Who is the Lewin Group

All over the media members of Congress who oppose significant reform have cited the Lewin Group as source for their information. The Washington Post has dug beneath the surface and found that this group in neither non-partisan, nor independent, but a wholly owned mouthpiece of UnitedHealth Group. This is the same company whose 2nd Quarter profits rose more than 155% over the same quarter last year, in the midst of a recession no less. The same insurance company that paid its former CEO over $1.5 Billion in compensation as he left the company amidst a scandal.

Where is all this money coming from, you, me, anyone that has their insurance through them or one of their subsidiaries. They get this by taking in more money and paying for less care. If we get the reform we seek, their executives might have to look elsewhere for their privat e jets and multi-million dollar compensation packages. Oh and not to mention probably less of a likelihood that their insurance claims will be denied for some nebulous reason.

Pass this on and make your voice heard.

Obama vs. Big Healthcare

Barrack Obama tried to pitch his plan for the need for healthcare reform to the American people last night, and may have missed the plate. While he clearly stated his case for the need to reform healthcare costs to ensure the long-term health of our nation's economy, he did little to motivate those who wish to delay or quash any action on the subject, despite a majority of Americans wishing for some substantive healthcare reform to take place.

Over the last few weeks the President has taken flak from every side with a stake in this project and mentioned some of the partisan attacks last night. He could have done better the Center for Responsive Politics has compiled a list of recipients of cash from Big Pharma, HMOs, Doctors and all related industries. Call out Max Baucus and the rest of the obstructionists as to how much money they haved taken from insterests that profit from the system as it is.

This dilemma points to the great battle looming, the decorruption of the political process. We need further campaign finance reform, perhaps moving toward a publically financed campaign system so as to freeze the corproate money and lobbying out of the political process. If we can do that we can

The Great Healthcare Boondoggle

This week, everywhere we look the top story has been health care and healthcare reform. In what we like to call the greatest nation on earth the number of people who are uninsured has risen to over 45 million and continues to grow. The number on this don't lie we spend more money on healthcare per capita than anyone in the world. Yet for all this money we spend we rank 37th in the world between Costa Rica and Slovenia as ranked by the World Health Organization. Clearly something has to be done.

What do the top nations on that list have in common? They made healthcare a right and provide it all of thier citizens. France ranks top of the list with Italy not too far benind are a few of the smallest European nations. These nations provide comprehensive healthcare to all of their citizens. What does that do?

1. It allows doctors to treat conditions when they are mild and very easy to treat, well before they become serious or life threatening.
2. They do a better job of preventive care, keeping things such as obesity and diet in check which goes a long way to keeping costs down by seeing lower instances of hypertension, adult onset diabetes and stroke that are linked to obesity.

Now we must demand more from our elected officials. We must expose the those who are dragging thier feet for the amount of money they are recieving from those who profit under the status quo. We must not buy into the falsehoods floating around indended to scare us.

• There are a few people that come to the US to seek care that they might not otherwise have access to, but there are more Americans that travel to Mexico and Canada to fill perscriptions and seek medical care there.

We must demand that reform include a public option to compete with the insurance compaines.

• They are talking about making insurance an individual mandate, and if that happens a public option is necessary to get any sort of real reform, since without that, people will be forced to buy policies from companies who are profit driven and can deny payment thus deny treatment to pad thier bottom line.
• We must have the public option have the ablitity to negotiate with drug companies to keep costs in check.
• Provisions must be made to hold insurance compaines and thier officers responsible for any of their policyholders who dies because of a denial of treatment.

We can demand better from our healthcare system. To those who cry that it won't work, remember every other nation seems to get it to work rather well. Just remember citizens should not be afraid of thier government a government should be afriad of its citizens.

Are we really that different...

Everywhere we turn around people on the TV try to tell us that we are different. We see every possible basis of difference extolled by our popular culture. Whether it is the color of our skin, our religious faith, how we choose to express love, our gender, it seems that everyone wants to point out the differences.

What if we were more alike than different? Would that alter our perception of the outside world? If we truly looked at the person next to us, or accross from us as a brother rather than a stranger, would we see hate so rampant?

I am sure you have heard of the game...Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. It is a take on the idea that we are separated by anyone else in the world by no more than 6 persons. That our relationships are that interconnected. If so, why should we hate our fellow man? If it is true that matter can neither be created nor destroyed. Then all the matter that makes up all objects and things sprang forth from the big bang at the start of time. If this is true than we are truly all connected in a profound way.

Think about this next time you hear someone trying to point out our differences.

Knowlege truly is the ultimate power, lets be downright dangerous my friends.

Musings From a Dangerous Mind

Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends....If you are drawn to this blog, congratulations, you have looked around and it occurs to you that things around you aren't always what the voice on the TV paints it to be.

The freedom of the press is the first right granted us in our Bill of Rights in the Constitution. It was believed, by our founding fathers, that we the people need unbiased information on our government to allow the citizen electorate to make informed decisions at the ballot box. We were never meant to have the talking head or the detached voice speaking from our TV give us gospel truth, it is only one of many possible opinions about what the world around us.

I hope that this blog will explore us as citizens, what we have in common and how that relates to the world around us.

Let us get ready to take a trip down the rabbit hole and see how our world looks from a new perspective.