What Do We Really Know About the Uninsured?
We should find out before Obama turns our health care upside-down.
Next year, when Barack Obama becomes president, he will almost certainly move quickly toward some form of government-provided -- and possibly government-mandated -- health insurance. A principal reason for this is the oft-cited figure of 46 million uninsured Americans.

But what does this number mean? And do we really need to remake our entire health-care system to protect the uninsured? Most people have an incomplete understanding of the uninsured population, which can lead to bad policy choices.

Many Americans believe that the uninsured are too poor to purchase coverage and that government programs aren't available to them. But a study published in Health Affairs in November 2006 estimated that 25% of the uninsured were in fact eligible for public coverage, and another 20% probably could afford coverage on their own. If we apply those percentages to today's uninsured population, roughly 25 million people would need assistance in order to get health insurance.

That's a major concern. But the notion that there are 46 million Americans who can't get the health care they need for lack of money or public assistance is a myth.

The other two common misperceptions are that the uninsured don't get health care, and that when they do they're "free riders," i.e., they don't pay for the care they get.

A study published by the California HealthCare Foundation (CHCF) in April 2000 found that, of the uninsured California residents whose household income was at least twice the poverty level, 50% (about 1.3 million) had received care in the last year for which they were charged, and another 8% had received care for which they weren't charged. The study also found that 89% of these people were either somewhat or very satisfied with the care they received, and that only 15% went to the emergency room versus a doctor's office or clinic when they got sick.

Another recent study, published in Health Affairs in August, had similar findings, and estimated that uninsured Americans will receive $86 billion worth of health care in 2008.

These two studies also provide evidence that disputes the free-rider myth. The CHCF study found that of the 1.3 million uninsured who received care for which they were charged, 80% had paid for it, and almost half of the remaining 20% were paying in installments. The study published in Health Affairs estimated that the uninsured would pay for $30 billion of their health-care costs this year -- more than one-third -- out of pocket.

For the millions of the uninsured, then, who are getting and paying for satisfactory care on their own, foregoing needed care and sticking the public with huge ER bills is a myth.
Most of the proposals under discussion today involve a significant expansion of government programs, a legal requirement for everyone to carry insurance, or a combination of the two. But if millions of people have found ways to access and pay for satisfactory health care without involving an insurance company, is forcing them to buy traditional insurance an effective solution?

Perhaps we should look for ways to encourage the millions of people who are currently eligible for existing government programs to enroll before we expand programs to include people that may not need assistance.

Providing and funding care for those who have truly fallen through the cracks should be an urgent priority. But given the demands on state and federal budgets today, it's more important than ever to tailor solutions so limited resources can provide the most relief possible.

Come Jan. 20, President Obama and Congress should do all they can to separate myth from fact before tackling America's health-care problems.

The More Things "Change" the More They Stay the Same....

Hillary Clinton: Sec of State

Rahm Emanuel: Clinton advisor

Eric Holder: Clinton Deputy Attny General



Holder Top Prospect for Attorney General

Rich, of course, was the commodities trader who fled the country in 1983 to escape prosecution for tax evasion, racketeering, and trading with the enemy. Rich’s attorneys circumvented normal procedures, took the pardon to the White House attorneys, and gained pardon for their client, whose wife just happened to be a friend and major donor to the Clinton library, the Democratic Party, and Clinton’s legal defense fund. A firestorm ensued as did congressional investigations in which Democrats as well as Republicans excoriated the Clintons’ conduct. The federal prosecutors who indicted Rich are especially livid, particularly because, by definition, Rich appears to be ineligible for a pardon: He never took responsibility for his actions or served any sentence. The congressional panels were called to investigate the path to Rich’s pardon — which, as various documents seem to indicate, did not follow usual channels. In testimony Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, U.S. pardon attorney Roger Adams says when the White House sent over Rich’s name for pardon consideration — only a few hours before the president was due to leave office — there was never any mention of Rich being a fugitive.


Holder’s role is not in dispute. Without him this travesty would likely not have occurred, as described:



Mr. Holder, the [Congressional] report says, played a major role, steering Mr. Rich’s lawyers toward Jack Quinn, a former White House counsel. Mr. Rich hired Mr. Quinn, whose Washington contacts and ability to lobby the president made the difference, according to the report. It says that Mr. Holder’s support for the pardon and his failure to alert prosecutors of a pending pardon were just as crucial. …

The panel criticized Mr. Holder’s conduct as unconscionable and cited several problems. It cited his admission last year that he had hoped Mr. Quinn would support his becoming attorney general in a Gore administration.-from , March 13, 2002


No less than Maureen Dowd remarked that on this one the Clintons:

perverted the legal system and may have traded a constitutional power for personal benefit. … The Clintons ran a cash-and-carry White House. They were either hawking stuff or carting it off.


So to be clear, Holder helped steer the attorney for Rich, a fugitive whose pardon request would likely have been rejected through normal channels due to his status as a fugitive, to the man Holder wanted assistance with in getting his next job. Now there’s a man who knows something about conflicts of interest.


