How to Make a Perfect BLT

That’s right- a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich! It’s a cool, sunny, late summer day. I’ve been waiting all summer for this BLT - today is the day! It was not a good year for tomatoes in New England, but I managed to salvage a few large beefsteak tomatoes. They’re marbled through and through with bright red flesh, unlike anything you can buy in a store- except possibly at a farmer’s market.

Here’s how I do it:
Pick your best tomatoes. They should be large enough for one slice to completely cover a large piece of bread. Slice them thick, a half-inch or so, and lay the slices on a paper towel to drain out some water.

If you have a lettuce garden, run out to the garden and pick a handful of lettuce, otherwise take the store bought stuff out of the fridge and wash a few leaves, then pat dry. I prefer baby lettuce.

Get two iron skillets going on medium low heat- one for the bread and the other for the bacon. The bacon and the bread should be cooked at about the same time- 10 to 12 minutes or so.

Select your favorite bread- today I used a large coarse multigrain- and spread soft butter on the outside of each slice. Put them together, like a sandwich without a filling, butter side out on the skillet at medium low heat. Flip it over when it turns golden brown and crispy- about 5-6 minutes.

Cook the bacon at the same time on the other skillet. You need really good quality bacon. I like extra thick cut bacon. (My wife likes it thin and crispy). I’m lucky to be able to get North Country Smokehouse bacon locally from Claremont, NH. (You can buy it on-line too) It’s smoked with apple wood- the smoky flavor is strong, but very pleasing to the senses. It’s also very lean and cut very thick so you can really sink your teeth into it. Add a little extra coarse ground pepper to the bacon and cook it slowly on the skillet at medium low. I use 2 slices per sandwich.


Assemble the Masterpiece:
Place the bread on a plate, grilled sides down. Smear mayo on both slices. (A purest would make their mayo, but I don’t) Place the lettuce on one slice, then the tomato slice, and top with a couple slices of bacon.


Put it together, cut it in two, and enjoy it with someone so you can tell each other how good it is!!
Here’s a video of the final taste test:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0IwkFwj4Sk

Rest in Peace Senator Kennedy

What can I say that hasn’t already been said about this man? Forgive me for trying. I believe the world is a better place because of him. It’s interesting how greatness seems to come from those whom we least expect. When I was young I didn’t care for the man. I changed my political views over time, becoming more liberal, but he didn’t. He was steadfast. As the years went by I grew to appreciate what he stood for and how effective he was; unwavering in his convictions; always fighting the good fight and winning more than not. They say no one is indispensable, but for now there is a void. For now anyway, there is no Senator to pick up the mantle for the liberal cause and carry on as he did.

Rest in peace Senator Kennedy.

What I’d Ask Politicians at a Town Hall on Health Care

My Congresswoman, Carol Shea-Porter is holding two town hall meetings today to answer questions about the proposed health care reform. I won’t be there, but if I could ask a question, these are my concerns:

Opponents say we will have “Death Panels” and the Government will decide when to “pull the plug on grandma”. Is this true?

Opponents say the health care system isn’t broken and we should leave it alone. That means we should allow private insurance companies to cancel policies when people get sick, and deny them coverage with pre-existing conditions, so they can go bankrupt paying their medical bills. Do you agree with this status quo?

Opponents say the 46 million people who are not insured either chose not to buy it, or they’re illegal aliens. Is this true?

Opponents say the proposed health reform will hurt Medicare service and quality. The Republicans really love their single payer Medicare and don’t want the Democrats to mess with it.) Is this true?

Opponents say the proposed public option will cover illegal aliens. Is this true?

Opponents say the Government will pay for abortions on the public option. Is this true?

Opponents say the proposed health reform will put a government bureaucrat (instead of an insurance bureaucrat) between you and your doctor. Is this true?

Opponents say the proposed public option is a stalking horse for socialized single payer and 170 million people currently on employer paid insurance will eventually lose their private insurance. Is this true?

Opponents say the proposed health care reform will increase the deficit? Is this true?

In fact, none of these assertions are true, but that doesn’t stop opponents (mostly Republicans) from being disingenuous and continuing to use fear to block health care reform. I hope Americans will have the good sense to see past these attacks and support health care reform that benefits everyone.

