US President Barack Obama speaking at Cairo University, 4 June 2009. (Chuck Kennedy/White House Photo)

Once you strip away the mujamalat — the courtesies exchanged between guest and host — the substance of President Obama’s speech in Cairo indicates there is likely to be little real change in US policy. It is not necessary to divine Obama’s intentions — he may be utterly sincere and I believe he is. It is his analysis and prescriptions that in most regards maintain flawed American policies intact.

Though he pledged to “speak the truth as best I can,” there was much the president left out. He spoke of tension between “America and Islam” — the former a concrete specific place, the latter a vague construct subsuming peoples, practices, histories and countries more varied than similar.

Labeling America’s “other” as a nebulous and all-encompassing “Islam” (even while professing rapprochement and respect) is a way to avoid acknowledging what does in fact unite and mobilize people across many Muslim-majority countries: overwhelming popular opposition to increasingly intrusive and violent American military, political and economic interventions in many of those countries. This opposition — and the resistance it generates — has now become for supporters of those interventions, synonymous with “Islam.”

It was disappointing that Obama recycled his predecessor’s notion that “violent extremism” exists in a vacuum, unrelated to America’s (and its proxies’) exponentially greater use of violence before and after 11 September 2001. He dwelled on the “enormous trauma” done to the US when almost 3,000 people were killed that day, but spoke not one word about the hundreds of thousands of orphans and widows left in Iraq — those whom Muntazer al-Zaidi’s flying shoe forced Americans to remember only for a few seconds last year. He ignored the dozens of civilians who die each week in the “necessary” war in Afghanistan, or the millions of refugees fleeing the US-invoked escalation in Pakistan.

As President George W. Bush often did, Obama affirmed that it is only a violent minority that besmirches the name of a vast and “peaceful” Muslim majority. But he seemed once again to implicate all Muslims as suspect when he warned, “The sooner the extremists are isolated and unwelcome in Muslim communities, the sooner we will all be safer.”

Nowhere were these blindspots more apparent than his statements about Palestine/Israel. He gave his audience a detailed lesson on the Holocaust and explicitly used it as a justification for the creation of Israel. “It is also undeniable,” the president said, “that the Palestinian people — Muslims and Christians — have suffered in pursuit of a homeland. For more than 60 years they have endured the pain of dislocation.”

Suffered in pursuit of a homeland? The pain of dislocation? They already had a homeland. They suffered from being ethnically cleansed and dispossessed of it and prevented from returning on the grounds that they are from the wrong ethno-national group. Why is that still so hard to say?

He lectured Palestinians that “resistance through violence and killing is wrong and does not succeed.” He warned them that “It is a sign of neither courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus. That is not how moral authority is claimed; that is how it is surrendered.”

Fair enough, but did Obama really imagine that such words would impress an Arab public that watched in horror as Israel slaughtered 1,400 people in Gaza last winter, including hundreds of sleeping, fleeing or terrified children, with American-supplied weapons? Did he think his listeners would not remember that the number of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians targeted and killed by Israel has always far exceeded by orders of magnitude the number of Israelis killed by Arabs precisely because of the American arms he has pledged to continue giving Israel with no accountability? Amnesty International recently confirmed what Palestinians long knew: Israel broke the negotiated ceasefire when it attacked Gaza last 4 November, prompting retaliatory rockets that killed no Israelis until after Israel launched its much bigger attack on Gaza. That he continues to remain silent about what happened in Gaza, and refuses to hold Israel accountable demonstrates anything but a commitment to full truth-telling.

Some people are prepared to give Obama a pass for all this because he is at last talking tough on Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. In Cairo, he said: “The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.”

These carefully chosen words focus only on continued construction, not on the existence of the settlements themselves; they are entirely compatible with the peace process industry consensus that existing settlements will remain where they are for ever. This raises the question of where Obama thinks he is going. He summarized Palestinians’ “legitimate aspirations” as being the establishment of a “state.” This has become a convenient slogan that is supposed to replace for Palestinians their pursuit of rights and justice that the proposed state actually denies. Obama is already on record opposing Palestinian refugees’ right to return home, and has never supported the right of Palestinian citizens of Israel to live free from racist and religious incitement, persecution and practices fanned by Israel’s highest office holders and written into its laws.

He may have more determination than his predecessor but he remains committed to an unworkable two-state “vision” aimed not at restoring Palestinian rights, but preserving Israel as an enclave of Israeli Jewish privilege. It is a dead end.

There was one sentence in his speech I cheered for and which he should heed: “Given our interdependence, any world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will inevitably fail.”

Co-founder of The Electronic Intifada, Ali Abunimah is author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse (Metropolitan Books, 2006). This article first appeared on the Guardian’s Comment is Free website and is republished with permission.

The Iranian government employs foreigners as anti-riot police and Palestinian Hamas members and Lebanese Hezbollah militiamen are currently assisting the regime in its attempt to crush massive street protests in the streets of Tehran.

According to Voice of America and Der Spiegel, there are as many as 5,000 Lebanese Hezbollah militiamen in Iran, being used to control the protesters. These militiamen are often easily identified by their screams in Arabic.

One protester in Tehran said, “my brother had his ribs beaten in by those Palestinian animals. Taking our people’s money is not enough – they are thirsty for our blood too.”

