Public Congress

At the close of an address on health reform to Congress, President Obama reminds people: “I will not waste time with those who have made the calculation that it’s better politics to kill this plan, than to improve it.”

“If you misrepresent what’s in this plan, we will call you out,” he adds. “And I will not accept the status quo as a solution. Not this time. Not now.”

He also talks about a letter he received from late Senator Ted Kennedy that was written in May, but delivered to Obama after Kennedy’s death. In the letter, Ted called health reform “unfinished business” but was confident that “this is the year” that it would pass.

Obama also remarked on when it is necessary fo government to step in.

Duration : 0:9:36

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March 23, 1992 http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FChristopher-Hitchens%2Fe%2FB000APSKR0%3Fqid%3D1278211708%26sr%3D1-2-ent&tag=doc06-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325

Barbara Levy Boxer (born November 11, 1940) is the junior United States Senator from California and a member of the Democratic Party. Boxer was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1992, becoming the second female Jewish U.S. senator, after Sen. Dianne Feinstein. She was reelected in 1998 and in 2004 for a term ending in January 2011.

With the convening of the 110th Congress, Boxer became the first female chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee and, following the resignation of Sen. Tim Johnson (D-South Dakota) from the post, she was also chosen as chair of the Select Committee on Ethics. This made her the only senator to preside over two committees simultaneously. She holds the record for the most popular votes in a statewide contested election in California, having received 6,955,728 votes in her 2004 re-election over former Republican Secretary of State Bill Jones.

She currently holds the position of Chief Deputy Whip of the Democratic Majority.

On August 17 at the Republican convention in New Orleans, Louisiana, George H. W. Bush called on Quayle to be his running mate in the 1988 United States presidential election. The choice immediately became controversial. Press coverage of the convention was dominated with questions about “the three Quayle problems”, in the phrase of H. Brent Bozell, executive director of the Media Research Center, a conservative group that monitors television coverage. The questions involved his military service, a golf trip to Florida with Paula Parkinson, and whether he had enough experience to be President. Quayle seemed at times rattled and at other times uncertain or evasive as he tried to handle the questions. Delegates to the convention generally blamed television and newspapers for the focus on Quayle’s problems, but Bush’s staff said they thought Quayle had mishandled the questions about his military record, leaving questions dangling. Although Republicans were trailing by up to 15 points in public opinion polls taken before the convention, they received a significant boost that put them in the lead, which they did not relinquish for the rest of the campaign.

Duration : 0:10:23

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This is the VOA Special English Economics Report, from http://voaspecialenglish.com | http://facebook.com/voalearningenglish

President Obama turned his attention to financial reform after his victory in March on health care.

On April fourteenth he met with congressional leaders from both parties at the White House.

He said there are some areas on which Democrats and Republicans can agree. “If theres one lesson that weve learned,” he said,

“it’s that [an] unfettered market where people are taking huge risks and expecting taxpayers to bail them out when things go sour is simply not acceptable.”

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner wrote in the Washington Post that the deep financial crisis is close to the end. But he said the nation must not forget the near-collapse of the banking system in two thousand eight without fixing the causes.

He told the American Society of News Editors in Washington that no one is arguing against new financial protections. The debate now,
he said, involves how to design a system that lets big financial companies fail without harming the economy.

In December, the House of Representatives passed the
Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. That bill would create a new consumer financial protection agency. It would also increase investor protections and let shareholders vote on the pay of top company officials.
And it would create a group to identify and regulate companies that are so big, their failure could threaten the economy.

Republicans opposed the bill. That was also true in March when the Senate Banking Committee approved its own version. That bill would not create an independent consumer agency, but instead a new office at the Federal Reserve, the central bank.

Senate Minority Leader
Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said the bill would make future bailouts
more likely, not less likely.

Both measures in Congress call for
a system to supervise derivatives. These contracts are used for different purposes, including investment and protecting against loss. The largely unregulated market in derivatives is estimated at
six hundred trillion dollars.

Government rescues of banks considered “too big to fail”
angered the public and helped fuel a conservative movement.
The Tea Party also opposes the new health care law and argues for lower taxes and less government.

On April fifteenth they protested to mark Tax Day, when Americans have to pay any federal taxes they owe.

And that’s the VOA Special English Economics Report.

(Adapted from a radio program broadcast 16Apr2010)

Duration : 0:4:1

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Anderson Cooper 360, CNN, 9-29-2009

Michael Moore – documentary, “Capitalism: A Love Story”

single payer universal health care insurance public option democrats capitalism a love story government sicko congress senator baucus

Duration : 0:7:57

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Like your plan? Then you can keep it.

HHS Secretary Sebelius and Department of Labor Secretary Hilda Solis announce a new regulation on “grandfathering”, which ensures all Americans who like their health insurance plan can keep it.

http://www.healthreform.gov

Learn More: http://www.healthreform.gov/newsroom/keeping_the_health_plan_you_have.html

We accept comments according to our comment policy

http://newmedia.hhs.gov/standards/comment_policy.html

U.S. Department of Health & Human Services
http://www.hhs.gov

Duration : 0:21:47

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WASHINGTON (CNN) — President Obama told Congress on Wednesday that while he is not the first president to take up the cause of health care reform, “I am determined to be the last.” – 09-09-09 –

Pre President Obama is delivering an address to a joint session of Congress to present the most detailed description of his idea of health reform.

