New Mexico Daily Lobo
URL: http://www.dailylobo.com/index.php/article/2009/11/students_organize_health_care_rally
Current Date: Tue, 22 May 2012 05:02:31 -0600
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Students organize health care rally
With the health care debate sweeping the nation, four UNM graduate students have united to organize a rally in favor of a public option.
Justin Thompson, Erica Martinez, Amber Whiting, and Angelica Baca started organizing the event as part of a course, Thompson said. But the four soon went beyond the basic class requirements because they were so passionate about the topic of their project.
“We were able to make a coalition of student organizations, a sort of student front,” he said. “The fact that the issue impacted us so much that we took on a demonstration ourselves is a big deal, and people were glad to see us doing it.”
Martinez said the event will allow students to get information about the public option and get involved in the issue.
The group will have petitions to congress representatives and phone banks to call legislators, as well as notable speakers including doctors, UNM professors and Julie Heinrich, wife of Congressman Martin Heinrich.
Martinez said health care is one of the biggest issues in the country, and students need to know how it impacts them.
“The four of us came together and decided that this was important to us, and we also realized a lot of students don’t really know the ins and outs of a public health care reform,” she said. “They don’t even know what a public option really is, and we want to inform them because it is an important issue.”
Student Lyanette Martinez said she isn’t informed about the public option and is grateful for the students’ efforts.
“I think it’s great. They must be very motivated,” she said. “We need people like that because I know I couldn’t do it.”
Martinez said the group also aims to point out that health care reform is necessary to keep America healthy and thriving.
“A public option is going to be what makes health insurance companies honest because they will be forced to keep their rates low and won’t be able to deny coverage for ridiculous so-called pre-existing conditions, “ she said. “It’s also an affordability
issue because a lot of people can’t afford health insurance.”
Freshman Calvin Keller said he’s impressed with the work these four students have done.
“I think its great that students that aren’t obligated by an organization got together to do something for what they believe in,” he said. “I will definitely stop by and see how it all goes.”
Thompson said grassroots movements like this are part of the role of college students in society.
“Students are the muscle behind movements. It’s what we do,” he said. “It’s our role as students to participate when we become passionate about things. It’s a historic role and I think it’s sacred.”
The road to making the event happen has not been easy, Thompson said, but in the end it was worth it.
“It’s been a rocky process because none of us have organized (an event) before,” he said. “It’s definitely been a great learning process for the four of us.”
*Students Unite for Health Care Reform
Today, noon to 2 p.m.
SUB Atrium
*
PULL QUOTE: “Students are the muscle behind movements, it’s what we do. It’s our role as students to participate when we become passionate about things. It’s a historic role and I think it’s sacred.”
Student Justin Thompson
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29 comments
Obama ZOMBIES!
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Thompson: “Students are the muscle behind movements.” BUT ONLY IF YOU HAD ANY BRAINS!
Obamaism is a CULT and I bet these students went to see Obama and were in awe as if they saw a GOD! When he’s on TV, they bow as they can barely breathe!
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They follow his every word just like the CULT followers of Jim Jones!
ZOMBIES ALL!
Did they read 1900 pg Bill?
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It will surely take some “MUSCLE” just to lift that Bill that no one in Congress has read yet. Some health care media people have tried to read it and they say it’s extremely confusing. For example: #7777: Blah blah blah refer to 9999. Go to 9999: blah blah blah refer to 3333 and 2222 only when blah blah blah so go to 8888.
This is like doing a research paper so you google your topic and there are blue lettered word all over the article which means they are the links to prove that particular sentence. Then you click on that word and that article if full of blue words and links. Your research has no ending.
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THESE STUDENTS CAN TAKE ENOUGH TIME FROM THEIR GRADUATE STUDIES TO READ THE BILL SO THEY CAN HOLD A RALLY BASED ON FACTS?
THE BLIND LEADING THE BLIND!
ONE trillion dollar BLACKHOLE!
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We all know what a “Blackhole” is right? Planets, stars, etc… are sucked into the Blackhole where even light can’t escape.
This health care push is a BLACKHOLE that if only A LIGHT would shine on it, everyone, but the brainwashed, would see THE LIGHT!
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One trillion dollars and even 1.2 Trillion dollars is mentioned at the cost. But just like any farce, no one mentions what the costs are to continue it for years.
There was a letter to the editor last week where a UNM student got free care in Spain but she didn’t bother to mention the high taxes. Also important is that she bragged about how well she was treated. THE HOSPITAL WORKERS KNEW SHE WAS AMERICAN SO THEY WAITED ON HER LIKE SHE WAS A MOVIE STAR! BUT THIS WAS AFTER THIS STUDENT HAD A BREAKDOWN AND A PYSCHIATRIST HAD TO VISIT HER TO CALM HER DOWN. NOW THAT’S AN AMERICAN BITCH!!! THE WORKERS PROBABLY SPIT ON HER, AND HER FOOD, WHILE SHE WAS ASLEEP!
WHAT DEGREES ARE THESE STUDENTS GETTING?
Has Heinrich read Bill?
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Have any of our Senators and Congressmen read the Bill? Of course, just reading it doesn’t mean you understand it and can recite any of its rules.
