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Citizens for Peaceful Resolutions met today in the Topping Room of the E.P. Foster Library on Main Street in Ventura from 3-5pm, just up the street from the Century 10 theater, and during Tyler's viewing of this film. the topic this month: comparing and contrasting a few of the new health care plans that are being campaigned for and considered in California, and recognizing some of the challenges that go along with the opportunities.

some notes of mine:
• there are 45 MILLION americans without any health insurance at all. zero.
• 1 in 9 americans is a californian, and 3% of AMERICA lives in L.A. County. that's how big we are. that's how big our opportunities are.
• there are an estimated 150-200,000 people in Ventura County with zero health insurance...30,000 of them are children (5,000 of which are undocumented). Pediatrics is an excellent field for preventative care.
• the Federal Poverty Level for a family of 4 is $16,600/yr. for four people. for a YEAR.
• the United States of America is the ONLY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD to allow direct marketing of pharmaceuticals to consumers.
• people with little or no insurance almost ALWAYS delay not only needed care for specific ailments, but also their regular check-ups and maintenance care, resulting in Emergency Room visits that are dramatically more expensive.
• the number of employers that offer health insurance has dropped rather steadily over the past few decades, and the three conditions which make it less likely that an employer will cover you are
- fewer workers
-lower wages
-higher ages of employees

there are three healthcare plans before the people of California (formerly four, until the nearly-identical Perata and Nunez plans merged into one):
The Governor's Plan
The Perata-Nunez Plan
The Kuehl Single-Payer Plan

**another good idea: end the Iraq War and save $350,000,000 per day**

source: California HealthCare Foundation, as presented by Dr. Robert Dodge, MD

The red scare has pistol-whipped us into submission in America. It *isn't* the same everywhere. Our problem is we believe the *symbolic* contamination when rhetoriticians associate something they don't like with something they claim is evil. Why do we fall for that all the time?? This is an economic and policy issue. Anyone who says we can't look at this or that alternative because it is "socialist" IS A THOUGHT-KILLER!!! They just want us *not* to look at that alternative in objective terms, by scaring us with a boogeyman-word!!!!!!!!!

Well-written, passionate, sensitive to Mom and others......a fine piece, my Son!!!

Much love,

Mom :-)

Of course the health "system" is sick. But it is sick because the political system is sick, and that is sick because most of us are sick in the head. Look at Michael Moore's body. He's sick which is probably why he puts so much energy into fixing the system. It's putting the cart before the horse. A good start is to stop killing and eating animals. See RaveDiet.com. The money system is sick. See "Money Masters." Our culture is sick. Our souls are sick. What is the solution? Love is the solution; always has been and always will be. On 07/07/07 at 0707 the Red Brown and Blue Party TM will sponsor the inauguration of The Love Government TM aka The Lover Government TM at the Ojai Fountain in Libbey Park. All we need is love but we're looking for love in all the wrong places, like out there when it's in here. Love, Dennis.

Dennis, why is it that on every thread this morning nobody in the world has any solutions except you?

Why is global warming unimportant but 9/11 and JFK conspiracy theories are?

Why is Michael Moore's film SiCKO unimportant, but Dennis Leary's "The Love Government TM aka The Lover Government TM" is?

Your message of love, which has resonated in the hearts and words of people from Gandhi to Mother T to Nelson Mandela to The Beatles is important, but you are diluting it by your dismissal of everyone and everything that is not in complete alignment with your own personal agenda. Yawn.

I don't know what the solution is to American health care. We are in crisis, no doubt. But where do you start, what do you hope to end up with. Mike is doing his part getting the much needed dialogue moving. I guess that is the start I was asking about. As for where we should hope to end with, well, I guess I look to other systems and see if that is what I hope end up with here.

While many hail Canada's and UK's system, their are too many faults in them for me to even want to get to their mode of practice. Many with means in those and other country come to the U.S. for treatment that they can pay for here, but can't get in their respected countries for lack of equipment, lack space, lack of qualified doctors.

