It’s 2004 all over again.

In 2004, a ho hum group of democrats did their best to make the primaries interesting. John Edwards had the million dollar smile. Howard Dean looked like a contender. And John Kerry sat in the wings.

The democrats knew they had little chance of beating Bush. His popularity was reaching its pinnacle. The American people loved how he handled the months immediately following the terrorist attacks and we were just getting into 2 wars in retaliation. (Though most seem to have forgotten that.)

There was a 3 way race of pretty viable-looking “plan B” candidates. (Who were just good enough to be believable but not quite the party’s best.) The media made a good story out of Edwards vs. Kerry, Kerry won out. In the end it was a boring lead-up to a relatively easy win for Bush.

But the democrats played along and everyone was happy.

2012 has a problem.

The republicans haven’t played along. Their pool of 4-5 people in the primaries aren’t believable enough for the general population to become interested. We all know it’s Romney. He just has to keep his mouth shut and keep smiling while the rest of the “plan C” and a couple of “plan D” folks take turns lining up and falling apart.

The primaries aren’t interesting to the general public. Only 5.4% of eligible Iowa voters showed up to last week’s Iowa caucuses.

So what’s the problem? There are 6 billion of them.

Way back in August 2011 Reuters published a story which shows just why the media is trying so hard to make this year’s field of republicans look interesting.

The U.S. elections will be the most expensive ever, with a total price tag of $6 billion or even more, fueled by millions of dollars in unrestricted donations as Republicans and Democrats vie for control of the White House, Congress and state governments.

“It’s safe to say that, given that we had a $5 billion cycle in 2008, it will certainly be more than that and very likely over $6 billion, which is just an astonishing growth rate,” said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks campaign spending.

The cost of the election is surprising given that only the Republican Party is holding presidential primaries, unlike in 2008 when both parties had expensive contests to find a candidate.

Source

For a struggling news industry that’s a whole lot of ad buys. Newspaper ads, television ads, magazine ads, online ads… everyone needs a slice of that $6 billion pie to make their budget and make Wall Street happy. Not to mention that’s a lot of money for staff, travel, hotels, greasing palms, etc.

But they won’t spend that much money if Americans get bored. 

This is why the news organizations are so desperate to find a story. Because if you get bored with this primary season they stop getting paid.

My take? I’ll vote for the party who takes their slice of that Super-PAC pie and donates it to a charity. 

Photo by John Lund

I spent some time this week reading political news and listening to political news from the conservative perspective. (Not much else to do when living in a hospital room other than catch up on news!)

While many of my views could be characterized as conservative, I struggle because the language of conservative politics is almost always backwards looking. The line of thinking seems to be, “If we could just get back to how it used to be, our country would be back on track.”

That line has a lot of derivatives:

• We need to roll back spending to pre-Obama spending levels.
• We are a historically Christian country, our country will be better if we go back to the original authors intents.
• The civil war wasn’t about slavery, it was about individual states rights. We need to re-embrace federalism.
• We need to close our borders because “Americans” don’t have jobs.

My problem is that as a forward-thinking person there isn’t anything worth listening too but a bunch of cry-babies.

I could identify myself better with conservatives if they spoke in a forward-thinking, innovative, and solution-based language. Voting against things without having a solution to replace what you’ve voted down is playing checkers when politics is a game of chess. Then getting on the news and talking about a great win for conservatives when, in fact, it was neutral or a loss, isn’t helping me. I’m not going to identify with people who are losing and don’t see it!

All I hear/read is fear-mongering and stoking the flames of yesteryear. It’s as if they forgot that the primary reason Ronald Reagan was the most popular Republican president in the last half century was because he helped move our country forward– not backwards.

Conservatives need to start dealing with reality. The stock market has been on a 12 month bender. Job growth is taking hold. Consumer confidence is soaring. Even the housing market is springing to life again. Obama kept his promise to cease military operations in Iraq. The strategies in Afghanistan seem to be working. In other words… Obama took the hand that a helpless Bush administration dealt and are turning it into a full house.

Politically, the Democrats will regain everything in the next round of elections if Republicans continue to look and sound like the crabby old white men. Clearly, based on what you hear on conservative leaning talk radio and read in conservative leaning news is that they think that they need to appeal to an older, white, extremely conservative audience.

