Home » Groups » Gettysburg Area DFA Meetup » Blog » Help Seniors Get the Therapy...
Democracy for America group blog for Gettysburg Area DFA Meetup
Help Seniors Get the Therapy They Need
Linked to groups: PA for Democracy, Montco DFA, Philly for Change, Gettysburg Area DFA Meetup, Lower Merion Grassroots, PA Single Payer Healthcare Action Committee
Currently, Medicare payments for physical therapy are capped. The therapy caps limit outpatient rehabilitation coverage to $1,810 for combined physical therapy and speech-language pathology services and $1,810 for occupational therapy (2008 limits).
Click here to sign a letter to Senator Casey asking him to support S.450 - Medicare Access to Rehabilitation Services Act of 2007, which will repeal the outpatient therapy cap.
Given how this affects stroke survivors, accident survivors, and those with degenerative diseases, Congress has recognized the harm inherent in this policy and repeatedly put moratoriums on enforcement. The current moratorium runs through June 30, 2008.
No medical miracle is about to change the need for PT/SLP/OT services, and it's a waste of time to keep passing short-term fixes. It's a cause of great anxiety to those who need the services. And it's an offensive legal fiction that these costs do not exist, and don't need to be fully accounted for in the budget.
Click here to sign a letter to Senator Casey asking him to support S.450 - Medicare Access to Rehabilitation Services Act of 2007, which will provide the security our seniors deserve by permanently repealing the outpatient therapy cap.
Hat tip to Joy Sabl, Democracy for Pittsburgh
Kevin Shaw
Organizer, PA for Democracy
CBS News Exclusive: Former Head Of NIH Says Government Too Quick To Dismiss Possible Link
...Healy goes on to say public health officials have intentionally avoided researching whether subsets of children are “susceptible” to vaccine side effects - afraid the answer will scare the public.
"You're saying that public health officials have turned their back on a viable area of research largely because they're afraid of what might be found?" Attkisson asked.
Healy said: "There is a completely expressed concern that they don't want to pursue a hypothesis because that hypothesis could be damaging to the public health community at large by scaring people. "First of all," Healy said, "I think the public’s smarter than that. The public values vaccines. But more importantly, I don’t think you should ever turn your back on any scientific hypothesis because you’re afraid of what it might show."...
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/05/12/cbsnews_investigates/main4086809.shtml
Autism Linked To Vaccines? (3:05)
Eye To Eye: Vaccines & Autism (5:26)
"What we’re seeing in the bulk of the population: vaccines are safe," said Healy. "But there may be this susceptible group. The fact that there is concern, that you don’t want to know that susceptible group is a real disappointment to me. If you know that susceptible group, you can save those children. If you turn your back on the notion that there is a susceptible group… what can I say?"
<!-- Start Answers.com support section --><!-- OLD
<style id='hideit' type="text/css">.hideit {display:none}</style>
<SCRIPT type="text/javascript" src="http://site.answers.com/main/js/webtip.js"></SCRIPT>
<script type="text/javascript"> if (!ANSW.Trigger) ANSW.Trigger= new Object();ANSW.Trigger.trigger = "dblclick";ANSW.Trigger.triggerModKey=" ";</script>
<SCRIPT type="text/javascript" src="http://site.answers.com/main/js/answers_embed1.js"></SCRIPT> <SCRIPT type="text/javascript">ANSW.cobrand="cbs"; if (ANSW.Trigger.altClickSupported()) { if (document.getElementById('hideit'))document.getElementById('hideit').disabled=true; }</SCRIPT> -->
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://site.answers.com/main/js/web_answertip.js?ANSW.cobrand='cbs'"></script>
<script type="text/javascript"></script>
<!-- End Answers.com support section -->
- Howard coming up on Leno for the leftcoasters :)
By Denise in San Mateo County on May 15, 2008 12:09 AM EDT
Well he has a flag pin on LOL
Well he has a flag pin on LOL
Leno asking him about FL/MI and is stating that Obama, Hillary and the states agreed. Why is there a discussion?