When asked if these militia fighters could have been mistaken for Lebanese Shiites, sent by Hezbollah, he rejected the idea. “Ask anyone, they will tell you the same thing. They [Palestinian extremists] are out beating Iranians in the streets… The more we gave this arrogant race, the more they want… We will not let them push us around in our own country.”

One newspaper said eight Palestinians with Jordanian passports were Hamas activists trained by Iranians and Hezbollah in Lebanon. They were reported for bashing protesters and killing one person.

A high ranking Palestinian security official in the West Bank said that, according to Palestinian intelligence sources, Iranian intelligence arrested about 20 militia volunteers, including eight Palestinians

A senior Hamas representative in Gaza denied Hamas involvement in these developments in Iran.

Hamas formally welcomed Ahmadinejad’s victory, which was expected, because they receive arms, training and funding from Iran. It has been long reported that Iran trains Hamas in terror tactics and weapons manufacture.

As yet unsubstantiated reports say Venezuela also sent anti-riot troops to Tehran to help Ahmadinejad.

Comment on this story, by email comment@newsblaze.com

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Copyright © 2009, NewsBlaze, Daily News

The Clinton health care plan was a 1993 healthcare reform package proposed by the administration of President Bill Clinton and closely associated with the chair of the task force devising the plan, First Lady of the United States Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Bill Clinton had campaigned heavily on health care in the 1992 U.S. presidential election. The task force was created in January 1993, but its own processes were somewhat controversial and drew litigation. Its goal was to come up with a comprehensive plan to provide universal health care for all Americans, which was to be a cornerstone of the administration’s first-term agenda. A major health care speech was delivered by President Clinton to the U.S. Congress in September 1993. The core element of the proposed plan was an enforced mandate for employers to provide health insurance coverage to all of their employees through competitive but closely-regulated health maintenance organizations.

Opposition to the plan was heavy from conservatives, libertarians, and the health insurance industry. The industry produced a much-talked-about television ad, “Harry and Louise”, in an effort to rally public support against the plan. Democrats, instead of uniting behind the President’s original proposal, offered a number of competing plans of their own. By September 1994, the final compromise Democratic bill was declared dead by Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell. Opponents of the plan continued to deride it in future years as “HillaryCare”.

SINGAPORE: North Korea on Saturday announced its intention to take the uranium enrichment path for producing nuclear weapons.

Reacting to the new United Nations Security Council’s sanctions, Pyongyang said the current plutonium-based path would also continue to be pursued. The sanctions were announced on Friday in response to North Korea’s second nuclear-weapon test on May 25. North Korea’s state news agency quoted the country’s Foreign Ministry as saying that “the process of uranium enrichment will be commenced.” Pyongyang also affirmed its intention to weaponise all the plutonium that could be extracted at the recently-restarted nuclear complex in Yongbyon. On Saturday, the North Korean Foreign Ministry made two other pronouncements. “It has become an absolutely impossible option for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to even think about giving up its nuclear weapons.” Referring to the new possibility of international inspections of the North Korean vessels suspected of carrying nuclear-weapons-grade materials, the Foreign Ministry said: “An attempted blockade of any kind by the United States and its followers will be regarded as an act of war and met with a decisive military response.”

President Obama’s speech to American Medical Association

From the moment I took office as President, the central challenge we have confronted as a

nation has been the need to lift ourselves out of the worst recession since World War II. In

recent months, we have taken a series of extraordinary steps, not just to repair the immediate

damage to our economy, but to build a new foundation for lasting and sustained growth. We

are creating new jobs. We are unfreezing our credit markets. And we are stemming the loss of

homes and the decline of home values.

But even as we have made progress, we know that the road to prosperity remains long and

difficult. We also know that one essential step on our journey is to control the spiraling cost of

health care in America.

Today, we are spending over $2 trillion a year on health care – almost 50% more per person

than the next most costly nation. And yet, for all this spending, more of our citizens are

uninsured; the quality of our care is often lower; and we aren’t any healthier. In fact, citizens in

some countries that spend less than we do are actually living longer than we do.

Make no mistake: the cost of our health care is a threat to our economy. It is an escalating

burden on our families and businesses. It is a ticking time-bomb for the federal budget. And it

is unsustainable for the United States of America.

It is unsustainable for Americans like Laura Klitzka, a young mother I met in Wisconsin last

week, who has learned that the breast cancer she thought she’d beaten had spread to her

bones; who is now being forced to spend time worrying about how to cover the $50,000 in

medical debts she has already accumulated, when all she wants to do is spend time with her

two children and focus on getting well. These are not worries a woman like Laura should have

to face in a nation as wealthy as ours.

Stories like Laura’s are being told by women and men all across this country – by families who

have seen out-of-pocket costs soar, and premiums double over the last decade at a rate three

times faster than wages. This is forcing Americans of all ages to go without the checkups or

prescriptions they need. It’s creating a situation where a single illness can wipe out a lifetime of

savings.

Our costly health care system is unsustainable for doctors like Michael Kahn in New

Hampshire, who, as he puts it, spends 20% of each day supervising a staff explaining

insurance problems to patients, completing authorization forms, and writing appeal letters; a

routine that he calls disruptive and distracting, giving him less time to do what he became a

doctor to do and actually care for his patients.