All of them support the Public Option even after a majority of people in their Town Halls opposed it. They held the Town Halls to listen to the people’s concerns but that was a lie since in the end, they took their ear plugs out and said that they support the Bill with the Public Option. They didn’t care what the people said since they won the election which is a mandate “for change.”
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It would take a Cray Supercomputer to read this Bill and even it would say “DOES NOT COMPUTE! DOES NOT COMPUTE! DOES NOT COMPUTE!”
slowhike
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I would rather see my fellow students organize and support a more worthy version of health care reform than the “public option”. If one chooses to fly to New York does the government set the rate, no the airlines do, and if you want to go bad enough, you pay the rate they charge. If you want a hair cut you can go to one of the quickie places and pay a little and get a substandard hair cut or you can go to a reputable hair solon and pay a standard rate and hopefully get a style you like. Why should the government tell hospitals and doctors what they can charge?
Have you been to get a driver’s license lately? A passport? Have any of you ever waited for services at the UNMH Emergency Room? How about a Swine Flu Shot- have you been able to find one of those government controlled babies yet?
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The truth is we would all like to see everyone get the health care they need; but many of us do not believe the government is capable of running the program. We also think that given the state of Medicare and what it’s done to reduce the number of doctors that will see Medicare patients because of the reimbursement is the lowest of any third party payor that the same would happen with a public option. We all want health care reform, but the ideological way that the White House and the Democrats like Pelosi are going about it are incorrect.
Marxism is back and alive!
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It seems that the Great Experiment that the Soviets and Eastern Europe tried was proven a failure but at American Universities, they didn’t get the memo that the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain FELL and with it, its system. The 20th anniversary of the fall of the Wall is on the 9th and instead of celebrating, our professors, and their brainwashed students, will probably hold a candlelight vigil at the duckpond. The ducks will be screaming “QUACK QUACK QUACK!”
Obama is a product of this COMMUNIST brainwashing from a young age with his mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, A COMMUNIST, and his college days at COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY. He aligned himself with known COMMUNIST-FRONT groups and their members. Many of these groups had direct and indirect ties to the Soviet KGB which was funding our Communist Party USA (CPUSA) which also had ties to the Cuban DGI!
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Even after the fall of the Soviet Union, the CPUSA AND THEIR DUPES AND DOPES, CONTINUED TO DREAM OF A COMEBACK! THEY GOT THEIR DREAM, OUR NIGHTMARE, WITH BARACK OBAMA, HILLARY CLINTON, MANY DEMOCRATS/CLOSET COMMUNISTS IN CONGRESS, AND OUR UNIVERSITY FACULTY AND THEIR BRAINWASHED STUDENTS!
Robin of Berkeley
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I’m amazed by the soothsayers: Ayn Rand, for instance, who warned us fifty years ago of the risk of dictatorship or civil war if collectivism persisted. Or economist Friedrich Hayek, who wrote in the 1940s that we’ll become serfs if we move toward big government.
However, what feels most prophetic lately is an obscure movie from the l970s called Little Murders. The writer, Pulitzer-Prize-winning cartoonist Jules Feiffer, predicted that the ’60s would unleash a feral, primitive society.
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The movie has a checkered history. It started out as a play on Broadway in the mid-‘60s that was such a bomb, it closed after seven performances.
Audiences were shocked and horrified by the apocalyptic world presented. At the time, New York’s elite were celebrating the sexual revolution and the loosening of social mores. In contrast, Feiffer envisioned an eventual train wreck — a nihilistic world of little and big murders of the soul.
The failed play was relocated to England, where it became a big hit. It was produced for the big screen in 1971, starring some fledgling actors such as Elliot Gould, Donald Sutherland, and Alan Arkin.
A dark comedy, Little Murders depicts a society gone mad, replete with frequent homicides and crushing insults to the spirit.
The film’s moral compass is Patsy, a young woman who still bubbles over with optimism and love amidst the madness.
(Warning: I’m going to spoil the ending.)
By the end of the film, when Patsy is killed, her family finally cracks. They, like so many others, degenerate into a violent, ape-like state.
I’ve been thinking about the movie this week and the nightmare-world Feiffer forecast after learning of a horrendous crime near me in Richmond, CA.
There’s so much crime out here that most of the time, the residents are numb. We have waves of takeover restaurant robberies and you barely hear a peep.
And when a teacher was beaten and stoned a few months ago during her class at Portola Middle School in El Cerrito (minutes from Berkeley) a small article was buried in the local paper. Many in the leftist community defended the youths as victims of white privilege, and some even blamed the teacher.
But then, last weekend, there was a crime so evil that no one could brush it off.
At a homecoming dance at Richmond High School (in the same district as the middle school stoning), a fifteen-year-old girl was beaten and gang-raped for over two hours while a crowd from the dance watched, laughed, and photographed the scene. No one called the cops.
The girl was left unconscious, dumped under a bench. She had to be airlifted to a specialty hospital.
The so-called experts fault the usual suspects: absentee parents, indigence, drug-infested schools, and herd behavior. One teacher indicts the media’s sexual exploitation of women. A parent of one of the arrested youths blames racism.
