Now is the time for Single-Payer Healthcare

The disaster that is the Bush prescription plan provides Progressives with their best opportunity in a generation to push for single-payer healthcare. The Bush plan touts "competition" that will drive down prices and offer choices. How is that going?

Two weeks into the new Medicare prescription drug program, many of the nation's sickest and poorest elderly and disabled people are being turned away or overcharged at pharmacies, prompting more than a dozen states to declare health emergencies and pay for their life-saving medicines.

Computer glitches, overloaded telephone lines and poorly trained pharmacists are being blamed for mix-ups that have resulted in the worst of unintended consequences: As many as 6.4 million low-income seniors, who until Dec. 31 received their medications free, suddenly find themselves navigating an insurance maze of large deductibles, co-payments and outright denial of coverage.

Seniors vote, seniors hate the change and the maze that has been forced on them by the Bush plan. They would probably vote now for a plan that would be single-payer run, that would cover all drugs, and that would allow government bidding for prescriptions.

hat tip to MyDD.

Could This Scalito Court Work For the Best

Let's face it - it's a long time ago in a land far, far away that abortion was illegal. I think most of us haven't lived through having friends, family, or neighbors die in backalley abortions. That includes those who are on the wrong (right) side of the issue - that means Republicans, just in case my pun was too punny.
So, what happens if Alito is confirmed, abortion comes up, and they overturn Roe? Well, states get to make the decisions, so many states outlaw abortion. In that case, it won't take long before people start having back-alley abortions, dangerous abortions, and dying from abortion.

This is a new era folks, the era of 24/7 news coverage and blogging. None of these deaths will go unnoticed. The question is, how many innocents have to die before the majority in these states come to their senses? In the end, will many of the states legalize abortion even if it is with a number of crazy safeguards? Or, will the Supreme Court have to reverse itself in the near future because of the pressure that so many innocent lives lost will cause to arise.

Can we say that the deaths of the Civil Rights Era were worth it? They made us change, significant changes for the time, which seem to have stagnated since that time. Perhaps it takes public calamity and death to make the American people stand up for themselves and their rights. Perhaps the Roberts court will reverse Roe v. Wade after 50 years, but who is to say that reversal will last more than a handful of years. Much as the Republican majority will have lasted for only a decade after Democrats held power for 40 years; only to hand it back to us because their ideas are awful and their morals corrupt. So to, will the American people see the truth of outlawed abortion - the lack of deaths in Blue states and the daily stories of Red State deaths due to illegal operations performed by butchers in the abattoir.