% of them acknowledged an expectation of increased child abuse cases in their jurisdictions.
– the agencies overseeing these protective measures are becoming underfunded even as their case load is skyrocketing. (Read the whole story)
You can help! Have you ever considered becoming a Foster Parent? Learn about it HERE !
Odd Todd on – Laid Off Help Wanted!
If you are not familiar with Odd Todd and you have been Laid Off then I suggest you visit Todd’s web site (LINK). No, this won’t help you find a job, but it will open up your creative thinking skills! Todd has created some seriously funny cartoons about being unemployed. And, there are a lot of us that need a good laugh about this situation!
Quest Diagnostics to Pay $302 Million – Pharma Watch
Be an Informed Consumer!
Quest Diagnostics to Pay $302 Million
Quest Diagnostics has agreed to pay $302 million to settle civil and criminal charges related to a Quest subsidiary which sold a parathyroid hormone immunoassay test which reported elevated results. The inaccurate diagnostic test kit resulted in medical providers submitting false claims for reimbursement to federal health programs. The settlement includes $262 million paid under the federal False Claims Act, $6.2 million paid to the states, and a criminal fine of $40 million. Thomas Cantor, founder, president and owner of Scantibodies Laboratory Inc., filed the whistleblower lawsuit, and will receive approximately $45 million for his work, and the work of his attorneys, in bringing the case. (To read more)
If you would like to see MANY more actions that have been taken against many of the major pharmaceutical and healthcare companies that you know and trust… Why? Visit “The Taxpayers Against Fraud” website at: taf.org