OurFuture.org Blogs: Terrance Heath


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Don't Know or Don't Care?

House Republicans have presented a health care reform "plan" that doesn't fix our broken health care system (but might make it worse), and (according to the CBO) doesn't do much to fix the deficit conservatives say t more »

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What Do They Want?

First, it was Sen. Landerieu's nonsense. Now we get this from Sen. Joe Lieberman.

Enough is enough. When Democrats start parroting Republican talking points, they are showing us who they are. We need to treat accordingly. Especially when their take on health care reform is pretty much the same as the GOP's, in terms of outcome.

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Failure is Their Only Option

Steve Benen asks a question about the Republican health care reform plan — or lack thereof — that I'm certain I've seen answered already.

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From Crash to Meltdown in 80 Years

It's was 80 years ago this week that the Crash of 1929 kicked off the Great Depression.

Not quite 79 years later, the fall of Lehman Brothers on September 15, 2008, sent the stock market into a meltdown precipitated by the crises of such Wall Street Giants as Bear Stears and AIG, among others.

Comparisons between now and then are, of course, inevitable.

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Are You a Pre-Existing Condition?

As long as we keep the status quo, then answer to the question "Are you a pre-existing condition?" is pretty clear: Yes. We all are, eventually.

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Reclaiming "We"

Mike Elk couldn't have been more right in his thinking about what Martin Luther King, Jr. would have thought of the Teabaggers, Birthers, etc. He would have seen that those faces that at first glance seem twisted in anger are really twisted in pain. He would recognize those faces as well as the source of the fear and anger distorting them.

It's not about adopting their politics, compromising our own, or even tolerating their tactics. It's about reclaiming "We" — The same "We" that Dr. King and civil rights workers sang about, and that I remember singing about myself in church, on the occasions when we sang "We Shall Overcome."

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Singing For Health Care Reform

This is something I wish I'd been a part of, and I hope they call me if they need an extra baritone next time. (It's rare that my vocal training and my politics intersect.) Plus, the guy who got "punk'd" was none other than Bill McInturff, the guy who gave us Harry and Louise. (Not to mention killing health care reform and giving us another decade of pre-existing conditions, recissions, etc.)

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Come to Chicago

If you're tired of hearing about the recovery you can't feel, while seeing headline after headline about how well Goldman Sachs is doing — or who's getting big bonuses on Wall Street now, while the rest of the country is facing the grim reality of long-term joblessness — you might want to come to Chicago on October 25 - 27, where thousands of Americans will "come together on the streets of Chicago to demand a banking system that puts the American people first and a Congress that makes it happen!"

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Dogs & Trainwrecks: How Big Insurance Sees Us

When I was up
You would always come round
But when I needed a friend
Oh, you could never be found

I got a hole
Where my heart used to be
I wouldn't treat a dog, no, no
The way you treated me

Cher, "I Wouldn't Treat a Dog the Way You Treated Me"

Hey, Sen. Landrieu. Here's another American who just wants "free health care." Of course, that depends on your perspective.

As far as his private insurance company is concerned -- you know, that "private market" you're so keen on protecting? --he's a "dog" siphoning off their potential profits. but as far as Ian Pearl is concerned, a guy with muscular distrophy who just wants to live.

I am not a "dog." That's what health insurance executives called me because I have a disease. I'm also not a "trainwreck," another term they used for members like me.

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Whatever, Mary.

I saw this on Friday, but didn't get around to writing something about it until today. Since then, of course, many other bloggers have covered it by now. But when a Democrat says something like what Sen. Mary Landrieu did on health care reform, I can't help chiming in even days later, if only because there can't be enough voices in the choir on this.

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