Health Care Debate- Fear Trumps Logic

NPR has a good article on this. You can read it here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112315433 , but here's my take on it.

Fear has always been the tactic of choice to dissuade, deny, and defeat health care reform. It’s not new. It was first proposed in 1915. Opponents said that national health insurance was a plot by the German Emperor to take over the United States.

In the late 1940s, the American Medical Association ran ads saying that national health insurance would lead to the Red Army marching through our streets; Communism would take over the United States.

In 1991, The Health Insurance lobby was in control by then, and ran “Harry and Louise” ads expressing doubt and fear about how changes to health insurance would hurt “middle America”. It worked.

And so it goes today. Now we have the Republicans talking about “death panels”, care for illegal aliens, public paid abortions, scaring seniors about losing Medicare, and on and on.

The battle for health care reform continues, and the tactics of fear, half-truths and lies by opponents of health reform continues too.

Is the Road to Green Energy a Driveway or a Highway?

What is the best model for power generation- a supergrid highway power distribution with few sources or a billion sources with no grid? Solar power is our largest source of green energy, but how do we make it work 24/7?

The biggest draw back to solar power is that we only get energy when the sun shines. We can develop storage systems or create an international smart grid. It’s daytime somewhere. The areas of the earth that have daylight could provide electricity to the areas in the dark. We would need to work together and become mutually trusting of other people to make it happen. That could take a while- like a few generations, and a trillion dollars, but it’s possible. The large corporations would make a lot of money moving energy around on this super-highway grid. It’s not a very satisfying approach though, and we’d still be dependent on large energy corporations.

The other end of the spectrum in power generation is having everybody be local and independent of everyone else. This makes more sense, because we wouldn’t need the trillion dollar grid to implement it. We need to invent better energy storage systems, but they would be smaller in scale, and if we could redirect the grid money into local generation and storage it would be more efficient and kinder to the environment as well.

How do we convince the nation to develop a gridless energy system and keep your power in your driveway? It could start on a small scale and grow from experience. Start with a community, then expand to a town, then a county, then a region. Over time we could wean ourselves off of the grid and eliminate the need for it entirely. We need to work together to make this happen too. That could take a while- like a few generations, and a trillion dollars, but it’s worth the thought. I like this approach the best.

Eating Fried Clams in the Shadow of a Nuclear Power Plant

Tuesday we took a trip to the beach. I had never been to Salisbury State Beach in Mass, so we thought it would be fun to try something different. Hurricane Bill came by offshore on Sunday so the surf was still exciting. The beach is very impressive. It’s like Cape Cod, only closer. There is a long boardwalk over the sand dunes, but that just added to the atmosphere.

Later we went to Markey’s Lobster Pool in Seabrook Beach, just up the road. What a delightful place. We sat at a picnic table on the deck right at the water’s edge of the tide pool, watched the sun set over the silhouette of Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant, and indulged in all sorts of fried food. When our food was ready, a girl announced through the loud speaker to pick up our food and said, “ Number 88, your fried food is ready!” We topped it off with ice cream cones and then drove home.

I got thinking, do we have the will to get to a zero carbon footprint? Think of all the wicked things in life we get simple pleasure from- like fried food. Not everyday, but like that special trip to the beach, fried food goes with it. I hope we can keep the simple, fun things in life when we get to a zero carbon footprint. I'd miss fried clams!

1978 Ford Pinto Goes 0 to 60 in 3.5 Seconds!

Not my 1972 Pinto! I loved that car anyway. It had a 4 cylinder engine, nice 4 speed stick shift on the floor, rack and pinion steering, and disk brakes- all unheard of in American cars at the time. It handled like a little British sports car. That’s because all of the parts came from a European English Ford. It got good gas mileage too- 30 mpg. Europe was serious about energy conservation even back then- we just laughed at them. We had the oil. They didn’t. Sorry for the digression, back to the fast Pinto…

So how did this guy do it? He cheated! He put an electric motor in his Pinto.

Check this out: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112006313

As he said in the article, the only pollution from this car is the rubber burning when he accelerates! Wow, I wonder if all drag racers will go electric some day? What about NASCAR? Probably not- it’s not very macho. It would be like racing golf carts! And if the crowd could hear you talk, you’d have to have something to say besides “Drill baby drill!”

