At the National Council for Research on Women, interesting dialogues are taking place on the topic of the role of women in the new Administration. I wanted to share this fruit for thought and dialogue.
"Wouldn’t it be wonderful, given that women determined this victory, that all of the photo-ops we are beginning to see included as many women as men—as many people of color as non. The early signals about an Obama administration are crucial. This is not the time to reflexively turn to the “old hands” of previous administrations. New ideas are needed, fresh thinking is needed. The “old hands” have brought us to the brink of economic collapse........." (read more)
Thought I would share this with you!
GEORGE TOWN, Cayman Islands: History was created on Tuesday night when 47-year-old Senator Barak Obama defeated 72-year-old Senator John Mc Cain to become the 44th President of the United States of America and the first African-American to move into the White House.The Caribbean Diaspora, especially in New York, California, and Florida, turned out in full force to support the Illinois Democrat following calls by regional leaders in Guyana, Jamaica, Barbados, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and St Kitts and Nevis, amongst others, to support Obama, who in his victory speech pledged to unite America. He repeated the speech he made at the Democratic Convention more than four years ago when he said there is no blue state or red state but a United StatesIn his concession speech, Mc Cain said it was an historic election and America today is different, since the country has come a long way to see a African-American as president. He pledged to work with Obama and called on all his supporters to rally behind the President-elect and to bridge the differences and work towards improving their country.McCain expressed regret that Obama's grandmother, the woman who moulded his life, did not live to see him elected as president.President-elect Barack Obama acknowledges his supporters on Tuesday night after his historic election victory. AFP PHOTOObama, in his victory speech, said that McCain has made a lot of sacrifices for his country and said that he is looking forward to working with him in rebuilding the nation. He said that there are many challenges ahead. He referred to the two wars and the financial crisis being experienced in the country.Read more.......
As I look back over my life and the year I came to the United States, I never thought that in my wildest dreams, I could actually one day say that the dreams Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King spoke of so eloquently, would one day be brought to reality for me to witness. As I watched the election results coming in smooth with no major drama and no major inaccuracies, I began to receive calls from other family members, equally anxious and excited to get closer to the reality we all have been waiting for.
Soon enough we got the news! President Elect Barack Obama will be sworn in as President of this United States of America!My family in Suriname called me, the Minister of Health sent congratulations, the President of the Chamber of Commerce in Suriname sent congratulations letting me know that a big load has been lifted off the shoulders of this small Caribbean country, where oil production, gold, bauxite, wood and other natural resources are being produced with a strong emphasis on foreign relations to increase the economic opportunities to contribute to the world economy.
My 88 year old aunt and my 74 year old aunt were proudly telling me how they paraded the streets with their Barack Obama T-shirts I had sent them earlier this year. Everyone was living the dream, everyone prayed and everyone realized their prayers had been answered.
Now as the new President has said with lots of eloquence like his former leader, we have work to do, not I, but WE. It is my hope that in a country so divided by politics, economics, race and education, we can finally come together to roll up our sleeves and make this country back to the reason many of us immigrants turned to come here in the first place....the American dream of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, not black, white, not poor, rich, but UNITED. Nothing happens overnight and there are short term and long term goals, short term and long term realities and not to forget a war we should not have began in the first place, people who lost respect for us, people who thought we no longer deserved their attention, people who gave up on the United States. Together we came this far, and together we can do it!God Bless America and God Bless the Obama/Biden Team and their families. May God wrap His arms of mercy around them and protect them at all times, ordering their steps in His Word. In God We Trust!
Check out this article!
Let's Just Say You Had $700 Billion to Spend
I thought this article was an interesting one to share:
Our HIV/AIDS Epidemic is not over; it is far from over and will need a commitment from our new President and the Administration, recognizing that a country in distress is definitely a homeland security issue. We often do not recognize our own health care as our biggest threat to homeland security but let's not forget!
To kick off the 2008 USCA, twelve AIDS quilt panels were on display at Miami International Airport to greet this year's participants. The AIDS Memorial Quilt is a poignant memorial, a powerful tool for use in preventing new HIV infections, and the largest ongoing community arts project in the world. This World AIDS Day, December 1, 2008, you are invited to host a display to bring the Quilt and its message to your community.
http://www.americansforhealthcare.org/
Watch the ad now which is on the airwaves on MSNBC, CNN, and other major news stations as of yesterday.
With 6 days left until Election Day, we've got to press the issue of preventive care. Watch our new ad and share with friends and family: Click here
Thanks for doing all that you can,
Lynda TranAmericans for Health Care"
Please take some time to listen to this video and let it sink in! We have to wake everyone up! This is no time to sleep!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTIAAZZXyrc&feature=related
See you at the polls!
I would like to share the following article with women across the country in the hope that we will strengthen our voice for health care in the next Administration:
Posted by Linda Basch
As the election draws near, I’m pleased to announce a series of forthcoming posts this week from our experts responding to current hot topics in health.
