No, We're Not a Broken People | Let's Try Democracy

No, We're Not a Broken People | Let's Try Democracy

7 Great Websites for Information on Healthcare Reform

By Mary Ward, Guest Contributer

If you’re like most people, you’ve been interested in following the healthcare debate as it happens. But, if you’re busy like most people, you may find it difficult to keep up with this ever changing debate. Following are some great resources for keeping up with the healthcare debate – and they’re all online.

1. Twitter – Twitter’s not just a site for keeping up with your friends, it’s also a great way to keep up with the news. There are 25 different feeds on Twitter that provide updates on healthcare reform as they happen. Some of them are admittedly a bit biased, but some are also dedicated to simply delivering developments.


2. Senate Health Education and Pension Committee – This is a link to the committee that started it all! This committee formerly chaired by Senator Ted Kennedy keeps track of the bill as it progresses. On this site you can see the bill as authored as well as changes to it as it moves through the process. This is one of the few places where you can read the bill in its entirety with no commentary.


3. White House Office of Management and Budget – Peter Orszag is the chief of the Office of Management and Budget at the White House, and he posts a regular blog, which is lately often about healthcare reform. This is a great place for the White House take on things. New happenings are generally commented on frequently.


4. The Treatment – This is a blog, but it is written by Jonathan Cohn, the author of “Sick- the Untold Story of America’s Health Care Crisis – and the People Who Pay the Price”. Cohn is extremely knowledgeable and works hard to write a fair and informative blog.


5. Side By Side Comparison of Major Healthcare Proposals – Authored by the Kaiser Family Foundation, this site does a good job of comparing various major healthcare reform proposals. It takes a lot of the work out of the comparison for the consumer.


6. Covering Health – A website for journalists who report on healthcare, this site keeps very up to date on happenings regarding the healthcare debate. Since journalists use this website to assist them in their reporting on healthcare, you can count on it to be up to date and factual.


7. Healthcare Reform 2009 – This is the website for the New England Journal of Medicine. Most of the site requires membership, but anyone can access their extensive coverage on healthcare reform. This site offers commentary from several different points of view, and most of their commentators are experts in a particular area of healthcare.

There’s plenty of coverage out there right now on healthcare reform. Regardless of your opinion on the subject, you can find someone who’ll report exactly what you believe. But, if you want to know what’s really happening, these websites should give you plenty of information that is fairly reported and balanced. Sometimes, in any debate, the hardest information to come by is the factual information.

Mary Ward is a freelance writer and likes writing about medical education topics, such as how to research and choose among online X-ray tech schools, how to apply for online college grants, and more.

Top 25 Censored Stories for 2009

From Project Censored:

#1. Over One Million Iraqi Deaths Caused by US Occupation
# 2 Security and Prosperity Partnership: Militarized NAFTA
# 3 InfraGard: The FBI Deputizes Business
# 4 ILEA: Is the US Restarting Dirty Wars in Latin America?
# 5 Seizing War Protesters’ Assets
# 6 The Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act
# 7 Guest Workers Inc.: Fraud and Human Trafficking
# 8 Executive Orders Can Be Changed Secretly
#9 Iraq and Afghanistan Vets Testify
# 10 APA Complicit in CIA Torture
# 11 El Salvador’s Water Privatization and the Global War on Terror
# 12 Bush Profiteers Collect Billions From No Child Left Behind
# 13 Tracking Billions of Dollars Lost in Iraq
# 14 Mainstreaming Nuclear Waste
# 15 Worldwide Slavery
# 16 Annual Survey on Trade Union Rights
# 17 UN’s Empty Declaration of Indigenous Rights
# 18 Cruelty and Death in Juvenile Detention Centers
# 19 Indigenous Herders and Small Farmers Fight Livestock Extinction
# 20 Marijuana Arrests Set New Record
# 21 NATO Considers “First Strike” Nuclear Option
# 22 CARE Rejects US Food Aid
# 23 FDA Complicit in Pushing Pharmaceutical Drugs
# 24 Japan Questions 9/11 and the Global War on Terror
# 25 Bush’s Real Problem with Eliot Spitzer

Deborah Orr: A Tribute to the Propaganda Box

Sean Madden (inoodle.com) tackles one of my all time pet peeves: our mindless addiction to the overwhelmingly mindless Boob Tube. It's an interesting piece worth checking out here in its entirety.

Looking at Today's Financial Crisis Through a Historical Lens

This is a MUST READ:

BANKERS MANIFESTO 1917/1934 - iReport.com

It's difficult to read the documents linked above and not join the ranks of the "conspiracy nuts" of the world. One cannot help but draw parallels to our current financial crisis and come to logical conspiratorial conclusions.

Am I wrong?

Doctor's Orders?

Republicans claim that the new law says the government will tell physicians what procedures can and can't be performed. It doesn't.

read more | digg story

Did Obama pay for Hamas-affiliated terrorists to emigrate to the United States?

More lies circulating from the Wingnuts: FactCheck.org sets the record straight.

