I say yes, you say no, OR People are Strange
Comments
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For us old timers, I was just reading an article on all the birth certificate fracas in USAToday. Barry Goldwater was born in Arizona three years before it was a state. I guess he didnt get as much grief about his birth certificate, if there even was one.
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RetiredLibby~~I just sent you a long detailed pm, but it still says you still arent excepting private messages.
I know Columbus is about 70 miles from Dayton, but they have the most awesome breast center. It's the STEPHANIE SPIELMAN COMPREHENSIVE BREAST CENTER. It's a part of the James Cancer Center of OSU Medical Center.
Every patient has an entire team...BS, MO, RO, researcher, pharmacist, nurse, & nurse practioner. Ive never called there and not been able to speak to a real person, and if I need to speak to a nurse or the doctor, I receive that Call Back within the hour.
If your niece doesn't find what she's looking for in her area, pm me and I will give you my contact info.
We may differ politically, but when it comes to BC, we're all on the same team.
Whatever she decides, I pray all goes well for her.
Paula -
Thanks, Soteria. I will pass the info on to my niece. I would really like to see her at a comprehensive breast center, and she is so young (and has such a seriously crappy family history) that she really needs some big guns on this. Thank you for your help. I have PMd you.
L
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RetiredLibby - Love and prayers for your niece. I was diagnosed at 41 (May). It seems that women being diagnosed with this wretched disease are getting younger and younger.
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RL....how upsetting !!! All of it. I think that the NN should have made your niece an immediate appointment to come in and discuss the path report. I just checked what Paula/Soteria said about there being about a 70 mile difference between Dayton and Columbus and I think I'd certainly consider high-tailing it there.
All of my diagnostic and later surjury and chemo as well as rads was done approximately 70 miles from where I live. It was also during a cold, snowy winter.....so just saying that while a bit of a hardship, it worked out well. I found it a small price to pay for the excellent and pretty expert care I ultimately received. Hoping that all pieces can come together here for the kind of care and attention your niece needs right now.
Jackie
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http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/08/19/profit-from-treating-cancer/
I know this is not in the right form but it is a very good read.
Jackie
eta: It is about why we are still not where we should be in treating cancer.
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Make that 40 now:
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MaddowblogAug 14, 2013
Congress isn't 'exempt' from Obamacare
By Steve BenenIf you've been following the health care debate lately, you've probably heard quite a bit of talk about Congress being "exempt" from the Affordable Care Act. It's a talking point the right has pushed quite aggressively, but is it true?
Republicans certainly want us to think so. Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) complained about an "outrageous exemption for Congress." The far-right editorial page of the Wall Street Journal and Heritage Foundation president Jim DeMint touted a similar line last week. Over the weekend, Republican media figures, including Bill Kristol and Ana Navaro, repeated the talking point on the Sunday shows, and no one thought to correct them. This morning, in an unusually hysterical piece, a Washington Times columnist suggested the policy might constitute "treason." (No, seriously, that's what it said.)
The policy certainly sounds awful, doesn't it? If "Obamacare" is so great, why are members of Congress eager to exempt themselves from the new federal system? No wonder Fox is so worked up over this.
The problem, as you might have guessed, is that the argument is so wildly misleading, it bears no meaningful connection to reality.
The trouble started in 2009 with a cheap stunt orchestrated by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). While lawmakers already get insurance through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan, just like other federal employees, the Iowa Republican pushed a proposal to force members of Congress out of the federal system and into exchanges.
The point wasn't to shape policy, but to create a talking point for Republicans. Grassley desperately wanted to say, "Those darn Democrats think the exchanges are good enough for millions of Americans, but not good enough for themselves," and he assumed Dems would balk at his "plan" because they'd be unwilling to give up the generous Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan.
But Democrats called Grassley's bluff, embraced his idea, and added it to the Affordable Care Act.
And that's where the story gets a little tricky -- Grassley's partisan-stunt-gone-wrong sent members and their aides to get coverage through exchange marketplaces, but never created a mechanism to make that happen.
