Health Care Bill at a glance: Why the Tea Parties?

[oscarmitre]

By all means oppose the plan but don't drag other countries into the argument because you'll get egg on your face. Different countries have different approaches and direct comparisons are difficult, but I don't think you'll find the US system would get approval from those countries with a single payer system, like mine (Australia) for example.

I would not, for one second, countenance adoption of the US system in my country.

So there you are, I'm closed-minded. :D

[Brendon]

For those who are interested, here is the whole bill:

http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com...t-071409_2.pdf

[Creeker]

From the Huffington Post, I'd be really leary of it being the actual Bill.

Here is a direct link

Search Results - THOMAS (Library of Congress)

Then here is the initial link in the first post of this thread:

The Health Care Bill.....What's In It

Also Google "Complete Lives System", which is the plan in which people under 2 and above 70 yoa are valued as less than optimal to be treated when the $ gets tight... a la Medicare on a yearly basis.

[Creeker]

Things that will piss you off:

Health Care for America NOW!

...

Step 2: Train yourself to combat right-wing tactics

Since early February, we’ve seen increasing numbers of militant right-wing activists attending public meetings across the country targeting Members of Congress and President Obama. Now in the August recess, the “tea-bagger” protesters and right-wing activists are showing up in larger numbers with a mission to be as disruptive as possible in the hopes of rattling Members of Congress and halting health care reform through pure spectacle and obstruction.

...

They've got to pay people & will never understand the love in our hearts for our country while in the same breath accuse us of the tactics that they employ!

Help pass Obama's Health Care Reform!!! Earn $9-14 an hour!!!

And this one really Yanks my chain:

[Brendon]

Right-wing militias on the rise in US: report - Yahoo! News

That yanks my chain as well. Both sides have equal problems. We need a center.

[Creeker]

This is a fairly long article, so I won't copy it all here, but it may open a few eyes about some of these so called "Independant Questioners" that Obama has planted in these televised gatherings of his.

Town halls burst with Obama 'plants'

In town hall meetings billed as opportunities for Americans to ask health care questions of an "open" and "transparent" administration, the White House may be selecting President Obama's own supporters to ask non-compromising questions.

The White House insists that attendees are selected at random, but a closer look reveals many questioners range from Obama campaign donors and Organizing for America volunteers to single-payer health care lobbyists and Service Employees International Union members.

...

[Brendon]

Well, I hope the US health care debate ends soon. With all the hollering, crying and angst, I imagine many Americans are suffering from sore throats and heart palpitations.

[Creeker]

White House disables e-tip box - Mike Allen - POLITICO.com

Following a furor over how the data would be used, the White House has shut down an electronic tip box — flag@whitehouse.gov — that was set up to receive information on “fishy” claims about President Barack Obama’s health plan.


E-mails to that address now bounce back with the message: “The e-mail address you just sent a message to is no longer in service. We are now accepting your feedback about health insurance reform via http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck.”


The “flag” service was introduced Aug. 4, with a White House blog post saying: “There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.”


White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said at a briefing shortly after the service launched: “We're not collecting names from those e-mails. … All we're asking people to do is if they're confused about what health care reform is going to mean to them, we're happy to help clear that up for you. Nobody is keeping anybody's names.”


Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, wrote a letter to Obama raising privacy concerns about what the senator called an “Obama monitoring program.”


“I can only imagine the level of justifiable outrage had your predecessor asked Americans to forward e-mails critical of his policies to the White House,” Cornyn wrote. “So I urge you to cease this program immediately.”


In a later statement, Cornyn said: “Of course the White House is collecting names. … It is inevitable. Anyone with access to the flag@whitehouse.gov account has access to the names and email addresses that are collected in that account. … How are they purging names and e-mail addresses from this account to protect privacy?”



Read more: White House disables e-tip box - Mike Allen - POLITICO.com

[Brendon]

Man collapses with ruptured appendix... three weeks after NHS doctors 'took it out' | Mail Online

Tisk Tisk Tisk... :( However, you just may not hear about them as much here because medical malpractice suits are often sealed.


I also found this too from a friend, a foreign music video that roughly translates into the horrors of socialized care.

[Creeker]

'Cruel and neglectful' care of one million NHS patients exposed - Telegraph

'Cruel and neglectful' care of one million NHS patients exposed
One million NHS patients have been the victims of appalling care in hospitals across Britain, according to a major report released today.

By Rebecca Smith, Medical Editor
Published: 12:01AM BST 27 Aug 2009

In the last six years, the Patients Association claims hundreds of thousands have suffered from poor standards of nursing, often with 'neglectful, demeaning, painful and sometimes downright cruel' treatment.

The charity has disclosed a horrifying catalogue of elderly people left in pain, in soiled bed clothes, denied adequate food and drink, and suffering from repeatedly cancelled operations, missed diagnoses and dismissive staff.

The Patients Association said the dossier proves that while the scale of the scandal at Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust - where up to 1,200 people died through failings in urgent care - was a one off, there are repeated examples they have uncovered of the same appalling standards throughout the NHS.

While the criticisms cover all aspects of hospital care, the treatment and attitude of nurses stands out as a repeated theme across almost all of the cases.

They have called on Government and the Care Quality Commission to conduct an urgent review of standards of basic hospital care and to enforce stricter supervision and regulation.

more...

The babies born in hospital corridors: Bed shortage forces 4,000 mothers to give birth in lifts, offices and hospital toilets | Mail Online

The babies born in hospital corridors: Bed shortage forces 4,000 mothers to give birth in lifts, offices and hospital toilets
By Jenny Hope and Nick Mcdermott
Last updated at 8:36 AM on 26th August 2009

Thousands of women are having to give birth outside maternity wards because of a lack of midwives and hospital beds.
The lives of mothers and babies are being put at risk as births in locations ranging from lifts to toilets - even a caravan - went up 15 per cent last year to almost 4,000.
Health chiefs admit a lack of maternity beds is partly to blame for the crisis, with hundreds of women in labour being turned away from hospitals because they are full.
Latest figures show that over the past two years there were at least:

63 births in ambulances and 608 in transit to hospitals;

117 births in A&E departments, four in minor injury units and two in medical assessment areas;

115 births on other hospital wards and 36 in other unspecified areas including corridors;

399 in parts of maternity units other than labour beds, including postnatal and antenatal wards and reception areas.
Additionally, overstretched maternity units shut their doors to any more women in labour on 553 occasions last year.
Babies were born in offices, lifts, toilets and a caravan, according to the Freedom of Information data for 2007 and 2008 from


Read more: The babies born in hospital corridors: Bed shortage forces 4,000 mothers to give birth in lifts, offices and hospital toilets | Mail Online