Could this be a sign of real progress on meaningful healthcare reform, that the Republican’s are now attacking the plan and that the Democrats seem to be willing to go ahead for what is in the best interest of the people, without bi-partisan support? The Democrats have the votes, if they can close ranks. It would be a great sign of Obama’s leadership if he can get a public option plan thru Congress.
Attorney Gordon Johnson
http://tbilaw.com
http://fishtail.tv
http://waiting.com
Date: 7/20/2009 9:29 AM
DAVID ESPO,AP Special Correspondent
WASHINGTON (AP) — The chairman of the Republican Party is accusing President Barack Obama of conducting “risky experimentation” with his health care proposals, saying they will hurt the economy and force millions to drop their current coverage.
Michael Steele, in remarks prepared for delivery at the National Press Club, also said the president, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and key congressional committee chairmen are part of a “cabal” that wants to implement government-run health care.
“Obama-Pelosi want to start building a colossal, closed health care system where Washington decides. Republicans want and support an open health care system where patients and doctors make the decisions,” Steele said in excerpts of his speech made available in advance.
Obama has repeatedly said he does not favor a government-run health care system. Legislation taking shape in the House envisions private insurance companies selling coverage in competition with the government.
Even so, numerous Republicans in Congress continue to level the accusation at Obama and congressional Democrats, and Steele did so in sharply critical terms.
“Many Democrats outside of the Obama-Pelosi-Reid-Waxman cabal know that voters won’t stand for these kinds of foolish prescriptions for our health care. We do too. That’s why Republicans will stop at nothing to remind voters about the risky experimentation going on in Washington,” the party chairman said in advance excerpts. Harry Reid, D-Nev., is Senate majority leader; Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., is chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Republican officials said they were supplementing Steele’s speech with a round of television advertising designed to oppose government-run health care. The 30-second spot, titled “Grand Experiment,” criticizes recent government aid to the auto industry and banks as “the biggest spending spree in our history” and warns of “a risky experiment with our health care.”
In his speech, Steele broadened his attack beyond health care to question Obama’s truthfulness.
The president “tells us he doesn’t want to spend more than we have, he doesn’t want the deficit to go up, he doesn’t want to live off borrowed money. But he also told us he didn’t want to run an auto company. President Obama justifies this spending by saying the devil made him do it. He doesn’t want to spend trillions we can’t afford, but he says he just can’t help it,” Steele said in the prepared excerpts.
The Republican chairman is making his speech at a time when Obama is struggling to advance his trademark health care proposal after a period of evident progress. Two of three House committees have approved their portions of the bill, while one of two Senate panels have acted.
But conservative Democrats have raised objections to some elements of the legislation, and efforts in the Senate to reach a bipartisan agreement have yet to bear fruit. Obama’s attempt to impose an early August deadline on both the House and Senate for passage of legislation is in jeopardy.
On Sunday, Obama’s advisers urged critics of their health care overhaul to wait for Congress to finish writing legislation before issuing verdicts. They also signaled they are willing to wait longer than their White House-imposed August deadline for action if it means they can sway wary lawmakers.
The White House spent the day defending Obama’s health care proposals and stressing that Congress has not yet written the final draft of legislation that would dramatically reshape how Americans receive health care. Instead, they said, Republicans — and even some Democrats — should wait until a final bill takes form.
“There are basically five different plans in Congress right now and there are a variety of ways,” Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said, trying to calm nervous lawmakers whose re-elections could hinge on the legislation.
“More will be done,” she said. “The House and the Senate are committed to working with the president to get this done.”
Getting it done by August, though, appeared to be pushed back. Administration officials said they still have a goal for the Senate and the House to pass separate bills before an August recess, leaving reconciliation of their differences for September or later. But they slid away from a once-firm do-it-this-summer demand.
“We think we can make that. We’re working towards that,” White House budget director Peter Orszag said. “And we have to remember, there are some who are advocating the delay simply because they don’t have anything to put on the table. … There are those who are advocating delay just as a desperation move to try to kill this.”
Time would appear to be on the Republicans’ side, however. A Washington Post-ABC News survey released Monday shows approval of Obama’s handling of health care reform slipping below 50 percent for the first time. The poll had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
____
Associated Press Writer Philip Elliott contributed to this report.