HD is saying it was not the voters that brought it on, it was the politicians and no one expected the politicians to behave like this. They have to be fair to both campaigns, as well as the other 48 states. Will be a compromise, and no one will be fully satisfied, but we need to win in the fall.
Leno asked if HD would ever make this mistake again - HD said it was not a mistake. There is a meeting on May 31 and he believes they will be seated in some way.
Explaining SD's are really just unpledged delegated. Talking about why they came to be.
He does not envision them in smoke filled rooms making decisions.
HD explaining that Edwards can release his 25 delegates but cannot dictate whom they should support.
Leno said he has a tough job. And that's it! Short time :(
Straight-forward adn kind. Excellent hugger, too!
Yes a great hugger! I've been doing alot of hugging this trip. I love being with our nurses who teach other nurses about our products - doctors, too. The reception tonight was good - I'm so glad I ordered those mini lamb chops, lol. And we had a guy making crepes with berries, cream and chocolate. Those were a big hit. Pair it up with a glass of Conundrum and life is good.
I'm wide awake here, of course. But I can sleep in tomorrow.
Yes a great hugger! I've been doing alot of hugging this trip. I love being with our nurses who teach other nurses about our products - doctors, too. The reception tonight was good - I'm so glad I ordered those mini lamb chops, lol. And we had a guy making crepes with berries, cream and chocolate. Those were a big hit. Pair it up with a glass of Conundrum and life is good.
I'm wide awake here, of course. But I can sleep in tomorrow.
Blog must have had some Conundrum, too. Meeting planner only had 2 glasses.
puddle, I have to say your graciousness was showing tonight. You are a better woman than I.
Mississippi's First Congressional District... One of the reddest Congressional districts in the country.
The Repubs spent nearly $2 1/2 million to keep this seat.
They blasted the airwaves with ads about Reverend Wright aka Scary Black Man (remember, this is the Deep South)...
.... THEY LOST.
The Democrat won the race by 6%.
It gets worse for them.
Thanks to these special elections, the Republicans have less than 200 seats in the House right now-- the smallest minority by either party since 1946.
And it's not even November yet!!!!
Dennis Quaid testifies of peril to newborn twins
By PETE YOST
WASHINGTON (AP) — Dennis Quaid told Congress on Wednesday of a harrowing, near-fatal drug mix-up in which his newborn twins were administered 1,000 times the normal dose of a blood thinner.
The 54-year-old actor said his family's brush with tragedy underscores the need to hold pharmaceutical companies accountable through lawsuits, a remedy that is becoming increasingly problematic for injured consumers.
Some 7,000 Americans die every year from medication errors.
At issue before the House Reform and Government Oversight Committee is a move by regulators at the Food and Drug Administration to step into lawsuits on the side of defendant drug companies.
In court, the drug companies argue that federal regulation should pre-empt the filing of lawsuits under state law, a matter that will come before the Supreme Court later this year in a case from Vermont.
The Quaid family is suing drug maker Baxter Healthcare Corp., which is seeking dismissal of the lawsuit on federal pre-emption grounds that the FDA approved the labeling.
"Like many Americans, I believed that a big problem in our country was frivolous lawsuits," Quaid testified. "But now I know that the courts are often the only path to justice." ... more: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gWny_K8nFBtTE0S_4OLUaKQlgChAD90LKK180?lk=4530539-4530539-0-32026-GYL45gGu6VHZjUk/UcbLch0HwVzn3oLW
Saw that JE endorsed BO. I am just curious about the timing more than anything. Anyway, his supporters will follow their consciences, I'm sure, but it is looking more and more inevitable that BO will be the nominee.
There's an interesting op-ed today about "misogyny" which some still insist was never a factor in HC's smackdown. More than a bit of denial there, IMO. But I am sure there are many who disagree. Let's just agree to. But for those who would like to see it (and who may be surprised how overt it has been), here's the link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/14/AR2008051403090_pf.html
********
In the meantime, Froomkin's daily compendium provides some good comments on the [mis]leader's "sacrifices."
