Exemptions from the mandate would also be granted to Native Americans.

This may save votes and lowers state and/or federal health care costs, in that many American Indians are lower income and would qualify for the most expensive subsidies and because as a group they may also be most in need of better additional health care.

By leaving American Indians out of improved access to health care, Baucus’ plan does seem to screw those who were here first one more time. How like the U.S. Senate, which consented to all those past treaties – and which for generations has refused to demand an administrative accounting for hundreds of billions of dollars in Indian assets for which the federal government acts as “steward” – to do this one more time.

The preceding post (that Rockefeller is getting summoned to the WH to be pressured, possibly, on this bill) is not a good sign.

mcconnell $3.3M, hatch $2.9M, baucus $2.8M, grassley $2.7M,
lieberman $2.6M, burr $2.4M, ensign $2.4M, cornyn $2.2M, kyl $2.1M,
conrad $2.1M, cantor $1.8M boehner $1.7M, coburn $1.2M, j wilson 800K
were paid by the Medical Industrial Complex to kill Health Care Reform.
(Source: OpenSecrets.org)

12 Million Americans were denied health care coverage by the Medical Industrial Complex because they had a pre-existing medical condition. 12K Americans are denied insurance coverage everyday by a for-profit Insurance bureaucrat. (Source: WaPo Article 05′ by Harvard Prof. E. Warren)

More than 22K Americans between the ages 24-64 die each year because they don’t have adequate health insurance coverage. (Source: Chu, M.C. & J. Rhoades, The Uninsured in America, 96′-07′)

Medical malpractice lawsuits are a hot topic but, are they? Tort Reform is such a “red herring” and is easily disproved. I know repubs love to quote the CBO well here’s a quote, ” A 2004 report by the Congressional Budget Office said medical malpractice makes up only 2 percent of U.S. health spending. Even “significant reductions” would do little to curb health-care expenses, it concluded.”

Citizens for Tax Justice pointed this out. The tax legislation enacted under President George W. Bush from 2001 through 2006 will cost $2.48 trillion over the 2001-2010 period. This includes the revenue loss of $2.11 trillion that results directly from the cheney/bush tax cuts as well as the $379 billion in additional interest payments on the national debt that we must make since the tax cuts were deficit-financed. Over the upcoming decade (2010-2019), the costs of the health care proposals approved by three committees in the U.S. House of Representatives are projected to be around $1 trillion and deficit neutral(that means they’re paid for). In 2010, when all the cheney/bush tax cuts are finally phased in, a staggering 52.5 percent of the benefits will go to the richest 5 percent of taxpayers. The cheney/bush tax cuts were deficit-financed, which increased the national debt and resulted in greater interest payments on that debt. cheney/bush administration never even tried to pay for their tax-cuts. So, for the price of cheney/bush’s tax-cuts for the wealthiest 5%, we could have had Health Care for every American. Instead Americans got bupkus and cheney/bush’s republican campaign contributors/golf buddies got filthy rich off of the Blood Money from No-Bid, Cost-Plus Federal Contracts.

Follow the Money: Link

Call Congress and demand, Single-Payer Health Care for All!

(Toll Free # House and Senate)
1-866-338-1015_______________1-866-220-0044
1-800-473-6711_______________1-866-311-3405

Sign Single-Payer Petition: Link

Don’t let the Medical Industrial Complex steal your Health Care from you and your family by donating huge sums of money to Crooked Politicians in order to maintain the Status Quo. Keep up the good fight.

SEMPER FI!