The Public Option

So I'm not going to talk much about the financial reform today, except to say that anybody reading this should go to whitehouse.gov and listen to today's Presidential radio address. If the Pres really means what he says this part of the plan makes sense. I think that protection for the not so well off from the rich, greedy, and unscrupulous is worth fighting for and I hope Obama is up to the task.

Another thing that is worth fighting for is including a "robust" public option in any health care reform plan. A good idea of what this public option should entail can be found at the Congressional Progressive Caucus Web Site http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/ . Click on the health care box on the right side of the page and then select "Principles for a Public Health care Option". Now, I am not so foolish as to think that this type of plan has a snowball's chance in hell of passing through congress, but it is what we need. Those who are currently uninsured or under insured will never be able to afford decent health care without it.
The Heath insurance industry will cry foul; but remember this: the key word is option. Everyone will still be able to buy health insurance from private insurers at insanely high prices if they so choose and thus make insurance company executives even richer still. For all their bogus blather about the free market what these guys really fear is competition. They can't abide the idea of competing with a well run,well financed institution that would provide the same products they do at reasonable cost. They fear having their immense profits dwindle as people choose the public option in a free market.
Doctors' organizations will cry foul; claiming a huge burden of paperwork and the pain of dealing with another bureaucracy. Hogwash. It can't be any worse than dealing with a big insurance company. Anyone who has had health problems and had to deal with an insurance company can tell you bureaucratic horror stories.
The aging buffoons of the right wing will holler "CREEPING COMMUNISM", "EUROSOCIALISM", and worse. Let 'em. This is an idea whose time has come and we better get on with it.

AND NOWW....on to the truely trivial

For today's music I have chosen a couple of albums that will appeal to those among you who were caught up in the rock 'n' roll revolution of the early '50s.

(a little personnal aside here: When I was about 8 or 9 years old, say 1955, I had a bad case of measles. Our family had no TV yet so while I was staying indoors my main entertainment was the radio. I listened all day to the radio. The top 40 station in Denver at that time was KIMN. I remember that the artists I liked most were Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis. I was also a big fan of Jackie Wilson and Little Richard. These guys were the be-all and end-all of music as far as I was concerned. I didn't know what anti-establishment meant back then but they were sure it. They inform my musical tastes to this day, though not exclusively obviously.)

The first selection is by a cat that my older siblings were more familiar with than I. Although not a rock and roller or rock-a-billy rebel, he laid some strong foundations. The second selection is by a man who carries on the rock-a-billy tradition to this day (unless he died recently).

Today's Music
Are You Hep To The Jive by Cab Calloway
The Best of Joe Ely by Joe Ely

Today's Fiction
Tereza Batista -Home From The Wars by Jorge Amado
Another great novel of Brazil by the author of Dona Flor and her Two Husbands

Today's Nonfiction
The Natural Mind by Andrew Weil
A thoughtful treatise on drugs and the human mind.

Quote:
I sat my monkey on a log
and ordered him to do the dog.
He wagged his tail and shook his head
and then he did the cat instead.
He's a weird monkey.
-Bob Dylan