High Noon: Geithner v. The American Oligarchs

Bill Moyers interviews former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), MIT Sloan School of Management professor and senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, Simon Johnson examines President Obama's plan for economic recovery.

Broadcast February 13, 2009







For further information, see Simon Johnson's website: The Baseline Scenario

SOURCE: Information Clearing House - ICH

Petition Attorney General Eric Holder to Appoint a Special Prosecuter

Formal Petition to Attorney General-Designate Eric Holder to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute any and all government officials who have participated in War Crimes.

Sponsored by Docudharma.com and Democrats.com.

Blacklisting Progressives: The Untold Story Beneath the Daschle Headlines

THIS IS A MUST READ:

David Sirota (Open Left) reports:

"Amid the swirling headlines about Tom Daschle withdrawing his nomination for Health and Human Service Secretary is a very dark, very foreboding story that tells us a lot more about what to expect from the Obama administration than a single nomination fight. It is a story that every single voter who supported Barack Obama because of his progressive economic platform should know about - and worry about...."

Putting Torture Behind Us

"Rather than lose forever the chance to grow from our missteps," Nicholas Kristof (NYT) has a interesting "proposal for confronting Guantánamo without distracting from the work on the economic crisis."

Photo Credit: Nicholas D. Kristof. (Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times)

Feingold: Give Appointment Powers to the People

Senator to Push For Constitutional Amendment

John Nichols (The Capital Times) reports:

"Following New York Governor David Paterson's controversial selection of Kirsten Gillibrand to fill the U.S. Senate vacancy created by the resignation of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and with the impeachment trial of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich for abuses of office allegedly including the bartering off of the vacant Senate seat of President Barack Obama, Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold wants to require that Senate vacancies be filled by the voters rather than individual governors...."

Continue Reading.

The People vs. Dick Cheney

Karen Greenberg answers the question:

"Will Obama bring the Bushies to account? Will Congress? Some local DA? A judge in Europe? Anyone...?"

Illustration: Roberto Parada (Mother Jones)

Who Will Throw the Book at the Bushies?

In a companion piece to "The People vs. Dick Cheney," Jonathan Schwarz reports:

"If Congress won't, these folks might...."

Obama, Pakistan, terrorism | Salon

Obama, Pakistan, terrorism | Juan Cole | Salon:

"The president-elect wants to work with the Pakistani government to "stamp out" terror. It's not nearly that simple." Continue reading.

Photo Credit: Juan Cole. The Vineyard of the Saker: Amy Goodman interviews Professor Juan Cole on Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Kurdistan

Technorati tags: Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Obama, Foreign Policy, Juan Cole

Vote to Hold the Bush Administration Accountable

UPDATE

An open letter to Barack Obama

Dear President-Elect Obama:

While I understand your desire to put the mistakes and failures of the Bush administration behind us and to focus on the future with a positive agenda of change, I believe it is absolutely necessary to the credibility of your promise of change that you investigate the abuses of the Bush administration and hold accountable anyone who has abused his or her power of office or participated in criminal acts.

Without holding government responsible for past abuses, there is nothing to preclude those same abuses from recurring. When you take the oath of office on January 20th, you will swear to uphold the Constitution. You cannot do so while allowing those who have disgraced it to fail to pay consequences for their actions.

Those who voted for you are passionately hopeful that you will live up to your campaign rhetoric and act boldly to do what is right for our country--no matter the political cost. We are facing unprecedented problems domestically and internationally. We need bold actions, truth, and real solutions.

I implore you to do what is necessary to restore the faith of Americans in our country's leadership by upholding your duties to protect the Constitution.

Thank you.

EVERYONE PLEASE VOTE TO APPOINT A SPECIAL PROSECUTER BY CLICKING ON THE BADGE ABOVE.

Related:

• Arianna Huffington: Memo to Obama: Moving Forward Doesn't Mean You Can't Also Look Back


• Paul Krugman | Forgive and Forget? | NYTimes.com:

  "...[A]bout Mr. Obama: while it’s probably in his short-term political interests to forgive and forget, next week he’s going to swear to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” That’s not a conditional oath to be honored only when it’s convenient...."

• Forcing Obama’s Hand on Torture Prosecutions | The Opinionator Blog | NYTimes.com:

  "...The former chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces and general counsel for the Department of the Army has spoken. Her clear words have been picked up around the world. And that takes the prospects of accountability and criminal investigation onto another level. For the Obama administration, the door to the do-nothing option is now closed. That is why today may come to be seen as the turning point."

• Earl Ofari Hutchinson: Holder Can't Prosecute Bush Abuses Too Many Democrats Aided and Abetted Them


• Obama Has to Hold Bush Accountable for the Laws He Broke | Elizabeth Holtzman, The Nation | AlterNet:

  "Obama cannot let former Bush administration officials get away with breaking the law without violating his own oath of office...."

Technorati tags: War crimes, Prosecute, Special Prosecuter, Bush, Cheney, Bush Administration, torture, Justice, Geneva Convention, Paul Krugman