Category: Homelessness

Take Dick Durbin’s Poll to Support the Public Option

October 28, 2009
Barack ObamaCongressDemocratic NewsEconomyHealth CareHomelessness
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Senator Dick Durbin wants a public option for health care in the United States. Support the public option by taking this poll:

From Senator Durbin:

The tide is shifting our way.

Thanks to the tireless efforts of activists like you we’ve seen a tremendous shift in the health care reform debate. On Monday, Majority Leader Harry Reid introduced the merged Senate health care bill — a bill that includes a public option.

The question is no longer if we will have some sort of public option in the final health care reform bill, but instead what form it will take.

There are several interpretations of what a public option should look like, and I’d like to share the preferences of the American people with my colleagues in the Senate.But I must do so before the final health care reform bill comes to a vote on the Senate floor in the coming weeks.

Please rank your preferences for what form the public option should take in the final bill at:

http://www.DickDurbin.com/PublicOptionPoll

I believe that a robust public option must give more Americans more choice on day one. But some of my colleagues would be content with a public plan that only kicked in if insurance companies continued to raise premiums at an unreasonable rate — the so-called "trigger." Others would prefer a more limited public option, requiring state governments to "opt-in" to participate in the program.

I am "whip counting" the votes in favor of all of these in the Senate, and we’re very, very close to reaching the 60 votes we need to pass a robust form of the public option — one that provides more coverage to more people by requiring states to "opt out" if they don’t want to participate. That’s exactly how Medicare and Medicaid work, and all 50 states participate in those popular programs.

Ultimately my colleagues need to know what their constituents think a robust "public option" really means — and what it doesn’t.

Read up on the various interpretations of a public option now under consideration, and tell me — and my colleagues — where you stand.

http://www.DickDurbin.com/PublicOptionPoll

Virtually every poll now shows most people support a robust public option to expand health insurance choice and offer coverage to more Americans. And the American people will not settle for a "public option" in name only.

Neither will I.

Let’s tell Congress what precisely we want and expect to see in the final health care reform bill that President Obama signs into law.

Thank you for taking my poll.

Sincerely,
Dick Durbin
Dick Durbin
U.S. Senator

Sign Harry Reid’s Petition Demanding Health Care for Every American

October 27, 2009
AmericaCongressHealth CareHomelessness
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I’m on board with Harry Reid’s attempt to round up 60 United States Senators for health care for all. Reid is finally calling for the public option. It’s time to choose the HEALTH OF EVERY AMERICAN above those in Congress boholden to the for-profit health insurance industry.

Want to eliminate some waste in the medical industry? How much of your premium goes to the re-election campaigns of members of Congress?

Sign Harry Reid’s petition.

From Senator Harry Reid:

When I emailed last night, I told you we were working on ideas for mobilizing support for the bill I sent to the Congressional Budget Office yesterday. Well, we did just that and decided that the best way to build support in the Senate is for me to have as many signatures from as many Americans as possible that support health insurance reform with a public option.

This way, when I ask my colleagues to support a bill with a public option, I can tell them that it’s not just me asking, it’s me AND thousands of Nevadans – AND a majority of our fellow Senators – AND thousands of voters from their home state. To do this, I need you to add your voice to mine right away.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN MY PETITION FOR REFORM WITH A PUBLIC OPTION

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from being the Senate Majority Leader, it’s that we need strong grassroots momentum to win the support required to pass big legislation. Change isn’t easy. And big change is even more difficult. But we have the chance to deliver real health insurance reform this year, we just have to work together to convince every Senator we can that a vote for this bill is a vote on the right side of history.

Please, sign our petition today and tell your friends and family to add their names as well. Thanks so much for your support.

Together, we’ll get this done.

Harry
-Harry

The ‘Public Option,’ Medicare Part ‘E’, Lives On

October 25, 2009
Barack ObamaHealth CareHomelessness
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From the Washington Post:

The resurrection of the public option is the latest and one of the most surprising turns in the long battle over legislation to overhaul the nation’s health-care system. Under assault for months, and declared on life support repeatedly in recent weeks, the provision for a public insurance option is unexpectedly alive as House and Senate leaders prepare to send their bills to the floor.

That doesn’t mean it’s a done deal. Whether it survives the final battles, and in what form, are still the unanswerable questions. Multiple versions of a public option are on the table. Liberal and moderate Democrats are still at odds and are drawing lines in the sand in hopes of exercising maximum influence on the outcome.

 Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) are still scratching for the votes to pass bills with a public option included. But by next week, both hope to have bills ready either for unveiling or to send to the Congressional Budget Office for analysis and scoring.

What encourages some of those who have followed this debate closely from the inside is the degree to which Democrats are in sight of a compromise on the public option and other remaining differences — though many may have to accept some disappointment to get a bill to President Obama’s desk.

The public option, Medicare Part E, lives another day.

And that is a good thing.

The president and congress must remember those who have nothing. They are Americans, who have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Really, they do.

