I discovered today that our friend Jake has passed. There is a memorial site on facebook.
I do not know how.. or why.
Peace to you, Jake.
marsha riggan

(I copied this form the site.)
A memorial service will be held on Saturday October 31st, 2pm in Denver, Colorado at St. Thomas Episcopal Church.
There will be a reception immediately following the service in the Church hall.

2201 Dexter St
Denver, CO 80207-3756
(303) 388-4395

CNN reported today, "CBO finds Dem bill with public option reduces deficit,"

A preliminary estimate from the Congressional Budget Office projects that the House Democrats' health care plan that includes a public option would cost $871 billion over 10 years, according to two Democratic sources.
CBO also found that the Democrats' bill reduces the deficit in the first 10 years.

Just more evidence confirming what we already know: offering a public option to small businesses and the uninsured saves the most money.

The argument for reforming health insurance with a public option is that its better for the pocketbook. This is not about ideology, its about saving the most money and reducing the deficit. Anyone who cars about fiscal responsibility should be 100% on board with this reform.

Spread the word high and low!

And in case you are worried, don't be.  We ARE going to pass health care reform.  And then we will pass every other piece of overdue legislation one by one.  

The Republican Party is done.  Things will never return to the way they were.  By the time we are done with our work, we will be firmly in the 21st Century - with our eyes on the future, not the past.

The Womenstake blog published informative reading about domestic violence as a prexisting condition and the denial of benefits, a good location for real reform.

As a person who has suffered from a repetitive-strain injury, I am thrilled to hear that OSHA is once more doing their job. It's more than 10 years since I worked in that factory and I still carry the inability to overuse my right arm. Thank-you Jordan Barab. "The law says that employers are responsible for workplace safety and health," he said in June. Once more the administration shows they are in office to serve and protect. Read the article @ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/12/AR2009101202554_2.html?wpisrc=newsletter peace, marsha

Thank-you, Mr. President.
Thank-you for turning the tide from aggression, arrogance and posturing to a new flood of listening, diplomacy and tolerance of the diverse cultures and peoples who inhabit this earth.
During the campaign, all the times I stood in line to hear you speak, I believed you were the man for our time. The man who could, if elected, move us from the brink of catastrophe to a new era of peaceful cohabitation with the world. You are, after only a few short months, fulfilling my hopes beyond my expectations.
I am truly proud to have had a tiny part in helping you to be elected.
I am eternally grateful and in your debt. You ARE making the world a safer place.
Making PEACE is much harder than making WAR.
Peace to you,
marsha riggan

The Baucus Finance committee proposal is too broad and cumbersome.
While there are much needed changes included in it, those changes, in insurance reform (kind of), payment, physician incentives, hospice payment, tax exemption status and all the others.. cloud the issue of coverage for the average American.
This is too complex and there are too many loop holes and gaps.
It exemplifies the problems with a capitalist system of medicine, a delivery system which is dependent on the profit of the carrier.
It exemplifies the bureaucratic system of writing legislation.. BROKEN!
We need a not for profit system in which we can all be treated and not worry before and during illness.
While there are portions of the proposal I agree with... for the most part I see the insurance companies coming out far better than the American people on this...
Finance Committee.... How about saving US money? We pay the taxes.. pay for your ability to have healthcare... How about taking care of US first?
1. No 100% coverage. THAT SHOULD BE AN ABSOLUTE! If I am going to be MANDATED to buy coverage... make it worth my money! NO ONE SHOULD LOSE THEIR HOME BECAUSE OF THEIR HEALTH!
2. Allowing "Rating Areas". This leaves the system wide open for the same discrimination minorities suffer in car insurance. Will cities pay more? What about industrial areas which are historically minority and low income communities?
What about areas near power plants, clean-up sites, coal mines?
Will that effect our property values? The income of states? (High rating= no industry?) This cannot be allowed. EQUAL COVERAGE! BY LAW!
3. Classism... "Gold 90-95% coverage, Silver 70-80%, and Bronze 60%" coverage... Get better if you pay more? More like take the assets of the poor who cannot afford an expensive policy. (I will probably get paper.)
4.PENALTIES!!!!!!!!!!!!
$750-$1,500 for 100-300 % below poverty level. ( though it does address extreme need) $950-3,800 for ^ 300% of FPL. IS THAT PER PERSON? Seems the poor will pay a larger burden... and the same penalties as income taxes.. THAT'S HUGE! Do I lose my policy if I disobey the doctor? Refuse a drug? Refuse treatment? Then what?
What if I can't pay the fine... Debtors Prison?