But there was hardship, alcoholism, bad parents, sexism, and teenagers fifty years ago without such mayhem.
And many other countries have worse poverty, but lower crime rates. Crime is scant in India because for one, most Indians are Hindus or Sikhs and believe in reincarnation. Also, as an Indian friend told me, once you’re jailed in India, you make sure you never go back.
It’s easier to blame society than face the deep, dark truth: we’ve created a nation filled to the brim with sociopaths (also known as antisocial personalities).
I recently read a book called The Narcissism Epidemic. It reports the high number of narcissists among the young and contends that their condition is aided and abetted by self-esteem training.
True, but the theory feels a bit dated. The biggest danger now is a sociopathic epidemic.
While narcissists are selfish, annoying people, their humanity is still in place. They possess a conscience and can feel guilt and shame. Most people in power have some degree of narcissism.
Sociopaths are a different breed entirely. Here are some common features: callous disregard for others, superficial charm, pathological self-centeredness, lying and manipulation, irritability and aggression, lack of remorse or guilt, cruelty, ingratitude, and antisocial behavior.
O.J. Simpson and Bernie Madoff are obvious sociopaths. But the callous and the cruel may also have antisocial tendencies, such as Mike Malloy, a liberal Talk Radio host who said on air that he hopes Glenn Beck will commit suicide like Beck’s mom; or actress Sandra Bernhardt, who wished a gang rape on Sarah Palin.
What’s the difference between a sociopath and a narcissist? It goes to intent. John Edwards wanted to indulge his sensual pleasures, and he made his own needs front and center. That’s selfishness, narcissism. If he were purposely trying to destroy his wife, that’s sociopathy.
How far up the ladder in DC does sociopathy go? It’s anyone’s guess since the Teleprompter controls how much we know about Obama.
But have you noticed the surge in antisocial behavior since Obama came on the scene, like the wilding of Hillary and Sarah and the emboldening of thugs, from SEIU to the New Black Panthers?
We do know that Obama had a closer relationship with two sociopaths — Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn — than he let on. The demented duo never recanted their actions in the ’60s: bombing and maiming, telling white kids to go home and kill their parents, admiring Charles Manson. Ayers dedicated a book to Sirhan Sirhan, killer of Bobby Kennedy.
Then there’s Obama mentor Frank Marshall Davis, who proudly detailed his sexual conquest of a young girl in a fictionalized memoir called Sex Rebel: Black. While pedophiles have protected status under the new hate crimes legislation, they’re still sociopaths in my book.
I’m not saying that Obama has an antisocial personality. At this point, no one really knows.
However, there’s reason for concern. I don’t know about you, but none of my friends revered Charles Manson or bombed buildings. Given Obama’s choice of compatriots, let’s hope that birds of a feather don’t flock together.
How did this happen, the metastasizing of an antisocial tumor?
Feiffer’s Little Murders offered some clues over forty years ago, such as self-worshiping, moral relativism, and rejecting God and religion.
The movie also sounded an alarm about the resurgence of the Left. The film’s most prescient moment is when Patsy’s husband, played by Elliot Gould, recalls being a college radical who has a change of heart.
In a darkened room, he gravely says to Patsy, “You shouldn’t destroy institutions until you know what will take their place. You might find that you will miss them when they’re gone.” Seconds later, Patsy is shot.
The progressives have destroyed the structures uniting this country since its founding. Now, the rules of morality that kept people’s base impulses in check have gone AWOL. Cruelty is the new normal, while the sacred is mocked.
What has the Left unleashed? A quasi-autocracy where dissidents are silenced and the Constitution is trashed. A government that loves animals, the earth, and endangered birds, but not humans.
Everywhere we look, from the ghettos to the corporations to the pristine halls of the government, we can see people whose hearts and souls are empty.
Their antisocial behavior is enabled by a codependent society that gives aggrieved groups the green light to pillage and plunder.
The H1N1 virus will hopefully fade away soon. But sociopathy will not wane unless we create a nation of grown-ups. A country where people are expected to take responsibility for their actions. No exceptions.
As long as sociopaths have carte blanche, the U.S. will no longer be a beacon of hope to the world. We won’t regain our standing until our lawmakers start following the law and our teachers can teach without being pummeled…
…and a fifteen-year-old girl can attend her big homecoming dance and not have her life destroyed in the process.
Joseph Smith
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How many more Maoists and Van Jones-style radicals are in the Obama administration? Some White House aides are concerned about the radicals in the House, and wonder if it’s not too late to show them the side door at midnight.
According to the American Spectator, recently-resigned senior advisor Susan Crawford “ran afoul” of senior economics advisor Larry Summers over the Net Neutrality rules that Crawford strongly supported. Apparently Summers only learned how radical the rules were when he started fielding questions from his contacts in the business community. It appears that Crawford’s radical ideas on government control of the internet, combined with her “blind-siding” Summers, were enough to have her shown the door, although the official White House stance is that she had to return to her tenured academic position. The Robert Gibbs public persona on the Obama White House may also conceal further rumblings over radicals:
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Crawford’s exit comes at a time when some Obama Administration aides, after seeing the fallout from the resignation of Van Jones and the spotlight placed on leftists inside the administration, like Anita Dunn, wonder if it is too late to pull back many of the more radical aides now placed in a number of different cabinet level departments, including the Department of Justice, and the Energy and Education departments, and federal agencies. “They haven’t done us any good on any level,” says the White House aide. “And now they are just a bunch of targets on our back that we can’t shake.”