Obama shifts into campaign mode on health care
The healthcare industry is spending over a million dollars a day in Washington to lobby Congress on proposals for health insurance reform. It appears that lobbying is working, that the insurance companies have bought themselves another Congress. It really isn’t Obama’s fault and the pressure on him to get something passed is immense. Maybe these 30 second ads can counter some of that pressure. Legacy notwithstanding, what is the point of fine tuning a car without adding coolant when the radiator is about to blow up?
It is time for real reform, for a single payer system or at a minimum a public option. The public knows what it wants, but lobbying of Congress essentially isolates the consumer from its legislators. There are times it feels like we are in a third world dictorship, the way no one listens to what the people really want.
Attorney Gordon Johnson
http://tbilaw.com
http://waiting.com
Date: 7/15/2009 4:03 PM
BEN FELLER,Associated Press Writers
RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR,Associated Press Writers
WASHINGTON (AP) — Firing up his drive for health care overhaul, President Barack Obama pressed lawmakers Wednesday to step up to their responsibilities and move legislation this summer, even as his campaign organization rolled out television ads targeting reluctant senators.
A Senate panel cast a milestone vote to advance a bill, the first to act on Obama’s goal. But the party-line decision in the health committee signaled a deepening rift in Congress. While Democrats respond to Obama’s call for action with renewed determination, Republicans are using harsher words to voice their misgivings.
The political space for a bipartisan compromise that could win support from most sectors of society appeared to be narrowing by the hour. The Republican National Committee, in a fundraising appeal, warned of “Obamacare,” a play on the failed “Hillarycare” of the 1990s.
The president, in a Rose Garden appearance with nurses, gave a nod to the goal of bipartisanship. But he left no doubt that he wants action above all else — and quickly. House committees prepared to vote as early as Thursday on their legislation.
Wednesday’s Senate health committee vote “should make us hopeful — but it can’t make us complacent,” Obama said. “It should instead provide the urgency for both the House and the Senate to finish their critical work on health reform before the August recess.” Obama wants each chamber to act this summer, so lawmakers can reconcile differences in their respective bills after Labor Day and put final legislation on his desk this fall.
Obama’s all-out effort since he returned from his overseas trip last week has “galvanized things,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
But a senior Republican whom Obama courted only a few months ago to become his commerce secretary sounded alarm bells.
“This supposed health care fix is a health care failure and a disaster for the American people,” said Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H. “We still have time to turn this process around instead of steamrolling our country into a sub-par government-run plan, but it will require serious action from Democrats and Republicans and a pledge to put politics aside.”
The debate is taking on the flavor of a campaign. In the crosshairs are moderate senators, Democrats and Republicans, whose votes could provide the edge in a closely divided Senate.
Obama’s political organization launched a series of 30-second television ads on health care, which will begin airing Wednesday in Washington and on cable TV nationally. A version will run for two weeks on local stations in eight states — Arkansas, Indiana, Florida, Louisiana, Maine, North Dakota, Nebraska and Ohio — to prod senators to back the health care effort.
In the ads, private citizens describe problems they’ve had with the medical system and say it’s time for action. The sponsor is Organizing for America, Obama’s campaign organization, which has become part of the national Democratic Party. The group would not reveal the cost.
Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., one of the lawmakers targeted, said the ads would not affect his decision. He has concerns that the evolving Democratic plans would give government too big a role.
Obama’s goal is to cover the nearly 50 million uninsured Americans while trying to slow the rate of increase in health care costs. He supports a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers, but he says he doesn’t want to overturn the system of employer-sponsored health benefits that has served middle-class families for better than half a century. He wants the legislation to be fully paid for and the total cost kept around $1 trillion over 10 years.
The 13-10 vote in the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee took the Senate only part of the way. Another panel, the Finance Committee, still has to unveil its approach. The plan is to combine the two bills for a floor vote.
Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., met Wednesday with committee Democrats to try to settle how to pay for the bill and other issues.
“We’re just not quite there,” Baucus said after the meeting. Obama has pushed Baucus to have a bill ready by week’s end, but Baucus declined to say whether he’d made a timetable commitment to the president.
The health panel’s $600-billion measure would require individuals to get health insurance and employers to contribute to the cost. The bill calls for the government to provide financial assistance with premiums for individuals and families making up to four times the federal poverty level, or about $88,000 for a family of four, a broad cross-section of the middle class.
Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., said he regretted that no Republicans voted for the bill, but that it was more important to get good legislation than to get GOP votes.
