Letters to the Editor
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Are both of these health plans just 'Sicko?'
Many discussions I've seen on this issue, as well as Mr. Moore's well-intentioned movie, miss the fact that there are serious problems with the current mainstream approach to health care...besides the purely administrative issues of the high percentage of our money that insurance companies take off the top, and the growing trend of having our care options dictated by bean counters who overrule doctors, etc.
The widespread therapeutic strategy of suppressing symptoms with drugs is not true health care. When iatrogenic disease (that caused by the care given) is a leading cause of death, that is not true health care. When mainstream medicine lags 100 years behind in taking advantage of its own research studies, and practices according to a paradigm that is well out of date, that is not true health care. When highly effective, low-impact, low-cost options that are used by millions, such as massage, chiropractic, naturopathic medicine and acupuncture require additional premiums, and those high-premium policies still only provide scant coverage for such treatments, that is not true health care.
Those of us who would only use the forms of care covered by basic insurance in the direst emergency aren't crazy about being forced to pay for insurance...that provides a style of care we won't use, forces us to see practitioners that we would not choose, and doesn't cover the care we would rather receive.
If we had universal coverage that gave us reasonable access to the range of care given by licensed healthcare providers of all kinds, that would get closer to true health care. Who knows how long it will be before politicians pay attention to THAT issue...but until they do, forcing insurance on us, and potentially penalties and fines, really rubs the wrong way.
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Thanks for your even-handed reporting
I am so grateful to you and the rest of Salon's mighty team of writers for painting such a clear picture of the campaign as it unfolds. For the record, here's what this former Edwards supporter has decided.
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mom, obama and me
a funny article on the generation gap in the L.A. Times by a Latina writer
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/commentary/la-oe-munoz2feb02,0,1138667.story
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Obama will lose. Why?
Because:
1. He has a truthiness problem (esp. re: Resko), but other things too. Those little details that the press will use to chip away at him. See the NYT today on nuclear plant, leaks, and uranium.
2. No matter how he tries to appeal to independents, he is a liberal. His blatant appeals to the right and independents will be used to attack him as part of the truthiness problem. The press may be able to paint him as a outright liar.
3. He is weak on national security and will be painted as antiwar. No matter how much Americans hate any particular war, they have never elected an antiwar president.
4. Immigration and the driver's license issue. It may win him the primary but it will kill him in the general.
5. He will be perceived as black (not biracial!) by those many in this nation who still harbor within their hearts racial prejudice, either conscious or unconscious.
6. Younger voters will disappoint again in turn out.
Read showme and NYShooter a page or so over in this thread. They have it right.
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Why Hillary Can Win in the General by Anonymous 10:02 AM posting again.
Because:
1. She has no virginity or purity to lose. She lost it so long ago that voters will perceive almost anything used as attacks by the press and her opponents as just more of the same Hillary hating. It is like she has the antibodies and the virus can't touch her.
2. Every attack will eventually be perceived as sexist (and many will be sexist) and that will cause a backlash even among some conservative women voters.
3. Older women want to see her win and unlike younger voters they will turn out.
4. Thanks to her votes, there is no way she will be perceived as an antiwar candidate. Many voters in the general will want to end the war but won't want to be affiliated with liberal/antiwar. The very people who call her corporate or Republican-lite will help her win. She has a good chance simply because she projects a measured moderate image. (This is where Bill's presidency helps her.)
5. Against McCain she will have an age advantage while he will have gender advantage. So what's her edge. In the debate, the policy wonk will run rings around the geezer. It's still the economy, stupid.
(My remarks below about Obama refer to his chances in the General Election.)
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My goodness! I must have touched Assyrian's nerve.
He's gone an given himself a hernia hating me so much for asking him to show evidence, real evidence, of Joan Walsh's support for Hillary Clinton, a candidate the Assyrian is so disturbed over.
So what if Joan Walsh actually does favor Hillary?
What's it to you?