Small business owners like Chris and Becky Link in Nashville are also struggling. They’ve

always wanted to do right by the workers at their family-run marketing firm, but have recently

had to do the unthinkable and lay off a number of employees – layoffs that could have been

deferred, they say, if health care costs weren’t so high. Across the country, over one third of

small businesses have reduced benefits in recent years and one third have dropped their

workers’ coverage altogether since the early 90′s.

Our largest companies are suffering as well. A big part of what led General Motors and

Chrysler into trouble in recent decades were the huge costs they racked up providing health

care for their workers; costs that made them less profitable, and less competitive with

automakers around the world. If we do not fix our health care system, America may go the way

of GM; paying more, getting less, and going broke.

When it comes to the cost of our health care, then, the status quo is unsustainable. Reform is

not a luxury, but a necessity. I know there has been much discussion about what reform would

cost, and rightly so. This is a test of whether we – Democrats and Republicans alike – are

serious about holding the line on new spending and restoring fiscal discipline.

But let there be no doubt – the cost of inaction is greater. If we fail to act, premiums will climb

higher, benefits will erode further, and the rolls of uninsured will swell to include millions more

Americans.

If we fail to act, one out of every five dollars we earn will be spent on health care within a

decade. In thirty years, it will be about one out of every three – a trend that will mean lost jobs,

lower take-home pay, shuttered businesses, and a lower standard of living for all Americans.

And if we fail to act, federal spending on Medicaid and Medicare will grow over the coming

decades by an amount almost equal to the amount our government currently spends on our

nation’s defense. In fact, it will eventually grow larger than what our government spends on

anything else today. It’s a scenario that will swamp our federal and state budgets, and impose a

vicious choice of either unprecedented tax hikes, overwhelming deficits, or drastic cuts in our

federal and state budgets.

To say it as plainly as I can, health care reform is the single most important thing we can do for

America’s long-term fiscal health. That is a fact.

And yet, as clear as it is that our system badly needs reform, reform is not inevitable. There’s a

sense out there among some that, as bad as our current system may be, the devil we know is

better than the devil we don’t. There is a fear of change – a worry that we may lose what works

about our health care system while trying to fix what doesn’t.

I understand that fear. I understand that cynicism. They are scars left over from past efforts at

reform. Presidents have called for health care reform for nearly a century. Teddy Roosevelt

called for it. Harry Truman called for it. Richard Nixon called for it. Jimmy Carter called for it. Bill

Clinton called for it. But while significant individual reforms have been made – such as

Medicare, Medicaid, and the children’s health insurance program – efforts at comprehensive

reform that covers everyone and brings down costs have largely failed.

Part of the reason is because the different groups involved – physicians, insurance companies,

businesses, workers, and others – simply couldn’t agree on the need for reform or what shape

it would take. And another part of the reason has been the fierce opposition fueled by some

interest groups and lobbyists – opposition that has used fear tactics to paint any effort to

achieve reform as an attempt to socialize medicine.

Despite this long history of failure, I am standing here today because I think we are in a

different time. One sign that things are different is that just this past week, the Senate passed a

bill that will protect children from the dangers of smoking – a reform the AMA has long

championed – and one that went nowhere when it was proposed a decade ago. What makes

this moment different is that this time – for the first time – key stakeholders are aligning not

against, but in favor of reform. They are coming together out of a recognition that while reform

will take everyone in our health care community doing their part, ultimately, everyone will

benefit.

And I want to commend the AMA, in particular, for offering to do your part to curb costs and

achieve reform. A few weeks ago, you joined together with hospitals, labor unions, insurers,

medical device manufacturers and drug companies to do something that would’ve been

unthinkable just a few years ago – you promised to work together to cut national health care

spending by two trillion dollars over the next decade, relative to what it would otherwise have

been. That will bring down costs, that will bring down premiums, and that’s exactly the kind of

cooperation we need.

The question now is, how do we finish the job? How do we permanently bring down costs and

make quality, affordable health care available to every American?

That’s what I’ve come to talk about today. We know the moment is right for health care reform.

We know this is an historic opportunity we’ve never seen before and may not see again. But we

also know that there are those who will try and scuttle this opportunity no matter what – who will

use the same scare tactics and fear-mongering that’s worked in the past. They’ll give dire

warnings about socialized medicine and government takeovers; long lines and rationed care;

decisions made by bureaucrats and not doctors. We’ve heard it all before – and because

these fear tactics have worked, things have kept getting worse.

(He’s mocking anyone who disagrees with him. He’s calling anyone who disagres with him a

fear monger. He is going tno drive private health care insurance companies out of business)

So let me begin by saying this: I know that there are millions of Americans who are content with

their health care coverage – they like their plan and they value their relationship with their

doctor. And that means that no matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise: If

you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your health care

plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter

what. My view is that health care reform should be guided by a simple principle: fix what’s

broken and build on what works.

If we do that, we can build a health care system that allows you to be physicians instead of

administrators and accountants; a system that gives Americans the best care at the lowest

cost; a system that eases up the pressure on businesses and unleashes the promise of our

economy, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs, making take-home wages thousands of

dollars higher, and growing our economy by tens of billions more every year. That’s how we will

stop spending tax dollars to prop up an unsustainable system, and start investing those dollars

in innovations and advances that will make our health care system and our economy stronger.