Bottom Line I like HR676. To the point, simple.. no BS.
I like the Obama Plan.. not so simple, but with a PUBLIC OPTION I won't buck.

WHAT IS NEEDED?
EQUAL COVERAGE- EQUAL TREATMENT-
PUBLIC OPTION, open to ALL, IS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY!

Most of the rest of the stuff will either be solved by PUBLIC OPTION or can be fixed later. STOP PANDERING TO SPECIAL INTERESTS AND SERVE THE MASSES.

I asked people to vote straight ticket Democrat door to door during the campaign reasoning that then we could get healthcare passed and stop the wars.
YOU ALL ARE MAKING A LIAR OUT OF ME AND I DON'T APPRECIATE IT!

If this is enacted the Democratic Party may as well go home for 20 years.
There will be so many angry voters that we will not win another election in my lifetime. You are destroying the party.
peace to you all,
marsha riggan

I am still in the top 100, who would have thought?

Last night our President backed down the special interests and negative forces in Washington and across the country, and stood up for seniors, middle class families and everyone else who uses healthcare whether they have insurance or not.
I have never been so proud of a vote in my life as I am casting a vote to elect him!

Today we have a duty. If we want this, we can make it happen.
1. Call your Congressmen and Senators TODAY. Tell them you want the Obama plan, and you will be watching to see how they vote.
2. Email your friends and family, tell them to call their Congressmen and Senators.
3. Wear your buttons and talk to people in the grocery store, the post office, everywhere. This is how we won the election against the odds, remember? We can do this.
4. If you have a yard sign.. put it out again! Show support for our President!

This is a call to PUBLIC SERVICE.
We have a unique opportunity to be a part of something which will save lives for longer than we are alive. What a noble and worthwhile cause.
Tell a neighbor and save a women with breast cancer.
Tell a friend and save a child with swine flu.
Tell a brother and save a senior who can't afford medicine.
Tell a sister and save a man with prostate cancer.
How many of our fellow Americans must die because of lack of care or no care?
We can fix that!
LET'S DO THIS!
peace,
marsha riggan

ps.. Rep Wilson SC called our President a Liar at a Joint Session... He deserves a complaint call. It's like slapping your grandmother. Some things you DO NOT DO! Congressman Joe Wilson (R-SC) ... 212 Cannon House Office Building • Washington, DC 20515 • Phone: (202) 225-2452

So who has read it .. Is it true that it allows insurance companies to cover only 65% of care?
Are we all going to the poorhouse if we get sick?
No public option.. Medicare for those under 29,000 a year for a family of 4 and then credits for private insurance?
That would be laughable if it didn't mean people will die.
It still has a mandate and fines if you don't buy a private plan..
Just like car insurance.... I'll get PL/PD, and pray I don't get cancer.
peace,
marsha

Please read and pass on this personal message on Rex's experience with medicare.. we should all be so lucky...
He gave this to my friend Kathleen to post, and pass on.
I am posting with permission.
Peace,
marsha


-----------------------
Today at 6:43pm
Hello family, friends and neighbors;

Our country is bogged down in a national health care crisis and I feel compelled to add my two cents to the discussion. I feel qualified to speak out by virtue of being the recent recipient of our excellent Medicare health system. May 21, 2009 I received life sustaining open heart surgery which, no doubt salvaged the quality of my life today, not to mention adding productive years to it. I feel extremely fortunate to have had one of the very best heart surgeons and surgical teams in the nation use their skills to keep me alive.