=============
Bush's Idea of Sacrifice
By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Wednesday, May 14, 2008; 1:12 PM
The nation is in despair over the war in Iraq and the toll it is taking on our troops and their families. But President Bush shows no outward sign of inner pain.
He is chipper in his public pronouncements. His weekly bike rides and daily workouts have put a perpetual spring in his step. He's always ready with a wisecrack. He just hosted his daughter's wedding at his multi-million dollar estate in Texas. He takes more vacations than any president in history. He has made clear that he doesn't lie awake at nights.
And yet now it turns out that Bush has indeed made a personal sacrifice on account of the war. According to the president yesterday, his decision to stop playing golf five years ago wasn't just an exercise in image control or a function of his bum knee -- it was an act of solidarity with the families of the dead and wounded.
[...]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/05/14/BL2008051401929_pf.html
Yes, there is misogyny. But, like the shared antagonism focused on skin color, most of it seems to be prompted by a shared sense of inferiority which leads to male bluster and vicarious aggression. I suspect that the political "leaders" who haven't objected would respond that political candidates have to expect a certain amount of antagonism from the supporters of their opponents.
Frankly, when you consider the number of "entertainment" vehicles in which women are degraded, abused, victimized and killed off at the earliest opportunity, then the "attacks" on Hillary Clinton are relatively mild. And, her campaigan has been asking for attacks by making how tough she is one of the prevalent themes.
The Hillary Clinton candidacy has set back the status of women as political candidates. Even her constantly changing hair dos have left her open to charges that she's fixated on frivolous things.
I don't completely agree. those comments are deplorable, but I'll bet you a lot of money (that I don't really have!) that those comments would NOT have been used against some other woman running for POTUS. every one of those comments sounds like Hillary-hate to me.
I'm sure misogyny has played a role, but I think the majority of the comments have very little to do with her gender. remember the '90s? Hillary-hate has been alive and well for much longer than this campaign. what other woman running for office have we ever seen draw this level of ire? and she certainly does bring out the ugly in people - I've felt it myself listening to her spin and lie and say whatever to win this nomination.
that said, our corpmediawhores have been brutal to her and this article is good to look back over what's been said and shine a light on it. they've gone from being reporters to being entertainers and they aren't even entertaining. but while we're at it, let's be fair - I can only recall one Obama surrogate making this type of comment about Hillary and she was fired. how many Clinton surrogates have been playing the race card, with no comment or action from Hillary? I've lost count.
- Givent the shape it was in before *we* arrived, it is difficult to see
By JudyforDean on May 15, 2008 2:55 AM EDThow we could have made more of a shambles in Afghanistan.
But *Co have indeed managed to do just that. They apparently measure *success* by how much they can destroy.
==============
Afghanistan: What hope is there for the lost children of the bazaar?
<!--proximic_content_on-->Their trade is almost as old as the hills that encircle the Afghan capital. But the lives of Kabul's rug-weavers reveal the fault-lines that scar this proud, complicated nation – and which condemn its people to poverty, desperation and addiction
By Deborah Orr Thursday, 15 May 2008
On Chicken Street, under the serene azure sky, it is almost possible to imagine that the last 30 years never happened. Kabul's craft market is open for business, its rows of glass-fronted, two-storey shops replete with the iconic wares of the hippy trail, that in the 1960s and 1970s found their way off this street and around the world. There are Afghan coats here, and hookahs. There are majestic kaftans here, and lapis lazuli jewels. There is brassware, and china, carved wood and turquoise pottery.
And there are rugs, of course, Afghan rugs, hand-knotted from the finest wool, gleaming in the perfection of the skill of their making, seductive in the symmetry of their ancient patterns.
[...]