Back to politics 101:

• Tell me what you want to do.
• Stop whining.
• Forget the Tea Party concept, it is back-firing.
• Tell me your vision for our country.
• Help us envision what America will look like when we embrace the forward-thinking, innovative changes you foresee.
• Disassociate yourself with one-dimensional ideologues/radio heads.
• Distance yourself from “the religious right.”
• Come up with a new approach to the abortion issue– put the nail in the coffin on abstinence-only education.
• Come up with a more centrist view on gay marriage.
• Find some intelligent women that my daughter can idealize. (And get rid of “pitbulls with lipstick.” That’s gross.)
• Give me something, anything, I can identify with.

In other words, look at the country you hope to govern, see what our strengths for tomorrow ought to be, and then build your agenda. Move to the middle.

Because at this point– it seems like Republicans have given up on capturing younger conservatives.

The longer I walk with Jesus the more complicated my life seems to get.

Kids, ministry, job, dreams, bills, skills, personality flaws, responsibilities… the list is endless. Life is complicated. Scary. Confusing. Worrysome.

At the same time, the longer I live the more simple the application of God’s Word gets.

When things seem really complex and over my head I am reminded of how Jesus spoke into the complexities of a “religious life.”

One day Jesus was talking with a group of religious people. And, as religious people are known to do, they all carried a specific agendas. They wanted to know if Jesus was on their team. As they sat around testing Jesus on his belief on the issues of the day they were flustered by his ability to respond with Option C on an Option A or B test time and time again.

They were upset with him because he had taken the things that divided people… agendas with teams, financing, factions, and power… and given simple answers with a new agenda.

So they put their heads together and nominated the biggest religious expert in the room to trap Jesus. This question was the 1st Century equivalent of, “If God is a good God, why do bad things happen in the world to good people?”

Here’s the agenda-laden trap:

Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Matthew 22:34-40

Baffling simplicity.

L’agenda

Jesus’ agenda for your life is quite simple. As we see above, all of a God-pleasing life flows from those two bullet points:

1. Love God with everything.
2. Love your neighbor as yourself.

A popular phrase in Evangelical circles, full of agenda, has repackaged Jesus’ words and simplified it too far by saying we are called to “Love God, Love People.” But I think Jesus is smarter than they are. And his agenda rings clear enough for me.

Jesus’ agenda for my life is to love him with everything I’ve got. (From my skills, to my personality, to my family, to my vocation… everything) And the action of that agenda is to love my neighbors as myself. (You know, the people I live near, see in my daily life. Neighbors implies really close to me, and is specific to a group of people I’m to have regular casual contact with. It’s the people on my block, not the people in the pews or in my youth group.)

All of God’s word is to be applied through that lens. Jesus sets the agenda.

When I study Scripture I’m left to ask myself, “How is God calling me to love him?” and “How can I love my neighbors as myself because of this teaching?”

It’s personal and communal– but not religious

Anyone who knows me knows that I have a deep love for the church. In the same passage of Matthew 22 and other places in the Gospels, Jesus refers to his relationship with the church as his bride. To disrespect the church is de facto disrespecting Jesus. (If you said you loved me but disrespected my wife… I’d punch you in the face. What kind of husband wouldn’t?)

I’d prefer not to get punched by Jesus for disrespecting his bride.

At the same time, I wonder if many churches have made the agenda about them? There’s nothing more annoying than a selfish bride. Sure, there is love there… but there are a lot of strings attached to that love.

Other churches are defined by their size… hardly a respectful description for a bride. We’d politely say things like, “She must be a good cook.” Right?

Other Christians are defined by the political bedfellows they keep. Their agenda is confused with the issues of the day. Their leaders espouse vocal support of things like a right to own a gun while all the world desperately needs of them is to embrace their right to love their neighbor.

Still others are defined by their application of Revelation 2-3. They look at Jesus’ proclamations of judgement and they say… “Wait a minute. Jesus isn’t judging First Baptist of San Diego any different that he is judging San Diego Church of the Nazarene or even the Diocese of San Diego… Jesus loves and judges us by where we live in community, not where we individually gather to worship.” And those churches are defined by the agenda of neighbors loving neighbors, churches loving churches, and sharing in the great love of their Savior in the L’agenda.

My prayer today for the bride of Christ is that we would be a people defined by our world-changing L’agenda for our neighbors and not the trappings of a religious life.

