Liasson asserts there is "real anger" over public option, but polls say most people support one
August 09, 2009 1:27 pm ET
From the August 9 edition of Fox Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday:


The other right-wing media mogul you should worry about
Palin's book and Obama's bow: a media week to forget
Media Matters: The Palin chronicles|
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Fortunately, I was eligible for the VA. It's the best medical care I have ever had. The first time I went, the doctor spent 1 and 1/2 hours talking to me! The most time I ever spent with a doctor before that was 5 minutes. I have been in the VA system for 8 years now. It is wonderful! Best preventive care I have ever received, no long waits, very cheap copays, drugs are cheap, MRIs are $50. I can't say enough good things about it.
Your experience with the VA is commendable. The brother of a friend had surgery to remove a melenoma a few weeks back, then they (VA) tell him, they may not have gotten it all and have booked him for followup in about 8 weeks (not the best experience). Again, our preceptions are colored by our experiences. Yours (with the government) have been good, mine not.
That it is being "rammed" through is a bogus claim and a bogus argument.
All you ever hear is that Congress is too slow and does not act decisively enough. Then when they finally are about to something into place, powerfully lobby groups and corporations come into to try and derail things.
We all like to be snarky and get our zingers in, but this website has a lot of smart posters who want real discussions instead of the name-calling (and worse) found elsewhere.
Here is the truth about Palin and what she has actually done about health care in her state, Palin administered her own "death panel":
Palin’s Health Care Priorities and Alaska’s Daughters
15
07
2009
Today, Lisa Demer of the Anchorage Daily News has broken a story that adds another scandal to the growing list of scandals that have plagued this administration, and shines the light on Alaska’s very own health care crisis. Demer’s story centers on the horrendous condition of the Alaska’s state programs that are designed to help its most vulnerable citizens, the elderly and disabled.
The situation is so bad the federal government has forbidden the state to sign up new people until the state makes necessary improvements. [snip]
The moratorium is expected to last four or five months. State officials estimate about 1,000 Alaskans will be affected.
A particularly alarming finding concerns deaths of adults in the programs. In one 2 1/2 year stretch, 227 adults already getting services died while waiting for a nurse to reassess their needs. Another 27 died waiting for their initial assessment, to see if they qualified for help.
No other state in the nation is under such a moratorium, according to a spokeswoman for the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
There are currently eight lawsuits pending against the state which also rang alarm bells on the federal level.
Doctors and other health care providers wrote to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid with concerns that the state wasn’t responsive. Some alleged that the lack of state controls “has resulted in the death(s) of the active clients,” the federal review said.
While the people served are frail and suffer from chronic health issues, the state never investigated to determine if any failure in service contributed to the deaths, the federal review found.
“Thus, if someone passed away because a (personal care assistant) did not show up, for example, there was no indication this would have been reported or investigated,” the report said.
The state plans to start doing fatality reviews.
The state plans to start doing fatality reviews?
So, it would appear, since we are the only state where the situation is bad enough to require federal intervention that the administration has had its mind on other things. We know, of course, that the governor has been busy with her farewell tour, flying all over the state and signing bills and doing little shout outs and quotes of the day on her twitter account, and getting ready to become a full-time celebrity.
But what about health? What have been, and what currently are the administrations top priorities on matters of health and human services? It’s obviously not the care and well-being of our vulnerable seniors, so what is it?
The administration is spending an awful lot of time on the upcoming ballot initiative that will address parental notice and consent for anyone under the age of 18 who is seeking to terminate a pregnancy. Here is the initiative language with recent changes in language underlined. parental20involvement20initiative1
Two years ago, the Alaska Supreme Court on a 3-2 ruling said that a parental consent law was unconstitutional because it transferred the right to make such an important decision to a parent or a judge. They also stated that a parental notification law, however, might be constitutional.
Although she stated she’d like to take this on personally, Palin, under the advice of her attorney, took a step back.
“I got a preliminary opinion from Law (Department) just giving me a heads up that critics would certainly file an ethics charge against me if I were to sponsor an initiative,” she said. “So though I maintain I have First Amendment rights just as any other citizen does, I won’t flirt with the notion of giving critics more ammunition to keep filing wasteful ethics charges against me, but instead I’ll volunteer to be the first signature.”
There go those critics again, demanding ethics. And there goes the governor again, not quite understanding the first amendment, or the ethics act.