It just isn’t the same without the noise. The noise is half the fun. It stimulates the primal senses. I have a Harley. It goes very loud. When I was a kid, I clipped baseball cards on my bike with clothespins and made noise. That was cool. I wish I had those baseball cards today. I’m sure I clipped a $200,000 Mickey Mantle on there at least once.

I hope the lack of noise won’t kill the electric car. I will miss the purr of the engine when it accelerates. I suppose we could install boom box speakers and simulate the good ol’ days. Someday I’m going to have a plug-in electric car. I can’t wait, but I will miss the noise.

Afghanistan- President Obama’s Vietnam?

Iraq was not Vietnam. Afghanistan is. We need to face up to what’s going on. Look at the similarities:

Same tactics:
We fought rebels in South Vietnam, but the enemy was in North Vietnam. Today the rebels are Afghani Taliban, but our enemy is Al Qaeda, based in Pakistan. We say there are links between the two, but in reality the Taliban just want to control their country. While we don’t like what they're doing, why do we have to be in the middle of it? The Taliban forces are not Al Qaeda. Yes, they may be aided by Al Qaeda, but there is a distinction. Al Qaeda wants to harm us. I don't think the Taliban cares about us.


Same Outcome:
We initially got into Vietnam in 1963 and we were there for 12 years. It cost us dearly with American lives. We’ve been in Afghanistan for 8 years. I don’t think America can endure many more years of Americans making the supreme sacrifice in pursuit of a goal that has little direct meaning to America in the end.

We should get out of Afghanistan as soon as possible. Things are getting worse.

Check out this story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/world/asia/24military.html?_r=1&hp

High Speed Rail- The Next Ideology Battle?

Opponents of high speed rail seem to want their freedom of movement with cars to go where they want, when they want, and keep big government out of their life. They seem to ignore the fact that the Interstate Highway System was initiated under President Eisenhower and it is still the largest government funded public works project in the history of mankind. It paid it’s own way through taxes and didn’t increase the national debt. If you’d like to experience what life would be like without it, try driving from Skowhegan, Maine to Burlington, Vermont- in the winter.

If we had a modern high speed rail system, then our freedom of movement by that means would also be available to us. Driving by car isn’t always a dream- I drove through New York City one day. It took me 4 hours to go 10 miles. I can understand why special interest groups, like car manufacturers and truckers may oppose high speed rail, but not the large majority of Americans.

Today, most of us choose between driving and flying. Why wouldn’t we want more options? Could it be because it's just one more thing President Obama is pushing, and his political opponents want him to fail, no matter how good it is for America? I'm affraid so.

Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter held a Telephone Town Meeting

Congresswoman Shea-Porter held a telephone town meeting on health care reform last night. There were over 13,000 callers on the line. It was very informative. People asked tough questions and she gave thoughtful, detailed answers. After hearing the discussion I felt very comfortable with the health care reforms being proposed and I believe that all Americans will benefit from these reforms.

Some of the key features she highlighted are:

· If you like your current insurance plan, you can keep it
· You won’t be denied insurance coverage if you have pre-existing conditions
· Insurance companies will not be able to cancel your policy
· If you can’t afford insurance, you may qualify for assistance funding
· A public option, similar to Medicare, will be one of many options available
· A pool of private insurance plans will be available for people to select
· There are no “death panels”- doctors will be able to be reimbursed for consultations with patients regarding their final wishes- and the consultations are your’s to choose to have, only with your doctor, and no one else
· Medicare service will not be changed. Actions will address quality, redundancy and waste to reduce costs.
· Health Reform will not increase the national debt- it will have to pay it’s own way
· Some of the cost will be covered by a surcharge on people with incomes over $300,000
· Medicare Drug coverage will improve over a few years to reduce the “donut hole” currently in the plan
· All Americans who do not have insurance will now have the opportunity for coverage
· Half of the small businesses in America don’t provide health insurance to employees today- these people will now have insurance available to them
· Illegal aliens will not be covered by the public option
· The choice of private plans available to people will include companies that do and do not provide abortion funding
· The government paid public option will not cover abortions

I think these reforms are good for everyone. It will make us healthier and it will make America better.

