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Iraq Town Halls

Jim McCabe — Wed, 07 May 2008 06:29:22 -0400

CALLING ALL PEACE ACTIVISTS, PROGRESSIVES AND CONCERNED NEW YORKERS

SAVE THE DATE--MONDAY, MAY 19TH

PDNYCD14 INVITES YOU TO A

TOWN HALL MEETING ON ENDING THE U.S. OCCUPATION OF IRAQ

WHY ARE WE STILL THERE?

HOW DO WE GET OUT?

WHY WILL IT TAKE MORE THAN SIMPLY ELECTING A NEW PRESIDENT?

WHY WE MUST TAKE ACTION NOW!

FEATURING SOME OF THE MOST ELOQUENT CRITICS OF U.S. OCCUPATION

THE PROGRAM WILL INCLUDE:

DAHLIA WASFI, MD

IRAQI-AMERICAN PHYSICIAN

MICHAEL SCHWARTZ

PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY, SUNY STONY BROOK

Additional Speakers to be announced.

MONDAY, MAY 19th, 7:00 - 9:00 PM

Local 1199 SEIU Auditorium
310 WEST 43rd St. BETWEEN 8TH & 9TH AVES.
MANHATTAN

It’s time for NY Progressives to get organized with new thinking on how to stop this war!

Join us for brainstorming and strategizing!

PDA NYCD14 TOWN MEETING TEAM

Evan Giller
Alice Slater
Jim McCabe
Barbara Harris
Al Ronzoni
Robert Jereski
George Spitz

RSVP: aslater@rcn.com

Thoughts On The Abortion Coverage Ban

SallyM — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:36:34 -0500

Since I am a female with a deeply personal and emotional stake in this issue, no longer for myself but for my grandaughters and their future daughters, I am appalled and fearful at the direction that the issue of reproductive rights has just taken.
I am so old that I remember vividly the horror of an unwanted pregnancy, esp in the young, and the terrible, killer, back-alley desperate abortions that used to take place. This generation has no concept of what this meant. I pray fervently that they never have to find out.
Talk about health care...
Not only were they not allowed even basic good medical care, they were treated in barnyard circumstances, at worst they often died, or they were horribly brutalized, often never being able to reproduce agin in happier circumstances.
To those people who don't want their tax dollars to go for abortion, ask them if they are willing to have their tax dollars support that young girl throught her pregnancy, through the delivery, and to support her in keeping and caring for her child if she does not want to give it up. And never should she be forced to give it up by a society which is unwilling to support her in that decision.
HOWEVER, in the health care issue of today, for those who have no health care at all available to them, that issue has to take precedence. THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS TO GET HEALTH CARE TO ALL OUR PEOPLE. WE CAN HARDLY CALL OURSELVES CIVILIZED OTHERWISE.

Republican Hipoctites Uncovered

thomasblack — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 08:21:48 -0500

Republican National Commitee's health insurance has covered elective abortions since 1991.

Now that Politico.com, exposed the Republicans, they say they are going to drop abortions from the policy and did not realize it was even offered.

It never fails to amaze me how hypoctital the Republicans can be. Obviously they feel they are different from the rest of us Real Americans citizens.

Too bad the number of abortions performed under this policy is unobtainable. It would be enlightening to know how many and who in the RNC took advantage of elective abortions. All the while claiming to be dead set against it for all Americans.

What more will it take for America to realize the Republican party is greedy, corrupt, bigoted, self centered and unpatriotic.

Wall Street No longer about America's Prosperity

thomasblack — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:37:31 -0500

Another weak day for the dollar and upbeat economic news from China give investors more reason to keep buying stocks.

What is wrong with the American public that we are not outraged that our own prosperity is no longer what drives wall street? The only reason wall street is happy about China's upbeat economic news is, most of our turncoat, greedy, self serving so called American Business owners are having their products made in China. They do not care a rats behind about the rest of us real Americans. When are we Americans going to wake up and insist something be done to stop overseas outsourcing of our livelyhood. Health care will not matter if no one has money. The most serious problem in this country today is China's stealing our jobs, with our government's blessings. Come on people make some noise about this before it is too late. Please get involved, contact congress and insist they stop our job exidus and tax the hell out of the businesses that have already unpatriotically moved their factories to China.