Obama has been criticized as the health care debate has devolved into rancorous town hall meetings and a partisan split over reform plans. Obama has also faced a split in his own party over how to best go about reforming the nation’s health care system.

“Well the time for bickering is over. The time for games has passed. Now is the season for action,” Obama said. “Now is when we must bring the best ideas of both parties together, and show the American people that we can still do what we were sent here to do. Now is the time to deliver on health care.”

While much of the debate over health care has been over a government-backed public option, Obama said that’s not the only problem plaguing the system.

“Those who do have insurance have never had less security and stability than they do today,” he said of Americans who have lost their insurance when they have lost their jobs or have had their coverage dropped when they have suffered an illness.

Obama will say that there is agreement on about 80 percent of what needs to be done, “but what we have also seen in these last months is the same partisan spectacle that only hardens the disdain many Americans have toward their own government.”

“Instead of honest debate, we have seen scare tactics,” he will say.

Obama was tweaking his pivotal health care address right up until the last, top aides said. He worked on the speech late into Tuesday night in the White House residence, bringing a new draft for his staff to work through Wednesday morning, they said. He even took a first draft of the speech to Camp David this weekend. sident Obama tells Congress the “time for bickering is over” as he presents the most detailed description yet of his ideas for health reform to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday night. “The time for games has passed. Now is the season for action,” Obama will say, according to excerpts of the speech released by the White House – Sept. 9, 2009

Duration : 0:10:32

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October 5, 2009 Healthcare Reform Debate with Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) and Dr. Betsy McCaughey, Health Policy Expert, Patient Advocate and former Lieutenant Governor of New York (1995-1998) more at www.dl21c.org

Duration : 1:21:51

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Duration : 0:3:31

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Dear Health Insurance Lobby,

Normally I wouldn’t do you any favors…but did you what Congress is saying?

They just told President Obama they couldn’t possibly get work done on health care reform before September…at the earliest

But you see what they’re doing, don’t you?

I mean – your paying $1.4 million a day in lobbyist money

And if Congress actually VOTED

That money would stop…

So – this is what the kids call ‘getting played’

So why not join us and tell Congress – we’ve waited long enough for health care reform.

Duration : 0:0:37

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In late 2007, when this was originally made…saddly, it was ahead of its time and more saddly, raised questions that fortold today and now…
In 2009, Americans are truley more so… waiste deep in the Big Muddy of it’s worse Crisis…like 1931, those who gave us the crisis now (in 2009) reassure us if only we hold to the same course…that somehow, what they have done to destroy our economy with their looting of the public trust will…they now continue to say is in fact, be what will save us…Senator McCain recently said “we should do nothing…the economy will correct itself…and warns us that trying to solve these problems (like Obama is)…will destroy our country…” Little does a man who can not remember how many homes he owns…know or care for the family loosing their only home…as we have seen…if you listen to the new republican chatter…their loud cries of socialism..if we continue with the same republican, feed the wealthy…let them share the wealth by tipping big to the poor…policies of the past eight years…then, how can we except any different resault????
The dollar continues it’s collapse, more people are loosing their homes, major companies are going out of business, what few factories that remain are closing; good jobs have long disappeared to China or India, we are still invaded by poison toys, our broken borders remain unchecked, a world that still hates us deeply, unsecured ports, a series of never ending wars gone bad; many hundreds of thousands of innocient Iraqi people have died…unneccessarily, truley, unbelievable levels of corporate, banker, Wall Street greed/corruption, a President lost (at least Bubba Bush is gone…maybe, some light ahead in the tunnel if Obama succeeds in his plan), still a congress that’s still for sale to the highest biding lobbyist and record fraud.
With all this and more…America’s in still adrift in Sea of Crisis & Greed.
Can there…could there be any hope?
Yes, there is! The solutions are many and they are simple…that is the message that this video means to send. Yes, there is hope and simple solutions that will return America to it’s place as that Shining Becon on the Hill. America needs each of it’s children now to stand up and just say no more…say no more to corruption, say no more to injustice…to say yes to American Made…say yes to freedom…American, homegrown solutions…
Just think…we made this in late 2007 to question the candidates who never addressed the issues then…saddly, you can’t say they (or you) were not warned…maybe, we need to send them this video or each should make their own and send…to each of those in congress who wax on about the Grand Days of economic success of now, Citizen Bubba Bush or who continue to give their Wall Steet Brokers bonus of millions of dollars of the people’s money while saying we will not help the deadbeat families cast out into the streets or offer them a bailout of $12 per week…let’s see…millions to CEO’s with no strings…$12 per week with strings (that $12 is taxable income according to the IRS)…You decide..deal or no deal…I submit, we need a better deal for the people and the middle class…

Duration : 0:4:12

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