O T:: IF EVEN PART OF THIS IS TRUE IS SCARY::::::

In Arkansas, you can go to a teaching hospital, but they still bill you and you are expected to pay.  My friend had her last child at the med center and they did not turn her away; they did, however, charged her for every single bandaide.  BTW, she ended up filing bankruptcy over the medical bills for both her and her child.  In this country, in this age, it is a shame that everyone doesn't have coverage.  If you work for a company that employees less than two hundred people, you don't get coverage.  If you are self employeed and try to get insurance, you don't get group rates. 

As far as being hated by other countries, that was Bush's fault.  As soon as he started his war mongering, our popularity rate dropped and that did come from BBC.  I listen to them too and I have not heard one negative thing about this administration other than the what the right wings are spouted.  And if you check Obama's voting record, when he was senator, he voted against the war, the payoffs to the oil companies and big industry, and bailing out the banks.  Unfortunately, when he took office, his regulatioins came after the pay offs started so that is why all of those bailouts were misspent; since, he has made government regulations in the banking industry when government money is involved a requirement. 

I hate that government has to regulate, but honestly I was a nurse too and I had a BSN and worked labor and delivery and it urked my ass to see a young doctor come right out of school making five or six times what I made.  True, they do go a little longer than the BSN and MSN, but the disparity of payoffs for services should not be so great.  That is where the health care budgets go: doctors, specialists, and hospital expansion because you and I both know that it doesn't get in the nurses pockets at the same rate.  With regulation, the hospitals and the doctors will be giving up as much pay as the nurses already give up.  I'm sorry, there is no way in hell a doctor should get 25 thousand dollars for one procedure.  No way.  And look at what they charge to deliver a baby and that is after the insurance pays the office visits and the patients pay their copay.  It is obscene and they can say malpractice insurance all they want but look at what they drive and what you drive.  I'm just saying.  A little government regulation should be in place for the medical community for patients, and the nursing staff. 

And honestly, most of our money goes for copays for my husband, our grands, and medicine for him and me.  His insurance is great and we get excellent treatment, but we still pay our copayments, or he does for himself and he goes at least three or four times a month just for office visists.  Getting his xrays and labs are another ballgame. 

You and I both know that colon cancer can be detected by screening and just like pap smears, you know you need them so scedule them.  Don't wait until you have problems and expect treatment yesterday.  I can say that my husband waited two weeks for his last colonoscopy and he has chrones.  We have five hospitals in our area with excellent equipment but you wait on the doctor no matter what. 

There are horror stories on both sides but I can tell you this, our grands are on our insurance and we pay out the butt because when they were on medicaid, we couldn't get an ear doctor to see our granddaughter.  So, she had these awful infections and no one to put the tubes in and finally we put her on our insurance, kept her on antibiotics, and then she was seen.  Poor people, especially single mothers do not get fair treatment medically in this country.  That's all I am saying.  Even our veterans, come on.  Did you not see the specials done when bush was in office and the poor men and women were lined in the hallways with roaches on their sheets. 

Something needs to be done and I trust the liberals who have always been for social services than the conservatives who have been for each his own.

You made my point.  Colon cancer can be detected early.  Once a simple screening is done you then are scheduled for a colonoscopy.  My friend's father had to wait 11 months for the colonoscopy.
The wait was too long and cost him his life.

You seem to be upset about copays and any other charges.  The government or insurance can't provide totally free health care.  Where will the money come from to pay for health care at no cost to the patient.  I can assure you if workers are taxed to pay for health care for all, workers will stop working.  Have you ever read any books by Ann Ryan?  I may have misspelled her name.  She wrote Atlas Shrugged, John Galt and others.  They are rather long but I think you should read them.

This is    
I do not believe it will pass. It is Communism!
This is why we do not need any racial   we need to all ban together as one to fight this,when America gets screwed,we are all screwed.
I do believe politicians will pass this without reading,they did that with the Patriots Act,and I am already fighting it,I just hesitate to say anything political here,being an African American,people assume I think a certain way,and live a certain way,I have worked 43 years,not to be   screwed now. I am a old activist,and I do not get my news from the TV.

Linda, We agree on a lot of issues, but Obama's plan is not communism; in fact, it is far from communism.  Socialized medicine is a plan for everyone.  Medicare and medicaid is socialized medicine for those who qualify for it and truthfully, Obama wants to regulate not the healthcare industry but the outragous control insurance and doctors have on the cost, the denial of certain people, and all of that.  Don't judge until you have read the entire proposal and we have not had it yet.  We will. 

One of the reasons so many are yelling and stirring up the lower middle class and poor and saying those words like communism and socialized medicine and all of that is because the first line of attack for the rich is to stir up the poor by using scare tactics.  Don't let them maniupulate you until you have read and decided for yourself. 

 

Crap,I wrote you this long letter and lost it! Long story short,don't worry I am watching,and have not made up my mind.
I may even ask you to clarify things for me I do not understand. I just do not blindly follow any politician. I do have a friend who could not get WLS in England even though her doctors documented she would be dead in a year.
I have a girlfriend in China who could not get the meds she needed,after having to go to India to get her WLS,she is on the verge of losing her career,which is a newspaper reporter. She could not get her meds because it was not in the socialized medicine formulary.
I get mad when I do not know complete proposals,why can't we?
So, dear sister,I am watching,and I will ask many questions,some of you.
Hugs.

That's what happens when people vote a man into office without having a clue what he is all about.
No one wanted to hear anything negative about this fella.  It is scary what he wants to do to this country.  I hope people quickly wake up.  There is no telling what else he may try to do.  He has a whole 3 1/2 years left to think of things, provided of course that the people of the US wake up and defeat him in 2012.  We will soon be the United Socialist States of America.  Move over Castro.

I can tell you what he won't do.  He won't start a war with a country just for the oil.  He won't allow torture of men and boys. 

I do not want the government regulating my health care,... period. 

There are some in this country who unfortunately do not have insurance or have too little insurance. Come up with a plan to provide basic and emergency care for those folks, not the whole country. We only need to fix the parts that are broke.

Linday makes some stong, coherant points.