If we are to rid ourselves of our current form of coverage, let's critically examine the alternatives others live by and pick and choose so as not to get in the care problems they in the U.K. and Canada face. People die due to problems of poor quality care in these very countries. We are not the only country that has made rationing decisions when deciding who lives and who dies.

When I think of the Two Trillion dollars wasted in Iraq, I think of the Health Care System we could have developed, putting some of the money in a trust fund of sorts to continue funding a grand system. What a head start we could have had for this century.

Dana - the money wasted in Iraq is an important perspective. As Tony Benn said in the movie, If you can find money to kill people, you can find money to help people.

Thanks, Tyler, for your thoughtful response. It appears you misunderstand my meaning so allow me to clarify it. I have never said anything like what you say I say: "Nobody in the world has any solutions except you." People have all kinds of solutions. I disagree with many of them because they don't address core issues, but there is always something in what people say that has value. I find the most value in getting to the root of problems. Some solutions are distractions because they prevent looking more deeply into things. Open discussion like we have here helps to keep digging deeper.

Likewise, I never said that "global warming is unimportant." Of course it is, especially to creatures like polar bears. Again, it is helpful to see gradations of importance. Causes are more important than symptoms. The human contribution to global warming is a symptom, deriving largely from a lack of understanding and love. Also, I have never said Michael Moore's work in general, and "Sicko" in particular in "unimportant." It is important but it does not get anywhere near where the real problem lies.

You have a tendency to read things into my words which I did not put there, such as a "dismissal of everyone not in agreement with your personal agenda." As an advocate of free speech, I speak forcefully on behalf of my personal agenda. If you or anyone else interprets that as "dismissal," that is your interpretation, not mine. I have the right to disagree with other opinions and to say why. I welcome other opinions such as your own, even when they are critical or "dismissive" of mine.

If anything is "dismissive," it is to "yawn" when someone else is expressing her opinion. I believe that love is the answer and as you point out, many well known people have endorsed that idea. Most people would agree that love is the answer but then go on to contradict themselves by their actions. If the subject of love is boring enough to elicit a yawn, then the whole point of love is missed which is passion.

I am attempting to make the connection between the idealism of love and its practical application to politics. Until we understand what real love is, we can throw all the money in the world into curing sickness and we will just make it worse. For example, love of truth exposes the lies of 911 and JFK in order to heal that cancer in the political system. Michael Moore picks an easier topic such as health care. That's to his credit but it would be more to his credit if he took on the real causes which makes the health care system sick in the first place, instead of the safer route of classifying symptoms. That takes real love and can get you killed, as the JFK assassinaton demonstrates.

Michael Moore and other democrats like him are used by the real behind the scenes powerbrokers as gatekeepers or pressure valves. They man the gates, allowing certain ideas into the arena and keep others out (like 911 truth). When the pressure of injustice gets too high in the system and threatens real damage, democrats let enough steam escape to save the system. That's not my role. I have a need for something deeper. I call it love. Love, Dennis.

if North America's health care system WAS in disarray, we would be must fortunate. as it is, it is EXTREMELY well organized, bestial and eviscerating.

global SICKO gangster medicine -- the predation on the people of the world by the medical 'profession', pharmaceuticals industry, insurance, media, science, university and government -- is more violent than even the war machine or the automotive machine.

the working classes, and the impoverished classes, are NOTHING more than laboratory rats and body parts for those who consciously and deliberately own and run the monster.

for those whose ONLY thoughts are given to them by television and the media, this may be news. certainly not for any humans on the planet.

there are tens of thousands of healthy and healing traditions around the planet, for every tribe and every culture that has or ever had a relationship with truth and nature.

for those who prefer the horror-show of the corporate SICKO slaughter house ... that is of course the experience they will 'attract'. [in the language of the current 'buzz'.]