Everywhere I’ve done youth ministry I’ve met undocumented students. (Chicago, Northern California, Suburban Detroit, and here in City Heights)

But it wasn’t until I started doing youth ministry here in City Heights that I truly started to understand the difficulty they had in furthering their education and starting their own American Dream.

Think of the uphill battle a student in our neighborhood climbs towards adulthood. Their parents brought them here when they were very young. They were put into an elementary school where they didn’t speak the language. But they’ve overcome obstacles beyond language. A lack of health care, parents with unstable jobs, parents who struggled with the stress of starting a new life in a new culture, (the divorce rate is high) rough schools, the temptation of gangs, the reality of substance abuse, the allure of teenage pregnancy, few meaningful extra-curricular activities, on and on.

And despite everything– these students have succeeded by every measurement tool. tudents with high GPAs, excellent standardized test scores, held offices in their class, been star athletes… the top of their class.

Born in quick sand sucking them towards a failure no one would blame them for. They have struggled, clawed, and fought their way through high school. They are living proof that hard work pays off.

But, as it stands now, the American Dream ends there for all but a few.

As they reach graduation, a waypoint on their way to what they can become, they are faced with a new struggle they might not be able to overcome: Their immigration status prevents them from many academic/financial aid opportunities they would otherwise qualify for. Likewise, their immigration status prevents them from another viable option towards a career in the military.

To put that in perspective in my neighborhood: Future community leaders hit a roadblock towards education and military service and are left with few options towards a bright future.

What does this have to do with youth ministry?

The young adults in that video could just as easily be students in our youth group. And, in all reality, there’s a very good chance that there are students in your group facing the exact same problem. Our ministry isn’t just about preaching Good News, it’s about bringing good news to the neighborhood. See, this has everything to do with youth ministry here in San Diego and around the country!

Photo from Politico (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/45243.html)

That’s where the DREAM Act comes in. Without going into a comprehensive immigration reform and all of its political pitfalls, it helps bridge a gap immediately that most people agree needs to get fixed.

Purpose

The purpose of the Development, Relief and Education of Alien Minors Act, also called the DREAM Act, is to help those individuals who meet certain requirements, have an opportunity to enlist in the military or go to college and have a path to citizenship which they otherwise would not have without this legislation. Supporters of the DREAM Act believe it is vital not only to the people who would benefit from it, but also the United States as a whole. It would give an opportunity to undocumented immigrant students who have been living in the U.S. since they were young, a chance to contribute back to the country that has given so much to them and a chance to utilize their hard earned education and talents.

Would I qualify?

The following is a list of specific requirements one would need in order to qualify for the current version of the DREAM Act.

• Must have entered the United States before the age of 16 (i.e. 15 and younger)
• Must have been present in the United States for at least five (5) consecutive years prior to enactment of the bill
• Must have graduated from a United States high school, or have obtained a GED, or have been accepted into an institution of higher education (i.e. college/university)
• Must be between the ages of 12 and 35 at the time of application
• Must have good moral character

Source

For nearly 10 years the Dream Act has taken on many forms as it’s proponents have tried to get the law to pass through both the House and Senate. It has stalled or was killed every time.

On December 8th, the bill was passed by the House of Representative. It was hoped that the debate in the Senate would begin immediately. Unfortunately, the Senate tabled a vote on the measure yesterday.

Obviously, this is labeled a political issue.

But in my world this is a social justice issue. These students have done everything right and the only country they’ve ever known prohibits them from pursuing their dreams. They have looked adversity in the eye and climbed past it’s sneering, snarling teeth and overcome everything to become  the embodiment of success our country adores.

It’s time that this legislation passes and they are allowed to move on.

More info:

Wikipedia article

Follow the story on Twitter, #dreamact

Dream Act Portal (student activist site)

First, the clips from the New York debate.

Then, the song from his website. Again, he’s for real.

Then, this brilliant remix.

I don’t know. He’s got a point. I hope he gets some votes.

p.s. Sorry about the curse word. But the rent is just too high.

Ángel Franco/The New York Times

This headline caught my attention this morning:

Ten months ago President Obama announced a $75 billion program to keep as many as four million Americans in their homes by persuading banks to renegotiate their mortgages. Lenders have accepted more than one million applications and cut three-month trial deals with 759,000 homeowners. But they have converted just 31,000 of those to the permanent new mortgages that are the plan’s goal.