How long a strong-willed individual like Summers could go on without conflict with the radicals in the roost has been a bit of a mystery until now. It would appear that the ongoing tensions between the moderates and the radicals over Obama policy-making have potential to result in a few more ejections from one side or the other.
The radicals on the inside should be no surprise given some of the visitors from the outside, as reported last week: George Soros (4 visits), S.E.I.U. President and A.C.O.R.N. associate Andy Stern (22 visits), N.O.W. President Kim Gandy (15 visits), John Podesta, President of the Soros-funded Center for American Progress (17 visits), Jesse Jackson (6 visits), Al Sharpton (2 visits) and climate radical Al Gore (4 visits).
With the likes of John Holdren, Cass Sunstein and Carol Browner at the top of the radical food chain in the White House, not to mention the Radical-In-Chief, one can only speculate at what kind of strange creatures are hiding from the daylight in the recesses of the Obama administration.
Oh to be a fly on the wall as the tension builds in a White House increasingly out-of-step with the rest of the country.
Before you go...
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Be sure to prepare for this forum by heckling the living $hit out of Shmidley, Krebs, and HR Helen, who will be hosting a “If we did cover it up, here’s how we would have done it” press conference at 11 in the Lobo Room at the SUB. All parties interested in lambasting the bastards who are making a mockery of established rules for civilized behavior and administrative transparency should attend.
Danny Lee
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An interesting set of rants with no facts in response to this article. Here’s a fact: Yes, Heinrich has read the entire bill. He also met with members of his staff and other advisors to better understand it. The job of most congress members is to read bills, and meet with advisors. That’s why we pay them a salary.
The bill is too long, and too detailed; my own preference would be a one page bill – actually just one line – “The current medicare act is extended to cover all citizens wanting coverage”. But that won’t happen.
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Here’s a fact (backed by the WHO): The US spends more per capita for health care, and has less favorable outcomes than the leading countries. We spend more, and get less. Here’s another useful fact: Of the top 10 industrialized nations, only one fails to offer medical care to all its citizens – the USA.
I suggest the people commenting here who can do no more than parrot negative GOP comments do two things: 1. Ask what the GOP proposes? and 2. Attend this rally and LISTEN.
Casey
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“A public option is going to be what makes health insurance companies honest because they will be forced to keep their rates low and won’t be able to deny coverage for ridiculous so-called pre-existing conditions, “ she said. “It’s also an affordability
issue because a lot of people can’t afford health insurance.”
Nothing but sheer populist rhetoric. Private health insurance premiums are guaranteed to increase as a result of this govt. meddling. The best insurance companies are operating at around a 6% profit margin. Hardly what I would call obscene. There is no way private insurers will be able to compete against the government plan due to the higher costs levied upon them and the fact that the govt. gets to make all the rules to its own advantage. The PRICE of health care is not the same thing as the COST. Trying to suppress the price of health care does absolutely nothing to the cost. All this plan is going to do is try to shift the cost from one party to another. Higher taxes are guaranteed to be imposed on all of us in one way or another in order to pay for this monstrosity. Not to mention the hundreds of potential unintended consequences that are certain to arise. The saying “There is no free lunch” is as valid today as it was yesterday, as it was 100 years ago, 1000 years ago, etc. The bottom line is that there is no free lunch, regardless of what some populist demagogue politician tells you.
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Oh well, I guess that doesn’t matter to the simple minded little populists of our student body and generation. As long as they have their “cause” so they can feel good about themselves. Hope and change man… hope and change…
mateo
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Danny, you are wrong.
The WHO uses different standards and so do almost every one of the other countries when keeping records. YOU need to read some of the right’s papers and ideas instead of just lstening to the OBAMAoists, and the stop drinking the Kool-Aide. If the USA doesn’t have the best health care, and the most desireable healthcare system, then why do most leaders and the wealthy of other countries come here to get served.
Contrary to the Democrat’s opinions there are very few people within our borders (legally or otherwise) that don’t already get healthcare. The problem is if they don’t have insurance they can’t go to a clinic, or a doctor, so they go to emergency rooms. The law stipulates that if someone goes to an emergency room they can’t be denied coverage. The plan the democrats are proposing does nothing to stop those people from continuing to use emergency rooms for coverage. It does not stipulate that Illegal Immigrants are not allowed to participate, in fact on four seperate occasions democrats have voted down provisions put forth by Republicans to use E-Verify to make sure people using the system are verified citizens of our country. Why don’t they want us to stop illegals from abusing the healthcare system and bottlenecking up the services the rest of us need? Why can’t we require that hospitals and doctors call a 1-800 number and verify that the patient making the appointment is legal? It takes all of 30 seconds, and it is over 99.6% accurate.