Eric H. Holder Jr., a former second in command at the Justice Department who served as President-elect Barack Obama's campaign co-chairman, is almost certain to be selected as U.S. attorney general, according to knowledgeable Democratic sources.

Holder recommended to Bill Clinton when he served as Pres Clinton’s Dep. Attny General that he should pardon fugitive Marc Rich. Rich was a fugitive from justice in Switzerland at the time and his Rich’s wife promised millions of dollars for Clinton’s library as well.

This is how dangerous this situation can get....
In an WSJ Op-Ed, titled
"How to Put the Squeeze on Iran", WSJ 11/13/08
Cutting off its gasoline imports may be the only peaceful (my emphasis) way to get Tehran to abandon its nuclear weapons program.- ORDE F. KITTRIE, professor of law at Arizona State University and a fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He previously worked for 11 years at the U.S. Department of State, including as a specialist on nuclear nonproliferation and sanctions.
----The writer should know that embargoes - esp. on fuel, are -far from being "peaceful", but rather are considered to be an act of war. In the 1930s the US initiated an embargo on fuel to Japan which led Japan to plan for Pearl Harbor....

A Barack Market
The voters may be full of hope about the looming Obama Presidency, but so far investors aren't. No President-elect in the postwar era has been greeted with a more audible hiss from Wall Street. The Dow has lost 1,342 points, or about 14%, since the election, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq hitting similar skids. The Dow fell another 4.7% yesterday.
The substance of what Mr. Obama has promised for the economy is bearish for stocks. The threat of higher tax rates, especially on capital gains and dividends, now may be getting priced into the market….in other words with Obama planning on hiking the capital gains tax, investors are selling before the end of this year when higher rates will take effect.
Add that to investor doubts about Democratic policies on unions, health care and trade -- and no wonder stocks are falling. Lower stock prices in turn reduce household net worth, thus slamming consumer confidence and contributing to what appears to be a consumer spending strike.

Mandate? What mandate?

Did you know that Barack Obama got 40,000 fewer votes in Ohio than John Kerry did 4yrs earlier?...Obama won the state only because Ohio Republicans didn't show up at the polls - only 30%, a record low, of registered Republicans voted in Ohio.

---Overall, about the same percentage of registered voters came out this year as in 2004

Nancy Pelosi Shows Her Intelligence (lack thereof)

Remember when Treasury Secretary Paulson famously,following his meeting with House Speaker Pelosi for the first time said "she is the dumbest person I have ever met"....well,

Pelosi recently claimed to support the expanded use of natural gas "as a clean, cheap alternative to fossil fuels".

Natural gas is, of course, a fossil fuel.
Her spokesman was forced to employ a variant of the "she's not stupid" defense, the "she knew that all along " defense.

Here's another,
She opposed a bill to ban federal funding for seizures of property by eminent domain. Pelosi said she opposed the bill because she didn't want to cut funding "for the enforcement of any decision of the Supreme Court". But the court, in its Kelo decision, had merely ruled that governments could legally take properties by eminent domain. It didn't rule that such takings must be funded.

You probably haven't heard of these Pelosi "gaffes”,”errors" , "signs of intelligence", etc. only because her last name isn't "Palin" but then again she is third in line to the presidency!

A SIGN OF WHAT IS TO COME....CONSIDER YOURSELF FOREWARNED!

For those that may have been hoodwinked into thinking the next US govt won’t be the most liberal ever consider what personnel changes are being made just days after the election….

John Dingell and Joe Lieberman are loyal Democrats. Dingell is holding down the party's right flank on energy, and Mr. Lieberman in foreign affairs. Now they're targets, and the retribution speaks volumes about the direction of liberal politics. California Democrat Henry Waxman kicked things off the morning after Barack Obama's victory, with an announcement that he will seek the chairmanship of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee. The post is currently held by Mr. Dingell, the bulldog Michigander who next year will become the longest-serving Member in U.S. history. In Congressional physics, seniority is gravity, which alone makes Mr. Waxman's challenge extraordinary.
It is even more so because it is a coup d'etat against a climate-change moderate. For environmentalists, Mr. Dingell is a wet blanket because his committee will write any global-warming legislation. The word on the Hill is that Mr. Waxman enjoys the tacit support of übergreen Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who dislikes Dingell's independence. In media shorthand, Dingell's approach to climate change is called "industry friendly." Apparently, this is because his principles include words like "realistic" and "achievable" and "cost containment." An ally of the Detroit auto makers, he does not pretend that putting a price on carbon will be painless and fun. He also knows that well-to-do redoubts such as Mr. Waxman's Beverly Hills won't bear the heaviest burden. It will fall instead on blue-collar, middle-American regions that rely on manufacturing or coal-fired power
Even so, Mr. Dingell's committee has held nearly 30 hearings on climate change since his party took power. In October, he released a cap-and-trade bill that aims to reduce emissions to 80% below 2005 levels by 2050. Incredibly enough, even that huge cut counts as a liberal heresy. The greens demand 80% below 1990 levels by 2050 -- a meaningless distinction considering that four decades is a political and technological eternity.
Then again, compared to Mr. Waxman, just about anyone could be mistaken for an Exxon executive. The Congressman has spent the last year trying to dragoon the Environmental Protection Agency into imposing an economy-wide carbon clampdown under current clean-air laws, an idea Mr. Obama also backs. But Mr. Dingell dares to point out that these laws -- passed in 1970, 1977 and 1990 -- were never written to include CO2. He should know. He wrote them.
The point is not only to humiliate a nuisance. Installing Mr. Waxman at Energy and Commerce would mean a far more aggressive push on global warming next year. It would also send a warning to the Blue Dogs and rural-state Democrats who might not fall in with the Obama-Pelosi energy agenda.