The weird thing about this market though, is that it is almost too good to be true. The range and the quality of the artefacts is far greater than that found in most tourist markets in most countries. In part, this cornucopia simply reflects the wealth and diversity of Afghanistan's venerable ethnic culture, comprising more than 20 distinct groups. In the main, though, this plenty has piled up here because few tourists have come to pick it over for three decades now. The traders wait, with heroic patience, for customers to turn up and browse. But they are few and far between. Afghanistan – who doesn't know? – is one of the most dangerous countries on this earth. War has hollowed out this nation so thoroughly that even the rugs, one or two of them, have stories of violence to tell.
For there are war rugs here in this market, little rugs whose patterns have no symmetry, and whose subject is not timeless and abstract but horribly modern and direct. These rugs are illustrated with Kalashnikovs and B52s and helicopters and fighter planes. They have the Stars and Stripes woven into them, or Union Jacks. They have English words woven into them. USSR 1989. Invasion. Mujaheddin. Taliban. Twin Towers. USA 2002. Tora Bora. Racket. That should say Rocket. But there are a lot of mis-spelling on these rugs.
[...]
it's an ideology which posits that because the creative process involves some destruction of something, all that's needed is to destroy and something better will rise from the ashes like the phoenix. Perhaps that's the 21st Century version of magical thinking.
More recently I've decided it probably just another excuse that lazy people come up with to justify their do-nothing existence. They also claim that the destruction is the inevitable result of entropy, so why bother doing anything.
I'm not sure, but I would guess that in earlier times these people were referred to as nihilists.
whom I consider to be a *profile in courage* on many levels.
(I may not always agree with what he has to say, but he generally says it well and from his own experience and/or research.)
===========
Johann Hari: Are there just too many people in the world?
Thursday, 15 May 2008
This is a column I don't want to write. Its subject is ugly; it makes me instinctively recoil. I have chastised people who bring it up at environmentalist meetings. The people who talk about it obsessively have often been callous about human life, and consistently proved wrong throughout history. And yet... there is a grain of insight in what they say.
The subject is overpopulation. Is our planet over-stuffed with human beings? Are we breeding to excess? These questions are increasingly poking into public debate, and from odd directions. Phillip Mountbatten – husband of the British monarch Elizabeth Windsor – said in a documentary screened this week: "The food prices are going up, and everyone thinks it's to do with not enough food, but it's really [that there are] too many people. It's a little embarrassing for everybody, nobody knows how to handle it." He is not alone. A strange range of people have voiced the same sentiments over the past few months, from the Dalai Lama to Hu Jintao, from Conservative mayor Boris Johnson to Democratic Governor Bill Richardson.
They start by listing the sums, which are indeed startling. Every year, world population grows by 75 million people – equivalent to another Britain and Ireland whooshing fully-populated from the oceans.
[...]
There are too many people under the age when they become productive and able to sustain themselves and produce a surplus available for use by others. There are too many old people who are too ill to be productive and the reason they're ill is because the basic health measures aren't being transmitted from generation to generation. That's what happens when there are too many young and too many old and sickly.
These skewed proportions can be achieved regardless of the numbers. The slave populations imported to South America did not thrive as did those imported to the North because the South American lowlands were basically unhealthy and the population could not be sustained.
suggested JE for AG. can you imagine John taking control over the numerous investigations now before Congress? can you imagine the tenacity he would have bringing the evidence out of it's dark, locked closet and holding these criminals accountable? it would be awesome to witness, imo!
I think it's unfortunate that the word "bi-polar" has been co-opted by the psychiatric community to describe people who have chemically induced mood swings, because the McCain type of Republican certainly lives in a bi-polar world where some people do what they're told and some don't and the former are friends, while the others are enemies. And in this bi-polar world, the role of government is simply to dole out rewards to the former and punish the latter by, if possible, locking them up. Locking them up is preferable to wiping them out, because there's more profit in it for the friends.
Anyway, I think I'm going to reclaim that word for politicians who focus on doling out punishments and rewards.
there's a light rain and the various greens in my world (which seemed almost impossible to match) have kicked it up a notch! I don't believe there's anything quite like the beauty brought about by a fresh spring rain in Vermont.
I'm missing the blog - I started a new job this week, so have missed the daytime blogging and my impatient wait for an overdue grandbaby has kept me occupied in the evenings. sending good fishing blessings to Phil! wbbl, if baby permits!