The Public Option - Not the Slippery Road to Ruin!

When are we going to stop chasing cold war ghosts like “socialism” and do what’s best for America? Never, seems to be the answer. Opponents of the public option say it will lead us down the road to single payer health care and that’s just not what America stands for. It’s not the American way. We can thank the Republican politicians for saving us.

Let’s keep the American way! Let’s keep Americans going bankrupt with million dollar medical bills, let’s keep Americans being dropped for coverage because they get cancer, let’s keep denying coverage to Americans because they need medical care, let’s keep canceling policies when Americans move to another state, let’s let 47 million people “Live Sick or Die”, let’s keep stuffing sick homeless people in taxis and sending them to shelters, let’s keep scaring elderly people about government “death panels”, and last of all- let’s keep telling the elderly they’ll lose their Medicare!

No Baby Turtles- A Mystery- Maybe Next Year

I watched in awe as she dug her nest in the sand. She was laying eggs. I know she was, but it turns out the nest was empty. I was disappointed. I waited a few days beyond the due-date to give them a chance to hatch. I scratched the surface very gently, hoping to find some signs of life. I kept going deeper and deeper. Nothing.

So she went to all that trouble and didn’t lay eggs? She dug hard, backed her butt into the hole, and stayed there for several minutes. Maybe she didn’t intend to lay eggs at all, but what was she doing then? Was it a diversion to throw predators off the track? Was it a sly deception to protect the real nest? I had kept watch over the nest for 70 days. I protected it. It’s a mystery.

Nature is a mystery. I don’t live in the wilderness, but I have a lot of wildlife around me. They survive, they reproduce, they get by. They don’t need us, but I feel like I need them. I mourned the absence of baby turtles. I don’t think the mother did. I guess we’re more dependent on them than they are on us. That’s why we go out of our way to care for them, even though it isn’t necessary most of the time.

Health Care Reform -Worse than Making Sausage!

My desire would be universal single payer health care. Since single payer was “off the table” from the beginning, I threw my support behind the “public option”.

Now the President has decided that health care reform is at risk with the public option, and he tactfully threw it under the bus over the weekend. OK, we still have the insurance reforms- can’t be denied, can’t be dropped, one of those yet to be described co-ops, and of course the other motherhood: cover everyone, improve quality and reduce cost…

Here’s the rub- when the sausage is made, will the choices of plans and co-ops still include the mobility that was implicit in the Government public option? The public option would’ve been ours to use regardless of where we live. I haven’t heard anyone say that mobility will be available with the co-ops (I realize they’re not even embryos yet– just a gleam in some entrepreneur’s eye), or any other private plan. Co-ops tend to be very local in nature- not at all like a public plan would be.

I have Harvard-Pilgrim. It’s only valid in Massachusetts, Maine and New Hampshire. If I move to Vermont, they would cancel my policy. This is a huge casualty of having thrown the public option under the bus! I hope I can stomach the sausage when it’s done!

Climate Change 101- Susan Solomon lays it out for us

There’s no question that we have become warmer over the last 100 years. Susan Solomon clearly explains a scientific best guess as to what has caused it, and how it may or may not be mitigated in the years to come. While no one (other than Rush Limbaugh) can argue against global warming, anthropogenic global warming (AGW), as the sole cause of the problem is still the subject of debate, even among some scientists. Dr Solomon makes the best case I’ve heard yet for AGW as the culprit, even though it’s based on statistical modeling. Her remediation approach, if we choose to address it, is very clear and depressing. It will take a concerted effort, worldwide, on many fronts if we really want to slow it down or halt it. She’s located on my “Sites Worth Visiting” list. Give it a look.

Reader's Digest Files for Bankruptcy

I guess they ran out of money.

The end.






(Sorry, I couldn't resist it! Here's the story: http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/books/blog/2009/08/readers_digest_bankruptcy_repo_1.html)

President Obama Throws the Public Option Under the Bus!

