Teachers and administrators, parents and professors, publishers, consultants, secretaries and students all have a tremendous amount to offer. Now you have a candidate who can facilitate real change.
Let's help make this happen.
NEW UPDATE!!!
LET'S GO LOCAL! Our group membership has grown impressively, but a national group like ours is necessarily constrained by geography. I've posted links to a number of other more localized BarackObama.com education groups. Join up with your state or city if you see it here. Otherwise, I urge you to begin your own group for your local area and let us know about it here at Educators for Obama!
California Connecticut Florida Hawaii Illinois Iowa Minnesota New Hampshire New Jersey Nevada
Boston Chicago Denver Houston San Deigo San Francisco Prince George's County
If you are interested in serious discussion about education policy, I invite you to join our discussion forum at TalkBarackObama08.com. You will need to register with a username and password to participate, but I'd love to see you all there!
Thank you everyone for your time and dedication!
I have been focusing on the greatest journey of my life.That most amazing miraculous dream of one tiny little sperm carrying the worlds most heaviest load, the genetic information of generations and generations and generations....in order to enter into the dream world of a small egg awaiting for that wondrous moment to arrive. The greatest journey of my life. The greatest journey of my life, happening throughout the ages.Here i am, the dream of a tiny minuscule sperm who has touched, entered and combined into the amazing dream of an egg. Generations of dreams combining in ONE brief moment of time. Two different distinctive dreams combining everything together to co-create a dream dreaming.Within that brief small moment of synchronization of time and space. The combined wholeness of my dream was unified. Then began the second most amazing adventure of my life. From one miraculous cell to 100 trillion cells playing and dancing in a unified field of utopian nature.Then from being focused inside the womb to looking outward to this.We are all energy. Within a brief moment of time. The possibility of combining and integrating our individual unique miraculous creative genius energy TOGETHER to realize a totally new dream coming from the heart of reality seems so simple so easy.The Mass Group. E=MC2. Peace, love, freedom...pelodom.Within a brief moment of time is our ability to integrate our consciousness to form an amazing new creative dream unfolding. Within the empty space is the ability to integrate ALL our dreams simultaneously. By coming to the O table, by giving freely of our geniusness, our dreams shared, our consciousness expands. Our reality expands. Abundance is the dance. Within a brief moment of time, creation of a new life.. a new dream is owakened.
Dream Big Dreams
I know this is going to sound crazy, and it is bound to offend a lot of people, but President Obama does not deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. Not yet, anyways. I believe President Obama is doing a lot of good for this country, and I think that having him in the White House has done a great deal to reform the image of the US around the world. However, the Nobel Peace Prize is not something he deserves at this time.
Rather than accept the prize, I think it would be awe inspiring for President Obama to go to Norway and decline the prize, to give a speech about the meaning of the prize, and to show the world that he cannot be bought with flattery. Sure, there are a lot of die-hard fans who think he should accept any prize that is being offered. But a man's true value cannot be captured in an award. I think that he could not possibly lose the support of the people on the left for turning down the prize. But even better, I think he would generate a great deal of respect and admiration from many people on the right. Imagine how devastating it would be to conservative fundamentalists if he rejected the prize. He could make real inroads with conservative America just by doing this little thing. He would also generate even more admiration and respect around the world.
It would be a real win for President Obama if he turned down this prize.
Hi FriendThere is a new group that just started on Facebook that I thought Organizing for America members may be interested in joining. Please see United Against Racism -
http://apps.facebook.com/causes/354956/80588439?m=9dc74a6eUnited Against Racism
posted by David Apperson
We need healthcare reform in order to prevent the continuing spread of the vicious infection of personal and corporate bankruptcies linked to radically escalating healthcare costs, which are coinciding with a worsening deterioration in quality of coverage and quality of care. We need reform to make healthcare coverage affordable, reasonable, and undeniable. We need reform to save tens of thousands of lives per year and establish a sustainable long-term economic path, to help protect the market system and make protecting and sustaining life more cost-effective, liberating people to live the lives they dream they can.