As Jonathan Cohn explained yesterday:
The federal government, like most large employers, not only provides the opportunity for its workers to get insurance. It also pays a large portion of the premium. Now that lawmakers and their advisers were going into the exchanges, what would happen to that contribution? Would they just lose the money?
The answer, the administration decided last week, is no. Lawmakers and their staffs could keep their employer contributions, and apply that money towards the cost of whatever insurance they buy in the exchanges.
The policy has nothing to do with "exempting" Congress from the health care law, and everything to do with creating a mechanism through which lawmakers will kick themselves off their own insurance plan and into exchanges without a major premium hike.
For Republicans and their allies to whine incessantly about this is ridiculous, even by contemporary conservative standards. We are, after all, talking about an idea pushed by a Republican senator and quietly celebrated away from the cameras by Republican offices.
Jon Chait added that the manufactured outrage over an "exemption" for Congress represents "the toxic combination of ignorance and bad faith that has characterized the right's approach to Obamacare."
So Grassley's amendment created a situation for government workers that Republicans claimed, falsely, the law would create for everybody else: forcing them off their employer insurance and on to the exchanges. Grassley's amendment didn't even attempt to design a coherent way of changing health-care worker benefits, because, again, it wasn't an attempt to reform health care for Congress and its staff -- it was an attempt to furnish a talking point for Rush Limbaugh and Fox News. It yanked away the subsidized health insurance Congress and its staff get, essentially imposing a massive pay cut on those workers.<.blockquote>
It was up to the Obama administration to figure out a resolution to this, and last week, to the relief of lawmakers and their staffers, it did -- offering the patch to a problem a Republican senator inadvertently imposed on lawmakers.
Bottom line: has Congress exempted itself from Obamacare? No. Members of the House and Senate, as well as their aides, will be kicked out of the federal system -- all because Grassley played a stupid game -- and will get coverage through exchanges.
The exchanges were, of course, designed for Americans who can't get coverage through their employer, but this pool of consumers will have a very notable exception: Congress.
Anyone who tells you there's a congressional "exemption" from the law either doesn't know what they're talking about, or assumes you're easily fooled into believing nonsense.
(emphasis mine)---------------------------------------------
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The Maddow BlogBy Steve BenenMon Aug 19, 2013
A few years ago, the Wall Street Journal described paved roads as "historical emblems of American achievement." But in era of strained budgets and fiscal conservatism, American achievements are a little tougher to come by.
Take Texas, for example (thanks to my colleague Tricia McKinney for the heads-up).
The sharp increase in heavy traffic from a historic oil boom has damaged many farm-to-market roads in South and East Texas. The damage related to energy development has become so extensive that state and local authorities lack the funding to make all the repairs. Last month, the Texas Department of Transportation announced plans to convert more than 80 miles of paved roads to gravel. The conversions are expected to start Monday, TxDOT officials said. But the plan has been met with criticism from lawmakers and some of the farmers and ranchers who live near those roads.
"Since paving roads is too expensive and there is not enough funding to repave them all, our only other option to make them safer is to turn them into gravel roads," TxDOT spokesman David Glessner said.
The state legislature briefly considered tax increases on energy companies -- the companies that have benefited greatly from the energy boom, and which are chiefly responsible for pushing the roads quite literally past the breaking point -- but as you might have guessed, those proposals faced stiff political opposition and never gained traction in Austin.
Darlene Meyer, a 77-year-old rancher whose property sits along a state road marked for conversion to gravel, told the Texas Tribune, "Texas used to have the best roads.... I just can't believe the Department of Transportation is going back to the dark ages."
The larger context of this is important.
On the one hand, Gov. Rick Perry (R) believes Texas' economy is amazing, and he's managed to strike the perfect balance between meeting the public's needs and keeping the private sector happy. Every other state, the governor assures us, should be following Texas' lead -- after all, thanks to the energy sector, the Lone Star State has plenty of money.
On the other hand, thanks to wear and tear from the oil companies, which have made themselves remarkably rich from Texas' resources, Texas can no longer afford to pave many of its roads, and will instead transition from pavement to gravel.
The state must have known this was likely to happen, and had time to prepare for infrastructure needs, but ended up here anyway.
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Wow. Just ... wow.