Do you ever wonder why you can’t vote until your eighteen? It’s because society believes thast you can’t reason correctly, and that your jelly minds are too susceptible to being swayed. Society doesn’t believe that you have all the facts, or the faculties necessary to make an educated decision about the welfare of the rest of the country. AND THEY“RE RIGHT!!!!
IF public options are the answer to the problem then what happened to the post office? Why do we have to pay billions of dollars a year to subsidize the mail system. How can Fed Ex and UPS make a profit, yet we have to continue to subsidize the post office? Why is it that we subsidize AMTRAK? Did you know that the number one employer in the entire world is the British healthcare system? Do you know that latest CBO is now stating that the new Pelosi heathcare bill will create over 110 new government offices and agencies to oversee, regulate, and maintain the new plan? Do you know that most american’s healthcare insurance companies can’t compete with a government healthcare option? that means they will have to raise their premiums, and they’ll have to raise their co-payments, they’ll have to limit their coverages to stay solvent? Why can’t we just tear down the grey wall of the lawyers and attack tort reform. Read some of the articles from Texas’ governor Rick Perry and how tort reform changed the landscape for doctor doing business in Texas. Look at how much money the doctors in that state are saving, and how costs are dropping for their healthcare. Why can’t we remove the interstate trade barriers so that we have access to other insurance policies? Do you know that there are insurers who can and will offer policies to New MExicans for less than 1/2 of what we’re paying now, but they’re not allowed to offer/sell their policies in New Mexico? Why is that? Does MArtin Heinrich understand that over 70% of people within his district oppose a congressional bill which will allow the government to take over our healthcare? Why isn’t he listening to us? Does MArtin understand what happened in the elections last night? does he understand that this was a clear referendum against congress and their spending, their controlling their taxing policies?
Where do you think the people of this country are going to come up with the 1.4 trillion dollars (as of today) to pay for this new healthcare bill? Do you really believe that we have that money stashed somewhere and it’s just not being spent yet,, waiting for the right plan? That is OUR INCOMES! That money is coming from the sweat of OUR LABORS! and it’s going to be peeled off your weekly paycheck for the next 50 YEARS!!!!! Are you people drugged? are you simply in disbelief that you are the one’s that are going to be paying for this travesty? Are you simply in denial? As Obama stated, “This is the time!”
This is the time that you need to put aside your petty childish angst over your parents, over your schools, over your status in the world. This is the time you need to be thinking of the future. This is the time that the decisions that you support, and the policies that you endorse will reflect the way in which you live the rest of your life. This is the time that you decide how much of your future paychecks will be donated to the government as you grow older. This is the time you can forfeit your future earnings and incomes in favor of feeling generous today! This is the time! Don’t let them fool you. This program will NEVER EVER become self sufficient. Are you sure this is the program you want for the rest of your life? Are you sure this is the program that you want for your CHILDREN? This is the time to decide! This is the time you should be asking your parents, your families, your mentors, your role models, your brothers and sisters, your elected officials, WHAT ARE OUR OPTIONS? WHERE are the OPTIONS? Why must we choose your way or the highway? Now is the time that you must call your elected politicians and ask them to explain why we need top have the goverment take over one sixth of our income and future earnings? They call it part of our domestic spending, but GUESS WHAT? That’s our income. I work for a living. I want to keep my money that I earn. I want to support my family, I want to buy a house, a car, alot of stuff!!!! I’d rather I spend my income on MY FAMILE than on the healthcare of someone who wants to have gastric bypass, or an abortion, or be impregnated with EIGHT FERTILIZED EGGS!!!!! IT may take a nation or a city or a neighborhood, or a village to raise a child, but it takes MY PAYCHECK AND YOURS TO PAY FOR IT!!! and it means that the money I take home to live off of is diminished so that a bunch of terrorists in a military prison in Cuba get the vaccine for H1N1 Flu while the rest of are told it’s not available. Now is the time that you must grow up and put your education to use. NOW is the time that you assume the mantle of some responsibility for your own futures. Now is the time that you can change the direction of our government. Make no bones about it, it is YOUR TIME! YOU are the one’s that have the power. Now is the time to ask yoursdelf if you are ready, if you are educated enough about this policy, if you are looking far enough into the future to decide what is in YOUR best Interests. It is your future! Most of us won’t be around thirty years from now, but you will be the main economic engine that is being asked today to run the political machines of the future based on the priveleged few who sit in congress today. Now is your time to put away your childish dreams of marches, hunger strikes, dreams of helping the unfortunate. Now is the time you are being asked to make a difference in YOUR OWN FUTURES!!!! NOw is the time you reap the whirlwind!
Damian
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Can anyone locate these individuals? Or how to do it. We should try to set up a repectable debate!
I tried contacting the daily lobo so we’ll see.
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Slowhike, Xander, Chayal, can you get a hold of them?
Damian
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I’m talking about those in this article.
Justin Thompson, Erica Martinez, Amber Whiting, and Angelica Baca. Lets put their passion to the test. The vote is this friday on this issue which would make it an awesome story for the lobo if we could set up some sort of forum.
