Posts tagged ‘health care’

Dennis Anderson begins string of town hall meetings in bid to win U.S. House seat in IL-14

by , posted on Wednesday, June 4th, 2014 at 8:25 pm

To unseat what essentially is a ghost incumbent in the 14th district of northern Illinois, Democrat Dennis Anderson has decided to take his message to the people of the district by holding 20-25 town hall meetings. In St. Charles on Tuesday, Anderson said the only thing that will prevent more meetings is securing venues to hold them.

This is Anderson’s

second run for this office and he feels he learned a lot from the previous loss to make him a much stronger candidate. Anderson, who is now retired, said he is not looking for a career in politics. He vowed to do his best to address the issues of the day and if the voters of the district liked his accomplishments they would return him to office. With approximately fifty voters in attendance, Anderson limited his opening comments to a brief history of his past. After that he began taking questions regarding his views on every possible issue facing the nation today.

Here’s a synopsis of issues raised and his view regarding them:

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Jesus Meets the Republican Party

by , posted on Sunday, July 8th, 2012 at 7:00 am

It was early in the morning and I was late for an appointment. But it was my brother calling, so I answered my cell.

“Hey Ellen,” he said, “You know that piece you wrote about Hultgren being unconcerned about all those people who don’t have medical insurance?”

“Well, yeah,” I said. “The one where the man asked Hultgren why he opted to take federal health insurance for himself and his family, but didn’t want the rest of us to have it?”

“Yeah, that one,” he responded. “I sent that piece to my neighbor who voted for Hultgren because he is a Christian. I thought she would see this as the betrayal of Christian morals it actually is.”

“But she didn’t see it that way, Ellen. I don’t get it,” he continued. “Didn’t we learn the Golden Rule? You know, do onto others as you would have them do onto you?”

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Margaret Flowers: Obamacare Doesn’t Go Far Enough

by , posted on Wednesday, June 27th, 2012 at 10:15 am

from GRITtv with Laura Flanders

Margaret Flowers of Physicians for a National Health Program sees one major flaw in President Obama’s Affordable Care Act: It did not go far enough. The only solution, Flowers argues in this conversation with Laura Flanders, is to push for universal healthcare by expanding medicare so that it covers all Americans.

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Three Ways Ending Obamacare Will Hurt Women

by , posted on Friday, May 4th, 2012 at 5:38 pm

from the Center for American Progress

Obamacare is under threat by the Supreme Court and conservatives in Congress. If the law were struck down or repealed, it would have dire consequences for the millions of women who benefit from it. Jessica Arons, Director of the Center for American Progress’s Women’s Health and Rights Program explains.

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Voices and Hope, or Lack Thereof

by , posted on Thursday, April 28th, 2011 at 7:24 pm

Editor’s note: The Sandwich Life is Cynthia Voelkl’s wonderful blog about “life as a 40-something juggling children, a great husband living with cancer, and all the various challenges and joys of life as we live it.” On Wednesday, Cynthia testified at the State Capitol in Springfield at a legislative hearing on prospective changes in the health care insurance options that will be available to State of Illinois employees and retirees.

The boys aren’t going to school today. I have no good reason except that as we went into the fifth hour of the health insurance hearing last night and they were still sitting there being well behaved it was all I could think of to give them…. It probably makes me a lousy mother but I was so immensely proud of them and I was tired and I love them and God knows I can’t bear to give them any more Lego so I just whispered in Owen’s ear “you don’t have to go to school tomorrow.” His response? “what about Friday too?” I said, “just tell your brother about tomorrow.”

Geesh.

Ernie and the boys picked me up from work yesterday around 1:00 and we took off for Springfield. As we drove I read my little speech to the guys and when I finished Leo just gave me a sparkling smile which meant he was proud of me and Owen said, “that sound SO good Mom….and really believable too….I’m not kidding”

We got there, went into the Capitol Building and found the room for the hearing. We went and sat down around 3:30 because it was already starting to fill up. I’m too weary to try to recount the whole thing here. You can read here and here. The room was packed, with a lot of frustrated and angry people, and overall I felt the hearing was a kindness to let us express our stories that but it did not give me any hope. In fact, honestly I feel less hopeful after hearing the attorney for HFS basically say there was no way it could be overturned. This is crazy…it makes no sense. Lately all I can think about is the Emperor’s New Clothes…. Everyone wants to make sure they’re saying the right thing….it doesn’t really matter whether there are clothes or not….