Planned Parenthood, recognizing that a girl who doesn’t want to tell her parents she’s pregnant, or fill out paperwork to get time off from school to go stand before a judge in superior court and convince him or her that she is mature and intelligent enough to make decisions about her own reproductive health, might just take the situation in to her own hands.
Girls researching self-induced abortion on the Internet could find all kinds of bad advice, said Clover Simon, Executive Director of Planned Parenthood.
In the week prior to Sarah Palin’s hurried announcement that she’d be stepping down as the governor of the state, a new scandal was brewing on the horizon. It didn’t get as much publicity as some of the other numerous Palin scandals, in part because everyone became preoccupied with her resignation.
The fact that a frightened teen who doesn’t want to become a parent might do what others have done and just try to Google her way out of her predicament may have crossed the mind of Beverly Wooley, the state’s public health director, who was scheduled to appear before the legislature on this issue. She stated, earlier this month that she was forced out of her position, largely due to differences between her and the governor on the parental involvement issue.
Wooley said she also intended to answer questions from legislators and said she would rely on data, not anyone’s personal beliefs. Whether she personally agreed with the governor is beside the point, Wooley said.
She intended to refer to studies from states that already had passed similar legislation, she said. Some of the research shows that, with parental involvement requirements, girls tend to get abortions later in their pregnancy, which is riskier and more expensive, she said. Other research shows fewer girls get abortions, which abortion foes like Palin likely would applaud.
And while Palin says she “will not hesitate to speak up in support of Alaska’s daughers,” her concern does not seem to extend to Alaska’s daughters whose parents are literally dying from neglect because of budget cuts and mismanagement. The “culture of life” seems to have an expiration date that our seniors have passed. And left out are Alaska’s daughters who will choose not to talk to their parents, and take matters in to their own hands rather than submit to the emotional stress, embarrassment and legal wranglings of convincing a judge that they were abused, or the victim of incest, or just not ready to be a parent.
By all indications Lt. Governor Sean Parnell, who is set to take the helm of state on July 26th will have his work cut out for him. His predecessor has left him quite a mess. Where will his priorities lie?
http://www.themudflats.net/2009/07/15/palins-health-care-priorities-and-alaskas-daughters/
If the health reform had been past it would = BAD because Dems are shoving it down our throats.
What Dems do is always BAD on Fox News.
Also why is Fox News suddenly concerned about "anger" hurting the Dems and stopped making fun of "angry" protesters like they used to. After all Fox has always taught us before that angry people are only angry because of "sour grapes" from losing the last election.
Prove it. Define "happy". And how about the subset of people who've actually gotten sick and needed to make substantial claims against their private insurance; how happy are they?
Here I flat-out do not believe you. So again, Prove it.
It's closer to 15% or more (47 million out of 300 million).
Then why did a substantial majority vote for the candidate who said during last fall's election, quite clearly, that he plans to do this?
How about the Patriot Act and warrantless wiretaps? Was that invasive government?
How about a profit-sucking private insurance company? Does it bother you that they have your medical records?
Please describe them. What's YOUR plan to address this?
The people that are happy with their health insurance could lose it, then how happy would they be. They can also find themselves in a situation where they are denied by that insurance co. they are so happy with now, then what.
I have found trying to get insurance companies to pay up very invasive and humiliating, in spite of the fact that I paid my policies in good faith for years.
I have witnessed many people denied or cancelled when they needed health care. So being happy with your health insurance is no guarantee you will get health care coverage.
So "be happy" and enjoy those premiums increasing at an obscene rate and your coverage going down. While you support the CEO of that company at an outrageous amount. I want something else.
Quit attacking eachother.
I think if we quit fighting and quit rushing and saying we are passing this no matter what before this certain time, things would be alot more constructive and productive and what do we really want out of healthcare reform? We all know we need it, and that is not something that quote on quote "teabaggers" dont believe, they are fed up as well.
(It's in the bill. It's Indisputable.)
Jessica 6 was so hot...
I listen to NPR all the time as I drive to my job, and they have been getting progressively more right-wing and more
willing to buy the neo-con/pro-corporation hermeneutic even as they pretend to be balanced. Juan Williams was
once a civil rights journalist but now he has
made criticism of the President his main cause.
I don't know why more liberals and radicals do not call out NPR- I think criticizing them is sacrosanct, sort of like admitting that your dad has become senile.
I am not a liberal but a radical, a neo-neo-marxist, and I will have none of anything that accepts any conservative bias or slant
at all.