We’ve asked these experts for their thoughts on how health care policies affect men and women differently. We’ve asked them to identify key priorities for improving women’s health. And we’ve also asked them to identify the changes related to health they would most like to see implemented by a new administration.
As many in our network are well aware, women and men are often differently at risk for a variety of diseases and conditions. Racial disparities in the delivery of care abound.
An estimated 29% of Latinas and more than 20% of African American women report being in fair or poor health, compared with 13% of white women. And issues of reproductive justice continue to shape our policy debates. As an AP article noted last week, “Two years after South Dakotans rejected a nearly total ban on abortion, voters on November 4th will decide another sweeping but less restrictive ballot measure that would probably send a legal challenge of Roe v. Wade to the U.S. Supreme Court.”
While there may be only two more weeks until the election, the wide array of women’s health issues will not so soon be resolved. We have much at stake, and much work to do. I hope you will join me in sharing the posts from our experts, once they are live, with those who can use this information most.
I read this interesting article today and thought I would share it particularly with fellow women supporters of our next President Obama. We all recognize that there are some gaps in the campaign and hopefully we can continue keeping everyone informed to make sure we cover as many issues of importance to our votes in order to assure the succesful outcome of this election!
Oct 17, 2008 posted by Linda Basch
Today I posted an op-ed over on CNN.com, titled “What About Jane Plumber?”
Here is how it begins:
“The all-too-familiar talking points of the candidates reverberated through the air waves for a third and last time on Wednesday, but one key voting constituency was missing from the debate, namely, Jane Plumber, and, more specifically, Jane’s retirement funds.
As the bottom falls out of the stock market, the housing market plummets, and sub-prime mortgages put many American voters—especially women—in a financial freefall, it is the federal safety net that they’re depending on to cushion their landing. For swing voters, the majority of whom are older woman, this highly contentious election may come down to two often overlooked, make or break issues: Social Security and Medicare.
So far, neither candidate seems to have woken up to the tough economic facts facing so many older women voters….”
You can read the rest here. I invite you to join in the lively debate that is taking place over there in comments.
And our gratitude to Cindy Hounsell, President of the Women’s Institute for a Secure Retirement, for her post here at The Real Deal earlier this week. Cindy’s was a featured post over at the Blog Action Day 08 – Poverty site.
Together, let’s keep this conversation going!
KEY FACTS ON HEALTH CARE COSTS
The high and rapidly rising cost of health care affects the financial security of families and the economic health of the nation. Thirty percent of respondents in a recent Kaiser Poll reported that they had experienced a serious problem paying for health care and health insurance as a result of recent changes in the economy, and a recent study found that 10% of people with problems paying medical bills were denied care because of medical bills.1 In 2004, 18% of the nonelderly population had out-of-pocket health costs that exceeded 10% of their disposable income.At a national level, health care accounts for a large and growing slice of the overall U.S. economic pie. The growth in health expenditures routinely outpaces growth in income, making health insurance less affordable for all Americans and making it more costly to extend coverage to the over 45 million Americans who are uninsured. These rising health costs also make public health programs more difficult to sustain, straining federal and state budgets.Finding a way to address high costs and cost growth without unreasonably reducing access to new and needed services is a significant challenge. How the candidates for the upcoming election propose to address the challenges posed by the increasing costs of health care is a critical component of the current political debates (Read More......).
Information provided by the Health Care Marketplace ProjectPublication Number: 7828Publish Date: 2008-10-17
Click on the links below to find out more about the National Response to the reported increase in HIV incidence in the United States:Elected Officials' Commitment to the HIV Crisis Local and National Organizations Respond Media Coverage
Watch this video:America's Forgotten Epidemic on (CBS) To help you make an informed decision in the presidential election, CBS News is devoting a large part of our broadcasts until Nov. 4 to telling you where the candidates stand on major issues - from the war in Iraq to health insurance to education … and a lot more. Each piece will be an in-depth look at the issues facing the 44th president. In this installment, CNN's Sanjay Gupta, a CBS News contributor, reports on how the proposed HIV/AIDS policies of Barack Obama and John McCain would affect your community. The Issue It was a sight seldom seen in Washington - bi-partisan praise for President Bush's re-authorization of a plan for global AIDS relief. It's called PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief), and it's the largest international health initiative ever for a single disease. "The legacy of this administration will certainly be the work that this president has done regarding the global AIDS epidemic," said Phill Wilson, executive director of the Black AIDS Institute. But while we as a nation spend almost $10 billion annually to fight AIDS abroad, we spend less than 10 percent of that here at home. "There's tremendous irony that while we're showing leadership on the global epidemic, we're showing complete neglect on the domestic epidemic," Wilson said. And, estimates by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reveal African Americans in particular are disproportionately affected. In the year 2006, blacks