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While rural roads may get the gravel treatment, suburban roads are getting this nasty tar and gravel coating. The road noise in your car is really aggravating and this coating doesn't last.
There is no miracle in Texas. They taught everyone else how to lie and get people to believe it. Just say it ain't true and smile y'all. -
RL- sorry to hear about your niece. Is your family brca+?? I second what Jackie said. I travelled nearly 400 miles to get further confirmation of my dx, my surgeries and my initial MO visit, at an NCI center. It felt good to know I was getting the latest thoughts on treatment. For instance, I got Carboplatin due to brca status and the MO was not limiting himself to protocol, but the latest research. (Unfortuneately, not even MDA would do this, so not all NCI centers are created equal.) Turned out that MO and my now local MO, consult regularly on most of their cases, so good to start at the highest institution and not have to drive so long for chemo and appointments, while still gettting the benefits of "the latest."
Interesting article on Texas roads. These are the insidious things that are happenning to our country, in so many ways, due to "no new taxes." I love that it is happening to Texas though. These people need to wake up and if it takes a dust up and chips in their F-150's paint jobs, so be it. Unfortuneately, as we let our infrastructure disengrate, there will be a bigger price to pay down the line and we may never catch-up. Grover Norquist (not really switching gears) is a traitor, along with his followers, in my book.
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Well, the Repugs want to go back to the dark ages for so many other things....why not roads too. Inbeciles with a huge touch of hypocrisy tossed in to keep it all boiling. Around here those kinds of roads are called blacktop. Ours with somewhat limited usage make it for two or three years.
Jackie
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There is so much deferred maintenance on National Forest roads that the only hope is to close and decomission roads as there is no money to keep up to standards. Problem is, the Tea Partiers (who don't want to pay more taxes, just cut them) want the FS to keep all of these roads open for their personal off-road vehicle activities. For some reason, there is a major disconnect in their pea- brains that it takes $$$ to blade roads, unclog culverts, riprap eroding hillsides, trim back encroaching vegetation, resurface, etc..
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Wha ... wha... what? Roads just don't create, grade and maintain themselves?
You mean the earth doesn't just push asphalt up naturally wherever there is heavy travel? Don't the plants just KNOW that they aren't supposed to grow over roadbeds? Wow. Must be that lazy liberal asphalt that won't go where it is supposed to do, and lazy and obstructionist liberal vegetation. -
Kam - dontcha know - according to the t-idiots the gubmint doesn't do anything. We/they pay all those taxes and get nada in return. They don't EVER think of the fact that we (used to) have clean water, clean air, safe food, good roads, safe bridges, top flight schools, safe working environments, etc... - but the government - according to the t-idjuts - didn't have anything to do with any of that. It just happened, because corporations are SO interested in the health and well-being of the average citizen.
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It's a question that does come up after one of these government versus TP meetings. Do they think roads maintain themselves? I actually think (and this is probably giving them too much credit for actually connecting 2 dots) they don't care if the road falls into the canyon and mucks up the stream beneath, the fisheries, the water quality....they'll just create a user-built road to bypass the road that is now missing. Honestly, it is dumbfounding to ponder a Pea Brainers thought process.
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part of it (I think, and maybe I'm still giving them too much credit) is the whole self-sufficiency kick. Instead of the "no man is an island" thought process of Donne, they are completely invested in "I can take care of myself and don't need anyone else". It doesn't matter that it's not true. They watched Mad Max a few too many times.
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I think its hugely ironic that Rick Perry has been haranguing New York and California to move businesses here........bringing a fair number of employees who likely lean blue. Keep heading purple to blue and Ken Delay will eventually see his great failure at gerrymandering the state.
May I live to see it. -
Gravel roads. Lovely. They are definitely about regression. Monuments like the Golden Gate Bridge the Gateway Arch wouldn't have been built if they were in charge then.
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Oh RL I am so sad for your niece. It is a good thing she has you in her corner.
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From the Progress Report:
The War on Women Marches On
Today is the one-year anniversary of former Rep. Todd Akin’s (R-MO) infamous “legitimate rape” comments in which he remarked about the magical powers of women’s bodies to “shut that whole thing down” if they were victims of what former GOP presidential contender Ron Paul called an “honest rape.” Two months later, another GOP Senate candidate, Indiana’s Richard Mourdock, caused his own national firestorm when he said that pregnancies resulting from rape were a “gift from God.”
