Speech Leaves Unanswered Questions

President Obama spoke before congress tonight and I'd like to know if any of you out there were left as confused as I was. He says he wants to cut costs but the key way of doing this he leaves optional, which is having a Public plan to compete with private insurance companies to keep them honist. I would have declared war on these Insurance and Drug companies saying that "either you trim the fat and overhead and cut costs, or the government will put you out of business. Apparently Obama wasn't kidding when he said only five percent of the population would go for a public health plan. Why veil this little detail? Apparently the bill states IF there is a "public option" at all it won't be for All of the public but only a select five percent who are now without insurance. If you have insurance already, however dissatisfied you are with it, you are STUCK with your present policy. The insurance companies wrote this little protection for themselves into the law. President Obama seemed not to have the vaguest idea how he'd pay for all these people who've been dropped from insurance policies due to a pre existing condition or some other reason. It looks like people who have been doing "fine" without any insurance will not not only have to buy it, like auto insurance, but also these people will pay new, higher rates for the privelege of being insured. More than they would have to pay right now, because they are subsedizing all those people who were dropped and now reinstated. It strikes me as a highly disingenuous statement of his saying that the people without medical insurance are freeloaders, and this state of being will not be allowed under his plan. The fear is not that they will contribute to costs. On the contrary these are the people who will NOT increase costs because they never see the doctor anyway. The Public option would be no threat to existing insurance companies, obviously with the highly select qualifications to get it. Obama made some sense when he said he was for "mal practice reform". In other countries they don't practice the sort of "defencive medicine" practiced in this country. People are not subjected to unnecessary tests. Neither are people subjected to unnecessary drugs, I suspect. This is one area where costs might be cut in Medi-Care itself. But as to how to pay for this thing without adding a dime to the budget deficet is something the President never explained. The insurance companies love this plan because they will just hike everybody's rate to cover all those people who had previously been kicked off due to pre existing condition. With these people again as a cost burden, rates will necessarily go up dramatically. Clearly from the applause the bulk of Congress prefers the Public option. If you're going to do a bill what the public option will hopefully assure is that there is no waste and overhead and profit gauging. The argument can be made that half a loaf is worse than no loaf if the bread is dry or old and moldy and otherwise inedible Coming up with some weird watered down hybred that makes nobody happy but the insurance and drug companies will realize new untold windfall revenues. This makes no sense at all.

They were going to broadcast a republican response to this address. I stepped out briefly for a cigarette before the address began and when I came back in, ABC news was just signing off. Either it was the shortest response on record or else the news networks didn't cover it.

There is a "death movement". It seems investors have begun speculating by buying up peoples' life insurance policies and speculating when the beneficiary will die, and if they die before a certain date they get a lot of money. I wish the President had address issues like these in his speech, where it's all a game of finance and wheeler-dealing.

The Supreme Court held "an unusual summer session" ruling about a conservative propaganda piece that activists wanted to run against Hillary Clinton. It would seem from excerpts of the deliberations today that the Court will rule in favor of the corporations and big money interests.

Many people play the game of "I'm afraid of the strong, so I'll attack the weak". Even Lisa Simpson, while in the guise of a boy had to play this game by wasting the weakest, most defenceless kid in the school in order to curry favor with the local bullies. Certainly in the South they play this game well, where the overlord pigs of the plantation keep everyone impoverished so that poor whites were told to make scapegoats of the Negros. Conservatives play this game in not attacking NAFTA for ruining American business but instead blame the poor and those on minimum wage for their woes for "driving up taxes". We saw this in opperation on today's soap opera where Ariana attacked her boyfriend and jetisoned a friend she badly needs, all because Grandpa gave her an ultamatum, but she dares not let it be wispered that he has something on her. And now President Obama is playing this game by being so afraid of the insurance companies he could shit in his pants, but refuses to attack them but rather attacks the "devicive ones out there who want to prolong debate". It's those damn leftists and their do or die attitude tword the Public Option. It's this very attitude that is going to insure that we do NOT pull out of this economic recovery because Obama appears to be in the back pocket of special interests and will do anything the corporate bankers and the insurance companies tell him to do. He dared to invoke the Kennedy name. But if I were a Kennedy I'd be ashamed of this man because he is the exact oposit of Jack and Bobby Kennedy who never backed away from a fight on principle. Think about it.