by — published on August 6th, 2009
The Senate just confirmed Sonia Sotomayor to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Nine Republicans joined all 59 Democrats to confirm the former New York Appellate court judge. Sen. Kennedy did not vote due to illness. Sotomayor is the 111th Justice and the first Hispanic to be confirmed to the United States Supreme Court. The nine Republicans and that voted for Sotomayor are: Alexander(TN), Collins(ME), Gregg(NH), Martinez (FL), Snowe (ME), Bond(MO), Graham (SC), Lugar (IN), Voinovich (OH). Judge Sotomayor will be sworn in on Saturday. There will be two swearing-in ceremonies one televised and one conducted privately.
Congratulations to confirmed Associate Justice Sotomayor!
by — published on August 6th, 2009
Ten Reasons why we NEED a Strong and Robust Public Option in the Health Care bill by ShadowSD.
- When you need life-saving care, private insurance companies only profit by denying you and letting you die. If you have payed your premiums on time all your life, you are just as likely to be dropped by your private insurance company when you need life-saving care as you are to get treated. A public option gives you a lifeline.
- Private insurance companies are spending over $1M a day to kill the public option by inventing phony citizen groups, and trying to scare the elderly about euthanasia and pro-lifers with abortion; they know the only way to kill reform is to get people of good conscience fighting, while they laugh all the way to the bank. They don’t think very highly of our intelligence.
- We pay more than any other country to be 24th in life expectancy: while the average Canadian family spends less than $2000 a year on health care with no waiting periods, the average American family spends $29,000 a year, waiting for private insurance companies to approve every procedure.
- 14,000 Americans lose their health insurance every day; 46M are uninsured.
- 18,000 Americans DIE each year due to lack of health care: THAT’S 50 A DAY.
- Two-thirds of American personal bankruptcies are related to health care costs.
- Businesses – particularly small businesses – cannot afford to provide health insurance for their employees under the current employer based private insurance system, and will be forced to either drop their coverage or go out of business unless a public option is passed.
- One-sixth of all our government spending is on health care, twice as much as any other country spends out of its budget. Our nation pays $2.5 trillion for care costing $912 billion .
- Every independent estimate says the public option will save us money, from saving 150 billion dollars (CBO) to saving 265 billion dollars (Commonwealth). The Congressional Budget Office estimates the current bill in the House would leave a 6 billion dollar surplus.
- So – if you’d rather spend more taxpayer money, bankrupt businesses, AND pay $29,000 a year for your family’s private insurance coverage in exchange for a policy that can be dumped the second you actually need it, then the current system is great for you. If you’d rather spend less, wait less, have less of a chance of dying, and want to remove the corporate bureaucrat from between you and your doctor, then a public option is the way to go. Right now, even if you’re lucky enough not to be dropped by your provider when you need urgent medical care, your private insurance company can overrule your doctor’s advice for life-saving treatment and only offer to cover something cheaper; a public option would remove that middleman and leave these decisions where they belong, between the patient and doctor.
Call your Senator and Representative
