Issue #2: Ensuring Quality Care for Medicare Patients

   Medicare is a health care benefit for disabled persons 65 and older. Medicaid was created for the 38 million Americans who have a low income.They were created in the hope that all Americans can have adequate health care. In that effort, the government is planning on reducing the Medicare costs by $70 billion. For starters, the doctors who treat Medicare will lose a 5 to 10 percent cut on their government reimbursments. Doctors get paid baised on quantity rather than quality of work. This means that if they see many patients in one day, regardless of the quality of the diagnosis they recieve, they still get paid well. The government created legislation that will help ensure people in America get proper attention and diagnosis from said doctors. The doctors follow a pay-for-performance system. Over time, superior doctors and hospitals that follow the system well will recieve bonuses. People who oppose this bill think that the government undermines the doctors and hospitals judgement. They say that doctors are expected to provide quality care at all times, and shouldn't be given bonuses to do so.

   
I think that doctors shouldn't be given bonuses for the quality of work they provide. Sure it would be nice to help the doctors who do that all the time, but isn't that what a doctor is supposed to do? They are supposed to help every person as best as humanly possible, and they should't be given a prize as to who can do it best. Certain doctors may take advantage of this law, and then it will all have been a waste. Every doctor at anytime should be putting their best effort into every one of their patients and putting a prize above their heads will cloud their judgements.Sylvia Brandt, an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, believes that doctors do not need any additional monetary incentive to do the best they can, and monetary incentives could have perverse consequences.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/hearing/2009/07/against_physician_pay-for-perf.html

Issue #1:Comprehensive vs. Incremental Health Care Reform

Issue #3:Safe to Eat?

Stowaway survives flight over Siberia hiding in landing gear

A young child living in a crowded, and under staffed foster home literally flew from his former home by stowing away on a flight from Moscow to Siberia, Russia in the planes landing gear. The seventeen year old no longer felt that he had to live in his foster home, so he decided to hitch a ride to Siberia, and survived with only a light coat on him. Many other people have tried to escape their lives by doing the same thing, but they have died trying. One other stow away succeeded in his journey, but was hospitalized for hypothermia.

I think its sad that the boy wanted to get away from his foster home so badly that was willing to risk falling out of a planes landing gear and staying there for almost an hour. Many people have tried the same things that the boy has and they have died. They fell out of the plane, and some of them died from hypothermia because of the landing gear has no protection from the outside elements. This poor kid lived in such terrible conditions and he wanted to escape. He couldn't live the way he was anymore so he left. I feel like he shouldn't have done something so drastic to try and escape but the point he made was loud and clear. The foster home that he was in should have taken better care of him or treated him better so he wouldn't have tried to escape in such a deadly way.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39963172/ns/world_news-europe/39967970

Boehner rips health care plan as 'monstrosity,' vows to roll it back.

House Republican Leader John Boehner considers the midterm election's results proof that the American people do not want President Obama's health care plan to pass. He wants the government not to create universal health care, but lower the costs, which would help out the economy and not takeover health care. He believes that most of America doesn't approve of the plan, but a national poll proved that the nation was split on the issue. Republicans gained seats in the Senate, and they now have more power in the House of Representatives, but Democrats still have the most seats in Senate.

I agree that the government shouldn't take complete control over the health care bill issue. They should listen to what the American people have to say. Yes, some people in America really need the health care bill passed, and i feel for them, but i don't want to have to spend my hard earned money to give us both mediocre health care. I know that people who are unemployed have a hard time getting even decent health care, but hard working citizens who have their own children to take care of shouldn't have to struggle with mediocre health care if they can afford better. On another note, I am glad that the Republicans have a standing leg to fight on in government. Sure I'm a Democrat, but just because I am doesn't mean i agree with everything they do.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39987154/ns/politics-decision_2010/

Economy at a Crossroads

The Midterm elections are supposed to help create equality in the White House, spreading Republicans and Democrats equally. But that is not the case this Midterm election. The standoff between Obama's Democratic Administration and encouraged Republicans will not help the economy. Political gridlock is supposed to be helpful to the economy, but with the Democrats and Republicans at each others throats, the government can't agree on anything and the economy will suffer. They expect little cooperation among political leaders.

I think that the government should just get their act together and start playing nice with each other. Let one side speak their opinion and don't immediately shoot it down. When the government fight, the American people suffer the most. The Republicans are leaning towards tax breaks for everyone, which is good. But because they are not for the universal healthcare plan, the Democrats barely listen to what they have to say. I hope that the election makes the government an equal place. The Obama Administration is all Democrat, so we need an equal amount of Republicans to help the voice of the American Republicans to be heard.  The ecconomy isn't growing fast enough to help the unemployed in America. The government needs to help pay off the $6.1 trillion dollar deficit to help the economy.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39956799/ns/business-economy_at_a_crossroads/

BP lifts cost for spill, denting quarterly profit

The oil company BP, that was responsible for the oil spill catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, has increased the cost for the oil spill by almost 18%. The $40 billion dollar charge that they have taken may be far great or far too small of a number for the total amount of damage costs done by the oil spill. BP along with its partners will share the cost of the oil spill but if neglegence is found on BP's part, they will face the entire bill alone.

BP should have to take the entire responsibility for the oil spill. They shouldn't have to rely on their partner's help to pay off the bill. They were the people who decided to drill a hole in the middle of the ocean and cause one of the greatest disasters in the Gulf of Mexico since Hurricane Katrina. They were the one's who killed off some of the worlds greatest everglades and it's wildlife. They continue to say how sorry they are on television, but that is all that I'm seeing. They moan and groan on TELEVISION. Stop telling me how sorry you are and do something! I want to see results, not a guy dressed in fancy clothes telling me how much he's PLANNING to help out victims of the oil spill. They should help give money to the victims because they have lost a lot of their financial stability when the oil spill affected their jobs.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39964613/ns/business-world_business/