To Keith Olbermann: Let’s All Take Credit for “Medicare Part E” and Get It Done Already

October 21, 2009
Barack ObamaCivil RightsCongressConstitutionDemocratic NewsEconomyEthicsHealth CareHomelessnessLegal
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I was listening to Countdown this evening listening to Keith Olbermann pat himself on the back for calling for a "rebranding" of the term "public option." Olbermann suggested calling the alternative to for-profit health insurance "Medicare Part E — ‘E’ for ‘Everyone.’ "

That’s a great idea, but Keith is hardly the first to name the new plan. For that, I credit Thom Hartmann, who wrote on September 9, 2009:

The President this morning admitted on national television that he lost control of the message with health care. It’s time to reboot – and use a very, very, very simple message so all Americans can understand it.

Let’s use Medicare, which nearly every American understands. Just create “Medicare Part E” where the “E” represents “everybody.” Just let any citizen in the US buy into Medicare.

It would be so easy. No need to reinvent the wheel with this so-called “public option” that’s a whole new program from the ground up. Medicare already exists. It works. Some people will like it, others won’t – just like the Post Office versus FedEx analogy the President is so comfortable with.

Just pass a simple bill – it could probably be just a few lines, like when Medicare was expanded to include disabled people – that says that any American citizen can buy into the program at a rate to be set by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) which reflects the actual cost for us to buy into it.

Thus, Medicare Part E would be revenue neutral!

To make it available to people of low income, Congress could raise the rates slightly for all currently non-eligible people (like me – under 65) to cover the cost of below-200%-of-poverty people. Revenue neutral again.

This blows up all the rumors about death panels and grandma and everything else: everybody knows what Medicare is. Those who scorn it can go with United Healthcare and it’s $100 million/year CEO. Those who like Medicare can buy into Part E. Simplicity itself.

And there’s more. Hartmann’s analysis also appeared in CommonDreams.org.

I don’t want to detract from Mr. Olbermann. House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn thanked Keith publicly this evening on Countdown, saying he heard the term first from Mr. Olbermann, and at least one Blue Dog Democrat has thrown his support behind Medicare Part E. Medicare Part E would not be single payer. Since everyone is taking credit, I’ll pat myself on the back also for writing this on August 7, 2009. However, I only wrote that after I heard the term "Medicare Part E" first on Thom Hartmann’s radio program, at least a month before he wrote his analysis. And, to be honest, my call was for a single-payer system. “Medicare Part E” would be an opt-in insurance program, entirely optional. Do you like your for-profit health insurance company? Well, you’ll be allowed to keep it.

Olbermann’s commentary is from his special commentary on October 7, nearly a month after Thom Hartmann:

Once you said "Medicare For Everybody," there would be just as much to explain. If you were under 65 you’d be paying for it. You wouldn’t have to buy it. You wouldn’t have to change from whatever you have now. There are just as many caveats.

Still, the intent of all this would be clearer. Much of the criticism of health care reform is coming from those who have or are about to get Medicare and, in confusion, in fear, in the kind of indescribable realization that we are far closer to the end than to the beginning, they are suddenly mortally afraid that health care reform will take it away from them. "Medicare For Everybody," might not be literally true, but instead of terrifying, it would be reassuring. And the explanations and the caveats would be listened to, and not shouted down, as anger and fear — fear, remember, of death – swell up inside.

Thom Hartmann has been on Countdown before. Keith, invite him back and give him credit as well. After all, the best ideas always happen when no one cares who gets the credit.

I’m cautiously optimistic that this will actually happen.

Keith deserves credit for his incredible commentary. Thom Hartmann deserves credit as well. Let’s all take credit for the concept, the name, and make "Medicare Part E for Everyone" finally happen.

Senator Roland Burris Definitively Favors Government Health Plan

October 15, 2009
Barack ObamaCivil RightsCongressConstitutionDemocratic NewsEconomyEthicsHealth CareHomelessnessLegalRepublicansWhite House
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Washington, D.C.– United States Senator Roland Burris (D-IL) wants health care reform with a government health insurance plan and he’s willing to fight for it, says the Wall Street Journal.

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

The Wall Street Journal named him as one of six senators to watch in the coming days as the Senate’s no-public-option bill is merged with the House’s public-option bill.

The other five senators are Republicans and conservative Democrats averse to a public option. Burris, the Journal says, is the one senator out of 100 most insistent that the final bill have a public option:

"The Wild Card: Illinois Democratic Sen. Roland Burris. Mr. Burris has announced his intention to oppose any bill without a public option. . . . Because he isn’t standing for re-election, Mr. Burris has little to lose," the article states.

And from the Wall Street Journal:

The Wild Card: Illinois Democratic Sen. Roland Burris. Mr. Burris has announced his intention to oppose any bill without a public option, and Sens. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) and John Rockefeller (D., W.Va.), among others, have also voiced a strong desire for a public option. The message: Democrats at their peril shift to the right to court centrists and Republicans. Because he isn’t standing for re-election, Mr. Burris has little to lose. Democrats hope liberals will support a health overhaul in the end, but they have scant margin for error.

