IF WE DO NOT PASS HEALTH INSURANCE REFORM:
Up to 17 million more people will be uninsured by 2019 than today. 1
The average family's health care costs will nearly double by 2020, from $13,000 to $24,000
— meaning they'll be paying a quarter of their income toward health care costs. 2
Insurers can continue the massive and arbitrary premium rate increases we've heard about
recently — such as Anthem Blue Cross raising rates for customers in California by nearly
40%, and rates in Illinois going up by as much as 60%.
As many as 275,000 people could die prematurely over the next 10 years because they
don't have health insurance. 3
Health care costs will take up a staggering amount of our national budget. In 1960, it was 5
percent of gross domestic product (GDP), last year it was 17 percent. Costs will reach 21
percent of our economy by 2020 if we fail to act. 4
Rapidly rising costs will make it harder for employers — particularly small businesses — to
provide quality health insurance to employees, leading many to drop coverage or shift to
plans that cover less. 5
Even those who have insurance today will be less secure, and more likely to lose coverage if
they switch jobs or lose their job due to rising costs on the individual market or being
denied coverage due to a pre-existing condition. 6
1. http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/411965_failure_to_enact.pdf
2. Commonwealth Fund, via NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/weekinreview/28abelson.html
3. Families USA, via NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/weekinreview/28abelson.html
4. http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Content/Blog/The-Costs-of-Failure.aspx
5. http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Content/Blog/The-Costs-of-Failure.aspx
6. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/opinion/07sun1.html?pagewanted=all
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
WOMEN'S DAY POEM
I forget to post this yesterday, but I read it to my poetry group, who enjoyed it, after advising on cuts, which I made. My mother was a Suffragette, marching in Chicago on this same day. Jessie taught me a lot, but obviously not how to pick a husband...
...“peace and stability "can only be achieved with the
participation of women as equal partners with men."
-- The Organization for Security and Cooperation
I laugh, because I had two husbands
Who had no idea how to clean or cook
Who could not change a diaper or feed a child
That was all Women’s work and mine,
Even though I worked all day at a Man’s job
With long hours, as I had to be better
Than the Men if I wanted to keep working.
Long hours, hard work and collapse on Sunday,
Only to have a MAN stand over me and say:
“Where’s lunch, I’m hungry.”
Bless the children, oh great god
(Whom so many in our country believe in)
Convince the poor Women who shrink back
And say “Yes, dear” and keep having children
To only replace themselves, one child each,
And teach their boys to do the dishes
And their employers that they are worth
An even dollar to match each Man’s wage,
Not the seventy-five cents we get now.
Yes, if there is a god, let him show his might,
Help the Women to achieve ‘peace and stability.’
And you might also raise their wages.
Thank you George for your comments. You are very correct.
I do hope that some of the marching both our generations did help, Jess, we can only hope, I suppose; a few men agree with us... including our new president.
...“peace and stability "can only be achieved with the
participation of women as equal partners with men."
-- The Organization for Security and Cooperation
I laugh, because I had two husbands
Who had no idea how to clean or cook
Who could not change a diaper or feed a child
That was all Women’s work and mine,
Even though I worked all day at a Man’s job
With long hours, as I had to be better
Than the Men if I wanted to keep working.
Long hours, hard work and collapse on Sunday,
Only to have a MAN stand over me and say:
“Where’s lunch, I’m hungry.”
Bless the children, oh great god
(Whom so many in our country believe in)
Convince the poor Women who shrink back
And say “Yes, dear” and keep having children
To only replace themselves, one child each,
And teach their boys to do the dishes
And their employers that they are worth
An even dollar to match each Man’s wage,
Not the seventy-five cents we get now.
Yes, if there is a god, let him show his might,
Help the Women to achieve ‘peace and stability.’
And you might also raise their wages.
Thank you George for your comments. You are very correct.
I do hope that some of the marching both our generations did help, Jess, we can only hope, I suppose; a few men agree with us... including our new president.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Louden Wainwright III
One of my favorite singer/songwriters singing about one of my favorite columnists in the New York Times. I miss the Sunday Times, but the delivery guy can't find me, so I can't receive it...sad. But I can now listen to Loudy any time I want to, and I don't have to get out the records, tapes or CDs... he's right here. Wish I had a video of him playing his guitar more... he's very good! Oh... and this is from The New Yorker... I miss then too.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
No Wonder no one Comments (or reads?)