Phillip Howell
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It is great to see students getting together for something other than a keg party. Sadly they appear to lack any knowledge of this pesky document called The Constitution of The United States. Nothing contained in the Constitution allows the Federal Government officials to do as they wish, including providing health care. And the 9th and 10th Amendments reserve all powers not enumerated in the Constitution to the various states and the people.
Such ideas as the Constitution matter not to Martin Heinrich, Udall, Bingham who just know they are smarter than the people of America who wrote that Constitution and the majority of today’s American people who support it and do not want the Feds taking their temperature with a rectal thermometer. The 4 students mirror Obama, Heinrich and all Progressives. The founders of this Republic knew such people would come along to take away the freedoms won with blood at Bunker Hill, Lexington, Trenton and preserved on other battlefields.
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Thompson, Martinez, Whiting, Baca if you are really concerned about the problems of others, I suggest you get a job and DONATE YOUR PAY to a charity of your choice. I am confident you reject this idea because you want to take my money and give it to those you decide are worthy of my money. Stay away from my wallet!
sadyia wilson
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Ifound many of the aforementioned comments interesting and laughable. Everyone seems to have comments which espouse their concerns with these four students and their support for a public option health plan. People are talking about debates and forums and “public stonings” because they disagree with these four individuals. I believe that everyone of you has the right to feel the way you do, but instead of criticizing these four, why not do something productive that will support your opinion. I honestly have to admit, I felt like I was listening to Ann Coulter while I was reading some of the comments.
One thing I have noticed is that college students love to pontificate on things they know very little abuot, criticize those whom they have never met and more often than not, fail to act on how they feel.
Thompson, Martinez, Whiting and Baca should be commended for taking a stand. Remember the quote, “He who stands for nothing will fall for anything!” Why don’t you stop the hating, forget about the debate, get out of the quad and do something productive if you disagree with the four. By the way, after reading this don’t dare think to question my motives. I work with sick children every day and I can tell you that a change in healthcare is needed. In my lifetime, which is fairly short, but extensive, I’ve learned that health care benefits are more important than how much money one makes a year. A public option could be just the thing this country needs because right now, we suck in area of healthcare and we pay to much money and do not receive the treatment we surely deserve (trust me on this one, I know of what I speak from personal experiences). I can only end this by stating that maybe before you remove the speck in someone else’s eye, remove the bore from your own eye. And for God’s sake quit being whiny,antagonistic and indignant because everyone knows that out country is in a jacked up state right now and something needs to be done about it. A friend of my used to always say, don’t talk about it, be about it.
Xander
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No Idea, and I suspect they probably aren’t much interested in a debate. If the mold holds true, they just want a one sided discussion, their side. btw what kinda of course assigns organizing “events” like this? Community Agitating 101?
Paul Hsieh
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The details of Congress’ health care “reform” legislation are finally coming into focus, and it’s not a pretty picture. Congress is essentially proposing a national version of the failing Massachusetts system.
In 2006, Massachusetts adopted a health care plan which included an individual mandate requiring residents to purchase state-approved health insurance, new regulations on insurance companies specifying who they must cover and what benefits they must provide, and a government-subsidized “public option” for low-income residents. Supporters promised a utopia of “universal coverage” which would save money while improving quality of care. However, the exact opposite has occurred — health costs in Massachusetts have skyrocketed, while patient care has suffered.
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Before we adopt a similar plan at the national level, Americans should know three things about the Massachusetts plan.
1) Massachusetts’ system of mandatory insurance drives up costs and violates individual rights.
Under any system of mandatory insurance, the government must necessarily specify what constitutes an “acceptable” insurance plan. Hence, this creates a giant magnet for special interest groups seeking to have their pet benefits included in the required package.
Massachusetts residents are thus required to purchase benefits they may neither need nor want, such as in vitro fertilization, chiropractor services, and autism treatment — raising insurance costs for everyone to reward a few with sufficient political “pull.” In aggregate, such mandated benefits have increased the costs of health insurance in Massachusetts by up to 50%.
Since 2006, providers have successfully lobbied to include 16 new benefits in the mandatory package (including lay midwives, orthotics, and drug-abuse treatment), and the state legislature is considering 70 more. In the past three years, insurance premiums in Massachusetts have increased by 8-10% each year, nearly twice the national average.
Mandatory insurance thus violates the individual’s right to spend his own money according to his judgment for his benefit. Instead, he much choose from a limited set of insurance plans on terms set by lobbyists and bureaucrats, rather than based on a rational assessment of his needs.
2) “Coverage” is not the same as actual medical care.
Supporters of the Massachusetts plan frequently claim that it is a success because 98% of the state’s residents are now “covered.” But this is misleading, because it conflates theoretical “coverage” with actual medical care. In fact, access to medical care has worsened for many Massachusetts residents.
Because the state-mandated health insurance is so expensive, the government must subsidize the costs for lower-income residents. In response, the state government has cut payments to doctors and hospitals. With such poor reimbursements, physicians have become increasingly reluctant to see new patients.
The Massachusetts Medical Society reports that 40% of family practice doctors and 56% of internal medicine physicians no longer accept new patients — “the highest percentages of primary care practices closed to new patients … ever recorded.”
