According to Bloomberg, there are FIVE lobbyists for every one member of Congress and the ratio is growing. These lobbyists fall along the entire health care spectrum.
If Sarah Palin believed what she says, then, ok, people can disagree on things.
End of life issues are difficult, emotionally, culturally, religiously and not for the undecisive.
But unless Sarah Palin wants to explain in Kerry-like fashion how she was for it before she was against it, I think she is just using anything to burnish her image as the true neo-con leader for 2012.
Why? because a Google search shows the text of her proclamation supporting end of life and quality of life decision-making:
State of Alaska > Governor > Proclamations > Proclamations Archive
Healthcare Decisions Day 
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WHEREAS, Healthcare Decisions Day is designed to raise public awareness of the need to plan ahead for healthcare decisions, related to end of life care and medical decision-making whenever patients are unable to speak for themselves and to encourage the specific use of advance directives to communicate these important healthcare decisions.
WHEREAS, in Alaska, Alaska Statute 13.52 provides the specifics of the advance directives law and offers a model form for patient use.
WHEREAS, it is estimated that only about 20 percent of people in Alaska have executed an advance directive. Moreover, it is estimated that less than 50 percent of severely or terminally ill patients have an advance directive.
WHEREAS, it is likely that a significant reason for these low percentages is that there is both a lack of knowledge and considerable confusion in the public about Advance Directives.
WHEREAS, one of the principal goals of Healthcare Decisions Day is to encourage hospitals, nursing homes, assisted living facilities, continuing care retirement communities, and hospices to participate in a statewide effort to provide clear and consistent information to the public about advance directives, as well as to encourage medical professionals and lawyers to volunteer their time and efforts to improve public knowledge and increase the number of Alaska’s citizens with advance directives.
WHEREAS, the Foundation for End of Life Care in Juneau, Alaska, and other organizations throughout the United States have endorsed this event and are committed to educating the public about the importance of discussing healthcare choices and executing advance directives.
WHEREAS, as a result of April 16, 2008, being recognized as Healthcare Decisions Day in Alaska, more citizens will have conversations about their healthcare decisions; more citizens will execute advance directives to make their wishes known; and fewer families and healthcare providers will have to struggle with making difficult healthcare decisions in the absence of guidance from the patient.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, Sarah Palin, Governor of the state of Alaska, do hereby proclaim April 16, 2008, as:
Healthcare Decisions Day in Alaska, and I call this observance to the attention of all our citizens.
Dated: April 16, 2008
Wow, isn’t he the man who believed in secrets and disparaged those former insiders who wrote books about their time in government?
Actually, it makes sense in Cheney-think.
Rules don’t apply to the self-anointed Nietzsche uber-mensch, except that Cheney has all of the hubris of the “overman” but lacks the essential element of one who risks all for the sake of enhancement of humanity. (Hint: waterboarding doesn’t advance humanity.)
In real-world-think, he is just another egomaniacal hack.
From CNN, Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Wendell Potter . . . [t]he former vice president of corporate communications at insurance giant Cigna, who left his post, says the industry is playing “dirty tricks” in an effort to manipulate public opinion.
“Words matter, and the insurance industry is a master at linguistics and using the hot words, buzzwords, buzz expressions that they know will get people upset,” he told CNN Wednesday.
Now a senior fellow on health care for the watchdog group Center for Media and Democracy, Potter writes a blog on health care reform. He is focusing on efforts to defeat legislation supporting a government health care plan — something he supports.
In early July, Potter testified before the Senate Commerce Committee, telling senators that “I know from personal experience that members of Congress and the public have good reason to question the honesty and trustworthiness of the insurance industry.”
Potter described how underwriters at his former company would drive small businesses with expensive insurance claims to dump their Cigna policies. Industry executives refer to the practice as “purging,” Potter said.
“When that business comes up for renewal, the underwriters jack the rates up so much, the employer has no choice but to drop insurance,” Potter had said.
In an e-mail to CNN, Cigna spokesman Chris Curran denied the company engages in purging.
[go to CNN for more of the article]
My dear young cousin does not like President Obama and does not trust him.
She was concerned that I would not want her to comment on my blog. (I did publish one of her negative comments on Obama, but after a certain number of days comments go to the foggy bottom of cyberspace.)
I welcome different opinions because we learn from each other. We can love each other and respectfully disagree.
So, dear cousin (you know who you are), I love you and I disagree and comment away!!! I will comment right back!
We all knew that Glenn Beck is a fear-mongerer who has called Obama a racist. Now he says the whole basis for the health care reform is Obama’s desire to pay reparations for slavery.
Ok, there are so many things going on in that STUPID thought that we have to dissect it:
By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press Writer Stephen Ohlemacher, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 35 mins ago
WASHINGTON – Former White House political adviser Karl Rove played a central role in the ouster of a U.S. attorney in New Mexico, one of nine prosecutors fired in a scandal in 2006 over political interference with the Justice Department, according to transcripts of closed-door testimony released Tuesday.
Harriet Miers, then White House counsel, said in testimony June 15 to House Judiciary Committee investigators that Rove was “very agitated” over U.S. Attorney David Iglesias “and wanted something done about it.”
The committee released more than 5,400 pages of White House and Republican National Committee e-mails, along with transcripts of closed-door testimony by Miers and Rove. Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., said the documents reveal that White House political officials were deeply involved in the firing of Iglesias and the other U.S. attorneys.
The documents show that staffers in Rove’s office were actively seeking to have Iglesias removed after Republican figures in New Mexico complained that he was not pursuing voter fraud cases they wanted. In 2005, Rove aide Scott Jennings sent an e-mail to another Rove aide saying, “I would really like to move forward with getting rid of NM US ATTY.”