accounted for 45 percent of new HIV infections - more than 22,000. The reasons why? "One of them is shame - people are ashamed to have the infection. The other is stigma - they're punished if someone else finds out they have it," said Dr. Julie Geberding of the CDC, in testimony. "And then the third is ignorance." It's a pandemic that's spreading right under our nation's nose. The CDC estimates that one in 20 people living in Washington, D.C., is HIV positive. Astoundingly, in the capital of the world's wealthiest country, the incidence of HIV/AIDS is two-and-a-half times that of Port au Prince, the capital of Haiti, one of the world's poorest countries. C. Russell, 31, is HIV-positive, having been diagnosed nine years ago after having unprotected sex. "Eighty percent of the HIV cases in this city - your city - are in blacks," Gupta said. "They are," Russell said. "What is going on here?" Gupta said. "Apathy in our community. Apathy possibly maybe from the government," he said. "People not going and getting tested and getting treatment once they're diagnosed." Luckily, Russell's been able to keep the virus at bay, without the need for medication. But if he did get sick, care and treatment costs over his lifetime could easily top $275,000. "If it came to that, I'd want to know that I'd be taken care of. I'd want to know that I'd be able to get health care," he said. But it's not just men. The incidence rate for black women like Danielle, who is 42 and HIV-positive, is nearly 15 times that of whites - making AIDS a leading killer of African-American women ages 25 to 34. Danielle contracted HIV through sexual intercourse 15 years ago, and passed the virus onto one of her five children during pregnancy. "A lot of people are in the mindset that well, because we have medication we can take, it's OK if I become HIV positive," she said. But Danielle has no health insurance. So she'll be in trouble should she ever develop AIDS. "You couldn't get all the medications that you need, you couldn't get the sub-specialty care that you need. What would happen to someone like you?" Gupta said. "I'd probably get sicker. And possibly even die," she said. The Candidates So where do the candidates stand? For starters, they both fully support President Bush's PREFAR program - but that's focused on the epidemic overseas. So, what if you're one of the 1.2 million Americans living with HIV/AIDS? "We have to have a more effective AIDS policy. Studies have shown we may have undercounted the incidence of AIDS in this country," Barack Obama said. Obama's plan begins with his promise to sign universal health care legislation by the end of his first term as president. He wants to prevent HIV through sex education and by promoting HIV testing in minority communities. But the cornerstone of the Obama plan calls for a national HIV/AIDS strategy involving all federal agencies. "When we give money to developing countries to fight AIDS, we demand they have a national strategy. And yet we don't have a national AIDS strategy in this country," Wilson said. "I think we need a domestic plan," Sen. John McCain said. McCain's prescription to prevent HIV: Emphasize abstinence programs. For those with pre-existing conditions such as AIDS, he wants to establish "guaranteed access plans" for affordable insurance. His prescription for rising drug costs? Greater competition among drug companies. But the centerpiece of the McCain blueprint? A $2,500 tax credit for individuals to purchase the health care coverage of their choice. The Impact "How does that affect you?" Gupta asked Russell. "It sounds like I'd get a tax credit for money that I would spend on health care, which is okay, but I'd rather have the health care," he said. "You also have to have to have a health insurance company that accepts you," Gupta said. "Exactly," Russell said. For now, Russell may not benefit more from either candidate's plan, because he already has health insurance through his employer. On the other hand, Danielle would have a better chance with either candidate than she does now to find affordable coverage. But there was one thing that Obama said that captured her attention. "Especially in the African-American and Latino communities, it is skyrocketing," Obama said. "Just the fact that, I guess Senator Obama speaks specifically to the community of which I belong," she said. "It makes me know that he cares about the African-American community." Nevertheless, both Danielle and Russell are hopeful that the leadership America has shown overseas will inspire the next president to show leadership on the AIDS epidemic here at home. © MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
After last night's debate, McCain's concept of providing health care for all does showed to be completely off base and out of touch with the realities of todays U.S. healthcarecrisis. He has never had to worry about deductibles and all members of Congress are able to just walk down some stairs, get immediate access to a doctor, and immediate access to prescription drugs which they do not have to negotiate. A report by the Kaiser Family Foundation shows the detrimental healthcare disparities currently facing the nation, while we are only worried about bailing out the top and leaving the bottom and in between hanging with no real solutions to solve our health care crisis........I wonder what the tax savings for the rich will do for our corrupted health care system which profits off disease, rather than prevention of disease.
Family Health Coverage Premiums Rise to $12,680 Annually, With More Workers Facing High Deductibles, Benchmark Study Finds Premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance rose to $12,680 annually for family coverage this year, with employees on average paying $3,354 out of their paychecks to cover their share of the cost, according to the benchmark 2008 Employer Health Benefits Survey released by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Research & Educational Trust. In addition, the scope of coverage has changed, with many more workers now enrolled in high-deductible plans, only some of which support a tax-preferred savings option such as a Health Savings Account.
