R-ISLANDER

NANCY PELOSI: SHE'S STANDING FOR THE PEOPLE!

Boy, there should be more representatives, both in the House and in the Senate, who have the gumption that Nancy Pelosi has...she is among the very few standing up for the people in the face of the incredible pressure being exerted by the insurance industry and the republicans to end the push for what the american people really need:  A ROBUST PUBLIC OPTION ON HEALTH CARE.  It is interesting that corporations and their republican rent boys are always in favor of competition in the marketplace, except when it threatens their monopoly.  Americans want and need the public option to insure that competition in health care, but the money grubbers, like insurance companies and the republicans, want to be allowed to continue stealing money from our pockets with their unconscionable profits that they make on our illnesses.  It's time to stop these people, and listen to the likes of Pelosi, Anthony Weiner, and those few good people over at MSNBC (ed schultz, keith olbermann, rachel maddow, and sometimes chris matthews) who seem to be giving us the true skinny about how the insurance industry and their republican rent boys are trying to screw the american people over this issue....don't let them screw you...CONTINUE TO DEMAND A PUBLIC OPTION...health care is a right of citzenship, and we need to get the money grubbers out of the way of us getting those rights....

UNITED HEALTH CAUGHT STEALING FROM PENSION FUNDS

OUR HEALTH COVERAGE VENDOR is one of those MANY corporate giants who like steal...now they are paying millions in fines.  Gee, I wonder why our costs for health coverage go up?  Do you think it might be to pay fines such as this?  This system sucks ... ...eggs.  In the era of corporatism, ballooning since 9/11, we have a government that protects these robbers while we continue to pay higher and higher costs for health coverage.  I once thought that Obama and previously Hillary might do something about this...but lately, Obama seems to be moving to a position on the political spectrum that continues to protect these insurance scam artists and at our expense.  John McCain is even worse. 

 

NEWS ALERT
from The Wall Street Journal

July 2, 2008

UnitedHealth reached a $895 million settlement with California Public Employees' Retirement System and Alaska Plumbing and Pipefitting Industry Pension Trust in a federal securities class-action lawsuit related to stock-options backdating.

The health-insurance titan was one of the largest corporations to become ensnared in the backdating scandal, in which dozens of companies manipulated the dates that options were awarded, in order to give recipients a chance to reap additional compensation.

UnitedHealth also scaled back its earnings forecasts for 2008.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, please see: http://www.wsj.com?mod=djemalertNEWS

Thousands At Rally for Clinton

While Patrick Kennedy, a Barack Obama supporter, spoke to a few people in Pawtucket (most of the people were from Massachusetts btw--NOT Rhode Islanders--canvassers for Barack) THOUSANDS, at least two thousand people were in the RIC Auditorium today to hear the next president, Hillary Rodham Clinton.  The size of the crowd though lively and huge, could have been better, but it was great to see people of all ages, all colors, all genders, and all cultural backgrounds as excited as they were for Hillary.

She won thunderous applause for her emergency economic plan and--unlike Obama--her UNIVERSAL healthcare plan.

She faces an uphill battle against Obama and his forces from Massachusetts, LOL, but we hope for the best.  President Bill Clinton, the rock star of the democratic party will be here on Thursday.

It was great to see Sheldon Whitehouse and all those other democratic leaders at the rally.  Mayor Cicilline was disinvited because Hillary did not want the Firefighters with whom he is fighting to picket.  She is solidly union.  I was thinking about donating and voting for Cicilline for Governor, but unless he comes out in support of Hillary as he promised, or so I thought, I will rethink that....if he can't see that she is THE candidate who can accomplish more for us, I'm not impressed with his judgement.  He'll come around and BEFORE the primary on the 4th I hope.

Patrick said they are working on bringing in his father, Ted Kennedy, before the primary.  Nice, but Rhode Island wants Hillary and Patrick should be with us and let's hope that Ted, who I love, will be as effective for Obama in Rhode Island as he was in Massachusetts.  ;-) 

"It takes a woman to end this war" as one of the signs at today's great rally stated, and that woman is Hillary!

Want social security left alone, vote for Hillary.  Want healthcare, vote for Hillary.  Want to save your house, vote for Hillary.  She has solutions not just verbiage.

WILL TOM RYAN GO TO JAIL TOO?

After reading this article about how legislators have been found guilty of influence peddling, the question is will the corporate officers who benefitted monetarily also go to jail? I bet not!

Rhode Island: Prison for Ex-Official

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS (NYT)

A former top state lawmaker was sentenced to more than three years in prison for using his legislative influence to benefit a pharmacy chain and an insurance company. Judge Mary M. Lisi of Federal District Court said Gerard Martineau, a former House majority leader, had used his office “in the most perverse way” but also had shown genuine remorse. Judge Lisi sentenced him to 37 months and fined him $100,000. Prosecutors also said Mr. Martineau, a Woonsocket Democrat, was cooperating in an influence-peddling inquiry at the Statehouse. Mr. Martineau pleaded guilty to using his influence to benefit the CVS pharmacy chain and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Rhode Island while doing hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal business with them.

BLUE CROSS DEMANDS AN INCREASE...lol...Carcieri Admin Asks "How Much?"

Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island is asking for substantial increases in premiums — an average of 12.7 percent — for its Direct Pay program for individuals, saying that both the cost of care and the frequency with which people seek care have been going up says the Projo.

They need state approval.  Will the state government of Don Carcieri protect its citizens from vultures like Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island?  I don't think so.  This is what Carcieri's policy man, Matt Stark (the principal policy advisor to Health Insurance Commissioner Christopher F. Koller) says about the increase:

“You’ve got to acknowledge that medical costs are going up. You can’t zero out an insurer from year to year. If you’re not going to zero them out, what’s an appropriate increase?”