Now we know what the 80% solution is—keep the status quo on health care and mandate private insurance for everyone! What a windfall for the health insurance industry! Eliminating the public option is a major victory for the Republicans, Democrat health care stooges like Senator Baucus, and the private health insurance industry. It’s a major defeat for America. We will forever be indentured to, or slaves of, the private health insurance industry. We'll never put this genie back in the bottle!

It’s a sad day. President Obama has let down millions of people who voted him into office. Where’s the “hope and change we can believe in” now?

What’s Un-American- Dissent, Disruption, or Denial?

We seem to have blurred the line between boastful dissent and denial of freedom of speech. Is it ok to yell at a politician? You bet it is. Our resolve on positions can really get the juices flowing, and when we come face to face with an opponent it’s easy to get emotional, and raise our voice while trying to make a point. Is it disruptive? Sure, but it’s still democracy in action.

So shouting at politicians is as American as apple pie, but that’s not what happened at these town hall meetings. Conservative Republican leaders have another agenda; they want President Obama to fail. They see health reform as his “Waterloo”, and they’ve rallied to make these forums an opportunity to reject the administration. It had little to do with health care. They would deny Americans health reform that will benefit everyone because support would be an endorsement of the administration, plain and simple.

Yes, some people are genuinely concerned, and they shout and yell at these meetings, but there was another organized group at these town hall meetings. They were organized to deny the politician a chance to speak. Dissent and disruption is not un-American, but organized denial of freedom of speech and assembly is an un-American and shameful action.

President Obama’s Editorial in the New York Times

It’s not every day the President of the United States writes an Op-Ed in the New York Times. He explains his goals, and the essence of what the health insurance reform will be, and why we need it:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/16/opinion/16obama.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

He makes good sense. If you're opposed to health insurance reform, you owe it to yourself and America to read it. He just may change your mind. Millions of people will benefit from the reform- the uninsured and the insured—and that covers everybody!

Reburbia- Urban Renewal Deja Vu?

There is a valiant attempt to make-over ugly strip mall architecture into livable communities. Here’s a link to the subject: http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/14/the-suburban-makeover/ or http://www.re-burbia.com/2009/08/04/sprawl-building-types-repair-toolkit/

I hope we learn from our mistakes. Back in the 70s, urban renewal removed most of the old and beautiful architecture, and replaced it with the ugly strip malls and sprawling intersections we have today. Manchester, NH is an old mill town built from bricks- millions and millions of them. Granite Square was a neighborhood intersection much like these plans describe. It had 3-4 story brick buildings, all connected, with apartments on the upper floors and stores at the street level.
This one intersection had a hardware store, two barber shops, a diner, a men’s clothing store, pharmacy, bakery (I used to buy donuts here when I "walked" to school), fish market, liquor store, fruit and butcher shop, and small movie theater. It was all torn down in the name of “Urban Renewal” in the 70s and replaced with a sprawling ugly intersection of traffic lights, a strip mall and a high rise housing facility for the elderly. In the process, they took a beautiful, antique walkable neighborhood and turned into a commuter quick stop area, only accessible by car- with very little consideration for pedestrians.

The saddest thing about this calamity- the elderly who moved into the high rise were left with no place to go and no way to get there. They became residents of an island building without the support infrastructure that could have made it livable. I hope we learn from these mistakes. These plans offer hope.

The Turtles are Coming! The Turtles are Coming!

On June 7th, a large female snapping turtle (over 18 inches across) came out of the wetland by the side yard and laid her eggs on the leach field! I could hardly believe what I was seeing! I checked a web site on New England turtles and found out the eggs have a gestation period of 70 days.

So Sunday, August 16th, is the big day! I’ll have my camera out and keep watch to catch the little critters when they emerge from the sand. I hope they do. I hope they’ll know which way to go. Three directions are away from water. It will be interesting to see if they know which direction to go without being told.

We also have a pair of Marsh Hawks living in the same area. I’ll have to keep an eye out for them too. I’m sure they’d love baby turtles.

If they do live to hatch, and dig themselves out of the sand, and evade the hawks, and make it to the water, it will be quite a testimony to the determination of nature to live and propagate. It seems ironic that the most intelligent creatures, we humans, need so many un-natural support systems to survive- houses, cars, phones, TVs, PCs, processed foods, health insurance, lawn mowers, Facebook and Oprah, while the rest of the animal kingdom survives without any of it, and in spite of it.