Miers testified that Rove relayed to her complaints about Iglesias from political figures in New Mexico but added that she could not recall whether Rove told her specifically that the prosecutor should be fired.
“My best recollection is that he was very agitated about the U.S. attorney in New Mexico,” Miers testified. “It was clear to me that he felt like he had a serious problem and that he wanted something done about it.”
Rove’s aides kept him apprised of complaints about Iglesias in other e-mails released Tuesday by the committee.
In a 2006 e-mail, Jennings told Rove that then Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., wanted Iglesias fired. “You are aware of the issues, I believe,” Jennings said in the e-mail to Rove.
Rove issued a statement Tuesday saying the documents “show politics played no role in the Bush administration‘s removal of U.S. attorneys, that I never sought to influence the conduct of any prosecution, and that I played no role in deciding which U.S. attorneys were retained and which were replaced.”
He added, “Rather than relying on partisans selectively quoting testimony or excerpting e-mail messages, I urge anyone interested to review the documents in their entirety.”
A subsequent Justice Department inquiry into the firing of Iglesias and other U.S. attorneys concluded that political considerations played a part in as many as four of the dismissals. A political uproar led to a series of damaging revelations about the Bush administration’s political meddling with the Justice Department and the eventual resignation of then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
Iglesias said in an interview Tuesday he was nauseated by the whole affair.
“It’s exactly what I feared. Over two years ago, I said that all roads lead to Rove,” Iglesias said. “I’ve said consistently that he was highly involved, and now the evidence is there.”
Iglesias said there wasn’t enough evidence to pursue the voter fraud cases that Republicans wanted.
Conyers said he provided a copy of the documents to acting U.S. Attorney Nora Dannehy, who questioned Rove earlier this year to determine his precise role in politically tinged firings.
“After all the delay and despite all the obfuscation, lies, and spin, this basic truth can no longer be denied: Karl Rove and his cohorts at the Bush White House were the driving force behind several of these firings, which were done for improper reasons,” Conyers said.
Rove, who was interviewed by the committee on July 7 and again July 30, has told reporters in recent interviews that he acted simply as a conduit for other Republicans’ complaints about the job performance of specific U.S. attorneys.
Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said the documents show no evidence of wrongdoing. “Democrats need to stop wasting taxpayers’ time and money on political investigations that are nothing more than the politics of personal destruction,” Smith said.
___
Associated Press writer Deb Riechmann contributed to this report.
I would also like to note that Rabbi David Saperstein gave my brother a job right out of college about 28 years ago in an organization with a mandate for social justice. Rabbi, you have been at it all these years. Thank you.
From CNN, August 11, 2009
Religious groups in favor of health care reform have launched a national campaign to offset the loud opposition to President Obama’s plan to overhaul the nation’s health care system, organizers announced.
“This is as much a crisis of faith as it is a crisis of health care,” said the Rev. John Hay Jr., senior pastor of West Morris Street Free Methodist Church in Indianapolis, Indiana.
“We just believe there is a better way.”
He and others spoke in a telephone news conference Monday announcing the campaign.
“As a pastor, I believe access to health care is a profoundly moral issue,” said the Rev. Stevie Wakes of Olivet Institutional Baptist Church in Kansas City, Kansas.
The campaign, called “40 days for Health Reform,” includes a national television advertisement, a “sermon weekend,” prayer meetings and a nationwide call-in with Obama on August 19, organizers said.
Prayer meetings emphasizing health care as a moral issue were taking place Tuesday in 45 cities across 18 states, organizers said. They expected about 4,000 people to participate.
“Healing and health are fundamental religious issues,” said the Rev. Jim Wallis of Sojourners, one of the sponsors of the campaign along with PICO National Network, Faith in Public Life, Faithful America and Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good.
Wallis stressed that participants in the campaign are not going to weigh in on particular policy questions. “It isn’t political in a partisan way,” he said. “This is a fundamental moral issue. … You’re going to hear the moral drumbeat of the faith community.”
Rabbi David Saperstein of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, who also spoke on the conference call, said the current system “doesn’t work for everyone.”
Other groups, such as the Christian Coalition of America and the Family Research Council, are strongly opposed to Democratic proposals to overhaul the health care system, saying, among other things, that they would lead to government-funded abortion.
“We don’t want abortion to enter this debate and sabotage health care reform,” Wallis said. He noted the legislation now being discussed on Capitol Hill is far from a final version.
Opponents of health care reform proposals have confronted U.S. lawmakers at town hall meetings in recent days, drawing heavy media attention with their boisterous protests.
then, I am moving to Alaska (she left there and moved on to bigger places and bigger things, right?)
Obama needs to hold town halls all over the country. He is comfortable talking to people and acknowledging where there are problems and questions. He categorically denied the heinous fear-mongering rumors of death squads and rationing (as distinct from the rationing that happens now). He pointed to the importance of change and the needless waste now (for example, giving hundreds of billions of dollars of subsidies to the health care companies who have record profits).
He was willing to accept disagreement. He was willing to engage in conversation. He was willing to talk to a Republican. The astroturfers were smart not to come to this town hall meeting because they would have been exposed for who they are.
The questions could have been tougher and more probing into the specifics. The President looked ready for them. The big question I have as a supporter of the reform is how can we make sure this is deficit neutral. The truth is we won’t know until the plan is underway. That is scary. But, right now our health care system is adding $10 billion a year to the deficit. So if, let’s say, Obama is off by $5 billion, we are still saving money.
My health care plan didn’t cover emergency room care for me because the nearest hospital wasn’t on the approved list. Thank G-d I can afford it. What if I couldn’t? You, the taxpayers, would have paid. Now, THAT is taking money out of your pocket.