telcoman wrote:carloslebaron wrote:A true religious dude in the US presidency will be a real change in politics.
For who?
While your are praying you may want to consider
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/05/opini ... ml?_r=1&hp
"But what about their own records as governors addressing their residents’ health needs?
During his 11 years as governor of Texas, Mr. Perry has shown a shocking lack of concern for low- and moderate-income Texans who can’t afford health insurance or who have to struggle to keep it. His bromides about less government, more free-market and more self-reliance have neither held down costs nor made Texans healthier. Despite that record, he seems determined to carry that approach into the White House if elected.
Mr. Romney, in his four years as Massachusetts governor, played a major role in formulating sweeping health care reform that has shown remarkable success in expanding coverage at tolerable cost. After running away from that record in his 2008 campaign for the nomination, he has now embraced it as right for Massachusetts — but not for the nation. Voters will have to decide whether his hypocrisy would follow him into the White House and really lead him to undo the national reforms.
The differing results for residents of Massachusetts and Texas are clear. A scorecard compiled by the Commonwealth Fund in 2009 showed that Massachusetts ranked first among 50 states and the District of Columbia in the percentage of children and the percentage of adults below Medicare age who had health insurance. Texas was last in both categories. Based on 38 indicators covering such factors as access to treatment and quality of care, Massachusetts ranked seventh over all and Texas 46th.
No matter how hard Mr. Romney tries to distance himself from “Obamacare,” the Massachusetts reforms were a template for the national reform legislation. The state achieved near-universal coverage by requiring most people to obtain insurance or pay a penalty and by providing subsidies to help low- and moderate-income people buy private insurance on new exchanges.
The reforms are popular among Massachusetts residents, business leaders and doctors. They drove up costs to the state budget only modestly and in accord with projections. The primary thing Massachusetts didn’t do was control the rising costs of delivering health care, a problem it is only beginning to address.
By contrast, Mr. Perry’s personal-responsibility approach has left a quarter of the state’s population uninsured. His supporters give Mr. Perry huge credit for limiting medical malpractice awards. That has reduced liability awards and allowed some hospitals to save money. But it has not increased the state’s supply of doctors any faster than it was already increasing and has not reduced Medicare spending compared with trends in other states that did not cap malpractice awards.
Texas has traditionally kept its Medicaid spending down by keeping income eligibility levels low and impeding enrollment. An Urban Institute study last year found that Texas and California were the worst offenders in failing to enroll children who were eligible for Medicaid or a related children’s program. That helps save the state money while leaving poor children without the coverage they need and are legally entitled to. As for the free market being the answer, Texas has one of the lowest percentages of people covered by employer-based insurance, and its employers dump a lot of the cost on the workers. The Kaiser Family Foundation reports that average premiums for a family policy in Texas and Massachusetts were roughly the same in 2010 (more than $14,500), but the average worker in Texas had to pay 31 percent of that and the average worker in Massachusetts only 24 percent.
Perhaps the biggest lesson to be drawn from the starkly different experiences of Texas and Massachusetts is that health care reform works and repeal would be a huge setback. Mr. Perry and Mr. Romney will never admit it. But Americans can see for themselves.
A version of this editorial appeared in print on September 5, 2011, on page A18 of the New York edition with the headline: Lessons on Health Care: What voters can learn from the Romney, Perry (and Obama) approaches."
"AC
Upstate NY
September 5th, 2011
9:47 am
Gov. Perry is against Planned Parenthood, which puts women's reproductive rights in jeopardy - especially young women without health insurance. As an RN who worked for many years with pregnant teens, I am appalled at the Texas teen pregnancy numbers. TX has the HIGHEST teen pregnancy rate in the US, and the highest REPEAT pregnancy rate. Nothing to be proud of. Studies have shown that sex-education in high schools does help lower pregnancy rates. Gov. Perry has removed Sex-Ed programs in TX and replaced them with Abstinence Only programs. In a perfect world, that would be nice, but is unrealistic in 2011. Perry has also mandated that teens and college students must have parental permission to obtain birth control. He says, "Abstinence works - I know - because I've practiced it myself." [Providing birth control to sexually active teens and young adults prevents unwanted pregnancies and abortions.] His actions are out-of-touch and irresponsible thinking. "
Recommend Recommended by 19 Readers
The state of Texas is not noted for education or healthcare excellence.
It is big and residents like to carry guns but thats about it.
Telcoman
I agree with the first part of your reply, plus, after the last debate, Perry made a huge mistake attacking social security as if this program was part of the current economical crisis when social security besides of being completely apart from taxes, it has its own source of funds.
But, about such a "planned parenthood" you are talking about, come on, be real.
The best way to plan having or not having a child is by women using prevention and teenager girls closing their legs. What do you expect: Perry promoting abortion?
Abstinence is surely the best solution, and if things are out of control -sex at early ages like 12 and up- is not because the government fault but is a family issue. No one obligates the girl to get pregnant, so no one will obligate the government to take care of what the girl does with her body.
This issue belong to parents, not to Perry or Obama, and don't come here with the fallacy that teenagers ignore about the risk of getting pregnant or acquiring sexual diseases, they know about it but they won't care because their parents are the same as well, a bunch of irresponsible people.
It is funny, most of people demand less government but the ask for more government help, and such is the clear sign of the immaturity of the people, they still want to depend on the government to solve their problems.
Look, if your wife gets pregnant because the pill didn't work, please don't apply to government help to have an abortion, go and sue that company instead, because its product failed and the responsible company must pay for the "damage".
The girl was pregnant because a rape case? sorry, bad luck, don't ask for governement help to have an abortion, let her have the baby and give him to adoption. That this pregnancy will destroy her career or her studies for a year? sorry, bad luck, deal with it, but don't ask for government help.
If you think that the government is the "solution" for every program, you are asking the government give you the amount of money stolen from you yesterday night around the corner, come on, if bad luck comes to you, just deal with it, but you can't demand for the government to help you with abortions, pills, etc, because such is YOUR privacy, don't make it a public issue.
Perry is allright with this matter, it is a waste of money to fill the classes with an education that won't be followed after school, not because the teachers are no good, but because the parents are not doing their job.
To resume, neither Perry or Romney are the right candidates after all, and if I tell you more, no one of the candidates -including Obama- is a right candidate, because all of them are corrupt already.
For year 2012, the best choice is "abstinence", this is to say, not to vote. Regardless of what party takes the power, the corruption is the same, the politicians -no the terrorists or China- are the ones who have put this country in crisis, they did it, not you and neither North Korea.
Remember this fact forever: This economic crisis is not caused by lack of resources but by corruption in power
Now, the politicians want to play as the saviors who will take us out of this crisis created by them, such is laughable.
My advice is for 2012 let your voice to be heard: just don't vote...it is worthless.
Cheers.
)