We are watching a massive, nationwide movement of propaganda and mobilization spread one after another wild fabrication and spur sometimes violent anger about the most promising healthcare reform proposals our nation has seen. It is intolerable to stand by and watch this campaign of malicious fear-mongering sow hate and anger and derail reform in order to serve the morally bankrupt political strategy of those who want to "kill reform" for their own electoral gain.
We need to organize not just at the local level, but we need to organize nationally, set a date for a massive demonstration of support in Washington, DC, and march on Washington. The demonstration should be set for early October and we need to spend big to get the message out and treat this cause like a second inauguration. We stood in the freezing cold to support Pres. Obama and his message of transformative change, and now we have to do the same, in the midst of this firestorm of distortions and tempers, to show the true grassroots movement demanding a response is pro-reform.
Let's get moving on setting the date for a march. We can launch a group on this website and use it to plan and to mobilize support.
People will accept change at a time of crisis. Now is time to reform and restructure our capital markets for a better future. We have to change the rules and correct the fundamental flaws in the financial system and make sure what happened that last year in Wall Street will not happen again.
Labor Day contemplation of how to be of ultimate service to oneself.....
The I pledge video is going around and around and around....I pledge to be oneself.
Concerning my recent visit to The White House to http://chalkthewhitehouse.com and all things concerning 'Dream Big Dreams' ....
I haven't had health insurance forever....so i've had to learn the secrets of healing thyself. I've had to learn many new perspectives to live in poverty my entire life while living in a land of plenty. I am a workaholic. Yet my labor has no value. My life has been to study, know, and experience the creative life of an artist in pursuit of the ultimate health of oneself.
Peace is the key. Balance. When I saw the unfinished building of the Institute of Peace near the Kennedy Center for the Arts, I knew I wanted to work there...as artist in residence...sharing my perspective and vision on happiness, sharing my masterpeaces of the ultimate health of oneself.
WE have everything. EVERYTHING. What we need is to co-create systems of utopia...integrating the individual unique miraculous creative geniuses WE were all born as into systems that reflect our geniusness.
Today is Labor Day. Being artist in residence at the Institute of Peace is my way of being the ultimate service to the nation. Can anyone grant me that position. Can anyone deny me that position. It is my place in the world. As all that I have ever been and all that I will ever be is reflected in the need of that postion being full filled by being oneself.
I pledge to be oneself....to form relationships in forming a more perfect union..in co-creating and co-designing systems reflecting the ultimate health of oneself. The Key to knowing oneself is Peace. Is Balance. Is the ultimate health of oneself.
As Artist in Residence of the Institute of Peace. I Pledge to BE, DO and have....as oneself.
My "Dream Big Dreams" is that WE all find the perfect manifestation of our true Labor of Love, and each and every act of BEING ONESELF is an act of service to oneself, family, community, state and nation.
p.s. And my ten year old son Makiah wants to remind his friend Barack Obama to "Dream Big Dreams" as he plays basketball with ALL his Dream Team Players with the most passionate happy Labor of Love he knows.
This week I thought I felt a shift. The blustering voice of fear is starting to die down. Opposition voices to healthcare reform are proving that they have no substantive answers, just knee-jerk reactions. There is no alternative plan or agenda from people opposing reform. It seems to be a scary combination of "I've got mine, you get yours", and a gamble that maybe status quo will last just long enough for me. The media is tiring of the narrative of angry protest against reform. They need a new byline.
I think the opportunity is now. Make time to attend a rally, like the September 3rd rally in downtown Houston. Let us offer educated, thoughtful reform. Let us show greater support. Now friends. Now.