It’s hard to fathom how many people are battling or have succumbed their life’s savings (their home) to foreclosure. In the third quarter of this year, 937,840 families received a foreclosure notice. (up 23% over the same period in 2008.)

It is important for me to state this fact– I don’t know a single person in which a bank has permanently helped during this housing crisis. They have done some short-term things. But every person I know, including ourselves, who has needed their bank to re-negotiate or process a short sale, has eventually had to accept foreclosure.

The government bailed the banks out, they’ve given them significant incentives, and yet they take the governments money– money clearly given to help re-negotiate loans– and just accept it as profit. Here’s another quote from the New York Times article:

The servicing companies make money either way. The Obama program pays them $1,000 for each loan modified, and another $1,000 per year for three more years if the borrower avoids foreclosure. On the other hand, the companies make large sums charging late and legal fees on overdue mortgage payments, and sometimes it is cheaper to foreclose than to cut the mortgage payment. link

Simply put, if your home is underwater (you owe more than it is worth on the market) and you need your bank to help you there is nothing they are going to do. They are going to stall, hem, haw, and outlast you. They know, relying that you are an honest person, that you’ll pay fines to try to keep your home but eventually you’ll get tired of the process and accept foreclosure. At least that is the banks great hope.

Maybe it isn’t always that way? Certainly, there are enough short sales going through to fuel the market and keep people’s hopes up. But for every person I know selling their house who has tried a short sale, it is merely a holding pattern– a glimmer of hope to hold on to– on the path of accepting the humiliation of foreclosure.

Bottom line, why is this happening? The banks make more money when you foreclose than if they do a short sale or modify your loan. It is in their best interest that you foreclose! The nature of how loans were created the entire Bush administration was that a loan was generated on a house, then the banks commoditized the loans and sold them off as securities. (Something like a bond) Then they hired servicing companies to make sure you paid your mortgange and that the investors got money.

Then the bank took out bets (credit default swaps) against the people they lended to. That’d be you and me. Read this little article about a 19th century confidence scam, it’ll sound pretty familiar to anyone who has bought a house! Don’t think it is possible to dupe the entire nation? Two words, my friends: Bernie Madoff.

See, in essence, the bank wants you to foreclose so they can make more money. And their processors (subsidiary companies) want you to struggle so you keep paying interest and penalties as long as possible. Then, when you finally give up, they still get the property. Cute, eh?

What’s the solution? The easy solution is for people to start paying 20% more for a house than it is actually worth. But who wants to do that? I’m afraid the government may be the only entity that can help. (Short of every American just stopping payment on their mortgages.)

Someone needs to help people on a wholesale level, renegotiate their loans. Like a one time amnesty program or something like that. It would seem reasonable that the local assessment office, which values your home for tax purposes, should be able to act as an independent agent to your mortgage company. “This home is now worth 25% less, you’ll need to reduce the principle on the loan by 12.5% to meet the homeowner half way or face a $50,000 fine fr0m the municipality and lose your license in this state.”

Of course, that isn’t going to happen either. There is too much money to be made.

This is why people say this is a mess! It’s a big ugly mess.

Want to learn more? Check out this special from This American Life called “The Giant Pool of Money.”

It’s been forever since I’ve blogged about the debacle known as the Romeo School Board. Since I’m not a homeowner, resident, or parent of kids in the district I really don’t care all that much about what is going on.

But this news raised my eyebrow:

Recall efforts may proceed against three Romeo school board members, but two others were granted reprieves Friday by the Macomb County Election Commission. story link

What is going on is classically simple. Unions, who have completely bankrupted the district, are upset there there simply isn’t more money to steal from the children of the district. In 2006, they even forced a bond on the community to cover up to 103% of the budget so their employees could get guaranteed raises dispite diving home values, diving tax revenue, and diving test scores across the district.

Three individuals stood up to the unions and did their best to balance the budget. Yes, this involved letting some union employees go and hiring non-union contractors.

And now unions are leading a recall effort.

The joy of being a reformer is that you will be called a heretic. Hopefully, the people of Romeo will stand up and not see these three reformers burned at the stake.

I don’t know about you, but I’m growing a little tired of the lack of progress and new ideas coming forth for health care reform. I wonder if instead of making private citizens scream at their elected officials we could get those causing the problem to scream, instead? Here’s how.