That’s what we can do with this opportunity. That’s what we must do with this moment.

Now, the good news is that in some instances, there is already widespread agreement on the

steps necessary to make our health care system work better.

First, we need to upgrade our medical records by switching from a paper to an electronic

system of record keeping. And we have already begun to do this with an investment we made

as part of our Recovery Act.

It simply doesn’t make sense that patients in the 21st century are still filling out forms with pens

on papers that have to be stored away somewhere. As Newt Gingrich has rightly pointed out,

we do a better job tracking a FedEx package in this country than we do tracking a patient’s

health records. You shouldn’t have to tell every new doctor you see about your medical history,

or what prescriptions you’re taking. You should not have to repeat costly tests. All of that

information should be stored securely in a private medical record so that your information can

be tracked from one doctor to another – even if you change jobs, even if you move, and even if

you have to see a number of different specialists.

That will not only mean less paper pushing and lower administrative costs, saving taxpayers

billions of dollars. It will also make it easier for physicians to do their jobs. It will tell you, the

doctors, what drugs a patient is taking so you can avoid prescribing a medication that could

cause a harmful interaction. It will help prevent the wrong dosages from going to a patient. And

it will reduce medical errors that lead to 100,000 lives lost unnecessarily in our hospitals every

year.

The second step that we can all agree on is to invest more in preventive care so that we can

avoid illness and disease in the first place. That starts with each of us taking more responsibility

for our health and the health of our children. It means quitting smoking, going in for that

mammogram or colon cancer screening. It means going for a run or hitting the gym, and raising

our children to step away from the video games and spend more time playing outside.

It also means cutting down on all the junk food that is fueling an epidemic of obesity, putting far

too many Americans, young and old, at greater risk of costly, chronic conditions. That’s a

lesson Michelle and I have tried to instill in our daughters with the White House vegetable

garden that Michelle planted. And that’s a lesson that we should work with local school districts

to incorporate into their school lunch programs.

Building a health care system that promotes prevention rather than just managing diseases will

require all of us to do our part. It will take doctors telling us what risk factors we should avoid

and what preventive measures we should pursue. And it will take employers following the

example of places like Safeway that is rewarding workers for taking better care of their health

while reducing health care costs in the process. If you’re one of the three quarters of Safeway

workers enrolled in their “Healthy Measures” program, you can get screened for problems like

high cholesterol or high blood pressure. And if you score well, you can pay lower premiums.

It’s a program that has helped Safeway cut health care spending by 13% and workers save

over 20% on their premiums. And we are open to doing more to help employers adopt and

expand programs like this one.

Our federal government also has to step up its efforts to advance the cause of healthy living.

Five of the costliest illnesses and conditions – cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, lung

disease, and strokes – can be prevented. And yet only a fraction of every health care dollar

goes to prevention or public health. That is starting to change with an investment we are making

in prevention and wellness programs that can help us avoid diseases that harm our health and

the health of our economy.

But as important as they are, investments in electronic records and preventive care are just

preliminary steps. They will only make a dent in the epidemic of rising costs in this country.

Despite what some have suggested, the reason we have these costs is not simply because we

have an aging population. Demographics do account for part of rising costs because older,

sicker societies pay more on health care than younger, healthier ones. But what accounts for

the bulk of our costs is the nature of our health care system itself – a system where we spend

vast amounts of money on things that aren’t making our people any healthier; a system that

automatically equates more expensive care with better care.

A recent article in the New Yorker, for example, showed how McAllen, Texas is spending twice

as much as El Paso County – not because people in McAllen are sicker and not because they

are getting better care. They are simply using more treatments – treatments they don’t really

need; treatments that, in some cases, can actually do people harm by raising the risk of

infection or medical error. And the problem is, this pattern is repeating itself across America.

One Dartmouth study showed that you’re no less likely to die from a heart attack and other

ailments in a higher spending area than in a lower spending one.

There are two main reasons for this. The first is a system of incentives where the more tests

and services are provided, the more money we pay. And a lot of people in this room know what

I’m talking about. It is a model that rewards the quantity of care rather than the quality of care;

that pushes you, the doctor, to see more and more patients even if you can’t spend much time

with each; and gives you every incentive to order that extra MRI or EKG, even if it’s not truly

necessary. It is a model that has taken the pursuit of medicine from a profession – a calling –

to a business.

That is not why you became doctors. That is not why you put in all those hours in the Anatomy

Suite or the O.R. That is not what brings you back to a patient’s bedside to check in or makes

you call a loved one to say it’ll be fine. You did not enter this profession to be bean-counters

and paper-pushers. You entered this profession to be healers – and that’s what our health care

system should let you be.

That starts with reforming the way we compensate our doctors and hospitals. We need to

bundle payments so you aren’t paid for every single treatment you offer a patient with a chronic

condition like diabetes, but instead are paid for how you treat the overall disease. We need to

create incentives for physicians to team up – because we know that when that happens, it

results in a healthier patient. We need to give doctors bonuses for good health outcomes – so

that we are not promoting just more treatment, but better care.

And we need to rethink the cost of a medical education, and do more to reward medical

students who choose a career as a primary care physicians and who choose to work in

underserved areas instead of a more lucrative path. That’s why we are making a substantial

investment in the National Health Service Corps that will make medical training more affordable

for primary care doctors and nurse practitioners so they aren’t drowning in debt when they enter

the workforce.

