UNBELIEVABLE

This just makes me sick. Honestly.

This is our free market capitalist system at work...

Here is the set up - a woman, with insurance, gets raped. Because she was drug raped and they did not know if the attacker used a condom or not, she was put on anti-HIV/AIDS meds. Her insurance company finds out she's on these meds and in therapy so, the compassion of the market takes over and they drop her faster than a conservative politician (who cheat on their wives) vote for family values.

And on top of it - she's an insurance agent. She talks with the underwriters with this 'hypothetical' case and they all answer the same - drop her - she's uninsured until out of therapy and HIV/AIDS free for 3 years.

Don't believe me? Watch the video your self.

Then do something....
Join A Woman Is Not A Pre-Existing Condition and advocate with congress.

So denying a rape victim insurance isn't bad enough? How about this one? Peggy Robertson needed insurance but there was one pesky problem... she had a previous C-section. Solution? Voluntary sterilization.


And then... let's deny coverage to her son!


My wife and I ran into this same thing when our son was born. At the time my company was trying to get private insurance because of the costs for group coverage. At his first check-up the doctor noticed my son 'looking down'. Apparently that can be a sign of something very serious - hydrocephalus, or water on the brain. To rule that out he had an MRI at the tender age of 8 days old. Needless to say, we were terrified through the proceedure and so relieved to find out he was perfectly healthy.

Then the insurance company shared their good news with us: Because he had an MRI at that age, he was uninsurable. Good news for them that is because it reduces their exposure to potential problems. Seems any medical intervention increases the statistical risk for future intervention and therefore - my son was no longer a potential profit center but a liability.

PLEASE CALL CONGRESS... Tell them to get off their 'lifetime covered asses' and fix healthcare including a public option.

Wanna know what Congress gets? Coverage that includes "a choice of 10 healthcare plans that provide access to a national network of doctors, as well as several HMOs that serve each member's home state...[They] also get special treatment at Washington's federal medical facilities and, for a few hundred dollars a month, access to their own pharmacy and doctors, nurses and medical technicians standing by in an office conveniently located between the House and Senate chambers.

In all, taxpayers spent about $15 billion last year to insure 8.5 million federal workers and their dependents, including postal service employees, according to the Office of Personnel Management."

Illegals, Watch Out - We're Taking Back Our Jobs!

Alicia Morgan over at Last Left Turn Before Hooterville has a warning for all those so-called Illegal Immigrants...Watch Out - We're Taking Back Our Jobs!
She writes:
There's a new movement afoot in the American Right. Inspired by the rabidly anti-immigration, tirelessly pro-American-worker Lou Dobbs, it's springing up all across America. From the meatpacking plants of Iowa to the dairy farms of Arizona, from the kitchens of New York's finest restaurants to the Salad Bowl of California's Salinas Valley, in hotels, motels, and Holiday Inns all across this great nation of ours, the patriotic men and women who for years have stood by and watched illegal immigrants swarming across the border to brazenly steal their jobs have had enough. (Read the rest here)

This whole thing is getting out of control. There are outright lies - not just misinformation - out there. There are people who are are willing to shout down a handicapped woman while she tries to talk at a health care rally and Congressional Representatives calling the President a liar (See the video here or a different kind of attack here.)

Meanwhile, the media completely overlooks those in pain...


Tell Congress you want a public option. Go ahead - pick up the phone and dial 202-224-3121. Tell them you want it now.

Don't let these classy folks stop the debate:



Rep. Wilson (R SC-02) shouting "You lie" at the President of the United States

Seriously...

'nuff said.

Great post by Roger Ebert...

I'm safe on board. Pull up the life rope

By

Roger Ebert

on August 20, 2009 4:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (775)

Having read through some 600 comments about universal health care, I now realize I took the wrong approach in my previous blog entry. I discussed the Obama health plan in political, literal, logical terms. Most of my readers replied in the same vein. The comments, as always, have been helpful, informative and for the most part civil. My mistake was writing from the pragmatic side. I should have followed my heart and gone with a more emotional approach. I believe universal health care is, quite simply, right.