Some patients in western Massachusetts must wait more than a year for a routine physical exam. Some desperate patients have even resorted to “group appointments,” where the doctor sees several patients at once (without the privacy necessary to allow the physician to remove the patient’s clothing and perform a proper physical exam).
Similarly, the average waiting time in Boston to see a specialist has increased to seven weeks. In contrast, waiting times in comparable cities in other states have been decreasing and now average three weeks.
Massachusetts patients may have theoretical “coverage,” but that’s not the same as actual medical care.
3) The Massachusetts plan will end in rationing.
Although supporters of the Massachusetts plan had hoped it would save money, the opposite has occurred. The state expects to spend $595 million more in 2009 on its health insurance program than it did in 2006 — a 42% increase.
In response, a special state commission has proposed controlling costs by radically restructuring how doctors and hospitals will be paid. Instead of paying providers based on the services they render, the state would pay a fixed annual fee to cover all of a patient’s medical needs. In theory, this would give providers an incentive to improve efficiency and eliminate unnecessary tests and treatments.
But in practice, this would also create a dangerous incentive for physicians and hospitals to render as little care as possible. Under the Massachusetts proposal, if your care costs less than your annual allotment, then the providers would keep the unused portion. If your care costs more, then the difference would come out of their pockets. Such a system thus pits your doctor’s interests against your own.
Suppose your annual allotment was $5,000 and you had already spent $4,500 that year. You then see your doctor for a severe headache. He examines you and says, “No, Bill, you don’t need a $1000 MRI scan of your brain. Just take two Tylenol and call me in the morning.”
Can you be 100% sure that he’s giving you unbiased medical advice?
And even if your doctor conscientiously practices in your best interest, he will inevitably find himself at odds with hospital administrators questioning his decisions:
“Does Mr. Jones really need another ultrasound test? Can’t you use a cheaper antibiotic for his infection? Isn’t his heart rhythm stable enough to allow sending him home today, rather than requiring another expensive night in the hospital?”
Your doctor will thus be forced to constantly balance your interests against the demands of a hospital administrator who might be deciding whether or not to renew his practice privileges.
Advocates of government-run health care like to claim that it is morally superior because it “doesn’t put a price on human life.” But when the government sets an annual spending cap for each patient, then that’s exactly what it will be doing.
Such rationing is the dead end of the Massachusetts plan, and it will be the dead end of ObamaCare.
In summary, the Massachusetts plan has raised costs, reduced access to actual care, and will result in rationing. Americans should reject Congress’ plan to impose a similar system at the national level. Otherwise, we’ll be giving the federal government control over our lives (and one-sixth of the American economy), in exchange for a mere illusion of “coverage.”
Or to paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, those who surrender essential liberty for temporary “universal” health care deserve neither liberty nor health care.
Thomas Sowell
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We are incessantly being told that the cost of medical care is “too high”– either absolutely or as a growing percentage of our incomes. But nothing that is being proposed by the government is likely to lower those costs, and much that is being proposed is almost certain to increase the costs.
There is a fundamental difference between reducing costs and simply shifting costs around, like a pea in a shell game at a carnival. Costs are not reduced simply because you pay less at a doctor’s office and more in taxes– or more in insurance premiums, or more in higher prices for other goods and services that you buy, because the government has put the costs on businesses that pass those costs on to you.
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Costs are not reduced simply because you don’t pay them. It would undoubtedly be cheaper for me to do without the medications that keep me alive and more vigorous in my old age than people of a similar age were in generations past.
Letting old people die would undoubtedly be cheaper than keeping them alive– but that does not mean that the costs have gone down. It just means that we refuse to pay the costs. Instead, we pay the consequences. There is no free lunch.
Providing free lunches to people who go to hospital emergency rooms is one of the reasons for the current high costs of medical care for others. Politicians mandating what insurance companies must cover is another free lunch that leads to higher premiums for medical insurance– and fewer people who can afford it.
Despite all the demonizing of insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies or doctors for what they charge, the fundamental costs of goods and services are the costs of producing them.
No Pasaran
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Forget El Nino, I blame Karl Marx
posted by Joe @ 08:43
Residents of the Venezuelan capital face cuts in water service for as much as 48 hours per week, after the government imposed rationing to stem a 25 percent shortfall in the city’s supply, officials said Monday.
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However this is Chavez-land, where like all Socialist political environments, dystopia is a political instrument and misery is useful make a better world to keep an elite in power. For an example of how this kind of stupidity infects the human mind, see Ba’thist Iraq and Barack Obama’s social weltanschauung.
“What will the rich fill their swimming pools with?” the country’s leftist leader asked recently.
“With the water that is denied inhabitants in the poor neighborhoods,” he said, blaming the lack of sufficient water on “capitalism — a lack of feeling, a lack of humanity.”
Which is entirely to say that when markets are superseded by “rights” to others’ property, and the worth of a commodity is politicized (as health care will be in America if the left’s wet dream takes place), you end up with rationing and shortages that must be enforced, otherwise the price goes up, and you use less of it.