Business Week: Job Crisis Hits Young People Especially Hard

October 11, 2009
AmericaEconomyHomelessness
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As if we need any more proof that we’ve all hit hard times, Business Week focuses on the trouble young people are having finding employment.

I’ve heard enough stories about recent college graduates lucky to get part time jobs in the fast food industry. It’s bad. The money isn’t flowing — or what little we have is all flowing to pay off the credit card industry.

Americans would be wise to abandon the credit card industry. Pay them off, and tear them up. They are absolute bastards. All of them.

From Business Week:

Bright, eager—and unwanted. While unemployment is ravaging just about every part of the global workforce, the most enduring harm is being done to young people who can’t grab onto the first rung of the career ladder.

Affected are a range of young people, from high school dropouts, to college grads, to newly minted lawyers and MBAs across the developed world from Britain to Japan. One indication: In the U.S., the unemployment rate for 16- to 24-year-olds has climbed to more than 18%, from 13% a year ago.

For people just starting their careers, the damage may be deep and long-lasting, potentially creating a kind of "lost generation." Studies suggest that an extended period of youthful joblessness can significantly depress lifetime income as people get stuck in jobs that are beneath their capabilities, or come to be seen by employers as damaged goods.

Read more here.

Franklin D. Roosevelt: “The Economic Bill of Rights”

October 5, 2009
AmericaDemocratic NewsEconomyEthicsHomelessnessHousingInternationalLegalPhilosophicalRepublicansWhite House
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This was once America, rescued at last from the gilded age.

We can do this again. We can revive and seal the New Deal.

The rich were on board because they had lived through the Great Depression, and they knew a thriving middle class was the path to the future of a strong America. Less for a few meant more for all.

Let’s make this happen again.

From FDR:

It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people—whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth—is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure.

This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.

As our nation has grown in size and stature, however—as our industrial economy expanded—these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.” People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.

Among these are:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.

America’s own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for our citizens.

source: The Public Papers & Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt (Samuel Rosenman, ed.), Vol XIII (NY: Harper, 1950), 40-42 

Rachel Maddow’s Amazing Interview with Former Sec. of Homeland Security Tom Ridge

September 1, 2009
AmericaElectionsEnvironmentHomelessnessHousingInternationalIraqLegalPhilosophicalRepublicans
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Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Ridge on what happened during Katrina.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Ridge and Maddow debate the decision behind the Iraq War.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Commentary

This interview was nothing short of amazing. The exchange was brilliant on both sides. Rachel Maddow is one of the most intelligent political minds in this country. Ridge elaborates on what he wrote in his book, and answers questions calmly and directly.

Former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge appears on the show to share his interpretation of what he wrote in his book, The Test of Our Times: America Under Siege…And How We Can Be Safe Again, published today. The book is well-reviewed, and I actually may pick up a copy.

Watch the video above. Enjoy as two brilliant minds who share very different viewpoints debate and discuss.

Bringing Clean Water to People in Developing Countries

August 31, 2009
Health CareHomelessnessHousingPhilosophicalRace
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This young lad deserves some serious kudos for answering the call.

From ENEWSPF:

When Sam Girmai-Jones was in church one Sunday in March, the priest talked about the church’s ministry to Africa where wells were being built to provide clean drinking water to the residents. Nine-year-old Sam was surprised to learn that many kids his age didn’t have safe drinking water in their homes and that some had to walk miles each day to get clean water at the nearest well.

The Park Forest, IL, resident felt compelled to help. His mother took him to the library where he researched solutions. That’s when Sam learned about LifeStraw. He was amazed by the simple device which worked like a straw while filtering out impurities to make water safe to drink. He decided to raise enough money to send 1,000 individual LifeStraw water filters to people in need. To achieve this goal, Sam will need to raise $7,000.

On June 13, just one month after Sam launched his campaign, he presented a check for the first $1,000 raised to his family church,

Sam’s mother Yvette helped her son formulate a fundraising campaign. Together, they contacted LifeStraw manufacturer, Vestergaard Frandsen, and were sent background information about LifeStraw from the company. Sam then put together a presentation he’d share with groups to convince them to donate to the cause.

Says he was at the Park Forest Library with a friend one day and saw LifeStraws featured in the book Cool Stuff 2.0: And How it Works. He says he remembered seeing a factoid at church about life in Africa, “When we first joined the church, we saw people in Africa drinking dirty water. Later, I found out about this, and remembered all the way back about that [factoid].”

I had to copy over the video above to show how this incredible product works.

Read the full story here.

And answer the call.

Faces of Homelessness: Meet Drew

August 29, 2009
AmericaEconomyHomelessness
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Can anything prepare us for Drew’s story?

Drew lost his job, then he lost his wife and daughter to a drunk driver. He is an educated man, but today he lives on leftover food he finds in dumpsters.

There’s nothing I can add to a story like this, except that homelessness can happen to anyone. Please don’t let Drew’s story stop here. Watch this video, talk about it, blog about it, email a link to everyone you know.