United States of China,, how does that sound to all of you ,,chink chink, chong chong

Democratic Party's Demise Starts Now

thomasblack — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 20:01:32 -0500

Recently Passed house health bill has no where to go in the Senate, It is DOA.

I guess I just have to admit it, the democratic senate is it's own worst enemy. The only bills we can hope to pass are bills the republicans want passed. I do not know why or how some democratic senators became a branch of the republican party, but they did. Between the media constantly cheer-leading the republican views and democratic senators afraid to do what they were sent there to do, we might as well just give up and turn it all over to the republicans. Hopefully when they have raped the land and pillaged the economy there will be some trickle down for the rest of us. Oh Hell, what am I talking about, nothing is going to be left. Period...

If we do not learn from our mistakes. We are doomed to repeat them. Again and again and again and again.

Economic Financail Terrorist

pilot.blake — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:09:43 -0500

Regulation of the financial System currently Zero!

I said it when it was happening in California with the Enron rolling blackout by terrorist traders or should I say "economic terror attacks" by US corporations. Who will learn from this modern day play book of carpet baggers and financial "HIT-MEN" aka Financial Terrorist. enlisted and hired by all the "To Big to Fail" Corporate terrorist groups) the (T.B.T.F) TBTF use this play book of (terrorist tactic) now. It's "Standard Reading" "Standard Operations Procedures" (SOP) it's wide-open blatant Play-Book of greedy practices and procedures. The players may be different but the game is the same by using to: Fear, Kill, Rob, Steel, Bribe, take Hostages, make Customers-Slave, hoard it, move it, hide it, control it... all!. It's the big shell game, and its done by all the big corrupt company's (TBTFs) like Exxon, shell, AGI, Enron, Citi corp, Credit Card Banks, K-Street Lobbyist, Mortgage banks. But insurance industry does it better than them all. Even better than the big Drug and Agra-Business. just point your finger. The east Coast Casino- (Wall St.) -Traders of commodity's fake insurance "Instruments" "tools" of CDO/CDS Co-lateralization (Debt) default Obligation (offerings) /Credit-Default-Swaps?!. (all Just JUNK BONDS!.) The floor is littered with them. Corruption and turmoil hides the facts of the crime and the TBTFs big shell game is working to hide and confuse our government from understanding how to control/regulate this Drunken Gorilla Terrorist Organization. This allows the bankers and house casino bosses holding us hostage for ransom for notes (Money) & bills (Law)to "Appear out of thin air". its not gambling if the house is rigged! it's STEELING! duh... you say, oversight!... only if the public masses are aware, awoken and control laws made for us, by us, to use against the TBTFs. Only then can we make them clean-up and dismantle their massive mess of "Financial Weapons of Mass Destruction". and make them except their blame and new definition Term of "FINANCIAL TERRORIST" which they falsely directed at us for being naively and gullible trusting; "The Masters of the Financial Universe" we the People are partly to blame due to our trusting nature the "desire to believe" in the "Fast Buck" helped us ignore actions being taken against us by the Financial predatory con men manipulating the "Shell Game". In-plane sight to steel our Money and dismantle our Protection system.
The Legal rules to the game and regulations slipped from our view as unimportant cumbersome to the "Free Market Casino Game" we the people, wrongly trusted the Con-Man shell game dealer. The No-Rules, New House-Gambling-Rules are: "The Corporate-State House Casino ALWAYS WINS!. If the Free Market Casino can write the rules and laws to the game, that say: "we win always", "you lose alway", and "you have no right to complain", or "ability to change the rules", "because we; the free market casino says-so"! -go-to-hell!, "give me your money and shut-the-F-up"! (sound like Robbery to me?)
Rules/Laws, they have not a worry - ZERO to date.
Get Pissed my friend! its the only legit action response... wakeup take action, educate yourself, and your friends and fight them.
If we don't kill, stop-block, and remove the legal loop holes that the corporate Lobbyist created to help corrupt Corporate Front Groups flow of funds to pass laws to control us- "their customers" "we the people" become simply "there consumers" aka (Hostage Slaves) or simply their TV watching Pigs! lead to the troff to eat the crap thy feed us!.