Instead of reforming health insurance (which is what we mean today by “health care reform“) what if we reform the industries at the root of the problem? What if the government opens up distribution channels to the raw supplies so you can buy the stuff you need on the open market?

Let’s say you need a new knee. The doctor says, “I could buy the part and it’ll cost you $2500 or here are the specs on what you need, you may be able to find the exact same part cheaper.” (Take away the fancy titles, this is not unlike going to get a new muffler!) The doctor gives you the specs for the item you need, and you go to Amazon.com and price the part you need for the operation. Amazon.com works directly with the manufacturer in Warsaw, Indiana to carry the most commor specs and carries them in stock. Based on the laws of supply and demand, you are able to go to Amazon.com and buy the exact part you need for $800. A week later it is delivered to your house and you take it with you to your surgery.

Same thing works for medical equipment. The current system will not allow you to go to Walmart.com to rent a wheel chair that you need after your surgery. Instead, your doctor calls the local medical equipment distributor and they rent you a wheel chair for $500 that they’ve rented 25 times already but paid $322 for from the sales rep. Under the new system, since you can now work directly with the manufacturer, you go to their website and buy the thing for $280 or you go to Craigslist and pick one up for $50.

Naysayers will toss out this right away… “what about drugs? You can’t open up the drug market!” You actually can open this up as well. Your doctor could provide you with a unique code which grants you a certain prescribed drug. You make that purchase online and cut out the middle man, it’s delivered to your door. For drugs that are abused, have it delivered to the doctors office. Since the office won’t be meeting with endless drug reps and DMEs they should have plenty of time to sign for stuff from FedEx.

This really isn’t that complicated. It just opens the system up. Currently, everything you have delivered to you in the health care system is based on a closed distribution model. You have no ability to determine what the manufacturer made the item for, what the mark up was when they sold it to the distributor, what the sales rep made when he sold it to the hospital, nor what the hospital paid for the item. You only know what they are charging you for on the itemized bill. And you know that it is all negotiable because that’s what Medicaire, insurance companies, and private individuals do. So you may see that the hospital billed $5500 for the replacement knee but because it’s a closed system you have no way of knowing that the manufacturer in Indiana made it (at a profit to themselves) for $600. Consequently, the closed system is bloated with mark-up. It’s a closed capitalist system.

We’ve done this same thing in almost every industry. Why not do this to health care?

Watch the video below, and deny me the fact that the consevative media has been bought in the health care debate. I hate it when video proves the conservative agenda gone array. Or did Glenn Beck suddenly think that his 2008 experience was a lie?

As a friend said tonight in our small group, “How can Christians be for social darwinism?” It makes no sense to me either. When will the conservative evangelical cheer the Obama campaign for pushing for equality in health care? You know, like in the book of Acts. Or is it that they only believe survival is for the rich? How did believers end up on the wrong side of this discussion? Republicans do make strange bedfellows, don’t they?

Thoughts? I mean, Glenn Beck couldn’t have flip flopped, could he?

Let’s face the fact that no one likes the health care system. Doctors hate it. Hospitals hate it. Insurance companies hate it. Employers hate it. Insured employees hate it. Uninsured people hate it. The rich hate it. The poor hate it. I can’t think of the last time that someone stopped me in conversation and said, “I just love the health care situation in this country.” In my lifetime that has never happened.

Let’s agree one this. It’s completely broken. We all hate it.

If you were to see the true balance sheet of your families expenses, chances are health care would rank #1, #2, or #3. If you are self-employed you know the exact cost of your health care coverage per month. For those of us who get it through our employers we don’t see that monthly bill… but let me tell you, it’s expensive! Typically, an individual is about $300, a couple about $700, and a family around $1,000 per month. Rank that it your balance sheet and you’ll see that the big three expenses in your household are likely housing, health care, and taxes. Whereas housing and taxes largely track with inflation, over the past decade the cost of health care has increased 8-10% per year.

So when your politicians stand up to block reform you need to start asking questions!

If 99% of the people in your neighborhood recognize that health care is broken and needs to be fixed and your congressperson stand against changing the system you need to start following the money trail.

- What kind of money is your politician receiving from the health insurance lobbyists?

- Who is donating to that persons campaign fund?

- When they go to parties, out to eat, or on trips in Washington… who foots the bill?

