David Plouffe, BarackObama.com wrote:
What’s really at stake
From: David Plouffe, BarackObama.com [info@barackobama.com]
Sent: Tuesday, December 22, 2009 2:24 PM
To: Tom
Subject: What’s really at stake
Tom –Any day now, health insurance reform will come up for a vote in the Senate.
We’re hearing a lot about what’s at stake with this vote for President Obama, the Democrats who are fighting alongside him, and the Republicans who have lined up in opposition.
But let’s talk about what’s really at stake for America. The Senate health reform bill will:
– Extend coverage to 31 million Americans, the largest expansion of coverage since the creation of Medicare.– Ensure that you can choose your own doctor.
– Finally stop insurance companies from denying coverage due to a pre-existing condition.
– Make sure you will never be charged exorbitant premiums on the basis of your age, health, or gender.
– Guarantee you will never lose your coverage just because you get sick or injured.
– Protect you from outrageous out-of-pocket expenditures by establishing lifetime and annual limits.
– Allow young people to stay on their parents’ coverage until they’re 26 years old.
– Create health insurance exchanges, or “one-stop shops” for individuals purchasing insurance, where insurance companies are forced to compete for new customers.
– Lower premiums for families, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office — especially for struggling folks who will receive subsidies.
– Help small businesses provide health care coverage to their employees with tax credits and by allowing them to purchase coverage through the exchanges.
– Improve and strengthen Medicare by eliminating waste and fraud (without cutting basic benefits), beginning to close the Medicare Part D donut hole, and extending the life of the Medicare trust fund.
– Create jobs by reining in costs — fostering competition, reducing waste and inefficiency, and starting to reward doctors and hospitals for quality, not quantity, of care.
– Cut the deficit by over $130 billion in the next 10 years.
It’s a long list. But that’s only because this bill represents the most significant health reform our nation has seen since the creation of Medicare.
And it’s important that every American knows what’s really at stake this holiday season.
So please pass this email along to friends, family, and neighbors today — or click below to share this list on Facebook and Twitter, or print out a copy to share with others:
http://my.barackobama.com/SenateReformBill
We wouldn’t be this close to enacting these powerful reforms without all your hard work. Now, we’re in the final stretch — let’s keep it up.
Thank you,
David Plouffe
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No Praise for Warmongering From This Blogger
Re: ‘Obama Doctrine’ Praised By Conservatives After Nobel Speech, The Huffington Post | Rachel Weiner First Posted: 12-11-09 08:21 AM | Updated: 12-11-09 09:04 AM
Let’s jump in the way-back machine for a second and take a second look at the Democratic presidential primaries. For me, back in late 2007, I admired Governor Bill Richardson for his resume and all his heroic diplomatic accomplishments. I was glad he was running and I opened up my checkbook for him – some. Then I started actually listening to what he and other candidates were saying and that is when I, and my support dollars (some), gravitated over to Congressman Dennis Kucinich. Dennis stood for impeachment of Bush and Cheney. I liked that. None of the other candidates spoke of these things in the same way. He stood against war I liked that, too. He said:
Here’s Dennis talking about the uselessness of the escalation of war in Afghanistan on MSNBC, The Ed Show, December 1, 2009:
Back in early 2008 my list of favorites for president had Barack Obama closer to the bottom of the list just above Hillary, who was dead last. My top three picks were 1. Dennis Kucinich, 2. Bill Richardson, 3. John Edwards (there are two Americas!). Then reality set in as time went on and I threw my full support behind Barack Obama, knowing he was not a progressive, but a centrist. [Remember his statement (paraphrased): we’re not a blue America, or a red America, we’re the United States of America? You can’t get more centrist than that.]
The truth is that we are very much a blue America. A majority of Americans tend to agree with Democratic Party values.
Hillary is also a centrist, only she would have been even more hawkish than Obama. Her vote in favor of the AUMF for Iraq, her support for military action against whoever threatens Israel, and her involvement with the DLC put her at the bottom of my list. But Obama spoke of a right war versus a wrong war all through the campaign and the decision to escalate now should come as no surprise to anyone.
Barack spoke of turning our attention away from Iraq, and back to Afghanistan. This is quoted from The Boston Globe, July 15th, 2008, “If another attack on our homeland comes, it will likely come from the same region where 9/11 was planned,” he said in a speech in Washington. “And yet today, we have five times more troops in Iraq than Afghanistan.” President Obama went on to say in his July, 2008 policy speech in Washington, DC:
This has been his policy since he first announced his candidacy. So why is it just now that the Republicans are hearing him?
Maybe it was them that were trying way too hard to paint Obama as a far-left Socialist when he is obviously a centrist and a hawk, like Hillary Clinton. One thing he surely is not, and that is a progressive like Dennis Kucinich. Maybe they should re-think this:
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