Health Care Again

(Really, there's nothing else in the news.)



Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said that the Senate will take the first vote on the 848 billion dollar health care package on Saturday. This measure may extend health insurance to 31 million more americans and cut costs by a projected 130 billion dollars over the next few decades. This Senate bill differs from the alternative bill in the House of Representatives (There's more than one. Huh.) in that, while the House version will require all sizable companies to offer afordable health care, the Senate bill will merely fine companies that do not offer reasonable rates.

Yay, public option: Every citizen is entitled to thier Health, proponents say. Good health care coverage is correlary to good health. If someone gets sick, they deserve the right to not have to go into debt for treatment. Heath Care is currently privatized, with independant companies dolling out the insurance and making great profits on the extra costs they add overhead. WIth a government-funded public option, Health care can be guarenteed to almost everyone while, through competition, keeping private health care costs reasonable.

No public option: There is an ingrained fear of large, controlling governments. Should we grant the Government a monopoly on health insurance? Shouldn't the individual be responsible for his or her own actions? But the bigger reason is that there is no insurance that the measure will be effective. Participation, costs. Sure, it might be nice to give everyone health care, but the costs have to come from somewhere. If everyone already has private insurance, the public option may only atract 3-4 million people, forcing such costs higher to raise revenue.

Oprah

Oprah, one of the most influential business celebrity (according to Forbes.com ) has announced that she is going to close the Oprah Winfrey show in 2011. One of her spokesmen

The BBC's Richard Lister in Washington says the show's open atmosphere and frank conversation redefined the talk show genre and made Ms Winfrey the wealthiest black woman in the world, and certainly Oprah has become a household name.

I personally do not know much about Oprah but have still heard echoes of the greatness. Many Author's have become bestsellers by appearing on her show, and some people hold Oprah in very high esteem.

Health Care update

So Harry Reid launched his health care legislation yesterday. 849 million dollars to get 94% of American's covered by a public option. There is some issue over giving patients with acess to the option coverage for abortions, but plans without abortion coverage will also be sold.
With 58 Democrats and 2 independants supporting this bill in the Senate, supporters have the exact number of people to bypass all delays and stuff.
Personally, I don't think there's anything wrong with socializing health care. The purpose of Government, especially in America, is to provide for "life, liberty, and Property", as John Locke said. Benjamin Franklin replaced "property" with "Pursuit of happiness", but either provision is much harder to attain if you're sick.

Find the article I took all this stuff from here

And for some reason pictures are not working for me. :(

Obama and Afganistan

During his meeting in Tokyo, President Barack Obama says he will soon decide how many more troops he will send to Afganistan. Although he plans to pursue terrorist threats to America regarless of which country they exist in, he states that US involvement in Afganistan is not "Open-ended".

Otherwise, his meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama produced cooperation between Japan and America over a number of issues, including climate change, nuclear non-proliferation and Afganistan. The issue of the American military base in the Japanese island of Okinawa has yet to be resolved.

Obama goes to Asia

Obama is schedueled to travel to Japan, Singapore, China and South Korea on his first trip to Asia during his presidency. The United States has vested economic interests in these countries: Obama will first stop in Tokyo to discuss the decades-old military alliance between those two countries before flying to singapore for a Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting. He will make two stops in China, which is of great economic interests to the US, before finishing in South Korea.

Analysists doubt whether Obama's visit will have any substantial effect. Although he has high popularity in these countries, Obama brings no economic plan or trading arangement to Singapore's APEC meeting, analougous to attending NATO without a Military. Climate Change is high on the agenda, and revisiting the Kyoto Protocol may well be on the Agenda.

However, like most presidential acftions, Obama's visits are primerily a gesture. Obama has been on 17 foriegn trips his first year in office, more than any of his predecessors, and most of them have been to Europe and the Middle East. If nothing else, speeches about American intervention in Asian affairs and this trip to Asia reaffirms the place of American interest in Asia, and if stuff gets done, then all the better. His return to the US through Afganistan, hoping to get more peace talks, reveals that Asia is not at the top of his priorities.

Info from here
and here

Obama's Czars

With the Senate and House President Barack Obama appointed several independent advisors to advise him. These 'czars' number 32 and cover everything from the Economy, (Paul Volcker) to California Water, (David J. Haynes), to Urban Affairs (Adolpho Carrion Jr.). However, as with anyone with an independent, unaccountable array of minions, is Obama's practice of appointing czar's undermining the Legislativve Branch?

Brief Overview: The government runs on a system of Checks and Balances. The Legislative Branch (Senate and House of REpresentatives) approves the Elelctive Branch's (The president) choices for offices, and the President reserves the right to veto acts of Congress (The Legislative Branch). Since George Washington appointed a five man band of personal advisors, presidents of all parties have practiced the appointing of non-Senate approved advisors. And according to Time Magazine, "the first President to truly create czars as we know them today was Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had his "brain trust" and "assistant presidents," according to Harold Relyea, a retired 35-year veteran of the Congressional Research Service who specialized in presidential powers, which he wrote in a statement for the hearing."

Despite Andrew Jackson's 'Kitchen Cabinet', Grover Cleaveland's 'Fishing Cabinet', and Warren G. Harding's 'Poker Cabinet', Obama's Czars are being called into question. On Thursday, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will examine Obama's Czars in the first full committee hearing on the topic.

Is this new advance a reform of an ancient corrupted practice, or unfairness to a novel president? Part of the Controversy is the Czar's paychecks. Who pays them? How much do they get? Where does the money come from?

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