This is absolutely the dullest, most prosaic page on the web. I MUST ask someone how to fix it and make it look like all the other pages I LIKE... I have no idea how to do it. That's what I get for letting myself just slide along and not learning any of the new things that can be done. Terrible... and to think that I used to teach people how to use computers. How did I manage to get so dull?
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
facebook, ah facebook... can be a bit much....
I have a disgusting ad on my facebook page. It is a pic of Ronnie the Ruiner (dressed as a cowboy, of course), put there by a bunch of screaming nutsies (the man who started it is shown screaming in his rather disgusting photo) who obviously weren’t watching as he took the country down, and began the republican/PNAC lovely idea to really ruin the country, so that they could get together with 'leaders' in other countries and I suppose they felt: Rule the World.
What a shame that a group of old white men seem to think they can run the country any way they want. Yet they are elected by a tiny minority of ‘the people,’ as they are allowed the same two senators from the states with the smallest population that we are allowed in the states with the largest population. So MANY of the senators sitting in Congress screaming "NO" and "YOU LIE" and other nasty remarks are elected by a minority of the people of our country. And you may have noticed that the Senate is where things get stuck -- things usually desired by the majority of the people in this country. The old white men elected by the minority of the people of the U.S. will do anything to keep anything attempted for the good of the majority from going through. (Interesting... I highlighted the whole thing, but this would not go to red... very weird!)
Yet they feel they should run the country and hold up decent bills that would be best for us, the majority, who want them. Please notice the difference in the House, where people are elected by the majority of the populace. If they had been heard and been allowed to send their bill to the president at the beginning of the health care debate, we would have universal health care by now. Only the minority of the people are holding this up.
Don't listen to them, or allow them to rule the country by their delaying and underhanded tactics. Get out the vote in your state, sign people up... make sure this rotten minority doesn't take over again. And be sure to VOTE yourself. Remember, as the republicans used to remind us almost daily, the majority does rule... but we must VOTE, in the Primaries and in the General Elections.
And one last little comment... I am so happy to finally have someone in the White House who knows the name of our country, and doesn't say "...and god bless Amurica," but says it correctly:... "God bless the United States of America."
What a shame that a group of old white men seem to think they can run the country any way they want. Yet they are elected by a tiny minority of ‘the people,’ as they are allowed the same two senators from the states with the smallest population that we are allowed in the states with the largest population. So MANY of the senators sitting in Congress screaming "NO" and "YOU LIE" and other nasty remarks are elected by a minority of the people of our country. And you may have noticed that the Senate is where things get stuck -- things usually desired by the majority of the people in this country. The old white men elected by the minority of the people of the U.S. will do anything to keep anything attempted for the good of the majority from going through. (Interesting... I highlighted the whole thing, but this would not go to red... very weird!)
Yet they feel they should run the country and hold up decent bills that would be best for us, the majority, who want them. Please notice the difference in the House, where people are elected by the majority of the populace. If they had been heard and been allowed to send their bill to the president at the beginning of the health care debate, we would have universal health care by now. Only the minority of the people are holding this up.
Don't listen to them, or allow them to rule the country by their delaying and underhanded tactics. Get out the vote in your state, sign people up... make sure this rotten minority doesn't take over again. And be sure to VOTE yourself. Remember, as the republicans used to remind us almost daily, the majority does rule... but we must VOTE, in the Primaries and in the General Elections.
And one last little comment... I am so happy to finally have someone in the White House who knows the name of our country, and doesn't say "...and god bless Amurica," but says it correctly:... "God bless the United States of America."
What a Week.....
And it's only Wednesday! I cannot seem to get everything DONE until around 3am, and therefore cannot seem to get up until afternoon, thus causing the same problem the next day, and on and on. Why is it that there is less time when you have finally retired? And time picks up so fast as one grows older? And you put off the things that you should be doing and start reading all the interesting things you find when googling for info, moving from one to the next, to the next and all of a sudden it is 3am, and you have lost the thought... and have not done any of the should haves?
Oh, well, tonight I will go to bed on time (repeat that 10 times and tell Sylvia to remind you). She just came shooting in, jumped up behind me and settled in to wash herself for the 10th time today (obviously she is psychic). Now my chair will shake with the washing and tail swishing constantly.