However, I feel even more fortunate that my cardio crisis waited until this time in my life, 68 years of age, to reach critical mass. I have absolutely no doubt that if my heart problem would have peaked 10 years ago, before my eligibility for Medicare, I would have been one dead dude, not because the problem could not be surgically corrected, but because there is no way I could scrape up the money from my family and friends to pay even a fraction of the resulting medical cost of heart surgery.


Medicare is not perfect but it is an established medical delivery system that leaves all medical decisions to the doctor and patient. My cardiologist and I monitored the deterioration of my heart valve over the past nine years until my symptoms dictated it was time to proceed with corrective surgery. I was on the operating table for five hours, during which time my deteriorated aortic valve was replaced, plus one by-pass was accomplished. In total, I spent five nights and six days in the hospital, including 24 hours in ICU. My total Medicare co-pay was $800 for a surgical procedure that cost in excess of $200,000.00. No insurance companies or government officials were ever a part of any discussion about when, or if, I could have this life saving operation.


The 'pay or die' health care system our young people (under 65 yrs of age) are living under in this country is a moral disgrace to all Americans. I do not believe the solution to our disastrous health care system is about politics, democrats or republicans, or right wing versus left wing ideology.
Health care for everyone is about human decency and the moral responsibility of all nations. It hurts my spirit each time I hear about someone dying from a medically correctable condition in this country because they could not get health care coverage and had no money (the two go together). Our medical care for profit is the laughing stock of the world. Most countries that have universal healthcare for all include a law that makes it illegal to make a profit for providing basic health care. Even China has begun plans to provide universal health care for all its citizens. No other industrialized country in the world treats its citizens the way we do. America is so much better than this.


I am asking everyone I know to support a national healthcare program that would provide Medicare for every man, women and Child who wants it. Support it because it is an established medical delivery system that runs efficiently (overhead estimated at less than 4%) and is successful (87% Medicare recipients say they are highly satisfied). It would save the tax payers billions of dollars when compared to any of the 'medical reform plans' currently being debated. The simple strategy of doing nothing and keeping the current medical system in place guarantees the insurance corporations will continue to get richer, our medical system for the rich will continue spiral further out of control, more of our citizens will be denied coverage and more people will die unnecessarily because they lack money.



Medicare is the best, most efficient, least costly medical delivery system in the United States today. The problem is that it is only available to citizens 65 and older and disabled Americans. It would be easy to re-write the law to make it available to all Americans who want it. Everyone who has private health insurance and is happy with it should keep it, those who are unhappy with their health insurance and all those who do not have health insurance could be covered by Medicare.


I believe with every fiber of my recently repaired heart that decent quality health care like I received a few months ago is a fundamental right of every American citizen, not just a privilege of senior citizens and the very wealthy. Our country was founded on Judeo-Christian beliefs, if that remains to be true.if we continue to represent ourselves as a Christian nation.then we must come to terms with the very basic moral issue that is as old as the Scriptures, how we treat the weakest among us. People don't die broke because of health care anywhere else in the industrialized world, but they do every day in America. I do not believe we can save the world, but I do believe we possess the common love, compassion and wisdom among us to come together to do this basic human thing of providing quality basic health care for all American citizens.


Thank you for your time and willingness to think about this topic. Feed back welcome.


Hoping you and your loved ones are healthy and happy.

Rex

I received an update on facebook from OH rep. D. Kucinich today. in part it said.




"The masquerade is over! The "public option" is ... dead.

Health care reform is now a private option: WHICH FOR PROFIT INSURANCE COMPANY DO YOU WANT? You have to choose. And you have to pay. If you have a low income, under HR3200 government will subsidize the private insurance companies and you will still have to pay premiums, co-pays and deductibles.

The Administration plan requires that everyone must have health insurance, so it is delivering tens of millions of new "customers" to the insurance companies. Health care? Not really. Insurance care! Absolutely. Cost controls? No chance.

You will next hear talk about "co-ops." The truth is that insurance company campaign contributions have co-opted the public interest."
The hotly-debated HR3200, the so-called "health care reform" bill, is nothing less than corporate welfare in the guise of social welfare and reform. It is a convoluted mess. The real debate which we should be having is not occurring.