reinstate Anti-trust laws and seprate Banks from Casinos investment gabbling houses - Regulate The TBTFs to Hell! and give back my Trillions of dollars, if not, PUT THEM IN JAIL! Take away their Freedom and Power, Just as they take ours, which makes us Hostage and Contract Slaves paying High Ransoms.

I do not believe in or support Socialism being used to support rich capital terrorist corporations today. Currently the poor people in this country are forced to pay (Bail-out) TBTFs. The now Socialized Debts of the "Too Big to Fail" Parasitic Corporate Terrorist Groups in the USA must stop.

The crimes of these Corporate Terrorist should not be rewarded, but they are. We must stop them Now! or we will become a Fascist Capitalistic Corporate State. Ran by the corporation for the corporation.

We the citizens of the United States of America need to join in the fight to take back our freedoms and our government of the people from the corrupt corporate terrorist that now hold us and our government as financial hostages Demanding high ransom from the slaves.

Freedom NOW! from the dictatorship of Corporate ran Terrorist State Power.

Redicus

Media Representation of Election Results for New Jersey and Virginia

thomasblack — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:07:48 -0500

The media insist on making it seem like voters are turning on Obama and the Democrats just because Republicans might win in New Jersey and Virginia. Big news two Republican strongholds might elect Republicans. Man it is not like we are talking about New York and California going Republican. The media just want to use this to convince people to turn on Obama and the Democrats, just like they have. Hate training is what people get from the media. They will use this as an all out assault on the Democrats for the next year, wait and see. Then tell me the media is Liberal. Anyone that trust the major media outlets is going to be misled and misinformed, on purpose. Wayne Blackshire, Active Democrat

Medicaid is NOT Medicare.

elpme — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 22:48:59 -0500

Congress thinks we're too stupid and the issue too complicated to convey to the public - so that no one will know the difference if they offer the uninsured Medicaid or Medicare.

The House HealthCare Reform Bill recently delivered by Nancy Pelosi, included a proposal to expand Medicaid to enroll an additional 20,000 recipients. The Senate is poised to put this in the combined bill, as a means to reach universal coverage. But no one has exposed that Medicaid is in shambles, costs the feds and the states billions...

AND

Medicaid is almost completely run(RIGHT NOW) by Private health insurance companies through out the US. No one has exposed that these Medicaid Managed Care plans (subsidiaries of the major health plans) do not now have the infrastructure to provide care for the Medicaid enrollees they already have. By expanding Medicaid and enrolling (through a mandatory program) an additional 20,000 recipients - taxpayers will be paying PRIVATE health insurance companies to provide the worst health insurance available in the US!!!

The deal is: The public at large doesn't know the difference between MEDICAID and MEDICARE!!!!!

MEDICARE for all YAAA!!!! It's what Grandma has. It pays for her health care no matter what she needs. And it's paid for by Everyone who works. It comes out of the Social Security tax we pay on every dollar we make - we pay it so we will be guaranteed healthcare insurance when we reach 65. It's not an entitlement - WE PAID FOR IT.

But MEDICAID for all? AAH!!!! NO WAY!!! Medicaid is NOT Medicare. It's what people on Welfare get. It's paid for by the Federal government and the States, through many kinds of taxes. It is under-funded and doctors hardly ever accept it - because the reimbursement rates are so low - no private doctor could earn a living on Medicaid patients - even the doctors who aren't greedy. The only doctors who accept Medicaid are usually those who have no other choice - the worst of the worst.

But Congress is Banking that the Public doesn't know the difference between MEDICAID and MEDICARE and thus will think that giving 20,000 uninsured Americans MediCAID is a good thing. The public will think "What's the difference?" They won't object.