T. Boone Pickens is down, but not out, in his plan to transform America from an oil-and-coal society to an energy-producing society based on wind and other renewable sources of alternative energy. It is odd, then, that the same man has plans for depleting one of America's least renewable and most endangered natural resources--namely, the Ogallala aquifer underlying vast portions of America's bread basket. You heard me correctly. T. Boone Pickens fancies himself a water baron, and if his corrupt desires are allowed to succeed, he will make himself filthy rich and turn himself into a hero as he desertifies one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world.
The Ogallala is a huge underground ocean that has been supplying much of the midwest with water for farming for over a century. The problem is that we pump water out of it much faster than it is replenished. It took a million years to fill, but it may not last the next 100 years. Part of the Pickens Plan (the part that is not advertised) includes using the wind corridor he creates to build a water pipeline from northern Texas to Dallas in order to supply the thirsty city with Ogallala water, which is perfectly legal in Texas. At what cost? This plan would drastically reduce the aquifer and eventually force the U.S. to go begging to its northern neighbor for water resources. If Pickens really believes in the importance of being energy-independent, then one would have to question a plan that would force us to be dependent on another country for water.
Pickens is a hypocrite; he is a dangerous carpetbagger who would destroy America while appearing to help, all to line his own pocketbook with a few extra billion dollars. Let's be thankful that this robber baron has been unsuccessful in his plans to rape this country in the name of a green initiative.
President Obama used his weekly radio and Internet address to call for "honest debate" about his health-care reform proposals. <p>Shlomo second king after Dovid who began a line of kings destined to end with Moshiach wrote a book with prescription to cure any illnesses; Shlomo was very wise and found a way around health care–but, here in America health care is a big problem. The problem seems to be one of the past verses the future. <p>Conservative and liberal are really different perspectives about money, both want to move forward just one want to conserve the communal wealth and the other wants to move faster into the future–thats how the system was meant to work. <p>In the Cabala is explained how one is represented by a dot while two (two points) comprise a line; two is also considered chaos–three is a triangle and the first time there is unity. In Cabala that third point is compassion. <p>All human beings are commanded against stealing. Sometimes the human being steals because they are pressed into theft by their situation, but those people who steal to become richer, particularly in the business of heath care and the politicians who take their money and advance their cause have no compassion–they are the two sides of chaos.
By Franklin Katunda
Washington DC -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was asked a very central question on US economic interests in Central Africa at a forum in Kinshasa, DR Congo. Unfortunately, an inquiry most Congolese have called insightful in regards to the US-Congo relations got “lost in translation”. Not only, had it lost its significance in the media coverage, but worst, given their slacking pleasure not to look into news tips and details, US media networks condensed it into another Clinton’s “saut d’humeur” sound bite.
A “key” question stolen by just another “sound bite”
This was, indeed, a very momentous question ever asked to a top US official in public by a citizen of Congo about the US-Congo relationship: China’s government economic engagement in the DR Congo, in the light of what the US-Congo cooperation should had been. The question was put out of context by a staffer who (apparently) did not understand the Congo’s accent of the student who spoke the French language, and provided a bad translation to Madam Secretary.
First, it is a shame for the State Department to recruit a language poorly-skilled staff to the highest US diplomatic affairs’ cabinet, regretfully. Than the media coverage of the forum was curtailed in the frenzy that always worships and longs for the Clinton buzz. Newscasters focused more on what they think Madam Secretary wanted to convey to Africans on her abilities vs. former president Clinton to bring about a new era in US-Congo relationships.
Result: The “I’m the Secretary of State, not my husband” was headlined on front pages of newspapers and 30 seconds “sound bite” played all day on every American TV network. The Daily News and the New York Post and others quickly “Xeroxed” the AP breaking news for their morning (August 11th) cover page. American listeners and viewers were unfairly fed with a sound bite played on almost every network, even though US journalists recognized the incident turns out to be a wrong translation of what the student’s question really meant. Interesting, business TV channels such as CNN-Money, CNBC and others Bloomberg News should have had interest in covering the story but all seem to have missed the ball… Or simply did not elaborate on another China’s gain over the US in the world’s business competition we have been losing at every inch of the way.