Removing the "public option" from a public bill paid for by public money is not in the public interest. What is left is a "private option" paid for with public money. Why should public money be spent on a private option which does not guarantee 100% coverage nor have any cost controls? A true public option would provide 30% savings immediately which would then cover the 1/3rd of the population who presently have no healthcare.

Unfortunately, under HR3200, the Government is choosing winners and losers in the private sector; proposing to spend public funds on subsidizing insurance companies who make money not providing health care. This process wil insure only one thing - the expansion of profits. Gone is the debate over cost.

As a result of current negotiations, the Medicare Part D rip-off will continue for another decade, further fleecing senior citizens. Drug importation has been dropped, so no inexpensive drugs can be accessed from other nations.

Instead we are told the pharmaceutical companies will accept a 2% cut in the growth rate of their profits - this they call cost control!"


Please read HR676 and contact your congress person.
I'm very concerned about this.. If I am required to pay for something which does not work...
I don't know if I will do that.. I'm sure I'm not the only one who will feel that way.. If this is true, it is a set up. We will be breaking the law if we don't buy what won't help us.....
peace,
marsha

No matter where you stand on healthcare, please take a moment to hear "THE LION OF THE SENATE" speak on the subject last year.
God give us more men of passion and compassion.

http://pol.moveon.org/kennedy/?id=17001-9396809-2H0.MFx&t=1

peace,
marsha riggan

That is the question I am asking myself. Watching little snipets of the news( I don't watch the news anymore, I read it online) , I'm worried. Town hall "tea baggers" who carry loaded guns outside of presidential events, shout "Death To Obama" and other degradations all because President Obama wants to change health care for the better. There are also the "birthers" who want to deny President Obama's US citizenship because they still cannot believe that an African American man is president of this country. And the frosting on the right-wing backlash cake, manipulating the American public, scaring them into thinking that Obama is a socialist, Sarah Palin's "death panels," etc.

We all know who is running this whole backlash, the Republican Party. Here's the proof: Rupert Murdoch has a monopoly on American mainstream news media, and every cable news station is either connected to him through mutual CEO friendships/funds. What Murdoch thinks is broadcast on every network in every shape or form. Murdoch is a registered Republican. To add to that, investors in these networks who are politically conservatives have the last say in what narratives and perspectives get put on screens. Why is Dobbs, Beck, and Cramer still on the networks when they screwed up so much and scare people to death? Think certain Arabian leaders who fund al-Queda and you have another form of domestic terrorism. Republican Congressmen and women are ordered by Steele to do whatever means possible to prevent universal health care from happening in this country "by any means necessary." Tap on Murdoch's shoulder, and we have our population scared shitless and left even more ignorant and uneducated on how Obama's health care will help us. Who is running this operation? G-O-P, who want to run this country from the backseat. Old strategies indeed. The GOP won in 1994, they shouldn't win in 2009.
Another aspect of the GOP's desire to lynch President Obama is inherent racism. With everything Obama does, he is inspected and thought of differently because of the color of his skin. Former president Bush made this country so close to fascism, yet everyone is viewing his efforts as light and favorable. Now, an African American man is president and they are giving him the Malcolm X treatment. Talk about a double standard! Not to mention, if anything, this health care thing and people's misunderstandings on it have wakened the sleeping dragon, of racism. All this is hype and fear, what is this? The Bush Administration?!

If anything, people just need to educate themselves or at least someone should start a bumper sticker campaign, "Eight Years We Lived With An Idiot, Time To Start Thinking Again." I don't want to see President Obama hanging from a noose outside of the White House.

For those of you who don't know me... this is a repost from 2007.
I am old enough to have been a "hippie" if there is such a thing.. I only met people, many of whom felt as I did... I am a Friend.