The second structural reform we need to make is to improve the quality of medical information

making its way to doctors and patients. We have the best medical schools, the most

sophisticated labs, and the most advanced training of any nation on the globe. Yet we are not

doing a very good job harnessing our collective knowledge and experience on behalf of better

medicine. Less than one percent of our health care spending goes to examining what

treatments are most effective. And even when that information finds its way into journals, it can

take up to 17 years to find its way to an exam room or operating table.

As a result, too many doctors and patients are making decisions without the benefit of the latest

research. A recent study, for example, found that only half of all cardiac guidelines are based

on scientific evidence. Half. That means doctors may be doing a bypass operation when

placing a stent is equally effective, or placing a stent when adjusting a patient’s drugs and

medical management is equally effective – driving up costs without improving a patient’s health.

So, one thing we need to do is figure out what works, and encourage rapid implementation of

what works into your practices. That’s why we are making a major investment in research to

identify the best treatments for a variety of ailments and conditions.

Let me be clear: identifying what works is not about dictating what kind of care should be

provided. It’s about providing patients and doctors with the information they need to make the

best medical decisions.

Still, even when we do know what works, we are often not making the most of it. That’s why we

need to build on the examples of outstanding medicine at places like the Cincinnati Children’s

Hospital, where the quality of care for cystic fibrosis patients shot up after the hospital began

incorporating suggestions from parents. And places like Tallahassee Memorial Health Care,

where deaths were dramatically reduced with rapid response teams that monitored patients’

conditions and “multidisciplinary rounds” with everyone from physicians to pharmacists. And

places like the Geisinger Health system in rural Pennsylvania and the Intermountain Health in

Salt Lake City, where high-quality care is being provided at a cost well below average. These

are islands of excellence that we need to make the standard in our health care system.

Replicating best practices. Incentivizing excellence. Closing cost disparities. Any legislation

sent to my desk that does not achieve these goals does not earn the title of reform. But my

signature on a bill is not enough. I need your help, doctors. To most Americans, you are the

health care system. Americans – me included – just do what you recommend. That is why I will

listen to you and work with you to pursue reform that works for you. And together, if we take all

these steps, we can bring spending down, bring quality up, and save hundreds of billions of

dollars on health care costs while making our health care system work better for patients and

doctors alike.

Now, I recognize that it will be hard to make some of these changes if doctors feel like they are

constantly looking over their shoulder for fear of lawsuits. Some doctors may feel the need to

order more tests and treatments to avoid being legally vulnerable. That’s a real issue. And while

I’m not advocating caps on malpractice awards which I believe can be unfair to people who’ve

been wrongfully harmed, I do think we need to explore a range of ideas about how to put

patient safety first, let doctors focus on practicing medicine, and encourage broader use of

evidence-based guidelines. That’s how we can scale back the excessive defensive medicine

reinforcing our current system of more treatment rather than better care.

These changes need to go hand-in-hand with other reforms. Because our health care system is

so complex and medicine is always evolving, we need a way to continually evaluate how we can

eliminate waste, reduce costs, and improve quality. That is why I am open to expanding the role

of a commission created by a Republican Congress called the Medicare Payment Advisory

Commission – which happens to include a number of physicians. In recent years, this

commission proposed roughly $200 billion in savings that never made it into law. These

recommendations have now been incorporated into our broader reform agenda, but we need

to fast-track their proposals in the future so that we don’t miss another opportunity to save

billions of dollars, as we gain more information about what works and what doesn’t in our health

care system.

As we seek to contain the cost of health care, we must also ensure that every American can

get coverage they can afford. We must do so in part because it is in all of our economic

interests. Each time an uninsured American steps foot into an emergency room with no way to

reimburse the hospital for care, the cost is handed over to every American family as a bill of

about $1,000 that is reflected in higher taxes, higher premiums, and higher health care costs; a

hidden tax that will be cut as we insure all Americans. And as we insure every young and

healthy American, it will spread out risk for insurance companies, further reducing costs for

everyone.

But alongside these economic arguments, there is another, more powerful one. It is simply this:

We are not a nation that accepts nearly 46 million uninsured men, women, and children. We are

not a nation that lets hardworking families go without the coverage they deserve; or turns its

back on those in need. We are a nation that cares for its citizens. We are a people who look out

for one another. That is what makes this the United States of America.

So, we need to do a few things to provide affordable health insurance to every single

American. The first thing we need to do is protect what’s working in our health care system. Let

me repeat – if you like your health care, the only thing reform will mean is your health care will

cost less. If anyone says otherwise, they are either trying to mislead you or don’t have their

facts straight.

If you don’t like your health coverage or don’t have any insurance, you will have a chance to

take part in what we’re calling a Health Insurance Exchange. This Exchange will allow you to

one-stop shop for a health care plan, compare benefits and prices, and choose a plan that’s

best for you and your family – just as federal employees can do, from a postal worker to a

Member of Congress. You will have your choice of a number of plans that offer a few different

packages, but every plan would offer an affordable, basic package. And one of these options

needs to be a public option that will give people a broader range of choices and inject

competition into the health care market so that force waste out of the system and keep the

insurance companies honest.