Innovation, Flint Knapping and Health Care

Many opponents of health care reform say that innovation will suffer if the private health insurance industry is taken over by public paid plans. I hear this all the time, and yet I have not heard what they mean by that assertion. I also read an interesting article on flint knapping today. (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111843678) It seems that pre-historic man, over 165,000 years ago, began heat treating stones to harden them and make them behave more predictably when knapped, or chipped, to make sharper tools and spear heads. Innovation! But were they motivated, or incentivized by free enterprise profit, or just the need to make a better product? I say the latter, and so is health care. The very notion that we will grow dumb and stop innovating because our health care may be paid for by the government is just plain dumb- and not very innovative!

If the Health Industry Lobbyists aren’t Worried- the Fat Lady Already Sang!

The NY Times reported today that health industry lobbyists are not worried about the Senate version of the health bill. This means they've won! They have everyone on the Senate Finance Committee in their back pocket. Senator Baucus is the worst of the bunch. He's received more money from the health care industry than any other member of Congress. They were panicked by the thought of a lower cost public option, so they’ve thrown their muscle behind the lesser of two evils- a non-profit private co-op. Watch as they apply pressure to water down the co-op and make it unattractive to the status quo. Over time the health industry can squeeze the co-op out, and we’ll be right back where we are today- stuck with a profit motivated health care system with 47 million uninsured Americans, no choices, no protection from cancellation and no guarantees of coverage with prior conditions.

If the President doesn’t hold his ground on the public option, all this commotion and effort will be for naught, and the health insurance industry will prove they are stronger and more powerful than the democracy they thrive within.

Got insurance? - or why I'm a prisoner in NH!

OK, let's focus on the insured today- not the uninsured. Insurance companies are in business to make money- more precisely, to make profit. There used to be many small insurance companies in NH. Now there are only two major insurance companies doing most of the business for the whole state. What happened? In the nineties NH passed a law requiring health insurance companies to cover small businesses. When they were forced to insure people in small businesses, they fled NH like rats leaving the ship to avoid unprofitable mandates. The larger companies had the volume of business to offset the risk. Prior to the law, they were not were not insuring the small, high risk businesses- rather they were just skimming the low risk, high profit policies where ever they could land them-- still leaving many small businesses with no affordable health insurance for their employees. There are now just two major health insurance companies doing most of the business in NH.

And let’s not forget why there are only two companies left- Federal law doesn’t permit insurance companies to operate beyond a state or region. This preserves their local monopoly and denies us choices of other large companies across the country (there are hundreds of them out there). When health insurance reform is passed, we’ll be able to shop around nationally- just like we do for a home mortgage- and get the best deal. This will increase competition and give us an opportunity to have the best policy for our situation, regardless of where we live. I live in NH. If I moved to Vermont my insurance company would cancel my policy. That’s unfair and stupid. If I have a pre-existing condition, I may not get any company to pick up my insurance if I moved- so I’m a prisoner of NH – all because of an insurance company!

Insurance reform will help all of us who are insured today by giving us more choices and the freedom to live wherever we want without the fear of losing our coverage. I can’t imagine why anyone other than an insurance company would be opposed to that kind of reform. If you are opposed to health insurance reform, then you are just dupes for the insurance industry- doing their bidding and keeping us all locked into a system that only benefits insurance companies- not us, the people who pay for it.

The President is Coming! The President is Coming!

The President is coming to NH today. It’s promising to be one of the wildest town hall meetings ever! Despite the lack of civility displayed by opponents of health care reform, the President is embracing the challenge to take questions from a live, mixed audience of participants. I hope he can pull it off.

This is quite a contrast to visits we had from President Bush. I know an 80 year old woman who painted a sign protesting the Iraq war. She was told to move further away from eye shot of the President on a motorcade through Hudson, NH. She refused to move, stating her right of assembly of free speech. The police arrested her and put her in jail. When she appeared in court several months later, after everyone forgot President Bush had been there, the judge found her innocent, but that never made any news.

Let’s hope anti- health care protestors are not treated in the same way.

Health Care Reform- Good luck!

