Mr.President-STOP CUTTING HEALTH CARE NOW
Mr President- I am a Doctor but more importantly I am a citizen of a country that I love .I feel it is my patriotic duty, Mr. President, to insist that you cease your and Doctor Frist's cruel and draconian cuts in health care immediately.
Mr. President in your State of the Union Address (SOTA) just 9 days ago you stated and I quote "Our government has a responsibility to help provide health care for the poor and elderly and we are meeting that responsibility" Mr. President -Your actions this week strongly belie your words.
The Seattle Times reported yesterday that you signed a measure yesterday that trims Medicaid and Medicare spending over five years, but you said Congress must make bigger changes as baby boomers retire.The bill you signed aims to trim $39 billion out the of budget over five years, partly through small cuts to Medicaid, Medicare and student-loan subsidies.In addition, the budget proposal that you submitted to Congress on Monday for the budget year that begins Oct. 1 seeks to trim Medicare spending by $35.9 billion over five years.
The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that even the usually favored National Institutes of Health(NIH)-the nation's lead agency in the hunt for the causes, treatments and ways to prevent diseases -didn't get a raise, receiving flat funding of $28.6 billion. Account for inflation, and that's really a cut, argued Dr. Robert Eckel, president of the American Heart Association. In inflation-adjusted terms, Bush's budget would cause a nearly 10 percent drop in spending in medical research since 2003.Some NIH divisions will lose money: $40 million from the National Cancer Institute, and $11 million from the diabetes institute, at a time when Type 2 diabetes is skyrocketing. The NIH this year will spend $8 per American researching heart disease, the nation's leading killer, an amount the heart association decried even before spotting a planned $21 million cut for the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.
Some programs you proposed for elimination are those that families have intensely lobbied Congress to enact:
-Universal newborn hearing screening, a $10 million program that helps states provide those tests for poor families, usually administering them before babies leave the hospital. Detecting hearing loss early helps ensure that babies get appropriate services so they learn and develop properly.
-The largest study of U.S. children ever performed. In January, mothers-to-be were to begin enrolling in the National Children's Study to track 100,000 children from mothers' wombs to age 21 to see how the environment _ everything from mother's diet to toddler TV to pollution influences child health. Scientists hoped the first births in the study would point toward some preventable causes of such problems as premature birth, asthma and autism. Ordered by Congress and supported by both medical groups and the chemical industry, scientists already have spent $60 million in tax dollars preparing the study, with waiting lists of families hoping to participate.But NIH budget documents direct researchers instead to close the program down by year's end.
"This is an affront to America's children. It will really hurt children today and for decades to come," said Dr. Alan Fleischman of the New York Academy of Medicine, who chairs the study's federal advisory committee.
Mr President-The late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. (whose wife's funeral you attended this week) said "Of all the forms of inequality,injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane"
Mr. President and Dr. Frist- I know we do not have unlimited resources to spend on health care but you are harming your fellow citizens right now with your actions despite your SOTA speech rhetoric. Most despicable of all are your actions against our nation's innocent children. Yet, Mr. President, I stand ready to help.
Mr. President in your State of the Union Address (SOTA) just 9 days ago you stated and I quote "Our government has a responsibility to help provide health care for the poor and elderly and we are meeting that responsibility" Mr. President -Your actions this week strongly belie your words.
The Seattle Times reported yesterday that you signed a measure yesterday that trims Medicaid and Medicare spending over five years, but you said Congress must make bigger changes as baby boomers retire.The bill you signed aims to trim $39 billion out the of budget over five years, partly through small cuts to Medicaid, Medicare and student-loan subsidies.In addition, the budget proposal that you submitted to Congress on Monday for the budget year that begins Oct. 1 seeks to trim Medicare spending by $35.9 billion over five years.
The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that even the usually favored National Institutes of Health(NIH)-the nation's lead agency in the hunt for the causes, treatments and ways to prevent diseases -didn't get a raise, receiving flat funding of $28.6 billion. Account for inflation, and that's really a cut, argued Dr. Robert Eckel, president of the American Heart Association. In inflation-adjusted terms, Bush's budget would cause a nearly 10 percent drop in spending in medical research since 2003.Some NIH divisions will lose money: $40 million from the National Cancer Institute, and $11 million from the diabetes institute, at a time when Type 2 diabetes is skyrocketing. The NIH this year will spend $8 per American researching heart disease, the nation's leading killer, an amount the heart association decried even before spotting a planned $21 million cut for the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.