It is a moral imperative. I cannot enjoy health coverage and turn to my neighbor and tell him he doesn't deserve it. A nation is a mutual undertaking. In a democracy, we set out together to do what we believe is good for the commonwealth. That means voluntarily subjecting ourselves to the rule of law, taxation, military service, the guaranteeing of rights to minorities, and so on. That is a cheap price to pay.

Read on...

Support the Stauts Quo

As an organizer I teach people that, no matter the system, someone benefits from it. It may be broken for many, if not most people, but at the end of the day?... someone benefits from it.

The Billionaires for 'Weathcare' go to thank all those on the right protesting health care reform. "Save the Status Quo! It works for us!"

I speak "Insurance"

When does equal not mean equal?

The status quo is a funny thing. It provides a normalizing context where everything seems to be 'in order', the 'way it should be'. Throughout our history we've had different opportunities to take a look at what is 'normal' and decide that, well, perhaps normal isn't such a great idea.

Remember slavery? Once upon a time in our country it was normal to own another human being. They were treated as less than human. We could do what we want with them. We bred slaves like animals and then sold their children away from them. Millions of people taken from their homes in Africa or were born into bondage in America. And yet, it was normal. Heck, even our Presidents owned slaves. The practice was so normal that even the church used the Bible to justify slavery. (Not all churches mind you, the Quakers were out front and during the Abolitionist movement many other churches joined in condemning the practice. If you haven't seen the movie Amazing Grace I highly recommend it). Still, slavery lasted for 258 years in America, from the founding of Virginia in 1607 until the Thirteenth Amendment was passed in 1865.

So African American's won their freedom and everything was hunky-dory right? Wrong. The status quo still said African American's weren't equal. Remember the term Separate but Equal? Today we know it's not but the Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) that it was. It wasn't until Brown v. Board of Education (1954) that it wasn't. That's a long status quo. And let me assure you, people were none too happy about these changes in their communities. Everyone knows blacks know their place - at the back of the bus right? Wrong!

Oh, and what about those women? Silly girls, thinking they are equal to boys. People actually thought this. It took a movement to even allow women to vote. Once again, people weren't happy about suggesting women had a place in society. Women were beaten and jailed. They were harassed and persecuted. I pray my own daughter won't ever forget the sacrifice by other women, decades before she was born, that will allow her to pursue her dreams. And the torch was passed down to women in the 60's and 70's who fought for equal pay. But why did they need to fight? Because the status quo said women don't need to earn as much - they aren't the breadwinners. (By the way - that fight isn't over. In 2007 women still earned 77 cents on the dollar to what men were making).


Interracial marriage. We don't think a thing of it today. Why wouldn't people get married if they loved each other. Richard and Mildred Loving fell in love and got married. The only problem? They did it in Virginia where interracial marriage was illegal. The Virginia district judge Leon Bazile ruled against them saying:

"Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix."

Today we look at statements like that and think - how crazy?!? Still, it took a Supreme Court decision to allow couples of different races to marry. June 12, 1967 the Loving decision was handed down, striking down state laws that prohibited interracial marriages.

Then the 80's rolled around and gaybashing became all the rage. I find it alarming that in many of these cases the church is complicit in supporting the status quo. We can be so rightous about our believes.

We stand on the "moral authority of God" on these issues. But when we look back, that authority seems to bleed away. Does God support slavery? Condemn interracial marriage? Does God think that Separate is Equal? Would Jesus call women to be second class citizens? (I know this one is still being hashed in in many churches today - and that too makes me sad).

"But Chris" I hear you say, "the Bible is clear about this."
I'm sure it seemed clear when it supported slavery too. That doesn't make it right.

When we look back, years or decades from now. Which side of the fight do you want to say you stood for?

Equal means Equal.