Bill Maher's New Rules: Souless Bastards Edition

Bill Maher is spot on when he said the current health insurance system is full of "souless bastards who want to make a profit off human pain."

Meet Katherine Reutter, Olympic Speed Skater for 2010

Katherine Reutter happens to be a Champaign, IL native. Her parents are first rate, not rich at all, just doing what they can to encourage their daughter to be her best on every front of being competitive. She's a sweetheart, not arrogant at all. Katherine is simply a combination of her parents' looks, more like her mother's, and both of her parents' humility of being a good citizen. But she has her dad's drive to compete in sports; he worked with her day in and day out until it became clear she was ready for athlete camps with professional trainers.

Katherine spent some time with us on my birthday nearly a month ago, and described her working days as an full-time athlete in Utah. She manages a business in a sense in having sponsors, and yet like Lance Armstrong, she has to work out 8 hours each day. Occasionally she has an afternoon off. Today she wanted to go on a bike ride with my spouse and her dad virtually, when I mentioned they were going on a ride-- we spoke via social networking site. I am working as a PR volunteer to set up a fan page. More about that when that happens.

September is the heat of getting ready for the time trials. And I believe she will make the team for Feb.


More later.

Chicken Little Congress

Note: I got this from Montana Maven, who gave anyone permission to publish it.

Senator Chuck Grassley pays $356.59 a month for health insurance with a $300 deductible. We pay for his cheap care with our taxes. When asked why we can’t have what he has with our tax money, he told the guy to “Get a job with the Feds”. Hey, Chuck, guess you forgot whom your boss is. It should be us. But like Max who received $3,902,785 from the health care industry over his career, Wellpoint and Blue Cross Blue Shield might have better seats at the Chuck’s table.

Americans are already paying more in taxes for health care than Canadians and are not as healthy. We have the fourth highest infant mortality rate of the 30 developed countries. We are 24th of the 30 countries in life expectancy. That’s because we have a for profit insurance based system. We have great health care providers, but we are often denied full access by some insurance bureaucrat.

Health insurance is not health care. Trying to figure out how to keep the profit in health care is a losing proposition. Other countries use insurance companies to manage bill paying but all of them are non profit.

And we have the money to pay for it. All our Chicken Little legislators do is squawk, “Cost, cost, cost!” like a bunch of hens. We have a $16 Trillion dollar economy. We just spent $160 billion bailing our insurance giant AIG. We spend over $1 Trillion a year on keeping 761 military bases in 150 countries. Come on, close a few of them. A measly $150 billion a year for health care is cheap and money much better spent because it is spent here in the good old U.S.A. on its hard working citizens. Support H.B. 676 Medicare for All. It’s a lot simpler than the Chicken Littles want you to believe.

Bloggers Matter when it is about Issues

BooMan was on a call with President Obama yesterday with other A-List Bloggers. Obviously, I'm not an A-List blogger, but it is good to know that our President knows we are trying to spread the message of health care insurance reform. I like this tactic very much as JRE would have done the same thing.

http://networkedblogs.com/p7702539