Now, I know there’s some concern about a public option. In particular, I understand that you are

concerned that today’s Medicare rates will be applied broadly in a way that means our cost

savings are coming off your backs. These are legitimate concerns, but ones, I believe, that can

be overcome. As I stated earlier, the reforms we propose are to reward best practices, focus

on patient care, not the current piece-work reimbursement. What we seek is more stability and

a health care system on a sound financial footing. And these reforms need to take place

regardless of what happens with a public option. With reform, we will ensure that you are being

reimbursed in a thoughtful way tied to patient outcomes instead of relying on yearly

negotiations about the Sustainable Growth Rate formula that’s based on politics and the state

of the federal budget in any given year. The alternative is a world where health care costs grow

at an unsustainable rate, threatening your reimbursements and the stability of our health care

system.

What are not legitimate concerns are those being put forward claiming a public option is

somehow a Trojan horse for a single-payer system. I’ll be honest. There are countries where a

single-payer system may be working. But I believe – and I’ve even taken some flak from

members of my own party for this belief – that it is important for us to build on our traditions

here in the United States. So, when you hear the naysayers claim that I’m trying to bring about

government-run health care, know this – they are not telling the truth.

What I am trying to do – and what a public option will help do – is put affordable health care

within reach for millions of Americans. And to help ensure that everyone can afford the cost of

a health care option in our Exchange, we need to provide assistance to families who need it.

That way, there will be no reason at all for anyone to remain uninsured.

Indeed, it is because I am confident in our ability to give people the ability to get insurance that

I am open to a system where every American bears responsibility for owning health insurance,

so long as we provide a hardship waiver for those who still can’t afford it. The same is true for

employers. While I believe every business has a responsibility to provide health insurance for

its workers, small businesses that cannot afford it should receive an exemption. And small

business workers and their families will be able to seek coverage in the Exchange if their

employer is not able to provide it.

Insurance companies have expressed support for the idea of covering the uninsured – and I

welcome their willingness to engage constructively in the reform debate. But what I refuse to

do is simply create a system where insurance companies have more customers on Uncle

Sam’s dime, but still fail to meet their responsibilities. That is why we need to end the practice

of denying coverage on the basis of preexisting conditions. The days of cherry-picking who to

cover and who to deny – those days are over.

This is personal for me. I will never forget watching my own mother, as she fought cancer in her

final days, worrying about whether her insurer would claim her illness was a preexisting

condition so it could get out of providing coverage. Changing the current approach to

preexisting conditions is the least we can do – for my mother and every other mother, father,

son, and daughter, who has suffered under this practice. And it will put health care within reach

for millions of Americans.

Now, even if we accept all of the economic and moral reasons for providing affordable

coverage to all Americans, there is no denying that it will come at a cost – at least in the short

run. But it is a cost that will not – I repeat, not – add to our deficits. Health care reform must be

and will be deficit neutral in the next decade.

There are already voices saying the numbers don’t add up. They are wrong. Here’s why.

Making health care affordable for all Americans will cost somewhere on the order of one trillion

dollars over the next ten years. That sounds like a lot of money – and it is. But remember: it is

less than we are projected to spend on the war in Iraq. And also remember: failing to reform

our health care system in a way that genuinely reduces cost growth will cost us trillions of

dollars more in lost economic growth and lower wages.

That said, let me explain how we will cover the price tag. First, as part of the budget that was

passed a few months ago, we’ve put aside $635 billion over ten years in what we are calling a

Health Reserve Fund. Over half of that amount – more than $300 billion – will come from

raising revenue by doing things like modestly limiting the tax deductions the wealthiest

Americans can take to the same level it was at the end of the Reagan years. Some are

concerned this will dramatically reduce charitable giving, but statistics show that’s not true, and

the best thing for our charities is the stronger economy that we will build with health care reform.

But we cannot just raise revenues. We also have to make spending cuts in part by examining

inefficiencies in the Medicare program. There will be a robust debate about where these cuts

should be made, and I welcome that debate. But here’s where I think these cuts should be

made. First, we should end overpayments to Medicare Advantage. Today, we are paying

Medicare Advantage plans much more than we pay for traditional Medicare services. That’s a

good deal for insurance companies, but not the American people. That’s why we need to

introduce competitive bidding into the Medicare Advantage program, a program under which

private insurance companies offer Medicare coverage. That will save $177 billion over the next

decade.

Second, we need to use Medicare reimbursements to reduce preventable hospital

readmissions. Right now, almost 20% of Medicare patients discharged from hospitals are

readmitted within a month, often because they are not getting the comprehensive care they

need. This puts people at risk and drives up costs. By changing how Medicare reimburses

hospitals, we can discourage them from acting in a way that boosts profits, but drives up costs

for everyone else. That will save us $25 billion over the next decade.

Third, we need to introduce generic biologic drugs into the marketplace. These are drugs used

to treat illnesses like anemia. But right now, there is no pathway at the FDA for approving

generic versions of these drugs. Creating such a pathway will save us billions of dollars. And

we can save another roughly $30 billion by getting a better deal for our poorer seniors while

asking our well-off seniors to pay a little more for their drugs.

