Not everybody reads comments on blogs, so I would like to post the following exchange. Mrsgunka's reply deserves a wider audience.
Brooklyn wrote:
Anyone can make speeches. America needs results. And in 3 years, that dream has been elusive.
Mrsgunka wrote, in response to Brooklyn:
You know Brooky, if you took the cotton out of your ears and stopped singing la, la, la you might really hear what the man has to say. He doesn't speak in word salad or say derogatory things about people. It took Bush/Cheney 8 years to run this country into the ground and it may take that long to get it back together again.
If he had some co-operation from the R's we may have been a lot further along than we are. The jobs were all outsourced before he got into office so the corporations could make more money but the CEOs pocketed that money and didn't put it back into their companies to grow and employ people.
He was left with two wars that were never paid for. 9-11 had taken it's toll and the country was on "fear" cycle everyday. We had one natural disaster after another, and the costs kept adding up. We were going broke because money just wasn't coming in.
The richest weren't paying taxes and the rest of us were drained dry. The housing market crashed and people were loosing their homes. The stock market crashed, taking peoples savings/investments/501's and they couldn't live in retirement because of past investments... homes, autos, business loans couldn't be paid.
Insurance costs were too high for people to make the payment or they were turned down for treatment. You are living at the poverty level if everything is gone but Social Security and small pensions, but you make just too much for Medicaid and Medicare doesn't pay for everything.
President Obama's first goal was to get the Health care passed so people could afford the medical bills. My husband's cancer treatment was over 2 million dollars. If we didn't have health insurance, he would not be alive and I would be living on the streets with thousands of others. My cancer treatment was $788,000. Without affordable medical care we would all end up on the street. The costs don't stop when you are cured. For 5 years it is constant tests and images that cost thousands of dollars.
You may be young and see a doctor rarely, but you better hope and pray cancer doesn't hit you and you have a limit on what your insurance will pay. President Obama had to settle for much less than he wanted for the people because the Republicans fought him every step of the way with money from the lobbyists of the insurance and pharmaceutical companies.
Sarah (Palin) claims she had a baby with DS. Do you know what the medical and treatment costs with a premmie with special needs? These babies usually happen to young parents that don't have the money to pay for them. This is the reason so many young women abort their babies and most are not adoptable.
President Obama was looking out for you and me when he wanted to get the bill passed. Single payer or what you like to call socialized medicine is what we really need so everyone can be covered. It would be like Medicare. And no, it isn't free, everyone pays into it. There are legitimate poor people in this country that can't even afford that. They are not the lazy, do-nothings you want to portray anyone who are on Medicaid. President Reagan closed most of our mental hospitals and these people are the ones from the many wars that just can't face life anymore, the drug addicts, the DS children that people had institutionalized. These are the ones we need to take care of with "free" help.
My husband has severe dementia as a result of his cancer treatment and he can't do anything. Most of the time he doesn't know where he is or what day it is. He worked 12-16 hour days for 30 years to keep you safe. Now I can't afford to put him in a nursing home as I would lose our home. It costs over $5000 a month and Medicaid pays for the first 20 days then you pay the full amount after that. There are young people in nursing homes from head injuries from accidents. Do you have $5000 a month for your care? Didn't think so.
And you want to throw out Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid for trying to get this healthcare bill passed. You believe everything Fox News tells you or Rush Limbaugh spouts on the radio.
President Obama gives very clear and understandable speeches trying to explain what we need to do to get our country back on track. It will cost money, lots of money, because GW Bush didn't do what he needed to do. We went into Iraq for the oil and it cost us 1000's of lives and made Halliburton very rich.
It will take cooperation from the R's to pass the bills to heal what was taken from all of us. Why don't you read what he has done in the short 2+ years he has been in office? Look around your world if you ever crawl out of your chair and see just what the government does for us and keeps us safe. Sarah Palin has absolutely no idea what it takes to be a President. It's not just photo-ops and bendy straws!
President Obama makes speeches about his plans, only to have them thwarted by the GOP.
Sarah Palin derailed the debate about healthcare reform with her "death panels" rhetoric. There weren't any death panels in the bill, but they're very real and have been operating for many years, in the insurance companies. President Obama was trying to get rid of the real death panels. Sarah Palin was paid handsomely to mount her attack against the bill. She sold her soul to the companies that run private death panels to maximize their profits by limiting the treatment people receive or by refusing treatment altogether.
Teabaggers and other low-information voters attend rallies with posters saying no to "Obamacare." They would benefit from it. They stand to lose the most if the GOP wins the day and repeals what's left of the original healthcare reform bill, together with tinkering with Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security and other safety nets.
The politicians who make the decisions on these matters have a benefits package that insulates them from any of these concerns. Some have real servants' hearts and believe that government is for the people. Others have grifters' hearts and believe that government is for the corporations (and themselves).
GOP politicians make their own speeches, saying they don't believe in government, but they're all desperate to be part of it. They love to quote Lincoln about a government of the people, by the people, for the people. In their case, nothing could be further from the truth. They fight anything that would benefit the people, every step of the way.
Should one of them make their way to the White House, should they be able to turn their speeches into "results," I would like to see how long they would be able to fund government by taxing the majority of the people to give breaks to the so called "job creators" that not only don't create any jobs but send them abroad, where labour is cheap. No jobs, no revenue. No jobs, no healthcare. No jobs, no economy.
How long would it take them to turn the exceptional United States of America into a third world banana republic, with countless homeless people begging and dying in the streets?