Everyone Needs to Know: MediCAID is a Scam; and it's run by the PRIVATE Health Insurance Industry!!!

Medicaid was privatized in the 90ies - when Clinton (thru HCFS - Bruce Vladik) issued 1915b waivers to states. These waivers allowed states to strip the freedom of choice clause out of Medicaid regulations - thus permitting mandatory enrollment of all Medicaid recipients into PRIVATE health plans.

i.e. Medicaid recipients can be asigned a health plan and a doctor. If the bill that emerges from Congress does not alter Medicaid significantly, 20,000 new recipients will be forced into Private Medicaid health plans arbitraily.

In the 90ies the private health insurance plans lined up to get State contracts to administer Medicaid, vowing to reduce costs - by using their clout to negotiate capitated rates with providers. It all seemed sooo good... Imagine: Medicaid recipients with Blue Cross insurance? Whoopi!!! Until providers started pulling out.

Doctors and hospitals refused to accept very low rates, the health insurance companies offered them to care for their Medicaid recipients. The Poor Private plans just had to set up Medicaid only groups, so that their angry providers would not be obliged to take care of Medicaid recipients. The only hitch was the Plans didn't have other networks of providers: doctors, clinics or hospitals, to cover the recipients they had already enrolled.

But - lucky for them - it didn't matter much, since Medicaid recipients either didn't use the health plans they were assigned to - or they didn't seek care at all. And what's more - they don't vote. When the plans reported to the State's DOI and DOH they used fabricated provider networks and submitted thousands of fraudulent claims. And no one noticed and no one complained that taxpayers are paying these health plans billions for NOTHING.

The message that needs to get out - Medicaid is NOT the answer. Medicare would be - but Medicaid isn't. Congress must not vote to enroll the uninsured into Medicaid.

Ask Congress if they would be willing to accept the same health benefits they are about to give to the uninsured through Medicaid. No member of Congress would be willing to enroll in Medicaid as it is now. If they don't fix it, it will be a disaster. And those who are forced to enroll in Medicaid - this lower to middle class group of uninsured - won't be happy with the results. And they vote.

In other words - if the Congress proceeds to vote on an expansion of the existing Medicaid program - run by Private insurance companies - they will be creating a huge outcry from the masses who will find out that there are no providers or only bottom-feeding providers giving care. There will be no glory - no one will be glad to take credit for this disaster. And only Democrats will be to blame.

Please HELP communicate this to All. The President and the Democratic Party should not accept this proposal. It is also the worst move they could make. If anyone is truly concerned about getting heath care to more uninsured - enroll them into Medicare. The only winners will be the Republicans and the Health Insurance Industry.

My information comes from personal involvement in the Medicaid Managed Care switch-over: through working with HCFA - creating PSAs to get their message out; through working on my own account and with the Mayor's Office of Managed Care in NYC, running health fairs; through working for CarePlus - one of the contracted plans in NYC; and through working on database management for the Medicaid Managed Care industry Nationally.

Fox Boycott - Brita

carlsbaddem — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:38:24 -0500

Brita seems to have vanished from the list of Fox news advertisers that we were advised to contact. I wrote to them on their customer support website saying I would switch to PURE if they did not desist. I never got a response which isn't surprising. However, I see them neither in the list of retractors nor supporters of Fox. What gives?

Failure by Design - The "Public" Option

MichaelCollins — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 03:28:28 -0500

Triumph of the Money Party

Michael Collins

Do you know
what the "public option" does or who it covers? If you've had trouble
finding out, it's not your fault. Reading the corporate media coverage
provides little or no clue. It's hardly ever defined. There's a very
good reason for the lack of clarity and definition. But first, a brief
summary or a public debate that characterizes just about every public
debate we have on critical issues.

If you think
that the current version of the public option will provide a choice for
a government administered health program, you're right. If you think
that this option was designed for the general public, then you're
wrong. It will apply to only the some of the uninsured, possibly as
few as six million citizens. It's a kind of public option.