“There is a value in achieving bipartisanship, but I will not sacrifice a good bill for that. That’s not the goal here,” said Dodd, who stood in as chairman for Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., who is being treated for brain cancer.
__
Associated Press reporters Erica Werner and Alan Fram contributed to this report.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
It is time for real reform, for a single payer system or at a minimum a public option. The public knows what it wants, but lobbying of Congress essentially isolates the consumer from its legislators. There are times it feels like we are in a third world dictorship, the way no one listens to what the people really want.
Attorney Gordon Johnson
http://tbilaw.com
http://waiting.com
Date: 7/15/2009 4:03 PM
BEN FELLER,Associated Press Writers
RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR,Associated Press Writers
WASHINGTON (AP) — Firing up his drive for health care overhaul, President Barack Obama pressed lawmakers Wednesday to step up to their responsibilities and move legislation this summer, even as his campaign organization rolled out television ads targeting reluctant senators.
A Senate panel cast a milestone vote to advance a bill, the first to act on Obama’s goal. But the party-line decision in the health committee signaled a deepening rift in Congress. While Democrats respond to Obama’s call for action with renewed determination, Republicans are using harsher words to voice their misgivings.
The political space for a bipartisan compromise that could win support from most sectors of society appeared to be narrowing by the hour. The Republican National Committee, in a fundraising appeal, warned of “Obamacare,” a play on the failed “Hillarycare” of the 1990s.
The president, in a Rose Garden appearance with nurses, gave a nod to the goal of bipartisanship. But he left no doubt that he wants action above all else — and quickly. House committees prepared to vote as early as Thursday on their legislation.
Wednesday’s Senate health committee vote “should make us hopeful — but it can’t make us complacent,” Obama said. “It should instead provide the urgency for both the House and the Senate to finish their critical work on health reform before the August recess.” Obama wants each chamber to act this summer, so lawmakers can reconcile differences in their respective bills after Labor Day and put final legislation on his desk this fall.
Obama’s all-out effort since he returned from his overseas trip last week has “galvanized things,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
But a senior Republican whom Obama courted only a few months ago to become his commerce secretary sounded alarm bells.
“This supposed health care fix is a health care failure and a disaster for the American people,” said Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H. “We still have time to turn this process around instead of steamrolling our country into a sub-par government-run plan, but it will require serious action from Democrats and Republicans and a pledge to put politics aside.”
The debate is taking on the flavor of a campaign. In the crosshairs are moderate senators, Democrats and Republicans, whose votes could provide the edge in a closely divided Senate.
Obama’s political organization launched a series of 30-second television ads on health care, which will begin airing Wednesday in Washington and on cable TV nationally. A version will run for two weeks on local stations in eight states — Arkansas, Indiana, Florida, Louisiana, Maine, North Dakota, Nebraska and Ohio — to prod senators to back the health care effort.
In the ads, private citizens describe problems they’ve had with the medical system and say it’s time for action. The sponsor is Organizing for America, Obama’s campaign organization, which has become part of the national Democratic Party. The group would not reveal the cost.
Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., one of the lawmakers targeted, said the ads would not affect his decision. He has concerns that the evolving Democratic plans would give government too big a role.
Obama’s goal is to cover the nearly 50 million uninsured Americans while trying to slow the rate of increase in health care costs. He supports a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers, but he says he doesn’t want to overturn the system of employer-sponsored health benefits that has served middle-class families for better than half a century. He wants the legislation to be fully paid for and the total cost kept around $1 trillion over 10 years.
The 13-10 vote in the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee took the Senate only part of the way. Another panel, the Finance Committee, still has to unveil its approach. The plan is to combine the two bills for a floor vote.
Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., met Wednesday with committee Democrats to try to settle how to pay for the bill and other issues.
“We’re just not quite there,” Baucus said after the meeting. Obama has pushed Baucus to have a bill ready by week’s end, but Baucus declined to say whether he’d made a timetable commitment to the president.
The health panel’s $600-billion measure would require individuals to get health insurance and employers to contribute to the cost. The bill calls for the government to provide financial assistance with premiums for individuals and families making up to four times the federal poverty level, or about $88,000 for a family of four, a broad cross-section of the middle class.
Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., said he regretted that no Republicans voted for the bill, but that it was more important to get good legislation than to get GOP votes.
“There is a value in achieving bipartisanship, but I will not sacrifice a good bill for that. That’s not the goal here,” said Dodd, who stood in as chairman for Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., who is being treated for brain cancer.
