...Eventually, after the expenses whittled away their combined assets, her husband could go on Medicaid -- but by then their children's nest egg would be gone, along with her 401(k) plan. She would face a bleak retirement with neither her husband nor her savings.

...

So M. divorced the man she loves. I asked him what he thought of this. He can still speak, albeit not always coherently, and he paused a long, long time. All he could manage was: "It's hard to say."

...A study reported in The American Journal of Medicine this month found that 62 percent of American bankruptcies are linked to medical bills. These medical bankruptcies had increased nearly 50 percent in just six years. Astonishingly, 78 percent of these people actually had health insurance, but the gaps and inadequacies left them unprotected when they were hit by devastating bills.

...A 2004 study by the Institute of Medicine, a branch of the National Academy of Sciences, found that lack of health insurance causes 18,000 unnecessary deaths a year. That's one person slipping through the cracks and dying every half an hour.

This is what GOP RushHate does to America.

I prefer TeddyCare.

My co-worker, Mike Ditto, went to Congressman Ed Perlmutter's Town Hall meeting on Saturday to listen to him talk to constituents about health insurance reform. While he was there, his car was badly vandalized.

The side mirrors were smashed off.  Big dent on his hood. And scratches and dents on every door and nearly every other panel of his car. All because he had an SEIU Healthcare Rally flier in his car.

FreedomWorks Vice President Max Pappas boasted about "blowing" the town halls "apart"

"increasingly ugly scenes of partisan screaming matches, scuffles, threats and even arrests," .. ... which were part of an orchestrated conservative strategy"

View image

jbh at newsgator dot com

WHITEHOUSE: Gentlemen, we're in the middle of a near total mortgage system meltdown in this country. We have a health care system that burns 16 percent of our GDP, in which the Medicare liability alone has been estimated at $34 trillion. We're burning $10 billion a month in Iraq.

This administration has run up $7.7 trillion in national debt, by our calculation. And there is worsening evidence every day of global warming, with worsening environmental and national security ramifications. In light of those conditions, do any of you seriously contend that drilling for more oil is the number one issue facing the American people today?

(Long silent pause during which nobody answers.)

WHITEHOUSE: No, it doesn't seem so.

After ordering the invasion, the president spent three years in denial and then delegated a strategy review to his national security adviser.  Bush was intolerant of confrontations and in-depth debate.  There was no deadline, no hurry.  The president was engaged in the war rhetorically but maintained an odd detachment from its management.  He never got a full handle on it, and over these years of war, too often he failed to lead.

Woodward goes on to characterize Bush' management of the war since 2006; 'He's kind of wringing his hands'.

Another striking Palinesque note -- when Pelosi reached out to Bush privately to try to find some way to work together and asked "Can't we find a way to end this diviseness and work together?' he responded with 'My views are known and unalterable'.

Frank Rich has a good column today about the GOP affirmative action program that is Sarah Palin. 

Other Palin ledes today;

Once Elected, Palin Hired Friends and Lashed Foes

The universe of the mayor of Wasilla is sharply circumscribed even by the standards of small towns, which limited Palin's exposure to issues such as health care, social services, the environment and education.

With so many government services in the state subsidized by oil revenue, and with no need to provide for local schools, Wasilla has also made do with a very low property tax rate -- cut altogether by Palin's successor -- sparing it from the tax battles that localities elsewhere must deal with. Instead, the city collects a 2 percent sales tax, the bulk of which is paid by people who live outside town and shop at its big-box stores.The mayor oversees a police department created three years before Palin took office; the public works department; the parks and recreation department; a planning office; a library; and a small history museum. ... ...When Palin was mayor, the population was just 5,500.

...Palin limited her duties further by hiring a deputy administrator to handle much of the town's day-to-day management. Her top achievement as mayor was the construction of an ice rink, a project that landed in the courts and cost the city more than expected.

"People said, 'What are you doing to my city? I liked it better when we didn't have government,' '' said Richard Deuser, the city attorney at the time. "And Sarah really pandered to that resentment, that resistance to change. Sarah became their person."

..."Sarah always did and still does surround herself with people she gets along well with," she said. "They protect her, and that's what she needs. She has surrounded herself with people who would not allow others to disagree with Sarah. Either you were in favor of everything Sarah was doing or had a black mark by your name."