I have been cleaning out my mailboxes and had to read the 'what's going on in SF this week note.' Interesting. We have a hip-hop version of Dante's Inferno; a play about origami; the eternal 'Beach Blanket Babylon;' a story about a first grade teacher rescuing her physical therapist from harm (their description is five times longer); a gourmet dinner and show at NYC prices; a Valentine's day cruise; tennis in San Jose; back to the beginning?--Antigone, Phaedra and Oedipus, none in the original however; more cruises--many cruises; comedy, comedy, comedy and so much more, including a whole day of winetasting (they say nothing of how they sober you up to go home). Golly, we sure have lots to do.
I won't be doing any of it... I shall be putting strange old books on my Kindle; thinking about finally hooking up my new TV which has been sitting at the end of my desk, holding up the dragons, which also must be put up on the wall; cooking a bunch of meals from the things that are falling out of my over-filled freezer; listening to a bunch of new CDs; and looking up songs to put on my new purple ipod (all these things from Whitney's huge Amazon credit card she sent me for my birthday -- bless her heart!). So I may never go out again with all the googling and learning how to use all the new stuff.
I adore the Kindle -- I can download all the books from the Gutenberg Website for free (of course, I volunteer at their website, one of the 'jobs' I have chosen to do the 'giving back' that Jessie taught us to do. I am 'proofing' the old books, something I always managed to push off on someone else when I was in advertising... but here it is fun, and you get to read some really interesting old books. Also, new books are a tremendous price for the Kindle -- often books that would cost you $30 to buy are $9.99, as are most from Amazon... or less, and often free. (I fear ABEbooks will miss me... books for the Kindle often are less than from them. I do love ABEbks though, and hate to say it, but just ordered something from them.)
And then there are the two new applications I just got for my Mac... a drawing one that I MUST get to, as I haven't done any drawing in ages, except doing some heads from Charlie Rose programs awhile back -- but in pencil. A couple of them were pretty good, so I want to do some more. Ah, that takes us back in a circle to WHEN do I find time to do...............? What a week, what a month, what a year -- OMG, it is no longer 2009, it is 2010 -- when did that happen?
Oh, well, tonight I will go to bed on time (repeat that 10 times and tell Sylvia to remind you). She just came shooting in, jumped up behind me and settled in to wash herself for the 10th time today (obviously she is psychic). Now my chair will shake with the washing and tail swishing constantly.
I have been cleaning out my mailboxes and had to read the 'what's going on in SF this week note.' Interesting. We have a hip-hop version of Dante's Inferno; a play about origami; the eternal 'Beach Blanket Babylon;' a story about a first grade teacher rescuing her physical therapist from harm (their description is five times longer); a gourmet dinner and show at NYC prices; a Valentine's day cruise; tennis in San Jose; back to the beginning?--Antigone, Phaedra and Oedipus, none in the original however; more cruises--many cruises; comedy, comedy, comedy and so much more, including a whole day of winetasting (they say nothing of how they sober you up to go home). Golly, we sure have lots to do.
I won't be doing any of it... I shall be putting strange old books on my Kindle; thinking about finally hooking up my new TV which has been sitting at the end of my desk, holding up the dragons, which also must be put up on the wall; cooking a bunch of meals from the things that are falling out of my over-filled freezer; listening to a bunch of new CDs; and looking up songs to put on my new purple ipod (all these things from Whitney's huge Amazon credit card she sent me for my birthday -- bless her heart!). So I may never go out again with all the googling and learning how to use all the new stuff.
I adore the Kindle -- I can download all the books from the Gutenberg Website for free (of course, I volunteer at their website, one of the 'jobs' I have chosen to do the 'giving back' that Jessie taught us to do. I am 'proofing' the old books, something I always managed to push off on someone else when I was in advertising... but here it is fun, and you get to read some really interesting old books. Also, new books are a tremendous price for the Kindle -- often books that would cost you $30 to buy are $9.99, as are most from Amazon... or less, and often free. (I fear ABEbooks will miss me... books for the Kindle often are less than from them. I do love ABEbks though, and hate to say it, but just ordered something from them.)
And then there are the two new applications I just got for my Mac... a drawing one that I MUST get to, as I haven't done any drawing in ages, except doing some heads from Charlie Rose programs awhile back -- but in pencil. A couple of them were pretty good, so I want to do some more. Ah, that takes us back in a circle to WHEN do I find time to do...............? What a week, what a month, what a year -- OMG, it is no longer 2009, it is 2010 -- when did that happen?
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