So, that’s the bulk of what’s in the Health Reserve Fund. I have also proposed saving another

$313 billion in Medicare and Medicaid spending in several other ways. One way is by adjusting

Medicare payments to reflect new advances and productivity gains in our economy. Right now,

Medicare payments are rising each year by more than they should. These adjustments will

create incentives for providers to deliver care more effectively, and save us roughly $109

billion in the process.

Another way we can achieve savings is by reducing payments to hospitals for treating

uninsured people. I know hospitals rely on these payments now because of the large number

of uninsured patients they treat. But as the number of uninsured people goes down with our

reforms, the amount we pay hospitals to treat uninsured people should go down, as well.

Reducing these payments gradually as more and more people have coverage will save us over

$106 billion, and we’ll make sure the difference goes to the hospitals that most need it.

We can also save about $75 billion through more efficient purchasing of prescription drugs.

And we can save about one billion more by rooting out waste, abuse, and fraud throughout our

health care system so that no one is charging more for a service than it’s worth or charging a

dime for a service they did not provide.

But let me be clear: I am committed to making these cuts in a way that protects our senior

citizens. In fact, these proposals will actually extend the life of the Medicare Trust Fund by 7

years and reduce premiums for Medicare beneficiaries by roughly $43 billion over 10 years.

And I’m working with AARP to uphold that commitment.

Altogether, these savings mean that we have put about $950 billion on the table – not counting

some of the longer-term savings that will come about from reform – taking us almost all the way

to covering the full cost of health care reform. In the weeks and months ahead, I look forward to

working with Congress to make up the difference so that health care reform is fully paid for – in

a real, accountable way. And let me add that this does not count some of the longer-term

savings that will come about from health care reform. By insisting that reform be deficit neutral

over the next decade and by making the reforms that will help slow the growth rate of health

care costs over coming decades, we can look forward to faster economic growth, higher living

standards, and falling, not rising, budget deficits.

I know people are cynical we can do this. I know there will be disagreements about how to

proceed in the days ahead. But I also know that we cannot let this moment pass us by.

The other day, my friend, Congressman Earl Blumenauer, handed me a magazine with a

special issue titled, “The Crisis in American Medicine.” One article notes “soaring charges.”

Another warns about the “volume of utilization of services.” And another asks if we can find a

“better way [than fee-for-service] for paying for medical care.” It speaks to many of the

challenges we face today. The thing is, this special issue was published by Harper’s Magazine

in October of 1960.

Members of the American Medical Association – my fellow Americans – I am here today

because I do not want our children and their children to still be speaking of a crisis in American

medicine fifty years from now. I do not want them to still be suffering from spiraling costs we

did not stem, or sicknesses we did not cure. I do not want them to be burdened with massive

deficits we did not curb or a worsening economy we did not rebuild.

I want them to benefit from a health care system that works for all of us; where families can

open a doctor’s bill without dreading what’s inside; where parents are taking their kids to get

regular checkups and testing themselves for preventable ailments; where parents are feeding

their kids healthier food and kids are exercising more; where patients are spending more time

with doctors and doctors can pull up on a computer all the medical information and latest

research they’d ever want to meet that patient’s needs; where orthopedists and nephrologists

and oncologists are all working together to treat a single human being; where what’s best about

America’s health care system has become the hallmark of America’s health care system.

That is the health care system we can build. That is the future within our reach. And if we are

willing to come together and bring about that future, then we will not only make Americans

healthier and not only unleash America’s economic potential, but we will reaffirm the ideals that

led you into this noble profession, and build a health care system that lets all Americans heal.

Thank you.

May 26, 2009
Limbaugh slams Sotomayor: ‘Reverse racist’
from CNN.com

The caption of the picture of Rush said:
Limbaugh is going after Sonia Sotomayor.

(CNN) — While Republicans on Capitol Hill appear to be adopting a wait-and-see approach with Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh is taking direct aim at President Obama’s choice for the high court.

Calling Sotomayor a “racist” and a “hack” on his radio show Tuesday, Limbaugh took particular issue with a 2001 speech at Berkeley during which she stated a “wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

“Here you have a racist – you might want to soften that, and you might want to say a reverse racist,” Limbaugh said of that comment.

“And the [liberals] of course say that minorities cannot be racists because they don’t have the power to implement their racism,” he continued. “Well, those days are gone because reverse racists certainly do have the power to implement their power. Obama is the greatest living example of a reverse racist, and now he’s appointed one.”

“She’s not the brain that they’re portraying her to be. She’s not a constitutional jurist,” Limbaugh also said, referencing a New Republic article last month in which Jeffrey Rosen, the magazines legal affairs editor, wrote that “her opinions, although competent, are viewed by former prosecutors as not especially clean or tight, and sometimes miss the forest for the trees.”

“She is an affirmative action case extraordinaire, and she has put down white men in favor of Latina women,” Limbaugh said.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs defended Sotomayor’s Berkeley comments Tuesday. “If you look at the context of the longer speech that she makes, I think what she says is very much common sense in terms of different experiences, different people,” he said.

More:

When Sonia Sotomayor won Senate confirmation to the U.S. Court of Appeals in 1998, all 29 “no” votes were cast by Republicans. President George H.W. Bush first nominated Sotomayor as a federal judge.

Here’s the full story from CNN.com:

May 25 2009 – SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) — North Korea has fired another short-range missile, the South Korean Yonhap News Agency reported on Wednesday.