Some programs you proposed for elimination are those that families have intensely lobbied Congress to enact:
-Universal newborn hearing screening, a $10 million program that helps states provide those tests for poor families, usually administering them before babies leave the hospital. Detecting hearing loss early helps ensure that babies get appropriate services so they learn and develop properly.
-The largest study of U.S. children ever performed. In January, mothers-to-be were to begin enrolling in the National Children's Study to track 100,000 children from mothers' wombs to age 21 to see how the environment _ everything from mother's diet to toddler TV to pollution influences child health. Scientists hoped the first births in the study would point toward some preventable causes of such problems as premature birth, asthma and autism. Ordered by Congress and supported by both medical groups and the chemical industry, scientists already have spent $60 million in tax dollars preparing the study, with waiting lists of families hoping to participate.But NIH budget documents direct researchers instead to close the program down by year's end.
"This is an affront to America's children. It will really hurt children today and for decades to come," said Dr. Alan Fleischman of the New York Academy of Medicine, who chairs the study's federal advisory committee.
Mr President-The late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. (whose wife's funeral you attended this week) said "Of all the forms of inequality,injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane"
Mr. President and Dr. Frist- I know we do not have unlimited resources to spend on health care but you are harming your fellow citizens right now with your actions despite your SOTA speech rhetoric. Most despicable of all are your actions against our nation's innocent children. Yet, Mr. President, I stand ready to help.
posted by Blake at 9:02 AM
6 Comments:
For a good, sharp-elbowed analysis of the disgraceful budget, I recommend the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.
This administration is deaf to human needs. Unfortunately, all the politicians are bought and paid for by insur/pharma companies. Only a major grass roots uprising has a chance of bringing sense to the health care system.
Thanks to rachellie :) and to Cervantes for his link to more details on the dastardly budget proposals.:) Cezanne-WELCOME- You may very well be correct.Are their any DEM DONKEYS who could "run with/on Health Care and Jobs?" or are they all DUMB DEM DONKEYS?- Sure hope not!
Submitted by Tor Dahl-Chairman Emeritus of the World Federation of Productivity Science
Poem: "It's a Living" by Richard Vargas from McLife: Selected Poems-1978-2004. © Main Street Rag Publishing Company. Reprinted withpermission.
It's a Living
it's called customer service
trying to help my fellow man
make sense of the medical insurance
some slick carpetbagging agent
talked him into buying
there are no easy answers
like today
the guy on the phone
was speaking with restraint
holding on to his dignity
but i know begging when i hear it
his voice cracked as he told me
the doctor tending to his dying wife
was getting phone calls from one
of our case managers
being pressured to get her
released from the hospital
please he said
please ask them to stop
she's in so much pain
my wife my best friend
she's in a lot of pain and
there's nothing they can do
please stop the phone calls
i tell him he's got us mixed up
with someone else
there is no record
of any phone calls
in his wife's file
but i know better
i want to put him on hold
go find the sterile room with
white walls where faceless people
hold jelly donuts gripped
tight in their pudgy hands
as they put dollar signs
on the way we die
i want to stick my head inside
remind them that
sooner or later we all
finish the race
sometimes it ain't too pretty
but in the end
if we're lucky
we'll have the love
of a precious few
maybe the ability to stare
death in the eye
so let this one go
just leave her be
but instead i assure
the guy i'll do my best
to find out what's going on
wait for him to hang up
decide to take my break
10 minutes early
times like this i wish
i'd taken up smoking
I'll repost what I posted on Alternet:
I simply LOVE being lectured to by the likes of Bush and other "free-market" cheerleaders on how WE have to learn to live with limits and take responsibility for making smart private market "choices" about things like our retirement and health care. I'll think about it every day as I continue to contribute to Bush's lengthy and cushy federal and state taxpayer-financed pensions and comprehensive platinum-plated health care. I have zero doubt that he will quietly lay claim to EVERY taxpayer penny to which "he's entitled" for the rest of his life.
Thanks BobbyG and Wecome to our blog on Health Care Reform and thanks for your photo- our first on Critical Condition You are correct about our President's transparant hypocrisy and utter incompetence.Yes he will surely take care of himself. But don't go hunting with his VP.-pleeeeze. We need folks like you to stay out of range of this failing presidency. Now they've become downright dangerous! :)
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