I’ve been a strong proponent of health care reform. Personally, I would like to see us have universal single payer health care like Canada and most industrialized nations. Unfortunately, we’ve allowed the free enterprise system to turn health care into a “for profit” business over the last 30 years, and the power and influence of the industry is very hard, if not impossible, to compete with. Although there is a strong majority of people who favor health care reform, they don’t have the power or influence to make it happen. It shouldn’t surprise anyone to know that almost every Representative and Senator receives huge campaign contributions from the medical industry. I find it very discouraging that we’ve allowed our democracy to be high jacked by the medical industry.


Here are my key points for health reform:

1- Today people can be canceled because they have an expensive illness. No company is required to provide health care- so they end up bankrupt or untreated, both of which are unacceptable. The proposed health care reform will not allow this.

2- If you loose your job, you can get COBRA insurance (a program mandated by law) for 18 months. It’s expensive, and after 18 months it’s terminated. I know a person who has Leukemia and was laid off. The treatment for Leukemia could go on for 2-3 years. I also know two people who went bankrupt because of health costs treating a terminally ill spouse. This shouldn’t have to happen. We should have health insurance that’s independent of where you work and who you work for. How did we ever get trapped into that system? I heard that during WWII no one could get a raise, so the companies starting picking up health insurance as an alternative and we really got stuck from that point on.

3- Medicaid covers people at the every bottom of the income sector, but private health insurance costs $10,000- $14,000. If you’re self employed, that’s unaffordable for most people who earn less than $50,000 a year. That’s almost have of the working population! People in that income bracket have to buy food, pay for a car and housing, and raise and educate their children. There’s no money left over for health insurance.

4- I believe it’s immoral for businesses to profit off the misfortune people’s accidents or illnesses. Corporate health care profits are as high as 30%. They keep the profit high by insuring only low risk people. It should be against the law for a hospital to put a homeless person in a taxi and drop them off at a homeless shelter when they need treatment. This is documented as being done much more often than the medical industry would like you to know about. A single payer health system would be 20- 30 % less expensive because there would be no advertising costs, no profit to cover, and no multimillion dollar CEO salaries to pay.

5- I haven’t talked to any person from Canada who isn’t very satisfied with their health care. When you get sick, you can see any doctor you want. I can’t do that today. I have Harvard Pilgrim. I have to use doctors within their plan. My freedom of choice is very limited. It wouldn’t be if we had universal health care.

6- You can’t shop around for health care like you can for mortgages. By law, there are restrictions and health insurance is limited to a state or small region. My HP plan covers me as long as I’m in Maine, NH or Mass. But if I move to Vermont, my policy would be terminated. That isn’t right. They do it to keep competition out so they can maintain a small group industries you can choose from. Health care reform will open up more companies to choose from.

7- The bottom line is private health care business cares more about profit than people. It’s wrong and we should change it.

8- As far as limiting coverage and treatments in a government run system- the private companies do that today. They just don’t tell you until you need treatment, then you get the run around. They may even just drop you. The new health care reform will not allow them to drop you. They’re fighting it because it will hurt their profit margin if goes through.

9- Cost is an issue, but I would pay higher taxes if it meant that every single American could get health care when they needed it. 47 million people are uninsured today. We’re too good a country to let this continue without doing something about it.

Health Care Town Meetings- Who's organizing the mobs?

So we all have an opinion on health care, and these town meetings offer an opportunity to ask questions and meet out legislators in person- democracy in action. Opponents of health care reform are attending these meetings with the sole purpose of disrupting the forum and preventing the meetings from taking place. It smacks of “brown shirt” thug tactics and by acting this way these people are stealing our democracy. It’s shameful that any political leaders may endorse or support this behavior. It’s un-American! It’s one thing to ask questions, but it’s inexcusable to steal the forum and deny people their first amendment right of free speech and assembly. I hope people fight back by expressing their disgust with this behavior.

Julie and Julia

Oh the food, and the performances by Amy Adams and Meryl Streep are perfect! I can’t wait to go out and buy “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”… The movie intertwines the life of Julie and Julia through the cookbook- Julia’s journey to write it and Julie’s crazy, but original attempt to make everything in the cookbook in one year. I loved this movie and so did everyone with me. It’s great enterainment!