President's Weekly Address

Our President may be overseas and he may be visiting the pyramids and seeing the sites in Paris and Germany, but he hasn't forgotten us here and the health care struggle we are facing.

That is the focus of his address this week. Trying to fix our crisis in health care. And it is a crisis. We have nearly 50 million people without insurance in this country. That's the best guess of anyone. But that's not the worst problem. There was a new study that stated 62% of all Bankruptcy's from medical expenses are for people who HAVE insurance.

Yes, you read that correctly. It is people who HAVE insurance. That's a sad thought, that people who have insurance are the ones are struggling more than the ones without.

I think this was what the President said that was the most important to me. We have to make sure WE stay involved. Again, this goes back to what I have said before. If we don't stay involved with our Representatives they don't know what we want. You have to call, write or email them.

They can't read your mind. Get in touch with them. Let them know what you want for health care. If you don't let you Senator or Representative know then you can't be upset if you don't get what you want, or if you don't get anything this year.

I also made it very clear to Congress that we must develop a plan that doesn’t add to our budget deficit. My budget included an historic down payment on reform, and we’ll work with Congress to fully cover the costs through rigorous spending reductions and appropriate additional revenues. We’ll eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse in our health care system, but we’ll also take on key causes of rising costs – saving billions while providing better care to the American people.

All across America, our families are making hard choices when it comes to health care. Now, it’s time for Washington to make the right ones. It’s time to deliver. And I am absolutely convinced that if we keep working together and living up to our mutual responsibilities; if we place the American people’s interests above the special interests; we will seize this historic opportunity to finally fix what ails our broken health care system, and strengthen our economy and our country now and for decades to come.

Here is the President. Help him help us, call, write, or email your elected representative and let them know what you want. Let's get health care for all this year.

American Recovery and Reinvestment Program

The plan for the new stimulus package, American Recovery and Reinvestment Program, has been released and you can check out the entire package here.

One of the things I found very interesting was this part about the EPA:

Environmental Cleanup
•
Superfund Hazardous Waste Cleanup: $800 million to clean up hazardous and toxic waste sites that threaten health and the environment. EPA has 1,255 sites on its National Priority List, selected based on a hazard ranking system. There are many Superfund sites ready for construction, but not funded due to budget shortfalls and over 600 sites with ongoing construction that could be accelerated.
•
Leaking Underground Storage Tanks: $200 million for enforcement and cleanup of petroleum leaks from underground storage tanks at approximately 1,600 additional sites. There are an estimated 116,000 sites with the potential to contaminate important water supplies.
•
Nuclear Waste Cleanup: $500 million for nuclear waste cleanup at sites contaminated as a result of the nation’s past nuclear activities. Accelerating the completion of projects will reduce long-term costs.
•
Closed Military Bases: $300 million for cleanup activities at closed military installations allowing local communities to redevelop these properties for productive use. The Department estimates that there is a $3.5 billion environmental cleanup backlog at bases closed during previous BRAC rounds.
•
NOAA Habitat Restoration: $400 million for ready-to-go habitat restoration projects.
•
Brownfields: $100 million for competitive grants for evaluation and cleanup of former industrial and commercial sites - turning them from problem properties to productive community use. Last year EPA was only able to fund 37% of Brownfields applications.

Hopefully this will start us on some of the cleanup needed in these messes we have around the country left over from the Bush years.

Here is what I referred to earlier about the COBRA benefits:

•
$39 billion to support those who lose their jobs by helping them to pay the cost of keeping their employer provided healthcare under COBRA and providing short-term options to be covered by Medicaid.

And this is very important I think...it has been neglected so very long. We need our roads and bridges rebuilt.

Highway Infrastructure: $30 billion for highway and bridge construction projects. It is estimated that states have over 5,100 projects totaling over $64 billion that could be awarded within 180 days. These projects create jobs in the short term while saving commuters time and money in the long term. In 2006, the Department of Transportation estimated $8.5 billion was needed to maintain current systems and $61.4 billion was needed to improve highways and bridges.

Something that is near and dear to my heart and should be very important to all of us. We need to make sure this is done and this is probably just a drop in the bucket to what is really needed.

Veterans Administration Facilities
•
Veterans Medical Facilities: $950 million for veterans’ medical facilities. The Department has identified a $5 billion backlog in needed repairs, including energy efficiency projects, at its 153 medical facilities.
•
Veterans Cemeteries: $50 million to put people to work making monument and memorial repairs at cemeteries for American heroes.

One of the things Bush was supposed to have done and ignored as he "kept us safe after 9-11" was to secure our ports and borders. Well he neglected to do so. The 9-11 commission instructed him this needed to be done. Yet, he still never did it. Well, it is now going to be done.

Border Ports of Entry: $1.15 billion to construct GSA and Customs and Border Patrol land ports of entry to improve border security, make trade and travel easier and reduce wait times, and to procure non-intrusive inspection technology at sea ports of entry, which is used to scan cargo containers to reduce the risk that containers can be used to smuggle weapons of mass destruction.

