Is hell freezing over?

[Blue_In_AK]

This from Alaska's lone representative, Republican Don Young, on tonight's Channel 2 news...

"Rep. Young looks at universal health coverage for kids
Rep. Don Young is thinking of building a system that would provide universal health coverage for kids. Young recently told reporters that he's toying with the idea of introducing a universal youth health bill that would apply from birth to age 18." He went on to explain how he would have to sell it hard as a long-range money-saving proposition (to appeal to Republican sensibilities, no doubt, as we all know they wouldn't give a care otherwise).

Add this to his opposition to that Homeland Security thing a couple weeks ago (joined by only six or seven other Republicans), and it makes me wonder if he's turning Democrat on us after all these years.

I'm somewhat in shock.

[Pirate Smile]

1. Tell him to call John Kerry and sponsor Kerry's Bill in the House.

[Blue_In_AK]

2. Good idea...

It would be great to see the two parties working together for once on something that actually benefited people.

[AuntiBush]

18. Excellent idea!

The tide is a turning! If only we can keep the OAF from getting us into :nuke: and make it to 2008, or... I$MP#EEH the Chimp! Talk about praying for something like never before!

:kick:

Excellent "bill" I might add! If Republican's keep that up, we will see the tides turn more rapidly.

[Clarkie1]

3. I heard on AAR that Alaska senators also rethinking global climate change.

Appartently, they are seeing the effects in their home state and are become concerned. Don't remember the details but it was on the Thom Hartmann show. Considering support of bill to reduce CO2 emissions to 2001 levels by 2014 or something like that (may have dates wrong).

[Hardrada]

4. Or maybe hell is warming up! n/t

[Liberty Belle]

6. 200 Inuit & Eskimo villages were evacuated due to flooding

earlier this year in Alaska. At least one entire village had to be permanently moved inland.

Glaciers in Alaska are melting at the fastest pace ever. When we visited this summer, Alaskans were astounded at the very sudden and disturbing changes. Hillsides once covered in ice, just a couple of years ago, are now bare.

Temperatures in Fairbanks topped 100 degrees this summer--for the first time ever. Alaska also had devastating wildfires due to the hot, dry weather.

Everyone we met in Alaska, Republican or Democrat, firmly believes in global warming now.

[Clarkie1]

7. Wow! Thanks for the details...I started a new thread on this issue. n/t

[Liberty Belle]

15. Sorry I don't have links. We were in Alaska at the time and

it was in the local papers up there. I seem to recall seeing something in the LA Times as well on the flooded villages.

[Blue_In_AK]

8. The wildfires were a lot worse than usual

because of the damage done by the spruce bark beetles over the past few years as the climate has warmed up. It's really no joke up here. I've been here 30 years and the climate is NOTHING like it used to be.

You are probably thinking of the village of Shishmaref that needs to be moved inland. Here's a good link telling about it:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3940399.stm

It's good to hear that Alaska's Congresspeople are coming around a little bit on some of these things. They may be Republicans but they don't seem to march completely in lockstep with **, thank God.

[Blue_In_AK]

11. Another thing about the global warming...

...I don't think there was ever any dispute among old-time Alaskans that the climate has been noticably warming up here, but the question has been whether it's the greenhouse effect or a natural cycle. The scoffers like to point to the fact that many dinosaur fossils have been discovered in Alaska, thus it was obviously warmer here at one time or another ...

But it's progress if Stevens, et al. are at least willing to CONSIDER that it might be human-caused.

[strategery blunder]

10. An Alaskan representative, REGARDLESS of party,

had better believe in global warming when this happens to his/her constituents!

Edit: Maybe Dems could get him to pull another Jim Jeffords?:D

[Liberty Belle]

16. The permafrost started melting back in 1997?

Awful that no one listened until now.

We saw signs of this, too, on our trip this summer. Trees leaning at precarious angles. They call these areas "drunken forests", caused by melting permafrost below.

[quaoar]

5. God must have warned him

that if he doesn't start acting like a human being he's going straight to hell.

[roguevalley]

9. Unbelievable. I know. Our Congressman for All Alaska by the

Ear and Me is doing something. I just don't know what.

[Blue_In_AK]

13. Hi, RogueValley...

Have you been as shocked by some of Don Young's positions lately as I have been? He's blowing my mind.

[Tigress DEM]

12. HR 418 ?

<snip>
Add this to his opposition to that Homeland Security thing a couple weeks ago (joined by only six or seven other Republicans), and it makes me wonder if he's turning Democrat on us after all these years.

HR 418 Section 102 -
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/2/5/15448/41910

If so, who were the other Repubs?

[Blue_In_AK]

14. That's the one, thanks.

I think I'll just write old Don a letter and give him some strokes for these things. Maybe I've been too hard on him all these years.

ed. Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't see your question about who were the other Repubs. I don't remember, but somebody had posted a link to how everyone had voted the day it happened. All I remember is that there were, I believe, seven Republicans who voted against it and 42 Democrats who voted for it ... and everybody was really pissed at the representatives, except for me ... and I was pleasantly amazed.
Somebody that knows how to search better than I do can probably find it.

[Liberty Belle]

17. There's an idea. Write and urge him to change parties!

If the Dems could convince a few rethugs to join our Party, we could take back the majority without waiting for the next election. Come to think of it, with rethugs controlling the voting machines, this might be the ONLY way for anyone other than the neocons to regain control of America.