But, if you
support true choice by the public, then you probably expect this as an
option: a single payer system for health care -- one source of payment
for doctors and others funded and administered by the government for
the public. Medicare is such a program. But we don't get to hear
about single payer proposals except from proponents like Representatives John Conyers (D-MI), Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), and Anthony Weiner (D-NY), who define single payer universal health care very clearly.

President Obama's outline of the public option in his September 9
speech to Congress is essentially unchanged in the current
legislation. The Democratic plan offers "a new insurance exchange" for
"Americans who don't currently have health insurance." This sounds
good so far, but wait. This exchange will be "a new insurance exchange
--a marketplace where individuals and small businesses will be able to
shop." The option will be "available in the insurance exchange" and
"it would only be an option for those who don't have insurance." (See What Obama Actually Said About Health Reform)

It's not really public, it's for a small segment of the population, and it is any where from four to ten years out in full availability. This reflects the Oct. 29 House proposal, H.R. 3962, and some aspects of the latest Senate claims for a public option.. The entire effort, limited as it is, will be compromised from the very start since Congress linked public option provider reimbursement rates to those of the health insurance companies.

When
citizens see "Open to the public," they don't take that to mean only
some of the public. When land is set aside for "public use," does that
mean only 5% or 6 % of the public? All of this makes no sense unless
you accept the deliberately confusing definitions and assumptions of The Money Party.

Why would any member of the public think that they were excluded from a public option?

Why would those controlling the debate want us to think that?

Here's why. The findings in this poll strikes terror into the heart of The Money Party.

Link

The poll
shows a clear majority in favor of a single payer, universal health
care program as an option for all citizens. This poll is consistent with other polls
despite the confusion from Washington. In a fair debate, the health
insurance companies would get their clock cleaned and be out of
business within a year or two. But we're not allowed an open and fair
debate because the risk of vanishing corporations is never in The Money
Party's game plan. Their political bouncers just tossed us under the
bus.

The "Long Con" - How Things Work

"A
’short con’ is an opportunistic scam designed to instantly fleece the
victim of all the money they have with them at that time. On the other
hand, a long con takes much longer to execute and requires meticulous
planning in order to scam the victim out of much larger amounts of
money." Scam Types dot Com

The Money Party runs both short and long cons. When they weren't able to sell the Iraq invasion, the short con was: Saddam has weapons of mass destruction. He's ready to use them … on you! Get on board now or else! That short con operated within the long con of perpetual threats and endless war.

The current
health reform debate is a classic long con. The debate is limited to
only those positions that will work for the status quo. If reform
fails, there's no change from the extortion perpetrated against
citizens in need of affordable health care. If reform is
adopted, the insurance companies are enshrined at the center of the
program. The fight is then over the size of the rake off. That's
called bending the curve of health care costs. Bend, don't break. It's a win-win proposition for The Money Party.

What do
legislators do when their patrons demand that an irrational and deadly
system remains in place? Confuse the dialog with weasel words and
highly deceptive terms. Keep the public thinking that they're really
going to benefit from a program and, better yet, that the opposition is
trying to prevent that benefit. Get party loyalists whipped up to
fight for your program even though it's a sham.

The current kind of public
option is essential to The Money Party's long con on health reform. It
allows people to think that there's a real debate going on. Someone is fighting for our option to choose decent and affordable health care.

It's all
part of the long con that limits critical debate to unacceptable
options advanced by allegedly differing parties. These debates always
end the same way -- the perpetuation of the major corporate interests,
the retention of those in power, and oligarchy; the triumph of The
Money Party:

"The Money Party
is a small group of enterprises and individuals who have most of the
money in this country. They use that money to make more money.
Controlling who gets elected to public office is the key to more money for them and less for us.

"In
every campaign for major office, the party passes out money and buys
candidates from both parties. Thanks to the candidates who get elected,
this pay to play system remains perfectly legal … even though it looks like bribery.

'In return for contributions, the election winners
come through by fixing the laws so that The Money Party cleans up. …
Cost is no object, because in the end it’s all paid for with our tax
dollars." Michael Collins: The Money Party, Sept. 30, 2007.

END

See: Special Health Reform Series: The Money Party and the sickness unto death

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