Again, this is looking good. The total is big...yes it is. But we as a country are in big trouble. We know that. We, got into a mess, thanks to Bush & Co., Iraq, cutting taxes to the wealthy and spending money on things we shouldn't have. Things were out of control for 8 years.

PE Obama has a great team behind him and he has a good group supporting him. He also has bipartisan support across the country. He is taking office as the most popular president ever.

Again, you can read the entire report here, it is a pdf file. There is much, much more. For education, health care, housing, National Treasure repair and for the Arts.

Check it out. I am sure your favorite thing is there too. If not, write or call your congress person and express your opinion. Now is the time. As long as it isn't something silly, and is something that really needs to be taken care of and is worthwhile, it should be at least looked at.

Remember, PE Obama is OUR President. We elected him, and he wants and needs our opinions and our feedback. That's the only way he knows what is going on.

So, read it, share it and then let me know what you think. I think it is great and it should help get our country going again. And that's what we need, to get our Country going again, to make us strong, safe and secure, something I never felt before, but I am starting to with President Obama.

Health Care Promise in Stimulus Package..

President Obama is trying to deliver another of his promises, even if only partial. At least it is a step in the right direction. Part of the stimulus package, about 39 Billion it is estimated, will go to help unemployed people who are without health insurance.

A transition aide said: "Obama supports the protection of health insurance through COBRA and Medicaid in a time-limited way." Taken together, the insurance for children and laid-off workers signifies an effort by Democrats to create momentum for the more difficult work of broad health reforms that they and the Obama administration plan to undertake soon.

This is wonderful. It is a step in the right direction toward getting health care for all of us.

The Medicaid proposal would give assistance through 2010 and would break with significant features of the program created as part of the Great Society of the 1960s. Medicaid always has been a shared financial responsibility of the U.S. government and the states. But under the proposal, federal money would pay for all benefits and administrative costs for unemployed people who joined. In addition, the expansion would be the largest step ever taken beyond Medicaid's original purpose of insuring people who are poor or disabled. There is precedent in recent years for opening Medicaid in times of crisis -- for some New York residents after 9/11 and for people who fled communities ravaged by Hurricane Katrina -- but not on the scale envisioned now.

This would be great. Most states have cut Medicaid funding, it seems. I know it was cut here in Missouri under our Republican Governor and his co-horts in the Republican led congress. They decided since they needed to cut spending somewhere why not to the poor and disabled who only depend on the health care.

Another part of the subsidy would provide assistance for people who want to keep the insurance they had at their job. This plan would help them pay their insurance premiums under what is known now as COBRA.

House leaders said the COBRA proposal would subsidize for one year 65 percent of the price of premiums for private insurance that laid-off workers bought. According to legislative sources, that level of help could ultimately change, depending on feedback from congressional budget analysts.

For the past two decades, COBRA has guaranteed that certain laid-off workers may, if they pay for it, continue the insurance they used to get through work -- usually for 18 months. But the government has never helped them afford it, and coverage is expensive. Under COBRA, employers may charge former workers 100 percent of the insurance cost -- an average of about $12,000 a year for a family -- plus a small surcharge.

Research has shown that a small fraction of people eligible for COBRA buy it. A study released last week by Families USA, a liberal consumer health lobby, said COBRA is "an economic impossibility" for most people, because its typical costs would use up nearly 84 percent of the average unemployment benefits.

The twin ideas, preliminarily estimated to cost $39 billion through the end of next year, would represent sharp departures in two long-standing programs and already are sparking debate along the ideological continuum on Capitol Hill and beyond. In Congress, several key Democratic House members and senators have endorsed the broad contours, while a few Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) have signaled that they are wary. Debate, however, will not solidify until lawmakers learn more precisely how much the proposals would cost and how many people they might help.

Among outside health policy specialists, conservatives are critical of expanding an entitlement and are predicting that states would have a hard time shutting the spigot of help once the federal money stopped. Liberals are predicting that, even with the large federal investment, coverage could remain unaffordable for too many people.

The ideas' boldness reflects a precipitous rise in the uninsured. Recent estimates suggest that worsening unemployment, which reached 7.2 percent last month, translates into a loss of health coverage for an additional 2.6 million people. That increase, on top of the estimated 45 million uninsured, is exacerbating a persistent problem in the U.S. health-care system: too many people who lack access to proper care.

We need to get this passed as part of the stimulus package. This would be a great step forward and would show people what could be done. The biggest stumbling block as shown above is going to be the Republicans. So if you have a Republican Senator or Congressman in your state or district you need to write or call them and let them know you support this.

Even if you don't need this, think about it... someone else might. We need to think about the bigger picture here. We need to think about others and what our neighbors need.

Reference: Washington Post