[Tigress DEM]

36. ROFL

[RealLifeNM]

19. Not the answer

Take it from someone who has been a part of socialized medicine. It is not all that it is cracked up to be. When you have no motivation (no co-pays...etc) to use your judgment about when to go to the Dr. you tend to go more than you need to. I cant tell you how many times Ive had to wait in pediatrics for hours because a kid had the sniffles and Mom brought the kid in to see the Dr. when she should have just stayed the course. There is a right way to get 100% access to medical care but socialized medicine is not the answer...

[bread_and_roses]

20. Oh, what nonsense. Every advanced industrial nation except US has

a National health care program. People in Canada, for example, consistently poll that they do NOT want a privatized system. Might there be wrinkles? No doubt. But the young woman I was working with this week, for instance, whose Dr. told her she had serious bronchititis and was headed for the hospital without treatment would BE ABLE TO GET THE ANTIBIOTICS SHE IS GOING WITHOUT BECAUSE HER MEDICAID ISN'T "TURNED ON" YET.

There is a huge and quanifiable difference in both cost and more importantly human life between waiting a little longer and dying for lack of health care - which does indeed happen right here in the US.

At the most crass level, it will cost Medicaid thousands of $ if she ends up in an emergency room, is hospitalized, and her child goes into foster care because there is no one home to take care of him - all quite possible outcomes of not having $100 for antibiotics.

[RealLifeNM]

23. Quick to Jump out there huh!!

I think it is easy for one to draw a judgment when they have zero experience in the system. I grew up in Canada and have lived with the system and it really isn't the nirvana that some portray it to be. Now I'm not saying that its all wrong but it is ripe for abuse and is abused habitually by many. My grandfather, a lifelong resident of Toronto, had to come to Johns Hopkins to get a heart valve replaced because the system couldn't provide him what what he needed. Oh...and it was payed for by.......................HIM.

[buzzard]

24. I am just curious did he have to go to the US because of long

surgery waiting times.

[RealLifeNM]

25. Nope....

Where we lived there wasn't a surgeon who had done the procedure. This was a long time ago and Johns Hopkins was on the cutting edge.

[Toots]

26. BS

We are the only country in the westernized world that does not take care of the health and welfare of it's citizens. I take it that you think every other country is wrong but our millionaire docters and overworked nurses is the right answer. I don't believe you ever came close to any socialized medicine in your life because what you said is just patently false. I have been in for medical treatment many times in Canada and I never had to wait at all. I always have to wait in America. sometimes two weeks before I can get an appointment. And as far as Don Young saying Universal Health Care for Children would save money is extraordinaire. Why would he suggest it would save money if we gave it to children but not adults? He is right of course. It would save a tremendous amount of money and even more if they made universal health care for all.

[RealLifeNM]

27. If you say so...

Certainly you would know where I grew up and what my family life experiences are.

[Orangepeel]

30. hmm... what to do today? shall I take the kids to the park or the doctor?

of course there will always be people who absuse any system, but most people don't go the doctor enough. More preventative care would keep Americans healthier and be cheaper in the long run.

[RealLifeNM]

32. YUP!

[SammyWinstonJack]

34. Stayed the course?

:eyes: Tells me all I need to know.

[foreigncorrespondent]

35. Bullshit!

I happen to come from a country where socialized medicine is high on the agenda.

If you go to the emergency section of a public hospital, yes the wait time could be long. However, if you go to your local GP, the wait time isn't so long. If they happen to bulk bill, you end up not paying a thing for the visit. If they don't bulk bill then you pay the excess, which is usually anywhere between $20.00 and $40.00.

If you need an operation that isn't too serious, you are put on a waiting list. When I had to have an operation several years ago, I was on a waiting list for three weeks when I got the call to go in for surgery. That time I had to cancel simply because I had the flu. But one month later I got called again, and was in the following day. What did it cost me? Not a thing.

Now abut your claim that under socialized medicine you visit the doctor more than you need. I call crap when I see it, mate. I happen to go the doctor maybe once a year if that. Only when I am really sick do I tend to go. And it is the exact same thing for everyone in my family, and everyone I know.

At least with socialized medicine every person in the country is covered. Not like the current situation in the States where every rich man is covered and forget about those who simply cannot afford to pay for cover.

[Mountainman]

21. Why don't they talk about health care for everyone, not just kids?

Maybe it is a incremental move towards health care for everyone. So your a kid and at 19 you are no longer coverd. I guess at that point you are supposed to be able to provide health care insurance for yourself.

[fnottr]

29. it's a much easier posistion to defend

When you start asking for universal health care for adults, the conservatives inveriably say something on the lines of, 'well if they'd stop being lazy and get jobs, then they'd have health insurance' while this statement is rather divorced from reality, it's kind of the canned response.


However, when advocating a system for children, only the most extreme conservates are actually going to argue that the kids don't deserve insureance because their parents are 'too lazy'.

[Mutley]

22. well

it's nice to see one politician moving left instead of right

[lonestarnot]

28. This is curious isn't it....n/t

[blm]

31. Not really. Kerry crafted his bill so it's hard to vote down. It WILL pass

so some Republicans will try to get in front of it to claim credit.

Not unusual. When Kennedy and Kerry were crafting SCHIP healthcare bill for children, Hatch and others got into it and even pushed Kerry's name off the bill since he was a junior senator.

[lonestarnot]

33. One and the very same bill. n/t