3,361,596 members
12,339,752 petition signatures
$17,571,785,510 diverted from Big Pharma
Sen. Nelson: Health Care Reform to Pass
Bill Rufty
And Osama bin Laden will be found by the United States within a year, but it will not end the threat of terrorism.
U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson made those predictions Monday during his tour and teaching assignment at Summerlin Academy, the military-style public school in Bartow.
Nelson, who like his colleagues in Congress has been touring his state during the August recess, later had lunch with members of Citrus Mutual in Lakeland and heard concerns of the industry.
The Melbourne Democrat’s visits back home were altered slightly for Friday and the weekend because members of the Senate went to Boston for the funeral of the Sen. Ted Kennedy.
During a question-and-answer session Monday with cadets, Nelson said the House version of health care reform cannot get the necessary 60 votes to avoid a filibuster and pass in the Senate.
Nelson later told The Ledger in an interview that the public option also can’t pass the Senate.
“The public option is only one of hundreds of issues concerned with health care reform,” he said. “Public option means different things to different people. Some people think of it as socialized medicine, but that type is not and has not ever been considered.
“Still any public option will not pass,” he said.
The Senate has not written its version of the health care reform bill yet. That will begin Sept. 8, when senators arrive back in Washington, D.C.
The House version of health care “has not been endorsed by the Obama Administration and will not get through the Senate,” he said.
The Senate version will come out of the Senate Finance Committee, on which Nelson sits, probably sometime in late September.
“A big part of (the bill) will be shoring up Medicare and Medicaid. We do not have a bill yet because the Senate does not have consensus. We tried all summer to get consensus,” he said.
“I want consensus so that we can have as many people as possible with health care coverage and we cannot get the 60 votes in the Senate with any public option,” Nelson said.
And he said it is easy to understand the need for reforming health care in America.
“Go talk to someone whose employer’s insurance company has dropped coverage for the company,” he said.
“When you try to reform the health care system in this nation and the health care-delivery system, you are going to run up against quite a few special interests,” he said.
Another cadet asked whether terrorist activity in the world is on the decline.
Nelson said the activity was still high and President Obama was well aware of it.
“I predict that within a year we will get Osama bin Laden, but that won’t stop terrorist activities around the world,” he said. “During this recess I have visited in Indonesia and the Philippines, where we have American troops training their soldiers in counterterrorism.”
He toured the campus of the Bartow school as most of the corps returned from lunch, marching and singing cadences. He attended a briefing by cadet commanders, then taught a class in history, including that Jamestown, Va., was founded some 40 years after the first settlement was established in St. Augustine.
“This is an impressive, impressive public school,” Nelson said. “Anytime we can introduce students to their military, to learn self discipline that will stay with them all their lives, is a good thing.
“Understanding our military is important with an all-volunteer army,” he said.
“But our military in these times are not only a fighting force, but a diplomatic force as well,” he said.
In response to a question from The Ledger, Nelson said he is confident in the commanding generals’ assessment that troops can be brought out of Iraq, but he has doubts about success in Afghanistan without better cooperation from that government.
“It depends on the Afghanistan government’s ability and willingness to control their own affairs. There is a lot of corruption in the current government and the results of the presidential elections are still unknown. There may be a runoff,” he said.
On a domestic issue, Nelson told The Ledger there are signs that the economy is recovering.
He does think the economy could be restored within the president’s first term, but it won’t be quick.
“I think most economists agree the economy has bottomed out and is on a slow recovery. But until you get the unemployment rate down, you are never going to have full recovery,” Nelson said.
http://www.theledger.com/article/20090831/NEWS/908315049/1410?Title=Sen-Nelson-Health-Care-Reform-to-Pass
NO CO-OP’S! A Little History Lesson
Young People. America needs your help.
More than two thirds of the American people want a single payer health care system. And if they cant have a single payer system 77% of all Americans want a strong government-run public option on day one (86% of democrats, 75% of independents, and 72% of republicans). Basically everyone.
According to a new AARP POLL: 86 percent of seniors want universal healthcare security for All, including 93% of Democrats, 87% of Independents, and 78% of Republicans. And 79% of seniors support creating a new strong Government-run public option plan, available immediately. Including 89% of Democrats, 80% of Independents, and 61% of Republicans, STUNNING!! Senator Max Baucus, You better come out of committee with a strong government-run public option available on day one.
The History:
Our last great economic catastrophe was called the Great Depression. Then as now it was caused by a reckless, and corrupt Republican administration and republican congress. FDR a Democrat, was then elected to save the nation and the American people from the unbridled GREED and profiteering, of the unregulated predatory self-interest of the banking industry and Wallstreet. Just like now.
FDR proposed a Government-run health insurance plan to go with Social Security. To assure all Americans high quality, easily accessible, affordable, National Healthcare security. Regardless of where you lived, worked, or your ability to pay. But the AMA riled against it. Using all manor of scare tactics, like Calling it SOCIALIZED MEDICINE!! :-0
So FDR established thousands of co-op’s around the country in rural America. And all of them failed. The biggest of these co-op organizations would become the grandfather of the predatory monster that all of you know today as the DISGRACEFUL GREED DRIVEN PRIVATE FOR PROFIT health insurance industry. And the DISGRACEFUL GREED DRIVEN PRIVATE FOR PROFIT healthcare industry.
This former co-op would grow so powerful that it would corrupt every aspect of healthcare delivery in America. Even corrupting the Government of the United States.
This former co-op’s name is BLUE CROSS/BLUE SHIELD.
Do you see now why even the suggestion of co-op’s is ridiculous. It makes me so ANGRY! Co-op’s are not a substitute for a government-run public option.
They are trying to pull the wool over our eye’s again. Senators, if you don’t have the votes now, GET THEM! Or turn them over to us. WE WILL! DEAL WITH THEM. Why do you think we gave your party Control of the House, Control of the Senate, Control of the Whitehouse. The only option on the table that has any chance of fixing our healthcare crisis is a STRONG GOVERNMENT-RUN PUBLIC OPTION.
An insurance mandate and subsidies without a strong government-run public option choice available on day one, would be worse than the healthcare catastrophe we have now. The insurance, and healthcare industry have been very successful at exploiting the good hearts of the American people. But Congress and the president must not let that happen this time. House Progressives and members of the Tri-caucus must continue to hold firm on their demand for a strong Government-run public option.
A healthcare reform bill with mandates and subsidies but without a STRONG government-run public option choice on day one, would be much worse than NO healthcare reform at all. So you must be strong and KILL IT! if you have too. And let the chips fall where they may. You can do insurance reform without mandates, subsidies, or taxpayer expense.
Actually, no tax payer funds should be use to subsidize any private for profit insurance plans. So, NO TAX PAYER SUBSIDIES TO PRIVATE FOR PROFIT PLANS. Tax payer funds should only be used to subsidize the public plans. Healthcare reform should be 100% for the American people. Not another taxpayer bailout of the private for profit insurance industry, disguised as healthcare reform for the people.
God Bless You
Jacksmith — Working Class
Twitter search #welovetheNHS #NHS Check it out
(http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/25/why-markets-cant-cure-healthcare/)
Senator Bernie Sanders on healthcare (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSM8t_cLZgk&feature=player_embedded)
American HEROES!!
Click replay to play http://bit.ly/j31oU
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbWw23XwO5o) CYBER WARRIORS!! – TAKE THIS VIRAL
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