Lovely morning here in Ontario (on the right shore of Lake Huron). Oaks are leafing out, trilliums in full bloom, and lily-of-the-valley getting ready to drown us in its pervasive sweet smell.
Lilacs here in southeastern MA and awaiting the peony blooms in a few weeks.
pending CO superdelegate Pena ?:
http://cbs4denver.com/local/hickenlooper.superdelegate.colorado.2.724572.html
May 15, 2008 4:57 am US/Mountain
Hickenlooper Out Of Race For Superdelegate Seat
DENVER (AP) ― Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper has bowed out of the race for Colorado's last open superdelegate seat at the Democratic National Convention, giving Barack Obama an opportunity to pick up a vote.
Hickenlooper has been neutral, but the other major candidate for the superdelegate seat, former mayor Federico Pena, is an Obama supporter.
Other candidates could emerge before the seat is filled at the state Democratic convention on Saturday.
...
Barack Obama, candidate for the Democratic Party's nomination to run for US president, has apologised to a reporter for calling her "sweetie".
getting emails about "obama slates" from some of the districts. It looks like the form letter has been copied so many times you can't even read the letter. It is bogus. And the rules of convention don't allow for "slates". Let's see how they handle this one.
I may go to some of the conventions this weekend just to see what happens.
later.
However, the MSNBC video is not one I want to embed on Hannah. Not only does it come with an ad, but the content is variable--i.e. it seems to be structured so the transmission is up to the sender--not a unique URL for that particular segment.
You can find links and comment here:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/5/14/21531/8817/810/515836
KO makes a point in his comment that the explanation Bush Two provided for not playing golf since 2003 is a lie because the event that suppsedly prompted that decision to abstain happend two months prior to a date when there's documented evidence of Bush Two on the links. Then KO complains that Bush Two admits in the same conversation that it was his staff that had to "pull me off" the course--i.e. it wasn't Bush Two's decision at all.
But, what KO seems to be missing is that EVERYTHING Bush Two does is scripted. The interview questions were prepared and the answers he gave were scripted, just as an ordinary news reader's are. Perhaps that's why KO misses what's going on--because he actually writes what he then reads from the prompter to make sure the timing is right. So, he doesn't see that Bush Two is nothing more than an automaton whose regurgitating what he's been fed.
The script writers in the White House probably get a kick out of the passion they arouse in KO.
just checking out the comment function. No tool bar. Yet.
- Now there's a tool bar and "format" which is dead. In Firefox it went to paragraph by itself.
By Monica Smith on May 15, 2008 8:03 AM EDTLike Opera it starts without a tool bar. Good news is that it recognized that I was already logged in.
- Now there's a tool bar, but, as in Opera, it's stuck on "format" and dead to the cursor.
By Monica Smith on May 15, 2008 8:08 AM EDTon the text. Sorry to be always complaining. LOL
- one last thing--(format is back)in Safari the blog needs to be manually directed to the bottom.
By Monica Smith on May 15, 2008 8:14 AM EDT
- Funny, the progress bar says that it's completed loading only 69 of 71 items.
By Monica Smith on May 15, 2008 8:16 AM EDTHe's about the only one (in MSM) but he's a jewel!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/14/olbermann-to-bush-this-wa_n_101831.html
Actually, there was a young girl asking Obama a question as a town hall and he called her sweetie, not a reporter. I heard it but could not see the girl, only the little voice who asked a cute question.
"I've been defending you for months. And your right to be here. Sorry you don't feel the same."
This must give you a clearer idea of exactly what it is you've been defending.
Yep, looks like Linda pooped (err popped) in last night for another of her infamous hit and run posted comments.
New thread.
Add your comment
(to reply directly to a comment, click the reply icon for that comment)Post closed to commenting
-
By jane d on May 14, 2008 4:42 PM EDTHoward Dean, 50 state strategy, making history!
Taking our country back for all citizens, including children and seniors.
janed