The agency cited a government official who said that the missile had been fired into the Sea of Japan, the latest in a series of tests that began two days ago.

North Korea’s actions have heightened tensions in the international community, though U.S. officials made it clear that other nations will not be intimidated by the “provocative and destabilizing” missile tests, particularly the nuclear test on Monday.

“If they want to continue to test and provoke the international community, they’re going to find that they will pay a price, because the international community is very clear — this is not acceptable, it won’t be tolerated, and they won’t be intimidated,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice told CNN’s “American Morning.”

The U.N. Security Council — which includes North Korea’s closest ally, China — on Monday unanimously condemned Pyongyang’s nuclear test as a “clear violation” of international law.

A day later, North Korea fired two short-range missiles from its east coast in what one South Korean official called a continuation of the North’s “saber-rattling,” Yonhap reported.

After passing the non-binding statement of criticism, the Security Council is now working on passing “a strong resolution with teeth,” Rice said.

“Those teeth could take various different forms — there are economic levers, there are other levers that we might pursue,” she said.

North Korea first tested a nuclear weapon in October 2006. Pyongyang had threatened last month to carry out a new test after the Security Council condemned its test-firing of a long-range rocket and extended economic sanctions against the nation, which is in dire need of food and energy assistance.

North Korea agreed in 2008 to scrap its nuclear weapons program — which it said had produced enough plutonium for about seven atomic bombs — in exchange for economic aid. But the deal foundered over verification and disclosure issues, and the North expelled international inspectors and announced plans to restart its main nuclear reactor.

Russia, France and Japan have signaled support for new sanctions against North Korea, already one of the most isolated nations in the world.

North Korea first tested a nuclear weapon in October 2006. Pyongyang had threatened last month to carry out a new test after the Security Council condemned its test-firing of a long-range rocket and extended economic sanctions against the nation, which is in dire need of food and energy assistance.

Monday’s blast, conducted just before 10 a.m. (9 p.m. Sunday ET) showed up on seismographs with the punch of a magnitude 4.7 earthquake, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Russia estimated the force of Monday’s blast at 10 to 20 kilotons, in the neighborhood of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs of World War II and far larger than the 2006 test.

Pyongyang’s state-run Korean Central News Agency said only that the latest test was safely conducted “on a new higher level in terms of its explosive power and technology of its control.” The North Koreans followed up with a short-range missile launch as well, according to the White House. Video Watch more analysis on the nuclear test »

Less than three weeks ago, the White House announced a new diplomatic effort to restart the stalled six-party nuclear talks. The discussions involve China, Japan, North Korea, Russia, South Korea and the United States.

Several analysts said the test could be an effort to improve Pyongyang’s bargaining position, or a sign of a power struggle within North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il’s government.

Han Park, a scholar at the University of Georgia, said North Korea wants normal diplomatic relations and a non-aggression pact with the United States — and is “angry enough and hungry enough to sell anything they can put their hands on.”

“They are a big-time weapons trader,” Park said. “If we are going to try to do something about nonproliferation, we have to include diplomatic relations with North Korea.”

Analysts say North Korea is years from having a weapon it can put atop a long-range missile like those in the U.S., Chinese or Russian arsenals.

Meanwhile, Kim is widely reported to have suffered a stroke in August and has been absent from many public functions in recent months. In April, he named his son Kim Jong-un and brother-in-law, Jang Song Thaek, to the country’s powerful National Defense Commission, suggesting his son might be his heir.

Rebecca Johnson, executive director of the Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy, told CNN that Kim “needs to demonstrate domestically that he is in charge.”

“Doing the nuclear tests, firing a couple of missiles, is a way to do that — perhaps the only way to do that — because he can’t feed the people,” she said.

North and South Korea technically remain at war, because no treaty formalized the truce that ended the Korean War in 1953. The conflict also involved China and the United States, and about 25,000 U.S. troops are still based in South Korea. But Johnson said renewed conflict is unlikely; rather, Pyongyang is “playing a political game.”

“It causes a lot of anxiety in South Korea and Japan, but they are sensible countries,” she said. “They know that this can be dealt with politically and diplomatically. This is not a situation where anyone should start saber-rattling and threatening to go to war.”

I hear all these news blurbs: “Ellen DeGeneres and Portia DeRossi were able to stay married today”. All these liberals today are so peeved today. It’s so sad that there are so many ignorant people out there who don’t care about the future of the country..not caring about the redefinition of the word “marriage”, not caring that this is a total Orwellian brainwashing going on. Words and phrases are repeated over and over to make people think differently.

Mike Huckabee’s statement (Source: HuckPac): (My  highlights in BOLD)
“The appointment of Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court is the clearest  indication yet that President Obama’s campaign promises to be a centrist and think in a bi-partisan way were mere rhetoric. Sotomayor comes from the far left and will likely leave us with something akin to the “Extreme Court” that could mark a major shift. The notion that appellate court decisions are to be interpreted by the “feelings” of the judge is a direct affront of the basic premise of our judicial system that is supposed to apply the law without personal emotion. If she is confirmed, then we need to take the blindfold off Lady Justice.”

It scares me that this woman will be on the court, possibly as long as I live.  I am more concerned about her views rather than her gender or ethnicity.