SHIT!

AJC: Barr seeks to return to Congress.

I thought we got rid of this idiot. This hypocritical, lying sack of garbage really has no business representing anybody. Of course maybe Yosemite Sam will return as "Bob Barr's Official Gun Safety Trainer." I would supply a link to a video, but they have all seemed to have vanished. Hopefully one will reappear now that Barr is stepping back into politics.

      

Republicans cutting Medicare and hurting seniors.

Houston Chronicle: Doctors eliminating Medicare patients.

Medicare has been cutting back on the fees it pays to doctors. Currently Medicare pays less than 50% of standard rates for most procedures. As malpractice insurance, employee salaries, rent, utilities, and medical supplies go up, the government is still cutting fees. They stopped the last round of cuts under pressure from the AMA, but many doctors can no longer afford to treat the elderly on Medicare. Many are opting out of the Medicare plan leaving seniors without doctors.

[Catherine] Roberts had to say goodbye last year to her longtime gynecologist in the Texas Medical Center. He refused to continue treating Medicare patients, she explained, because Medicare doesn't pay enough. Roberts, 73, hasn't found a replacement yet.

Some seniors opted to join HMOs for Medicare coverage. This is what Bush plans to push. It doesn't seem to be working, however.

But for those who have enrolled in Medicare HMOs, which essentially guarantee health care from a selected list of doctors, the Houston area has been one of the harshest places in the nation, according to health care studies. Several insurance companies have halted their Medicare HMO coverage, saying they could not make a profit. They dropped about 60,000 local patients.

Indeed, medical trends for seniors are not looking good. Medicare is cutting fees, making it hard to find doctors. HMO insurance companies are fleeing the Medicare market. And retirees are losing their medical benefits as companies merge, or get bought out. Even more of a reason to implement the "lockbox" Gore and Bush agrred to, but which Bush appears to have forgotten about.

Roberts is a loaded example of how other health care trends have buffeted the elderly.

Her late husband, Olaf, had a health insurance policy that covered both of them as part of his retirement benefits from a steel company, where he worked as a salesman. The policy went beyond Medicare benefits. But it was canceled, Roberts said, when the company was bought out.

.....

Still, Roberts said she relishes her life, which includes a comfortable home, the support of relatives and friends and satisfaction left from a 51-year marriage.

"If my turn comes tomorrow, I don't have anything to complain about it," she said. "Except Medicare."

Is this what we want in store for our seniors?

      

Five of Bushes nominees and why they shouldn't be confirmed.

Working Assets: Information on Judicial Nominees.

The link has some great information. I want to give you just a little taste of what is said.

Charles Pickering Sr...... As a law student, Pickering advised the Mississippi legislature on how it could better enforce its ban on interracial marriage.

Priscilla Owen.... In one decision in which she dissented, Owen called for a very narrow view of a state law concerning the ability of minors to obtain an abortion without parental notification. Then-Texas Supreme Court Justice Alberto Gonzales - who is now chief White House counsel - warned that adopting the dissenters' view would be an "unconscionable act of judicial activism."

Jeffrey Sutton..... More than 70 national organizations and over 375 regional, state, and local groups have opposed his confirmation.

Miguel Estrada..... His confirmation has been opposed by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, and serious concerns about his nomination have been raised by many other Latino and civil rights groups.

Deborah Cook..... According to Ohio Citizen Action, Cook's dissents "reveal a callousness toward the rights of ordinary citizens which offends any reasonable sense of justice." For example, in one case in which Cook dissented from a ruling by the Ohio Supreme Court favorable to a disabled worker, the court majority criticized her opinion as "confused," "lack[ing] [in] statutory support for its position," "pure fantasy," and "entirely without merit."

Go read about who Bush is trying to give lifetime judicial appointments. The mainstream press doesn't want you to read it, otherwise they would report it. Don't you think it is important that you know the facts?