The details President Obama outlines in this video are those that every American needs to know. No matter your political party or whether or not you have insurance, his plan for health care security and stability matters to all of us.
Millions of American citizens cannot get health insurance — and 14,000 are losing their insurance every day. If we do nothing, half of Americans under the age of 65 will lose their health insurance at some point in the next ten years.
That’s not right. Plain and simple. For Americans with insurance as well as those without it, inaction is not an option. In America, no one should go broke because they get sick.
Bottom line — health insurance reform will provide more security and stability to those who have health insurance, coverage for those who don’t, and will lower the cost of health care for our families, our businesses, and our government.
As the President says, now is the time to deliver the change we need on health care.
Please pass on this information to your family, friends and social networks.
President Barack Obama continued his nationwide health care reform tour today by paying a visit to the University of Maryland. As during then Senator Obama’s campaign, many in attendance arrived at the crack of dawn to hear the President’s speech. Students from the University of Maryland and other universities expressed an overwhelming amount of support for President Obama which was evidenced by the mass wave of supporters who gave a standing ovation before the President had even arrived to make his speech. Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley described Obama’s health care reform speech as historic and the students in attendance showed a tremendous amount of support for Obama’s clarification of his position.
President Obama spoke to those in attendance in an effort to clarify how his proposed policies would have an effect on young adults. During his speech, he said, “More than one-third of all young adults have trouble paying their medical debts. In the United States, nobody should go broke because they get sick. The time has finally come to provide affordable, accessible, quality healthcare to every single American.”
Obama touched on familiar themes in this address, including a call for the public option, or a government-run health insurance plan. The public option has been the most contentious point of the health care debate and it would force private insurers to lower costs and be more competitive while Republicans blast it as a government takeover of health care.
The president also pointed to the “unprecedented” coalition of doctors, nurses and hospitals that have backed the Democratic health care overhaul.
“It was good to have a campaign-like rally outside of a campaign,” said Howard County Executive Ken Ulman, who attended the event. Ulman said Obama struck a chord that had been echoed during the campaign trail — fixing health care won’t be easy, but it must get done.
Please read the Honorable Edward Kennedy’s letter to President Obama below. The letter was delivered to our President after Senator Kennedy died. Senator Kennedy said it all in his letter.
Let’s get this bill signed for Uncle Teddy. It’s simple, click on the link below, plug in your zip code and the list of all your elected officials that you should call will pop up with their phone number. Call each of your elected official’s office and simply say, “I am calling to express my support for President Obama’s healthcare reform plan” or something like that. They’ll ask for your zip code – that’s it. They won’t ask for any personal information — and if they do you don’t have to share it. They are logging calls to keep count of support for healthcare reform- you can also call more than once.
When I worked in news and we got calls because a story impacted the public in some profound way each call was calculated as 100 people because they figure for every call they receive from the public 100 people were thinking of making that call. We are trying to get 5,000 individual calls to every elected official. Please call and encourage your friends to call as well…please. Pass this information on. Let’s get this done.
Let’s be able to look back one year from now and marvel at our tremendous accomplishment.
Democracy is not a spectator sport – we all have to participate for it to work. Please participate today.
Let’s do this for the late and great Senator Edward M. Kennedy. Click the link below.
I wanted to write a few final words to you to express my gratitude for your repeated personal kindnesses to me – and one last time, to salute your leadership in giving our country back its future and its truth.
On a personal level, you and Michelle reached out to Vicki, to our family and me in so many different ways. You helped to make these difficult months a happy time in my life.
You also made it a time of hope for me and for our country.
When I thought of all the years, all the battles, and all the memories of my long public life, I felt confident in these closing days that while I will not be there when it happens, you will be the President who at long last signs into law the health care reform that is the great unfinished business of our society. For me, this cause stretched across decades; it has been disappointed, but never finally defeated. It was the cause of my life. And in the past year, the prospect of victory sustained me-and the work of achieving it summoned my energy and determination.
There will be struggles – there always have been – and they are already underway again. But as we moved forward in these months, I learned that you will not yield to calls to retreat – that you will stay with the cause until it is won. I saw your conviction that the time is now and witnessed your unwavering commitment and understanding that health care is a decisive issue for our future prosperity. But you have also reminded all of us that it concerns more than material things; that what we face is above all a moral issue; that at stake are not just the details of policy, but fundamental principles of social justice and the character of our country.
And so because of your vision and resolve, I came to believe that soon, very soon, affordable health coverage will be available to all, in an America where the state of a family’s health will never again depend on the amount of a family’s wealth. And while I will not see the victory, I was able to look forward and know that we will – yes, we will – fulfill the promise of health care in America as a right and not a privilege.
In closing, let me say again how proud I was to be part of your campaign- and proud as well to play a part in the early months of a new era of high purpose and achievement. I entered public life with a young President who inspired a generation and the world. It gives me great hope that as I leave, another young President inspires another generation and once more on America’s behalf inspires the entire world.
So, I wrote this to thank you one last time as a friend- and to stand with you one last time for change and the America we can become.
At the Denver Convention where you were nominated, I said the dream lives on.
And I finished this letter with unshakable faith that the dream will be fulfilled for this generation, and preserved and enlarged for generations to come.
First lady Michelle Obama broke ground on a new garden near the fountain on the South Lawn that will supply the White House kitchen with fresh herbs and vegetables for meals.
She was joined by students from Bancroft Elementary School in the District of Columbia. The children will stay involved with the project including planting herbs, vegetables and fruits in the coming weeks and harvesting the crops later in the year.
“We’re going to get a big one in our back yard, the South Lawn,” she promised the volunteers.
Such a White House garden has been a dream of noted California chef Alice Waters, considered a leader in the movement to encourage consumption of locally grown, organic food. She has been appealing for change through the taste buds since the 1960s.
She organized a series of fundraising dinners in Washington before President Barack Obama’s inauguration in January that served foods purchased from local producers at an area farmer’s market to show how it can be done.
Reached Thursday at her Berkeley, Calif., restaurant, Chez Panisse, Waters said she was thrilled by the news.
“It just tells you that this country cares about people’s good health and about the care of the land,” she said. “To have this sort of ‘victory garden’, this message goes out that everyone can grow a garden and have free food.”
Victory gardens were vegetable gardens planted during the world wars with encouragement from the government to make sure there was enough food for civilians and the troops. Waters says her family had such a garden.
Waters has been lobbying for a vegetable garden at the White House since 1992. Recent White Houses have grown some herbs and have practiced limited container gardening on the mansion’s roof to supply it with tomatoes, peppers and other vegetables. The new garden will be the first on the White House grounds in many decades, Waters said.
She said Michelle Obama always has been receptive to the idea.
“She talks about food in connection with children, and it’s a beautiful thing,” Waters said.
Waters also has pushed the administration to adopt her Edible Schoolyard project in which children plant their own produce to eat in the school cafeteria. Most public schools are serving too much processed food that is contributing to the childhood obesity epidemic which can lead to chronic health issues, she argues.
President Obama appeared on The Tonight Show on Thursday.
In his opening monologue, Leno said that lots of people were surprised that Obama would come on NBC — figuring that he would be tired of big companies on the brink of disaster with a bunch of overpaid executives.
President Obama told Jay Leno that he was stunned when he learned of the bonuses that bailed-out insurance company AIG was paying its employees. He said that the payments raise moral and ethical problems — and vowed again to try to recoup the cash for taxpayers.He continued, “We’re going to do everything we can to get these bonuses back.”
Leno asked Obama what he thought when his staff first advised him of the payments, many made to traders in the very division that brought American International Group to ruin.
“‘Stunned’ is the word,” Obama replied. He said he found it hard to fathom how anyone would accept lavish payments in those circumstances. “People just had this sense of entitlement. We must be the best and the brightest.”
But Obama defended Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who has increasingly come under fire for failing to block the bonuses.
“I think Geithner is doing an outstanding job,” Obama said. “He is a smart guy. He is a calm and steady guy. I don’t think people fully appreciate the plate that was handed him.”
Leno got more personal toward the end of the 35-minute interview.
Leno asked the president whether the White House bowling alley had been “burned and closed down” in light of Obama’s gutter ball embarrassment on the campaign trail last year.
Obama replied, “No, no. I have been practicing . . . I bowled a 129.” (During the campaign Obama bowled a 37 out of a possible 300).
The audience roared with laughter, and the late-night talk show host assured Obama “that’s very good, Mr. President.” To which Obama interjected, “It’s like — it was like Special Olympics, or something.”
The audience laughed. But the White House didn’t let the comment linger without clarification.
“The President made an offhand remark making fun of his own bowling that was in no way intended to disparage the Special Olympics,” White House spokesman Bill Burton told reporters flying aboard Air Force One after the taping of the show, according to a transcript released by the White House. “He thinks that the Special Olympics are a wonderful program that gives an opportunity to shine to people with disabilities from around the world.”
President Obama called Special Olympics Chairman Tim Shirver before the show aired and personally apologized for the remark. Obama made a bad attempt at a joke that was meant to criticize himself and he did not intend in anyway to humiliate the disabled.President Obama also extended an invitation to Special Olympic athletes to come bowl or play basketball at the White House.
Appearing on ABC’s Good Morning America Friday Morning, Tim Shriver said Obama was “very sincere” in his apology.“He expressed openness and an interest in being more engaging in the movement and said he was a fan of the movement,” Shriver said. “And I think importantly said he was ready to have some of our athletes over the White House to bowl or play basketball or help him improve his score.” 🙂
Also on the “Tonight Show,” Leno asked the president when he would finally be making good on his famous campaign promise to reward his daughters with a puppy, which so far hasn’t surfaced.
“Listen, this is Washington. That was a campaign promise,” the president deadpanned to much laughter.
The president said he was “teasing,” and explained that as soon as he returns from the NATO Summit early next month, the “dog will be in place.”
Leno asked if the dog would be a “Portuguese Water Head,” referencing first lady Michelle Obama’s hint that the first family was leaning toward a Portuguese Water Dog. The president laughed and said, “It’s not a ‘water head.’ That sounds like a scary dog. Sort of dripping around the house.”
But the first dad gave absolutely no hints about what kind of dog – or puppy – it will be. “We’re going to get a dog that is — that I think the girls will have a great time — I think I’m going to have a lot of fun with it. You know, they say if you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.”
It seems that Malia and Sasha will have their new furry friend by Easter!
Pope Benedict XVI, who is on a tour of Africa, said that handing out condoms only increased the problem of HIV/AIDS.He as representative of the Roman Catholic Church says that 1) marital fidelity and 2) sexual abstinence are the best way to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS.
No disrespect to the pontiff but the Catholic Church and any other church with this point of view MUST get their heads out of the clouds.
This man of the high cloth is listened to and is emulated all over the world and this is the simpleton advice he has to offer about a disease that is killing millions and millions and millions of people?!
Of course marital fidelity and sexual abstinence are the best way to prevent HIV/AIDS – any 7 year old can tell you that.That is stating the obvious.
But the real problem is that many people across the world are not in monogamous relationships; most people married or not do not have a sexual relationship with only one partner.The facts show that our even our young people ARE having sex!Some of our young people are having sex at ten years or even younger so we HAVE to teach them about safe sex and how to use condoms whether we like it or not.Whether it is offensive of not.Whether it is an ugly fact or not.
The alternative is to say nothing and simply be unsophisticated buffoons with small minds and ignore the truth and wait for an epidemic of HIV/AIDS to destroy our children’s lives. If any of our children are infected the potential for many of our children becoming infected increases.We live in a global society and our children are having sex with other children across economic and racial lines so if one socio-economic or racial group is infected all our children can become infected.
Let’s talk to our children about safe sex — let’s keep all our children safe.
Let’s keep it real, these are facts.
Even adults in short-term monogamous relationships may have had a different sexual partner days, weeks or months prior to their current monogamous relationship.So even if someone isn’t cheating they may have been in relationship with someone prior that may have been exposed to HIV/AIDS or several STDs not so long ago.
Do you know the status of the last ten people your current partner slept with?
Did you go with your partner and both get tested and received a negative result and continue to get tested every 3 months to make sure you are STILL negative?
If not, you better use a condom.
There are people walking around with HIV/AIDS who look healthy and act healthy and KNOW that they are infected who do not tell their partners that they are infected and they spread the disease.Ugly but true.
There are people walking around that DO NOT know that they are infected and they have sexual relationships without condoms and spread the disease.Ugly but true.
Many infected people know that if they are truthful about their status they probably would be rejected so they keep their mouth shut.Ugly but true.
Most of us assume that if a person has HIV/AIDS they would simply be responsible and trustworthy and not have random sexual relationships or would a least tell a potential partner that they are infected and use a condom.What a nice thought.
The Pope is simply wrong about the use of condoms and his statement is a threat to public health globally.The Pope’s opposition to condoms tells me that religious doctrine is more important to him than the lives of human beings.That behavior by the Pope is self-serving and absurd and un-Christian like.
She was joined by students from Bancroft Elementary School in the District of Columbia. The children will stay involved with the project including planting herbs, vegetables and fruits in the coming weeks and harvesting the crops later in the year.
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