Words have tremendous power. A single word can hurt or heal. I am no great writer but, I know what I think, and I believe the more people in a dialog, the better the results.
I usually sign off on my comments with PEACE.
The reason I do this is simple. I want peace. I know you all will read the word and for a moment it is in your mind. During that moment in your mind it is a powerful thought. The more people that think that thought, the more powerful it becomes.
I would like you all to consider how many times someone says to you, "have a nice day". If we replaced that with, "Peace" or "Have a Peaceful day" , how much could we pass that thought around. How many politicians would take notice if suddenly they heard the word everyday, everywhere, all day long? Could we make them notice? It could be the new trend. We could make it so.
With so many people saying the word every day, I believe we could make an impact on the thought processes of many of our leaders.
This, I'm sure sounds very idealistic but, just last week I heard of a man who changed the day of many people by buying an angry man a Starbuck's coffee.
A small act if passed around can grow into powerful good.
Give it a shot...the next time you start to say, "have a nice day" replace it with, "Peace". Sign your emails "Peacefully yours" or "Yours in Peace", or "In hope of Peace".
Maybe we can show Washington how many people want peace before the election.
If it doesn't work in that way, we will still be spreading goodwill, and this is the season to start it.
Peace to you all, Marsha

Please pass along these links....
The Truth will get us Healthcare!

http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/21/?e=10&ref=text3

http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/7/?e=10&ref=text4

http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/6/?e=10&ref=text5

http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/4/?e=10&ref=text6

http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/31/?e=10&ref=text7


peace,
marsha

So here's the deal......
You know your people need healthcare but the people who help to fund your campaigns want you to vote against it.. You know people are being scared by the ads.. You know most of it isn't true and the truth isn't getting out there... Calls are coming in in large numbers against the bills and tho you know they are probably organized by the special interest.. how do you know...

Want to know what to do???
Do what is right for the masses.. if you do what is right you will find the votes to be re-elected. WE will re-elect you!
We will donate.. We will work for you..
You will be rewarded.
YOU will have the satisfaction of knowing YOU did something which will save SO MANY lives that, with one vote, you will have done more good than most people can do in their entire lives.

Short term jobs will not save lives...
For profit healthcare is impossible.
Reform will not help.. greed will run it.

If you follow the money... well, we will know and vote accordingly. Your voting record will be online.. You can't hide.. The majority of us NEED this and you all know what is right.
DO THE RIGHT THING AND YOU WILL NEVER BE SORRY!
peace,
marsha

Matt Nisenoff will be running for Democrats Abroad JApan exec board in the next ten days. If you or someone you know would like to be a member before the vote please go to https://www.democratsabroad.org/user/register thank you and hope I can earn your vote.   Read More »

To President Obama, his staff and his supporters in Congress.

We watched with our grand-daughter tonight. Thank-you to you and your staff for your work..
This is text book leadership.. Lead by example and expect others to follow. All the work behind the scenes shows..I was afraid we were going down.. I don't think that anymore, just this week the bills have been changing.
I have my buttons and my sign on the door. My bumper sticker should be on the way...
VISIBLE SUPPORT!
If you want to do positive things to help...
1. WEAR YOUR OBAMA BUTTONS. Tell people why.
2. Put out a yard or window sign from the campaign or for healthcare.
3. CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES! Tell them you WILL be watching how they vote. Remind them that THEY have a public health plan.
Our people are doing great things.
WE must be part of the solution.
I am proud to have a president who is working for me and my family.. I will continue to work for him, and those who support him.
Peace to you all,
marsha riggan

Thanks to our President for working to make our country and the world safer... Why isn't this on the news???
An agreement with the Russians to reduce WMD to the lowest levels in my lifetime.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/06/AR2009070601537.html


And an agreement with Hospitals which will help to pay for healthcare..
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/06/AR2009070604053.html?wpisrc=newsletter

Shame we don't see this stuff on the news...
pass it on!
peace,
marsha

FCNL has debunked the bill... see what they wrote.
Also ...side by side on Health care proposals...
Read and keep up!
Peace,
marsha

http://www.fcnl.org/issues/item.php?item_id=3667&issue_id=102

http://www.kff.org/healthreform/sidebyside.cfm