Many Things

I am very pleased that the public is behind Obama on this. Many in both parties in Congress (who owe lots of money to the insurance and pharma lobbyists) want to scuttle the public option. I hope this poll will push the public option over the finish line in Congress. Call your Representatives and Senators...please. In Poll, Wide Support for Government-Run Health - NYTimes.com

This message appeared tonight while I was playing Mafia Wars on Facebook. Somehow, the HTML code appeared. Oops.

Here are a few facts about health care in the US that I recorded while watching a short segment on health care on CNN : France spends $3449 per person per year on health care. The United Kingdom spends $2760 per person per year on health care. Canada spends $3678 per person per year on health care. The United States spends $6714 per person per year on health care. Do we get our money's worth for paying so much extra? You decide: The US ranks 50th in the world in life expectancy. The US ranks 44th in the world in infant mortality. We are spending more on health care partly due to the administrative costs of having so many health care plans. Americans also go to specialists more, which adds to costs. There is more emphasis on prevention in other countries, such as Canada, which reduces the need for health care. I could go on, but these are just the facts I recorded from the short segment. Obviously, there are other reasons for our high costs in the US.

In case you missed it this week, President Obama wrote a teacher's note for a child during one of his town hall appearances. The story and video are here if you want to know more. What has not been reported, or if so, I haven't seen it, is what was written on the back of the note. Now it can be revealed. Town Hall meeting Grab a burger with brown mustard - Don't tell Michelle Tell Congress to pass health care Take Michelle on date in Rome on next European adventure - This is a lot of fun Buy arugula at Fresh Market Remind everyone again that I inherited this mess from Bush Buy a new teleprompter Sneak out for a smoke - Don't tell Michelle or reporters

I'm pleased to announce that my friend Susan in Austin, TX has agreed to blog on Many Things. Susan and I worked together for several years and became friends. Even though we now live many miles apart, we still keep up with each other via Facebook, Twitter, and email. Please join me in welcoming Susan to this blog. I know you will enjoy her posts.

I think I have 99% recovered from my surgery now. However, I am now getting the avalanche of statements, insurance forms, etc. from that surgery. Why is it more often the case that the paperwork is more of a pain than surgery? An acquaintance sent me an email this week calling me a "fucking bitch" and told me to "get a job." Apparently, she was upset at some of my blog postings, saying that some of my posts were "hateful." I get the irony here. Someone calls my writings hateful, yet she sends me an email calling me a "fucking bitch." I feel sad for her. No loss for me. I've lost no sleep over it. And speaking of sleep, I guess the surgery and anesthesia after-effects have caused me to sleep more. I slept until 11 AM today, and I never sleep that late on a weekend. Of course, I cut the grass and did other yard work on Saturday, so maybe that was part of it. I still have some job leads. It would be nice to be able to go out and "get a job,...

I've advocated for a universal single-payer health care system for years. It is the only system that can reign in health care costs because it eliminates profit from the equation. Therein lies the reason it will not pass. Even if the Democrats held well more than a 60-vote majority in the Senate, no such bill would pass. Every Republican in the Senate has gone on record to oppose an expansion of the Medicare system to cover everyone, even a gradual expansion that would phase in different demographic groups over time. Many Democrats would join the Party of No on such a vote. But it will never come to a vote. Few Democrats really want to go on record against universal health care. It angers us liberals and progressives in the party. They won't bring it up for a vote. The public option was not even brought up in hearings before the Senate Finance Committee. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) told leading advocates of a government-financed health care system tha...

Paul Krugman has a brilliant op-ed piece in the NY Times on why Reagan is to blame for much of the financial mess of today. Here is an excerpt: The change in America’s financial rules was Reagan’s biggest legacy. And it’s the gift that keeps on taking. The immediate effect of Garn-St. Germain, as I said, was to turn the thrifts from a problem into a catastrophe. The S.& L. crisis has been written out of the Reagan hagiography, but the fact is that deregulation in effect gave the industry — whose deposits were federally insured — a license to gamble with taxpayers’ money, at best, or simply to loot it, at worst. By the time the government closed the books on the affair, taxpayers had lost $130 billion, back when that was a lot of money. But there was also a longer-term effect. Reagan-era legislative changes essentially ended New Deal restrictions on mortgage lending — restrictions that, in particular, limited the ability of families to buy homes without putting a significant amount...