Which reminds me of the tomfoolery of banning carbon filament lightbulbs because they are too expensive to run. Too expensive for whom, exactly? The person willing to pay a higher electric bill to have something they’re willing to pay for?
Like Chavez’ “Kill my mob! Kill!” routine, it’s based on a notion that can only appeal to people who aren’t paying their own bills to begin with: school-age children and the dupable well off who don’t care if their poor neighbors pay more for something if it makes their well trained-in guilt go away.
How about we instead eat this kind of rich peeplez, people?
Al Gore’s is positioned to become a green billionaire thanks to his investment in several ‘green energy’ companies which reportedly will soon be awarded healthy contracts by the US government. If it were anything other than ‘green’ energy — say oil, there would be widespread outrage.
If you’re looking for some figure to hate who profits from increasing the burden and misery on others, he certainly fits the bill.
Al Gore defends all this as putting his money where his mouth is and investing in what he believes. That would almost make sense, were it not for the fact that money is made in this “industry” only because the government is sending dump-trucks full of money to these companies.
And much as Mao was just another Emperor in his own eyes, and Chavez can believe that the love of a people can be bought, the demonization that’s employed as a tool enriches through the corruption of the instruments employed.
Funny how Democrat politicians know how to make money better than greedy capitalists, isn’t it? You might think our government is many trillion dollars in debt. But Gore and Obama actually saved or created trillions of dollars over the years with their investments of your money. Just ask Joe Biden.
Odd, really given that the only way this story got a rise out of anyone from the the NYT, was Gore’s detestable act of not hiding his wealth.
It makes for an interesting sight when you find motivated young people volunteering their time, or working at fellowships and make-work schemes for free to create the social headlock that makes Gore richer and Chavez more domestically omnipotent.
Chumps.
dAMIAN
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Sadiya Wilson has it all figured out check it out:
“A public option could be just the thing this country needs because right now, we suck in area of healthcare…”—great reasoning.
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Maybe she was describing herself here:
“One thing I have noticed is that college students love to pontificate on things they know very little about…”
Or maybe she should take her own advice:
“I can only end this by stating that maybe before you remove the speck in someone else’s eye, remove the bore from your own eye.”
I am in healthcare, the public option, will destroy healthcare.
And national healthcare is not a new idea, its been attempted since 1904.
Progressives do not seek solutions to problems, they want to satisfy their appetite for power. When we lose our healthcare to the government, we have crippled any sort of freedom that built this country.
slowhike
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This would be an interesting debate. What students with strong opinions should know is that an EFFECTIVE politician proceeds in a manner unlike Bush or Obama. Bipartisanship means, among other things, that you attempt to achieve a resolution that meets everyone’s needs. This means it will not achieve the idelogical goals of either side. It also indicates that the President has the knowledge, wisdom and understands that this is the most effective way to proceed on an issue like Health Care. Bush was one sided, and it appears that Obama is as well, only in the reverse.
Obama lost a huge following when he skipped over tort law for his lawyers supporters and health care unions in his push for health care reform. This labeled him as a one-sided Democrat, the polar opposite of Bush. The health care issue is not Obama’s challenge anyway. Bush’s challenge was 9-11, Obama’s is the economy. NOT health care, ECONOMY.
Outsiders take over debate
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For those of you who couldn’t attend the debate/brainwashing/bullshit in the SUB and will only read the biase views in the Lobo in the morning, I tried really hard to stay quiet and was biting my tongue due to this blatant attempt by OUTSIDERS TO RECRUIT NAIVE AND BRAIN DEAD STUDENTS WILLING TO FOLLOW ANYONE WHO SHOUTS BRAINWASHING INFORMATION LIKE HITLER, FIDEL, HUGO, AND OBAMA!
Damian
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Slowhike,
Careful on tort reform. I think its a dead end and one that republicans should not be pushing (even though I can’t stand most lawyers). It will only affect healthcare a minute amount if there is any concession on this from dems.
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What I believe is missing is the morality and the that we do not have a free market but rather government control over every sector. And they want more control?
Slowhike
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Glad that’s over, hope it doesn’t amount to anything. I am encouraged by the two gubernatorial elections yesterday that turned out Republican. Damian, the main thing that bugs me about the malpractice law suit costs is that Obama didn’t go all in with all the issues and left this one out. Lower doctors salaries, sure no problem, lower insurance company profits, sure no problem, reduce malpractice law suit caps- nah, lets just let that one ride for now. It’s flagrant partisanship, plus the costs of defensive practice styles are quite high, although I don’t have a source for you; I’ll get back to you on that. It’s not just the malpractice insurance premiums that would go down, it’s an entire practice of defensive medicine that has evolved around malpractice. It goes like this: Hey doc do you think I need this test, no but I’m ordering it anyway, and 10 additional tests just to cover my ass in case I am wrong. Now the doctors opinion has been honed by school, residency and experience and it’s a safe bet I don’t need the test. But defensive medicine requires me to order them.
I agree with expanding free market and a reduction in government control. Government involvement encourages thinkers and creativity to go on strike. Why bother when the government is going to tell you what to do with your skills and concepts.
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