Welcome to Adobe GoLive 6

In the beginning, when settlers first arrived on the North American Continent it made sense that they needed to fend for themselves. They cleared access to the property they claimed, then had to provide for water, light and heat. It was everyone for himself and his family. Even law enforcement was provided by their Colt and Winchester.

But after more and more people moved closer and closer together, they found it advantageous to pool their resources to dramatically improve their lives and well being. They built more permanent roads, built power plants and water supplies. They organized police forces to protect them from outsiders, or anyone who wished them harm. They even realized that they have become a community and needed to get organized and stay organized, and elected a city council and a mayor, and judges to settle any disputes.

In fact, they became a society who had a common goal to make life better for themselves and their community. They socialized (def: to make social; make fit for life in companionship with others.).

Life became more and more complicated, people became ill and people died and did not know why. They just said they died from 'normal causes', until more and more medical advances were made and they discovered that death is caused by something other than 'normal'. And to take advantage of all of the latest innovations they built hospitals, because they realized that all people could not individually afford all of the latest contraptions. People paid for services received, but many, especially the poor could not afford the expense so again they realized that if they pooled resources and set aside some money before a catastrophe happened, that treatment could be affordable for those who needed it.

Eventually capitalism emerged. The mother of capitalism is greed. It is the notion that people had to revert to the concept of the past, of 'everything for me', the urge to conserve what was in the past. The 'I know better how to do everything', but they did accept some of the things which would have cost them more than they could save. They accepted 'socialized' police, utilities, schooling, military, and after much struggling, screaming and fighting, they accepted some social programs like Social Security after too many were left destitute after the Great Depression, Medicare for the elderly who had no resources to pay for ever increasing cost of elder care. Even the military veterans have their own medical services they can turn to, as do members of government. The last two are enjoying the best care a nation can provide.

The capitalists, in their zeal to make money and get richer and richer, decided that they needed to not only make money off commodities, insurance was in their sight. They created publicly operated insurance companies, whose goal is not to provide for the population, but to make money for investors, and in the process for those running the companies, the CEOs, CFOs, all the other C's, President and Members of the boards, Investors and stock traders. Millions, Billions of dollars are siphoned off every year, not to pay medical expenses, but to buy mansions, yachts, exotic automobiles, vacation resorts and more for the obscenely, filthy rich. All from the moneys that poor people had to scratch and save to provide for their emergency medical necessities and those of their loved ones.

They never realized, nor would they care, that a life is not a commodity (def: 'an article of trade or commerce, esp. a product as distinguished from a service'). They cling to the belief that the government cannot run anything, except that no one in government, retiree or veteran is willing to forego the security of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Except that those in government do not want it for the working class people, thousands of whom are losing their insurance because they can no longer afford it or have lost their job along with the company provided health insurance. Yet law mandates that Hospital Emergency Rooms accept patients whether they can pay or not, causing many to either add additional [hidden] charges to those able to pay to make up for the non-payers, or close their Emergency Room Service altogether.

Currently, those who can afford it, pay insurance premiums [I have heard as high as $18,000/yr], 35% of which do not go to medical care, but to overhead, including investors. Government run services have an overhead of $3%. So let's suppose that the $18,000 payer could get into a government run Healthcare his premium would only be $11,700. What would he do with the $6,300 he saved? A: Invest it in a commodity. (This scenario would only apply if the government would levy a tax/premium on all - as of today it is unclear how it would be financed).

Naysayers also throw out that Medicare and Social Security are 'BROKE'. Well they are not broke. The FDIC did not go broke with all the bank failures, but financing is needed and should be provided. FIRST: All the Excess Contributions that were diverted to the General Fund need to be repaid to Social Security. SECOND: Social Security and Medicare should do what insurance companies are great at doing: RAISE THE RATES in order to pay for the services whose costs are continually driven up by capitalistic practices.

Finally there are those who claim that the government does not pay the entire fee of doctors, clinics and hospitals. My personal monthly Medicare contribution (not including Part D.) is $96. Providers require payment for the other 20% via personal funds or supplementary insurance for which I pay $164/mo. Understand that Medicare charges me $24 per 20% of coverage, whereas an insurance company (United Health) charges me $164 for 20% of coverage. Personally I would gladly pay another $24 to Medicare, plus another $24 just for good measure just so I can dump my secondary coverage and have Medicare pay providers at $100%

If you can stand to listen to some of these people riling up against Health Insurance Reform, you are either equally malinformed, or you don't understand the issues. The droning goes on and on by self-proclaimed three-time school drop out Hannity, Beck who said no one in his family has been educated. Then there are Dick Morris, Laura Ingraham, Michelle Malkin and more, the experts on absolutely everything, also Karl Rove who was great in helping to get us into two wars. Why are people not listening to Dr. Howard Dean, Dr. Tom Daschle, Nobel Laureate Paul Krugmen, Wendell Potter, those who actually know what they are talking about.

So when Reagan proclaimed that 'Government is not the solution, Government is the problem', he had it exactly backwards. Reaganomics is the problem, and those who cling to his ideology are the ones who are causing great harm to this country. Tax cuts after tax cuts do not pay for the services the country needs. Just look at many of the states, especially California. If you and your children are starving, you need more income not less. The claim that tax cuts increase revenue is woefully proved wrong just looking at the deficits of Reagan and Bush.

In modern day America no one has done more for the country and it's people than FDR, Truman, the Kennedys, Lyndon Johnson, Bill Clinton and now Barack Obama.

1933-1945 - Franklin D. Roosevelt (D) New Deal, Soc Sec
1945-1953 - Harry Truman (D) UN, expand Soc Sec, Fair Deal
1953-1961 - Dwight D. Eisenhower (R)
1961-1963 - John F. Kennedy (D) Longest expanse since WW II, Equal rights, arts and culture, Peace Corps, human rights, stood down Russia in Cuba
1963-1969 - Lyndon B. Johnson (D) Great Society
1969-1974 - Richard M. Nixon (R) Scandal
1974-1977 - Gerald Ford (R) pardoned the Crook
1977-1981 - Jimmy Carter (D) Peace in our time
1981-1989 - Ronald Reagan (R) Record Deficits and National Debt. Brought in Religious Right.
1989-1993 - George W.H. Bush (R) Added to deficits until he raised taxes
1993-2001 - William J. Clinton (D) Great economy. Budget surplus
2001-2009 - George W. Bush (R) Record Deficits and National Debt. Squandered surplus on the rich. Also religious zealots.

Most galling was the fact that I contributed to the surplus during Clinton's terms, but was retired when Bush II came in, and I got nothing - zip - zero - nada - nichts - rien.