The release of the recorded-translation clearly casts a (female) voice translating the question by University of Kinshasa’s student (a young man), and it reads: (about the China and Congo’s relationships…)”What does Mr. Clinton think through the mouth of Mrs. Clinton, and what does Mutombo think about?” instead of translating: “What does Mr. President think through the mouth of Mrs. Clinton, and what does Mutombo think about?” The real argument here that one can make sense out of is to just think this: What if the incident played good for the US diplomat who happened lucky to not even dodge the question? Students from all over the world like President Obama, and students in Congo understand their aspirations in regards to the current US Administration. Any reference to Bill Clinton to reflect on China-Congo relationships won’t even cross their minds a beat, given the former president’s background on the Great Lakes conflict since the 90s.What strikes me, as I write this opinion piece here, is that the media did not extensively comment on Madam Secretary’s response, even after a clarification was made about the true meaning of the question.
Just as many Americans have not learned any consistent news on Congo’s fate in past decades. Meanwhile, China has gain significant economic interests in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan, as reported several informed-organizations. The US has been on the side lines, had timidly and sometimes just rhetorically referred to their will to “work with” these war-torn nations in order to help them recover, instead they did not effectively engage them economically.
The US government failed, to a large extent, to support them with conflict resolution during the invasion of the Eastern Congo region, the horrific mass killings in both Sudan’s Darfur region and Congo while complaining, for more than a decade, about the violence borne of sequences of civil unrests. America talked “human rights” when it comes to consequences of the war (rape and violence on civilians) but did too little when it comes to put pressure on the governments of Congo and Sudan, while China did none of these things and would never even refer to the observance of human rights when they strike a business deal. In facts, it’s not a secret to anyone that China, still a totalitarian regime, has made huge progress in economic development and diplomacy although a “red” regime. China seats on the UN Security Council without being questioned too much on plans it has to protecting and respecting the rights of its own citizens.
A call to US Media to factually and objectively report on African Affairs
A Huffington Post website writer critiqued the lack of depth in facts by US media coverage of the Congo’s conflict that required 17,000 UN peacekeepers to intervene, and yet unsuccessfully pacified. Georgianne Nienaber wrote that we (reporters) “owe Africa the same kind of attention to detail and accuracy in reporting. There is a certain sloppiness that happens in reports from Africa, and we can all do better”, she said.
A few newspapers like the NYT which report on DR Congo every other 6 weeks, sometimes with just a few short articles lost in pages 6 or 10; reporters negligently write without really attracting US scholars and citizens’ curiosity on the Congo’s crisis when, ironically, this war has been called the “worst armed conflict involving many countries since the World War II”. Radio, TV commentators and producers turn away from citizens’ calls and emails when contacted to speak out and to contribute in news analysis about the Congo during their show casts.
I personally was a guest-contributor on US-African Affairs with Voice of America (VOA) in Washington DC, and I sat down on a radio/web-TV panel that debated on the post-Congo’s 2006 presidential elections. My opinions on the topic, as always, were so pointed and my account of facts very challenging versus the scripted version they had. It’s safe to say that they did not align with the producers’ talking points on the DRC crisis, and (reason why) I never got invited again, despite my calls, emails and offers to contribute in months that followed. CNN anchor Anderson Cooper and reporter Lisa Ling for the Oprah Show played a praised but risky role when reporting stories of rape, violence and genocide in the Eastern Congo during the Bush Administration.
Anderson went with President Obama to Ghana to report on the history at slave trade site, but Anderson’s CNN remained silent on Hillary Clinton’s trip to the DR Congo… No special report, not even a press correspondent was seen to be on Clinton’s plane to Congo… Why? MSNBC only played that sound bite over a “lost in translation” question, without reporting or calling for a news analysis on the question and the town hall’s highlights. Chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell invited on three shows in two days following Monday’s forum just elaborated on what may have gone wrong with the secretary of state as a person.
What a shame to reap a worst news spotlight with such unfairness in journalism, when so many human rights advocates, bloggers, Congolese and American scholars in US, activists like Kambale Musavuli of Friends of the Congo, Jean Kamba, Abraham Luakabuanga, John Pendergast or my-self; book writers, freelance photographers and even lawmakers like former GA Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney worked hard and took risks of their careers, calling for years for an exclusive spotlight on Congo since the war started?
Recent developments on the ground
The bigger Congo’s picture here is that investigative journalists in US still ignore the magnitude of the civil unrest and violence between militias, and more the illicit exploitation of minerals in Congo’s conflict zones. A recent government “launch of the operation Kimia II in the DR Congo has seen a spike in the number of sexual assaults against the women of the Kivu’s”, wrote in an editorial, Scott Morgan, web-editor of the “Confused Eagle.” One key problem, he wrote, is that the “FARDC (Government of the Democratic Congo’s Armed Forces) is not able to sustain combat operations against the Rwanda’s FDLR.
As part of the Peace Accord, the Government in Kinshasa has instructed its army (FARDC) to integrate some of the former Militia Groups into the Regular Armed Forces. The FDLR have had bases in the region since they were driven out of Rwanda, after the horrific genocide of 1994.” The FDLR (Hutu Rwandans) “have a tactical advantage of knowing the terrain” in the Kivu provinces compared to the Congolese government forces, writes Morgan.
A columnist in LA Times, Helen Winternitz, said that the Eastern region of Congo has been set by civil wars for a decade, a horrifying symptom of breakdowns through the entire government. The undisciplined Congolese army and the various militias combating the FDLR use rape as a weapon of war. As many as 200,000 women and girls have been raped, some men mutilated to the point of death in what is described as the world's worst episode in mass killing and sexual violence.
Meanwhile, on an unprecedented twist since August 1998, Rwanda and Congo’s heads of state orchestrated a quick meeting in Goma, Kivu to normalize their diplomatic relations (under US’ recommendations?) … What do the two leaders discuss when they met in Goma, days before Clinton’s trip in Congo? Not much consistent is known about. The Tutsi General Laurent Nkunda (a Rwandan-born rebel), who terrorized the Kivu’s civilian population under Congo’s “laid up” President Kabila’s watch (his accomplice), was arrested a few days before the inauguration of Barack Obama, after he benefited with an impressive military logistic support from Rwandan President Paul Kagame (his mastermind). So many unreported happenings, news stories out there…
Congolese Bloggers and Web-news critiqued some of Hillary Clinton sayings
Although Mrs. Clinton was overwhelmingly welcomed in Kinshasa, Congo’s capital city, the Agence France Press (AFP) reports that she faced “some tough questions from students.” Questions from students at a forum in Kinshasa were worth being reported in western media, and of course only a few European and Congolese local newspapers commented on.
The American public and even some high government officials don’t know the history and the recent happenings in the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire), and if the conventional media won’t help with the matter, perhaps “citizen journalism” took over with tools like i-report, twitter, you tube, facebook, hundreds of Congolese news websites and many other independent blogs are beginning to help build networks of African news sharing in US. I’m not sure this can fight the coalition of powerful press agencies like the well-known AP, Reuters, AFP, Belga, Xinhua… But it’s been making a whole difference in shaping the public opinion.Signs of progress in social networking being noticed in Congo; residents of Kinshasa by-passed some of these traditional media who either report for either side of the story and just missed the point.
One web-twitter present at the forum (August 10th at 8:39 AM our time) wrote: “Town Hall ended a short while ago, that was pretty exciting, seeing HRC, Fox News, Secret Service and Mutombo in one room.” Another person twitted on Clinton’s address to Congolese students, reporting what she said at that very moment: “I came here to talk to you students before anyone in your government; I expect more transparency from your government” US News media would not broadcast even on a 30 seconds sound bite that: “A student told Clinton, to applause from the crowd, that underdevelopment (of DR Congo) stemmed from a long history of Western exploitation in the resource-rich nation, once notoriously the private fiefdom of Belgium's King Leopold II…”, as reported the AFP here.
Digging deep on the forum’s aftermath, one of the US top diplomat’s answers to Congolese created an outrage in many circles in Kinshasa; when Mrs. Clinton refused to “look back to the past”, saying she (the US) wants to “work with people who are seeking for a good future, not those who refer to the past.” An online blogger for hinterland wrote an open-letter back to Clinton saying: “This one sentence from your answers to the forum in Kinshasa is very saddening, and brings wordiness among the Congolese people, which is still traumatized by a 13 years-long war.
Your country, the US, wrote Roger Puati, wants to work with the Congolese people while suggesting that we live by your way of thinking: Never refer to the past… Meaning forget the humiliation we have endured for 10 years and even more for the past 50 years?” An expert on Central African Affairs and author of “East along the Equator”, Helen Winternitz writes in an Op-ed that “When Congo emerged from the vicious colonial rule of Belgium; the United States empowered and, as a Cold War tactic, supported Mobutu Sese Seko. Utilizing the dictator was considered a legitimate tool by American policymakers who did not worry about the long-term consequences. Mobutu fathered the corrupt and dysfunctional mode of governing that now plagues the country.
”Another Congolese appalled by Clinton’s remarks, Jean-Pierre Mbelu writes on a French/Flemish language website Congoforum.be: “In our faces, Mrs. Clinton asks us (Congolese) to turn the page on a past that holds more than 5 millions of lost lives ! “What about this? Secretary Clinton calls for trials on soldiers who raped in war zones without referring to their foreign chief-allies, past US administration’s officials and multinationals involved in secretly supporting or carrying out the invasion in the DR Congo to be tried as well or called on for their wrong deeds… Is that how the US will work with us?”
What if anything the Department of State should learn from this?
“Obama, who took an interest in Congo when he was in the Senate, has inherited the moral responsibility to make amends and help the Congolese build a government that actually works on their behalf”, says in an Op-Ed, Winternitz. The Senate bill S. 2125 from the 109th US Congress on the Democratic Republic of Congo happened to be the only foreign policy, Mr. Barack Obama (then US Senator) initiated with a bi-partisan support from twelve other US Democrat and Republican Senators. In the light of that 2006 congressional law signed by George Bush, the Obama administration cannot afford lose its “own” message.
Madame Secretary Clinton should be commended for meeting with students “before” meeting Congo’s officials (good move); she is to be saluted for clearly “voicing up” ( government officials including President Kabila) on the resolutions that borne from the last spring US Senate hearing on the DR Congo. A key message was to stop and prosecute the rape, used as weaponin conflict zones. This is the 111th congress senate hearing on Congo/Sudan where (as I reported earlier in Spring) California Senator Barbara Boxer (D) and the audience could not resist a heart breaking to the horrific account of scenes of rape and violence by among many, Mrs. Chouchou Namegabe, a Kivu-based Journalist and Activist.
In an open letter to Sec. Clinton, another Congolese US-based website’s owner urges, on the post Congo’s trip, the US to be practical if “work with” Congo is what they want, and get all rapists be tried in criminal courts. He proposes Clinton’s cabinet to “… send DNA technical experts to DRC to help collect DNA samples from former militias and soldiers who fought in the east of Congo and from children born out of rapes. By matching the DNA samples of children and militias in a DNA data center, wrote the web-writer, the paternity of these fatherless children will clearly be established.”
Editor Sylvester Ngoma believes that “… The criminals will then be excluded from the national army and brought to justice. Even new victims will be able to report to these data centers for DNA collection to help catch rape criminals. This approach will have several positive effects. Some soldiers will leave the national army on their own just by knowing that their DNA will be collected and kept in a data center. The parliament will need to pass a law mandating all soldiers who fought in the east of the country to comply to the "DNA as a Rape Deterrence Plan" (from Congovision)At the end of the dayHaving say all that, Secretary Hillary Clinton still needs to carefully do an unscripted facts check on Congo since the Rwanda genocide of 1994, and attentively review the history about the after 1997 invasion of the DR Congo by Rwandan and Ugandan militias (when Bill Clinton was President).
The State Department’s African Affairs division must sincerely determine what the public opinion in regards to the US responsibility in the conflict is, and then apply President Obama’s own policy. The Congo Senate Bill (as they call it) will empower Secretary Clinton to pressure on President Joseph Kabila’s governance style. Only the S2125 bill would help them to measure up the progress in security and the observance of human rights towards the people of Congo, and then she can finally masterfully avoid alienate, frustrate the Congolese people, but would preach the message of “Hope”, accompanied with an engaging economic and bi-lateral cooperation the US failed in the past 8 years.
It has to be known that above and beyond the differences of cultures, languages and the issue of proximity, Congo shares a common history with the US, citing the past “Cold War” as an illustration; Congo (ex-Zaire) has gone out of the way to contribute through the generosity of its people, the use of its territory militarily, its strategic resources, minerals and intelligence to strengthen US national security and preserve its interests not only in the Continental Africa, but here at home and around the world.
Fifty years since Congo’s independence, and considering the potential level of cooperation both countries can still develop, our commitment at Congoboston.com to write ( please read: to accurately translate) the opinion of the Congolese people from their French heritage to English, and into the American mainstream media, I strongly hope that today’s message of “Hope” to Congo will NOT be lost in translation again.
An Opinion Editorial by Franklin Katunda, in Washington DC
Franklin is a freelance web-writer; chief-editor for Congoboston.com. Barack Obama surrogate, expert in US politics and foreign Affairs, he actively worked for 2 years within the presidential campaign and is member of OFA, Organizing for America.
© August 18th 2009, Congoboston.com
MAKE AMERICA MORE SAFE, SECURE AND PEACEFUL BY HELPING PAKISTAN BY MONEY AND WEAPONS. A STRONGER PAKISTAN , A STABLE PAKISTAN , A PROSPEROUS PAKISTAN IS 100% SURETY OF PEACE, SAFETY AND SECURITY OF AMERICA AND THE WHOLE WORLD. NOBODY CAN WIN WAR IN AFGHANISTAN OR ANY WHERE IN THE WORLD WITHOUT THE HELP OF PAKISTAN. PAKISTAN HAS THE ABILITIES TO DO MIRACLES. BELIEVE OR BELIEVE NOT? AN UNSTABLE PAKISTAN MEANS , NO MORE ISRAEL, NO MORE INDIA AND NO MORE SAFETY OF AMRICA. EUROPE AND THE WHOLE WORLD. BETTER TO SOLVE KASHMIR AND PALESTINE ISSUES SOONEST.
At the last meeting of the Linn County Democrats our chairman urged our guest speakers, Dr. Michael Huntington, MD and Dr. Norm Castillo, DO, to write a guest op ed piece to the Albany Democrat Herald (ADH). They agreed to do so. I thought you might want to see an early view of the article (attached). They also asked a previous speaker, Dr. Paul Hochfeld, MD. if he would be add a contribution to the article. We had Dr. Hochfeld as our guest speaker at our Health Care Forum that we sponsored in June.
The Letter:
Yes, there is a great deal of confusion regarding a single-payer plan and the public option, but let's be clear. One is a winner. The other is fatally flawed.
In the single-payer plan, a governmental or quasi-governmental agency becomes the administrator of a national health insurance, a pooled fund obtained by progressive taxes to pay for the health care needs of a single risk pool of all Americans. The original concept of insurance would be revived: using contributions from a very large risk pool to cover the medical costs of the few who are unlucky enough to get sick or injured. Everybody in. Nobody out.