These sorts of inflammatory comments paired with the GOP’s policy positions in opposition to affordable access to birth control, abortion rights, equal pay legislation, and other family-friendly economic items like earned sick time represent an ongoing effort attacking women and their families.
Here are just a few things that have happened in the year since Akin made his noxious comments:
- Threatening to shut down the government in order to deny millions of women and their families health care: As we’ve discussed previously in this space, Republicans are now threatening to shut down the government in order to defund Obamacare, which would deny the security of quality, affordable health care to millions of women and their families. Republicans, of course, have already voted more than 40 times to repeal Obamacare, including its no-cost birth control benefit and provisions that will ban insurance companies from being able to deny coverage because they consider breast cancer, having been a victim of domestic violence, or merely being a woman a preexisting condition.
One conservative group, Heritage Action, launched a nationwide government shut tour today and said it will spend more than half a million dollars on ads to pressure lawmakers into shutting down the government unless Obamacare is defunded.
- Congressman revives Akin-like rape talk, House GOP passes unconstitutional abortion ban: During the June markup of an unconstitutional ban on abortion after 20 weeks, Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) made comments echoing Todd Akin’s infamous “legitimate rape” remarks. Franks, who defended Akin at the time he made those remarks, explained that the incidence of pregnancy from rape is “very low.” There are approximately 30,000 pregnancies resulting from rape every year in the United States.
The full House of Representatives passed Franks’ bill the following week.
- Renewed assault on abortion rights in states across the country: Republican-controlled state legislatures across the country continued the unfortunate recent trend of passing increasingly draconian and unconstitutional restrictions on abortion rights. As ThinkProgress noted today, this has already been one of the worst years for reproductive rights in memory and “abortion clinics are closing at a record pace.”
Not only are Republicans enacting increasingly restrictive laws, they are going to increasingly desperate lengths to do so. Texas called two special sessions to pass its crackdown, while North Carolina legislators resorted to attaching a measure that will close most of the state’s abortion clinics to an unrelated motorcycle safety bill.
- “Abortion Barbie” and “Retard Barbie”: Texas State Sen. Wendy Davis (D) become well-known in Texas in 2011 for filibustering a bill that contained billions in cuts to public education and became a nationwide sensation earlier this summer when she filibustered a draconian crackdown on abortion rights in the Lone Star State. Since then, Fox News contributor Erick Erickson referred to the Harvard Law School graduate as “abortion Barbie” and, over the weekend, Texas Attorney General (and gubernatorial candidate) Greg Abbott (R) thanked a supporter on Twitter after he referred to Davis as “Retard Barbie.”
- Senators suggest offensive explanations for military sexual assault crisis: Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) blamed the growing problem of military sexual assault on “the hormone level created by nature.” His colleague, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), instead suggested that perhaps pornography is to blame.
- GOP governor attacks working mothers: Gov. Phil Bryant (R-MS) was asked to explain why the American education system “so mediocre.” Bryant responded that working mothers were to blame. This came just days after several Fox News commentatorslost their minds over the record number of women who are the primary breadwinners in their household.
We could go on, but you get the picture.
BOTTOM LINE: If Republicans care about winning over more women, they need to put an end to offensive comments about women and how their bodies work and, more importantly, stop supporting policies that undermine and attack the health and economic security of women and their families each and every day.
- Threatening to shut down the government in order to deny millions of women and their families health care: As we’ve discussed previously in this space, Republicans are now threatening to shut down the government in order to defund Obamacare, which would deny the security of quality, affordable health care to millions of women and their families. Republicans, of course, have already voted more than 40 times to repeal Obamacare, including its no-cost birth control benefit and provisions that will ban insurance companies from being able to deny coverage because they consider breast cancer, having been a victim of domestic violence, or merely being a woman a preexisting condition.
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"Retard" Barbie? Keep it classy, GOP. Ugh.
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RetiredLibby, Your sister and you are in my thoughts.
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