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Health Insurance and Unintended Consequences

by , posted on Saturday, July 24th, 2010 at 7:34 am

I helped write a preservation ordinance once and discovered in my research that you really need to write a clause in there forbidding teardowns while the ordinance is being considered, otherwise there’s always some asshole who will invest a ton of money in destroying his building just to prove a point to the city council about what he thinks of the proposal of the measure.

So there may be many who will be surprised to discover insurers doing things like ceasing to write insurance policies on children in order to avoid a provision of the health insurance reform bill that will kick in later this year and force them to cover children who are already sick, and there may even be those, like the author of this AP piece, who call it an “unintended consequence,” but not me.

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Separation of Corporation and State: Healthcare

by , posted on Saturday, April 3rd, 2010 at 7:59 am

My political career began on a cold evening in the dimly lit labor hall of Laborers Local 362 on Cabin Town Road, in Bloomington, IL.  It was the monthly Democratic Party meeting and I had no intention of speaking. After representatives from other campaigns spoke, I felt the need to represent my 2004 presidential pick.  The words fell out of my mouth with no cadence or inspiration and I’m confident that nothing I said was remembered by the 20-25 attendees who were being pressured by party leaders to send Rod Blagojevich another $500 contribution. But there it was: the 12 words that have somehow come to define my political activism: “The task of my generation is the separation of corporation and state.”

Perhaps the biggest abuse of taxpayer money to bail out a gang of undeserving corporations was the bank bailout. Like many people, I was outraged and nearly driven to put my name back on the ballot when the Democratic-controlled U.S. Congress passed a $700 billion bank bailout to help Bush put the finishing touches on his corporate-state presidency.  But I sat back and waited, overlooking the first year of Obama’s presidency that featured the more bailouts, more blank-check spending on Bush’s wars for profit, a wholesale attack on public education, and now, a healthcare bill written by corporations for corporations.

And so, I have come full circle as my next political steps take me back to the beginning and those first 12 words.  This piece on healthcare aims to show how the will of the people was replaced by the will of America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) while support for Newt Gingrich’s Contract on America grows.  Among those following the health care reform process, it is commonly known that AHIP, the voice of insurance companies on capital hill, has played a significant role in drafting the bill.

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Found Objects for a Friday Afternoon: Billy Bragg

by , posted on Friday, April 2nd, 2010 at 3:32 pm

To view in full screen mode, click on the little box with the four arrows in the lower right hand corner of the screen. To escape full screen mode, press your “Esc” button.

Everything about Billy Bragg

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Health Reform: Theirs and Ours

by , posted on Friday, March 26th, 2010 at 7:33 pm

Corporate health “reform” has gotten the

congressional votes it needed and the public relations spin is on. Now that the “deeply conservative” Barack Obama [1] and his fellow corporate Democrats have pushed their big business-friendly measure –- devoid of any public insurance option to counter the power of the insurance oligopoly –- through the House and Senate, the reigning bipartisan U.S. political-media culture is pushing two childish narratives: the “liberal” Democratic one of an “historic” people’s victory and the “conservative” Republican one of a dangerous and “socialist” “government takeover.”

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Speaking of Apathy…

by , posted on Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 at 3:59 pm

I got a phone call about the importance of health care legislation from Organizing for America yesterday morning. Now, I’ve quite recently ranted about both phone calls from OFA and health care reform, so I was prepared to lambast the poor volunteer, as soon as she had finished with her request.

But then she did finish her request, which was, specifically: “Will you call your representative and speak to him about the importance of health care reform in whatever direction you think that should take from here?”

er.

So instead of tearing into her I said yes. Although, to be brutally blunt about it it my idea of where health care reform – in it’s present form – should go is some sunshine free area of someone or the other’s anatomy, I didn’t see anything in the volunteer from OFA’s request that would do anything but encourage me to express exactly that.

Which is exactly my point: Way to display clarity of message and leadership on an issue, guys. Although who “guys” are is also in question. Is this the administration? Or is this the DNC? Or is it all of the above?

This strikes me as a clear signal that the administration is taking charge by expanding it’s brialliantly executed circle jerk of a sort of vaguely expressed hopiness that we can somehow achieve real reform, without rocking any important contributor boats, all the way down to the rank and file.

But at least we have Obama’s Awesome On-Line Organizing Community to join the circle jerk, eh?

I’m positively tingling with enthusiasm. And hopiness.

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