Currently we have 1100 "private" insurance companies competing for profits primarily by limiting their risk pools to only healthy patients. This process results in small risk pools of people who will not cost insurance companies money. Those people who are excluded from insurance are relegated to haphazard and delayed health care. The result is often personal disaster and bankruptcy after a neglected illness becomes advanced and difficult to treat. Those who are able to buy insurance pay a hidden premium tax of 10% to cover the healthcare costs of those who are excluded from private insurance. The societal costs of our current for-profit non-system are staggering in terms of human suffering, financial hardship, and poor health for the populace and the work force.
What is the “public option”? The public plan option refers to a publicly owned and managed health insurance plan that would compete with private plans through an insurance exchange mechanism. An insurance exchange is intended to serve as an insurance shopping mall for policies and allow citizens to choose among many plans. The public option uses tax dollars and graduated subsidized premiums to pay for the health care needs of those Americans who are without insurance or are dissatisfied with their employer-based or individual insurance plans. Theoretically, a public plan would have no need for profits or advertising and would have such economies of buying power that its overhead would be very low. The public plan should therefore be able to out-compete the private plans and provide better service at lower cost.
But unfortunately, the public option will be swimming in shark-infested waters. The private health insurance companies are adept at avoiding risk. They stay in business by excluding customers who might cost them money and by denying services. They over-market the healthy and under-market the sick. They vigorously recruit the healthier clients found in employee groups and assiduously avoid the unemployed, poor, sick, and older Americans who then gravitate to the public plan. Furthermore the public plan will not have the advantages of a single-payer plan because it will remain part of a very fragmented health care system with its associated inefficiencies and administrative costs of 30%. The public plan will therefore become more costly than the private plans, will struggle, and in a few years fail. Opponents will then say, "See, your public plan failed and so will a single-payer plan!"
Members of Congress and the public are beginning to recognize that anything short of single-payer is fiscally irresponsible, unaffordable, and a bailout for the private health insurance industry. The Congressional Budget Office two weeks ago said that Congress's current proposal for healthcare reform HR 3200 will cost $1.3 trillion and leave millions of Americans uninsured. It may be for this reason that Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi last week agreed to allow Representative Weiner (D-NY) to introduce an amendment to HR 3200 (http://pubrecord.org/politics/3105/pelosi-allow-floor-single-payer/) which would basically replace the text of that bill with HR 676, the single-payer bill, which for several years has been sponsored by Rep. Conyers of Michigan. Just allowing that debate on the floor of the House would constitute a major victory for truth and the public, regardless of outcome.
All of us should call and e-mail our Representatives, Senators, and President daily to encourage them to proceed with the debate of single-payer healthcare in both houses of Congress.
Be well. To be otherwise is very expensive.
Mike Huntington MD
Norm Castillo DO
Paul Hochfeld MD
Pardon Me!
The title of this says a lot. Going to doctors has become quite difficult as they and the health care industry is run by the insurance companies, not the needs of a patient or what the doctor thinks is best for his/her patient but by a huge industry set on making money..only!
The GOP is putting out scarey ideas:
the government wants to take over our private lives
the government wants to kill older people
On and on they go while all the time taking money to work not for the people of this country who elected them but for the money, the power to control our lives and our health care.
Let us tell the truth! What IS a Preferred Provider list but simply a list of doctors in the pockets of the insurance industry? Already we are limited to what tests we can get, what treatments we can obtain and why? Because the doctors themselves have been up for sale and bought.
I just changed doctors because of this reason - a doctor that I must pay up front because he is not on The List. Now, finally, a few simple tests will be ordered to keep an eye on my health. With his help perhaps I will have the correct medication. This is life changing, good intelligent health care. But now my husband and I will be punished by the far to big health care insurance company. Who wants to bet they will not cover simple blood tests? Or new meds that work.
All of this is so wrong and thank God we have a President who is willing to go up against the power and fight for us, the patients.