- Who does their spouse work for? Their other relatives?

- What committee does that person sit on?

- Who are that persons new allies?

- What boards does this politician serve on in their private life?

Follow the money and you will see why elected officials stand in the face of health care reform. This is about money, not politics. Lots and lots of money. These politicians (Democrats and Republicans alike) have to protect the cash cow that keeps their jobs in Washington.

I have a very strong opinion on who broke health care… which is why I am so happy to see who is trying to fix it. My opinion is that the Clinton Administration killed health care in an effort to reform it. In 1992, the Clinton Administration amended the laws for directly marketing prescription drugs to consumers. Suddenly, the air waves were flooded with drug commercials. People would start to go to their doctor and demand a name brand drug. Consequently, the usage of drugs shot up and the cost of prescription coverage began an upward spiral that is still out of control today. Drug companies, driven by Wall Street’s hunger for profit, searched for new drugs to market, and then took full advantage of antiquated intellectual property laws. While no one would argue that pharmaceutical companies shouldn’t profit from their products, no President has taken on the very core issue of out-of-control drug costs. The patent rights of drug companies have never changed. Read up on generic drugs and you’ll see that the drug companies consider cheap equivalents the enemy and not the solution. Ultimately, the drug industry is about money and not about health care. Lots and lots of money.

HIPPA is another Clinton-era health care reform idea that is destroying health care in America. Signed into law in 1996 and enacted, coincidentally, a month after George W. Bush took office in 2000, the law has a great name with a horrible cost. The provisions require health care companies to make their business as inefficient as possible for the sake of alleged privacy and security concerns. Basically, enacting and enforcing the new laws costs billions of dollars per year when health care companies already had a vested interest in protecting privacy, making sure insurance was portable, and making sure digital records were secure. The law just increased the health care industries administration costs by 10% across the board to be certified as compliant. It made doctors get paid slower. It made it more difficult to get quality customer service. It added hundreds of checks and balances for things that weren’t systemic problems. And most of the law made your insurance anything but portable! In the end, HIPAA has only made your health care more expensive.

Clinton’s inability to protect the not-for-profit health insurance (mostly BlueCross/Blue Shield plans) from being bought out by for-profit businesses ruined the balance between quality health care and profitability. In the mid-1990′s regional health care companies started using their ample cash reserves (aka, the holdings of an insurance company) to purchase other regional plans, go public, and liquidate their cash reserves. Overnight, publicly traded companies like Anthem and Well Point bought out not-for-profit companies across the country. (They actually merged in 2004 to make a mega-insurance giant.) During the Clinton administration the number of private not-for-profit health insurance companies went from about 100 to 3-4. These small plans had always lived off reserves in bad times and banked money in good times. They had kept costs low. They had kept rates reasonable. But once these for-profit companies took power they demanded annual profits. Something the industry just couldn’t do every year!

So with rising cost of administrating plans, rising costs of drugs, rising costs of the technology required to live within the laws, and a new requirement to turn an annual profit… where was the only place to get more money? Consumers.

The health care industry has a lot to hide and a lot of interest in making sure fundamental changes don’t occur. They are going to protect their interest. Drug companies don’t want to reform the marketing laws or the patent laws, so their lobbyists will funnel billions to members of Congress they think they can influence. For-profit health insurance companies have actually learned to like the cash-cow known as HIPPA, so they will fill pockets to make sure that doesn’t get reformed. And Wall Street requires both drug companies and for-profit health insurance companies to turn a profit… so they will cough up lots of money to make sure reform doesn’t happen.

I firmly believe Clinton broke  health care. That’s why I’m happy to see Obama trying to fix it. This isn’t Democrat vs. Republican. This is a President acting on behalf of the people of this country who need health care reform today. They can’t wait until 2010.

In the end, if people like you and me don’t ask simply questions and publicize the answers we won’t see health care reform, in any form, happen. Again, this isn’t politics… this is about money to them. (To us it’s about our health as well.) The drug companies and insurance giants want to stay the same!

What about the press? Sadly, I don’t think we can count on the media to chase this story. They are on the take as well. Turn on the radio or TV and you’ll see ads like crazy from the health care industry saying they don’t want reform. It should be no surprise that CNN, NBC, CBS, Fox, or ABC aren’t following the money trail, they are all on the take too.