Black Pope could follow Barack Obama's election, says US archbishop


The election of Barack Obama as the first African-American US President could pave the way for the election of the first black Pope, according to a leading black American Catholic.

Wilton Daniel Gregory, 60, the Archbishop of Atlanta, said that in the past Pope Benedict XVI had himself suggested that the election of a black pontiff would "send a splendid signal to the world" about the universal Church.

Archbishop Gregory, who in 2001 became the first African American to head the US Bishops Conference, serving for three years, said that the election of Obama was "a great step forward for humanity and a sign that in the United States the problem of racial discrimination has been overcome". Like Mr Obama Archbishop Gregory comes from Chicago, and was previously Bishop of Belleville, Illinois.

He said that recent Popes, beginning with John XXIII and Paul VI, had brought prelates "from all nations and races" to Rome to take up senior positions in the Curia, the Vatican hierarchy. This offered "an international vision of a Church rich in diversity", he told the Italian newspaper La Stampa.

Pope Benedict — whose next encyclical is on globalisation and social justice — had a "world outlook" as a theologian whose thought had "opened hearts and minds on five continents", Archbishop Gregory said. The former Joseph Ratzinger, who as a young man in his native Germany had witnessed "the horrors of the Second World War", spoke a "universal language".

Archbishop Gregory said that the next time cardinals gathered to elect a Pope they could "in their wisdom" choose an African pontiff. "My own election as head of the US Bishops Conference was an important signal. In 2001 the American bishops elected someone they respected regardless of his race, and the same thing could happen with the election of a Pope."

He said that in a papal conclave, the cardinal-electors were "guided by the Holy Spirit to choose the person who best responds to the exigences of the moment". At the last conclave in 2005, after the death of John Paul II, it was widely thought that the cardinals would choose a Third World pontiff, perhaps from Africa or Latin America.

The choice of Cardinal Ratzinger, who had been at John Paul II's side for over twenty years as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, was seen by many as a vote for a man who embodied continuity and had stressed the need to shore up the faith in the West itself in an age of secularism and materialism.

This week Pope Benedict XVI congratulated Mr Obama on his "historic" victory, offering his prayers for the President-elect "and for all the people of the United States".

Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said that the Pope's message was "personal" and would therefore not be published. However he said that the papal message referred to the "historic occasion" of the election and congratulated Mr Obama, his wife and family.

"He assured him of his prayers that God would help him with his high responsibilities for his country and for the international community," Father Lombardi said. The Pope had also prayed that "the blessing of God would sustain him and the American people so that with all people of good will they could build a world of peace, solidarity and justice." The message was sent via Mary Ann Glendon, the US ambassador to the Holy See.


How on earth can Archbishop Gregory say it is "a great step forward for humanity" to elect a man (of any color) with a 100% pro-abortion record, who voted against assistance for unborn children who survive abortions, and who seeks to repeal every state and federal restriction on abortion?
Not to mention Obama saying that if his daughters got pregnant that he wouldn't want them be "punished for their mistake" ...some people believe creating life is gift from God and has nothing to do with "punishment" ...

“Look, I got two daughters — 9 years old and 6 years old,” he said. “I am going to teach them first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby. I don’t want them punished with an STD at age 16, so it doesn’t make sense to not give them information.”-Obama @ Obama’s town hall meeting in Johnstown, Penn. March 2008

Not to mention the fact that there have technically already been three African Popes... Pope Victor I, Pope Miltiades, and Pope Gelasius I. Aside from this, I' m not sure one can really make the argument that the Universal Church is taking its cues on ethic diversity from the United States.

What is your tax benefit that you will be getting from President Obama?
Go to this webpage and see if you’ll benefit from Obama’s tax cuts for “95% of all workers”…promised tax rates “less than they were under Ronald Reagan”. The exit polls showed that among the 70% of voters who believe their taxes will go up under Obama, 55% voted for McCain. Democrats raise taxes in a recession at their peril.
I suspect that this link on Obama’s homepage will be taken down as soon as reality sets in just like Biden’s link on his webpage which pushed for splitting Iraq into 4 different regions as soon as Iraq situation started to get better.

What Obama promises “me’: