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Fox News host Bill O'Reilly was a guest on Good Morning America. He doesn't believe Republicans and Democrats will be able to drop the politics in an effort to get Health Care Reformed passed. Watch the video at http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/
Today President Obama is holding a Bipartisan Health Care Summit at Blair House. I watched a small portion of it and decided to catch up on it later. I can tell you that the Republicans are wanting to start over from scratch and the Democrats didn't seem to be waivering much. Colin Powell expressed his views on Sundays Face the Nation. You can watch that video on NCTRUNEWS portal at www.xtagged.com.
President Obama did open up the Health Care Summit with the following statement: "I hope that this isn't just political theater, where we're just playing to the cameras and criticizing each other, but instead are actually trying to solve the problem," Obama said to the Republicans and Democrats assembled in the Garden Room of Blair House in Washington. "That's what the American people are looking for."
When it comes to healthcare reform, is something better than nothing? Should healthcare be removed from the President’s agenda in Year 2010? Try telling that to Americans without healthcare. With rising unemployment, increased deficits, and the sharp rise in healthcare premiums, what are our choices and can we live with them?
Two years ago, I obtained a life and health license to sell insurance in the State of North Carolina. I can tell you that I met with clients of various income and social status and health care does not discriminate. I wasn’t successful in that venture because most of my clients either could not afford the premium or they had pre-existing conditions. Many that could afford health insurance were shocked when I told them that they could not qualify because of a pre-existing condition that was covered by their former employer. Most notable were type-2 diabetic, cancer, obesity, or heart problems. Most insurance companies do cover high blood pressure if it is controlled; however, most companies will rate you up 20 percent. I found that some of the insurance agents were so desperate that they were willing to sell their client some inferior product in order to meet their weekly quota.
I, for one, do not understand why a health care bill has to be so complicated and more lengthy than the most important document of our land namely the U.S. Constitution. I thought that the U.S. Government had decided in the early eighties to keep their documents simple. What’s wrong with writing a simple bill that everyone can read that simply says:
1. Insurance companies will cover all pre-existing conditions. If there are exceptions that might dictate a higher premium that would drastically increase costs, why not list those conditions and put a ceiling on the premium increase.
2. Currently, children are kicked off of their parent’s insurance at the age of 18 unless they are in college. In that case, they can stay on the parent’s policy until the age of 21. Why not let them stay on their parent's insurance until age 26. That’s simple enough.
I could go on; however, I think you get the point. I admit that I don’t have all of the answers; I just don’t think that healthcare reform has to be that complicated and I definitely don't want any pork attached to it. Americans are unhealthy enough already. Let me hear from you.
Ms. NCTrunews
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Are Banks the New Loan Sharks?
(NCTRUNEWS is brought to you by Xtagged.com whose mission is to make the Internet Safe.)
Wikipedia defines a Loan Shark as a person or body that offers unsecured loans at high interest rates to individuals, often backed by blackmail or threats of violence. Is that no different than what banks and credit card companies are doing today? If it is, then why do million of American, the Government, and consumer agencies tolerate it? Why aren't Americans, young and old, using the same manpower that put President Obama in office using the same bandwidth to help change this nation? Is the power in number not the key to getting anything positive done in America?
I recently watched an episode of Bill Maher on HBO where he interviewed Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Warren. Elizabeth also chairs the congressional oversight of how Treasury spends tarp. Bill posed the question regarding Goldman Sachs’ recent report of record profits to Elizabeth and asked "If the economy is so bad, where did these profits come from?" Below is Elizabeth’s response:
"Well, the profits from these guys are coming from business as usual. That is, they are still selling for example the big Wall Street banks. They are still selling consumer credit cards, mortgages, car loans, and that sort of thing that they make good profits off. And then at the other end of the spectrum, Goldman Sachs in particular, they are still trading in all of those fancy high risk instruments that they traded in that brought us to the brink of economic collapse."
"When I was here last, I thought that we were on the brink of real financial reform and that we were going to really change the system. That we were going to have consumer agencies to make sure that we rolled back all of the crazy abuses, tricks, and traps. I also thought that we would change the rules on things like derivatives and that we were going to change the rules on resolution authority, and what to do with these big banks. we were going to get rid of too big to fail. The problems could not be more obvious and quite frankly the solutions are just about as obvious; but, we can’t seem to get the two together."
"The reason that we are not changing things right now is because banks have lobbyists in Washington in numbers that I have never seen. They are coming not just once a month, once a week, or once a day. These guys are coming in two and three times a day. They are making phone calls; they got the position and they just keep slamming in the same direction over and over and people who just want to advocate for American families and make some changes and level the playing field, they just don’t have that type of lobbying power and what we are really watching here is a David and Goliath story in monumental proportions."
"When this crisis started in October 2008, Secretary Paulson said the problem is too much concentration in the banking industry meaning a bunch of big banks that hold too much. What’s happened is the banking industry has gotten too concentrated. He said we are worried about toxic assets on the books of the banks. In fact, we still have toxic assets on the books of the bank. We are worried about the financial products that are sold to consumers; the credit cards, the mortgages, that are sold on still a tricks and traps basis and that still happens every single day. Credit Cards alone cost American families last year $120B in penalty fees and interests. This affected 50 Million American families. The Center for responsible lending has done an analysis of what’s going on and they said that of the ten practices that have been outlawed, the credit card companies have already figured out 8 new devices for getting around them." [Please watch Fareed Zakaria video on my xtagged portal at www.xtagged.com.]
What is it going to take to wake Americans Up?
Let me hear from you.
Ms. Trunews
Wikipedia defines a Loan Shark as a person or body that offers unsecured loans at high interest rates to individuals, often backed by blackmail or threats of violence. Is that no different than what banks and credit card companies are doing today? If it is, then why do million of American, the Government, and consumer agencies tolerate it? Why aren't Americans, young and old, using the same manpower that put President Obama in office using the same bandwidth to help change this nation? Is the power in number not the key to getting anything positive done in America?
I recently watched an episode of Bill Maher on HBO where he interviewed Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Warren. Elizabeth also chairs the congressional oversight of how Treasury spends tarp. Bill posed the question regarding Goldman Sachs’ recent report of record profits to Elizabeth and asked "If the economy is so bad, where did these profits come from?" Below is Elizabeth’s response:
"Well, the profits from these guys are coming from business as usual. That is, they are still selling for example the big Wall Street banks. They are still selling consumer credit cards, mortgages, car loans, and that sort of thing that they make good profits off. And then at the other end of the spectrum, Goldman Sachs in particular, they are still trading in all of those fancy high risk instruments that they traded in that brought us to the brink of economic collapse."
"When I was here last, I thought that we were on the brink of real financial reform and that we were going to really change the system. That we were going to have consumer agencies to make sure that we rolled back all of the crazy abuses, tricks, and traps. I also thought that we would change the rules on things like derivatives and that we were going to change the rules on resolution authority, and what to do with these big banks. we were going to get rid of too big to fail. The problems could not be more obvious and quite frankly the solutions are just about as obvious; but, we can’t seem to get the two together."
"The reason that we are not changing things right now is because banks have lobbyists in Washington in numbers that I have never seen. They are coming not just once a month, once a week, or once a day. These guys are coming in two and three times a day. They are making phone calls; they got the position and they just keep slamming in the same direction over and over and people who just want to advocate for American families and make some changes and level the playing field, they just don’t have that type of lobbying power and what we are really watching here is a David and Goliath story in monumental proportions."
"When this crisis started in October 2008, Secretary Paulson said the problem is too much concentration in the banking industry meaning a bunch of big banks that hold too much. What’s happened is the banking industry has gotten too concentrated. He said we are worried about toxic assets on the books of the banks. In fact, we still have toxic assets on the books of the bank. We are worried about the financial products that are sold to consumers; the credit cards, the mortgages, that are sold on still a tricks and traps basis and that still happens every single day. Credit Cards alone cost American families last year $120B in penalty fees and interests. This affected 50 Million American families. The Center for responsible lending has done an analysis of what’s going on and they said that of the ten practices that have been outlawed, the credit card companies have already figured out 8 new devices for getting around them." [Please watch Fareed Zakaria video on my xtagged portal at www.xtagged.com.]
What is it going to take to wake Americans Up?
Let me hear from you.
Ms. Trunews
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