Be INFORMED

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Universal Healthcare: Republicans Fear It, Americans Want It

  Republicans don't want a healthcare system which would provide for everyone because the assholes know that their party would be waiting a  very long time to get back into power in Washington. So naturally, the GOP will do whatever it takes to derail any kind of nationalized medical care for all.

  Let us compare our healthcare to a few other countries.

Opponents of national health care often claim that it would lead to longer waits for treatment, and this is actually true with regard to elective surgeries such as knee replacements. For the health care that matters most, however, Americans wait longer than in the OECD countries with government health plans. A 2004 study looked at patients' experiences in five English-speaking countries (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States). It found that U.S. respondents were the second-least able to make a same-day doctor's appointment when sick and had the most difficulty getting care on nights and weekends. They were also the most likely to delay or forgo treatment because of cost. Yet another study found that the United States had the third-highest rate of deaths from medical errors, among 26 countries reporting.

One of the most obvious ways to evaluate performance of a health care system is to ask about the health and longevity of people who live under it. Here also, the U.S. performs badly. The American Human Development Report, a 2008 study funded by Oxfam America, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Conrad Hilton Foundation, found that the US ranked 42nd in the world for life expectancy and that "Americans live shorter lives than citizens of virtually every Western European and Nordic country." Moreover, the infant mortality rate is "substantially higher in the United States than in other affluent nations" and is "on par with that of Croatia, Cuba, Estonia, and Poland."        by  Sheldon Rampton posted at Daily Kos

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Monday, December 15, 2008

Senate Majority Lead Reid: GOP's Best Friend?

  I've been ragging on Harry Reid quite a bit as of late and so have many others in blog-land, with good reason. As the top leader of the majority party in the Senate, Reid is a failure and has been since he took the spot.

   As  kos notes..

If Republicans knew what was good for their continued obstructionism efforts, they'd give Reid a reelection pass.

    A few more details for you.

Harry Reid has been exceptionally ineffective as the Democrats' majority leader.
The number of cloture votes skyrocketed in the 110th Congress following the Democratic takeover of the Senate and Reid's assumption of the majority leader position. The Senate voted on 112 cloture motions in the 110th, exactly double the number (56) of cloture votes in the 109th Congress, and two-and-a-half times as many as the average number of cloture votes (44) over the previous nine Congresses. Of these cloture motions, 51 were rejected (meaning that opponents of a bill succeeded in blocking an up-or-down vote) and 61 were passed.

There are basically two mechanisms that a majority leader can employ to limit filibusters: firstly, he can threaten to block votes on certain of the opposition party's legislation (or alternatively, present carrots to them for allowing a vote to proceed), and secondly, he can publicly shame them. Reid managed to do neither, and the Senate Republicans did fairly well for themselves considering that they were in a minority and were burdened by a President with negative political capital.
I don't imagine the culture of the Senate changing in the new Congress so long as it's under Reid's direction, and Reid is highly unlikely to be replaced. There is some chance, however, that Obama rather than Reid will dictate the tone, particularly if Joe Biden is dispatched to Capitol Hill fairly often.

   Maybe we can get Joe Biden to take dear old Harry out to the wood shed for some disciplinary action.