__
Associated Press reporters Erica Werner and Alan Fram contributed to this report.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
BIA-USA Urges Congress to Increase Funding for TBI Programs
From the Brain Injury Association of the U.S.:
Urge Congress to Increase Funding for TBI Programs!
The Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education begins consideration of the FY10 funding bill today!
Over the next few days, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education will be considering a bill which will provide the funding allocation for programs authorized through the TBI Act and for NIDRR’s TBI-related research programs, including TBI Model Systems of Care.
Federal funding for these important TBI programs has remained stagnant over the last several years, as Congress has not provided increases sufficient to keep up with the increasing cost of doing business. The urgent need for increased federal support for a national TBI public health infrastructure and TBI research is further heightened by the recognition of TBI as the signature wound of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Urge Congress to Increase Funding for TBI Programs!
The Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education begins consideration of the FY10 funding bill today!
Over the next few days, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education will be considering a bill which will provide the funding allocation for programs authorized through the TBI Act and for NIDRR’s TBI-related research programs, including TBI Model Systems of Care.
Federal funding for these important TBI programs has remained stagnant over the last several years, as Congress has not provided increases sufficient to keep up with the increasing cost of doing business. The urgent need for increased federal support for a national TBI public health infrastructure and TBI research is further heightened by the recognition of TBI as the signature wound of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Shooting unveils very different sides of McNair
It is an odd intersection of themes, an NFL quarterback, death and adultery. Adultery seemingly in every public figure story of late and now a revered NFL quarterback is caught in the cross hairs of such controversy, but found dead as a consequence. A week of digging on Michael Jackson’s death has raised concerns about prescription drug overuse. Will prescription drugs to deal with the pain that an aging NFL quarterback must endure to continue his career point to clues into his secret life? The still unspoken word on McNair is concussion. Yet it could unlock much of the mystery. How a non-elusive strong man quarterback can stand and take those kind of hits, game and after game, always makes me wonder.
It may an insensitive thing to ask, but as long as they are autopsying McNair’s body, please take a look at his brain, take a look to see what microscopic evidence of brain trauma that may exist which elude the never sensitive enough MRI, CT scans. Some of our most important advances in brain injury research have come from the autopsy of mild brain injury survivors who have died from other causes. I have asked my personal representative to order an autopsy of my brain, because of the concussion that happened when I was 21. Maybe some good can come from McNair’s tragic death.
Attorney Gordon Johnson
http://subtlebraininjury.com
http://tbilaw.com
http://waiting.com
http://vestibulardisorder.com
http://youtube.com/profile?user=braininjuryattorney
g@gordonjohnson.com
800-992-9447
©Attorney Gordon S. Johnson, Jr. 2009
Date: 7/6/2009 8:50 AM
TERESA M. WALKER,AP Sports Writer
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Steve McNair earned the respect of his fellow NFL players for shaking off defenders and injuries. That same blue-collar playing style won the love of fans amazed at how the quarterback kept showing up for work — and winning.
He endeared himself more with his charity work. Not just from the checks he handed out, but for throwing himself into the efforts, like he did when loading boxes onto tractor-trailers bound for Hurricane Katrina victims.
Publicly, McNair was a happily married man and proud father of four sons who split his time between his Mississippi farm and a home in Music City, where celebrities are cherished, not hassled.
But when he was found shot to death on the Fourth of July with his 20-year-old girlfriend dead nearby, a darker side of his private life was suddenly thrust into the spotlight.
“People have certain things that they do in life,” said McNair’s longtime friend Robert Gaddy, who called 911. “We don’t need to look on the situation at this time (but) on the fact we just lost a great member of society.”
Even McNair’s longtime agent said he didn’t know about the former quarterback’s relationship with Saleh Kazemi until news broke of the deaths. Now police call McNair the victim of homicide, though they aren’t yet ready to label Kazemi’s death a suicide despite her single bullet wound to the head.
“As good as he was on the football field, that couldn’t touch the person,” agent Bus Cook said Sunday, still shaken by McNair’s death. “I mean it just couldn’t.”
Hints of a problem with alcohol surfaced in May 2003 when a Nashville police officer pulled McNair over on suspicion of drunk driving. Police said the quarterback’s blood alcohol content was .18 percent — well over Tennessee’s legal limit. He also was charged for having a 9mm weapon with him, but all the charges were later dropped.