LOL.  The assumption Carcieri's men make is that the health insurers deserve an increase...can you imagine that as the starting point for negotiations with the insurers?  LOL...oh yeah, Carcieri and his buddies have our interests at heart!

GOVERNMENT SPONSORED HEALTH CARE FOR ALL RISLANDERS, AND NOW!

Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts called for a reinvention of the state’s health-care system yesterday that would demand not just cooperation among such adversaries as doctors and insurance companies, and the governor and the legislature, but carry a mandate that all Rhode Islanders have health insurance.  PROJO

At least the Lt. Gov. is trying to do something, unfortunately what RIslanders want in health care as a right.  We want to eliminate profit by insurance companies based on our health status. 

What RIslanders want is government sponsored health care.  We'd like to see a federal program, but until that happens, we want RI to raise its taxes to pay for health care for everyone.  RIslanders don't mind paying taxes as long as they get something for it and if those taxes can bring health care for everyone, then the taxes are very much worth the paying.

We want UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE for everyone as a matter of a right and we want it government sponsored and paid for...we DON'T WANT another insurance scam, no matter how comprehensive people like the Lt. Gov. make it seem.

GOVERNMENT SPONSORED HEALTH CARE FOR ALL RISLANDERS, AND NOW!

PROJO SUPPORTS UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE!

Finally!  The Providence Journal this a.m. has an editorial supporting government-run health care.  Bravo to the Projo!  In a concise, well written essay the Journal makes clear why we should stop all the lies and nonsense about supplying health care as a right for all citizens.  Everyone should read this!

The president complains about the alleged menace of “government-run health care” although America’s taxpayer-financed health plans, such as Medicare and the Veterans Administration hospitals, run far more efficiently and humanely than do those parts of America’s health-care system financially controlled by for-profit insurers. People love them. So even conservative Republicans don’t dare say they will kill Medicare or the VA hospitals.

And please stop calling it “socialized medicine,” with the implication that some government bureaucrat will tell you which physician you can see. That, actually, is what too many for-profit insurance companies do; and their paperwork is far worse than federal agencies’ red tape. But then consider that their overhead, what with sky-high executive salaries, stock dividends, advertising and so on, averages about 25 percent, compared with 2 or 3 percent for Medicare. With government-financed systems like Medicare, you don’t have to worry about some insurance clerk rejecting your choice of doctors and hospitals. Totalitarian, arbitrary health care is provided by for-profit insurers, not the government. more>>>>>>

HILLARY'S HEALTH CARE PLAN: RI NEEDS MORE!

The long-awaited healthcare proposal Hillary Clinton unveiled yesterday is the most high-profile sign of the consensus emerging among the leading Democratic presidential contenders about how to cover 47 million uninsured Americans.

Yes, it is a start but what people really want is a national health care system that doesn't take all their money and consumme all their thoughts, especially after they retire.

The time has come for the U.S. to see health care as a right. It should be a right of citizenship and should not be for profit. TAKE the PROFIT OUT of HEALTH CARE. We want a government supplied health system just as most of Europe and Canada has.

THE TIME IS NOW.

Republicans back the Profit Motive and Screw Citizens out of Health Care and Education

The right wing, all Republicans and some Republicans in the House posing as Democrats are waging an all out war against public education, public heath-care, immigration, and of course equal rights for gay people. 

If you go to the spokespeople for the RI Right Wing at Anchor Rising, you can see that the fight against education and social services for middle and lower class RIslanders is in full swing.

They do note that one of the 13 lonely Republicans in the house has quit the Republican Party, Representative Richard Singleton (R - Cumberland) who will for now be an independent.  Unfortunately the pundits at Anchor Rising fail to make the obvious connection that RI Republicans are out of touch with the people of RI AND that could be the reason they can't elect anyone and the reason even those Republicans elected are jumping ship. 

RIslanders WANT a state-supplied health care system, they want a state-supplied education system, they want all those services that are their right to expect from their governments, EVEN IF IT MEANS higher taxes.  Who minds paying taxes if the profit is taken out of those services all RI citizens need?  No one once every one is able to understand and oppose the coporate and business propaganda that accompanies any effort to make our lives easier would oppose paying unconscionable profits to Insurance companies that cover nothing.....

Having not to worry about paying for education, health-care, all of life's basic services will be an enormous boost to our citizens.  Let's do it and do it NOW: state-supplied health care and state supplied education at all levels for all citizens.

Ask yourself:  What kind of man or group wants to make a profit off another's health problems?  Then deny them the care you promised.

What kind of system or man wants to make a profit out of lending money to others who want to go on to college?

Not very good people in either case.

CARCIERI, Bishop Tobin, THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY, AND HEALTH CARE FOR RHODE ISLAND

One only needs to read Charlie Bakst's column today and the criticism of the Democrat Bill Lynch to know that Gov. Carcieri is solidly in bed with the insurance industry.  He helps them get unconscionably wealthy off the tragic illnesses of Rhode Islanders and prevents the state from giving health care to those hundreds of thousands of citizens without health coverage and many of those children.  There should be no profit in the provision of health care.  Absolutely none.  People should not get unconscionably rich off other people's suffering. 

Some one like Bill Lynch of the Democrats is trying to tell people that, I hope the Democratic legislature is listening! 

And where is Bishop Tobin on this? 

Excellency: put aside the bull about sex and take up issues that are morally important like the fact that tens of thousands of Catholic children in RI go without health care of any kind. 

Why don't we hear your voice on this issue, your Excellency?

Excellency, why aren't you speaking out on this unconscionable situation with the same verve and dedication as you are at stopping same sex marriage?