McNair was charged with drunken driving in 2007 because he let his brother-in-law drive his pickup truck. Those charges were later dropped when the DUI charge against the brother-in-law was reduced to reckless driving.
And McNair could have been charged again Thursday night when the same officer who arrested him in 2003 stopped a 2007 Cadillac Escalade driven by Kazemi and registered to both her and McNair. Kazemi was arrested on a DUI charge, and he was allowed to leave in a taxi.
Dr. Sherry Blake, a clinical psychologist who practices in the Atlanta area, has counseled athletes and entertainers about the temptations of easy drugs, alcohol and women. She talked Sunday about the challenges even for those with strong family ties, though not about the McNair case specifically.
“Individuals can’t get enough of the limelight. It’s easy to have people telling you how great and wonderful you are rather than otherwise,” Blake said.
“The sad part is many times the public likes to be close to you not because of who you are but what you do.”
Police labeled his death homicide Sunday, revealing McNair had been shot four times — twice in the head, twice in the chest when found in a rented condominium he shared with a longtime friend, Wayne Neeley. Police found a semiautomatic pistol under Kazemi’s body.
But police spokesman Don Aaron said they were reviewing every possibility, interviewing friends of both and an ex-boyfriend before labeling Kazemi’s death.
On the football field, he simply was “Air McNair,” a winner.
McNair still holds the NCAA’s Football Championship Series (formerly Division I-AA) records for career yards passing (14,496) and total offense (16,823) from his days at tiny Alcorn State in Mississippi.
He played 13 NFL seasons starting with the then-Houston Oilers, led Tennessee to its famous last-second 2000 Super Bowl loss to the St. Louis Rams. He ended his career in Baltimore last season, after being traded away by the Titans after they drafted Vince Young as a replacement to the aching and expensive veteran.
A four-time Pro Bowler, he shared the NFL’s MVP award with Peyton Manning in 2003.
“Many of our defensive players talked about what a huge challenge it was playing against him,” Manning said in a statement. “He and I had some great battles against each other.”
McNair never acknowledged any of his numerous injuries on the field, even in one game when the painkilling shot wore off before he drove the Titans to a touchdown and ran in for the tying 2-point conversion. Then he led them to the winning field goal.
Young called McNair, a father figure since Young was a teenager, “Pops.”
“I hear his advice in my head with everything I do. Life will be very different without him,” Young said in a statement.
McNair’s friends want the quarterback to be remembered for his generosity. He gave away turkeys and checks in Tennessee, toys in Baltimore and paid for three football camps himself this year. Cook talked to someone Saturday who saw McNair cleaning up the field after one camp at Southern Mississippi.
“That was Steve McNair. That’s who he is. And who he was,” an emotional Cook recalled.
Cook described Mechelle, who married McNair in 1997, as “very upset, very distraught.” Funeral arrangements could be completed Monday with some of McNair’s family coming to Nashville to assist planning.
McNair met Kazemi at the Dave & Buster’s restaurant where she worked as a server and where when his family ate often. The two began dating a few months ago in a relationship that included a vacation with parasailing. Photos posted on TMZ.com showed McNair gazing and smiling at the young Kazemi.
“She pretty obviously got mixed up way over her head with folks,” said Reagan Howard, a neighbor of Kazemi’s.
A man who answered the door at a house in the Jacksonville, Fla., suburb of Orange Park said it was the home of Kazemi’s family, but said her relatives did not want to comment.
“We don’t have anything to say, please leave us alone,” he said.
The victim’s sister, Soheyla Kazemi, told the Flori da Times-Union in Jacksonville that the young woman had expected McNair to get a divorce. “She said they were planning to get married.”
Nashville courts had no record of a McNair divorce case, but a home he owned in Nashville is on the market for $3 million.
The real estate agent declined to comment. Her online listing for property described it as a “gigantic house” of more than 14,000 square feet and photos showed a pool, home theater, baby grand piano and ornate furnishings throughout.
Kimberly Hardy visited a restaurant McNair recently opened near Tennessee State University to provide healthy, affordable food for college students. The Nashville woman said McNair had been nice to her the handful of times she met him. She said she hated what had happened to him.
“But I do think that all the greatness he accomplished will endure forever,” Hardy said.
___
Associated Press writers Ron Word in Jacksonville, Fla.; Travis Loller, Lucas L. Johnson II and Joe Edwards in Nashville.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.