As the health care debate seems to heat up, I’ve had a few thoughts about the whole drama from my vantage point as someone on the center-right. This is less of magnum opus than some random thoughts on the issue. I should stress these are the thoughts of one person and don’t reflect all Republicans or all moderate Republicans (all twelve of us).

First, I still don’t understand why many Democrats and liberals are so hung up on a public option. I know that the rhetoric is that it is needed to keep the private insurers honest, but to me it seems needless. I mean if we wanted to make sure the insurance companies are playing fair, we would have laws that would ban certain practices like pre-existing conditions or recission and the like. In short we could use regulation. I know that has become an anathema among your typical Republican, but then, I have never been the typical Republican.

As far as the extent to which health care costs are causing further economic strain, look at the number of those who no longer have insurance - an additional nearly 5 million people since Sept. ‘08 are uninsured. So how are these people paying for the prescriptions? Better yet, when they must seek care where are they turning to and how are they financing it? Increasingly, foreclosures and bankruptcies are the only way out.

The liberal argument for health care reform is based on emotion and it works. I’m hardly rooting for a single-payer system, but I know what it means to be without healthcare, and as I’ve stated earlier, I know what it is to be sick and without health care. Democrats may have the wrong perscription to solve the issue, but at least they seem to care.

That’s not what I find when I listen to fellow conservatives. There is no talk about what it might mean to not have health care or to have your benefits cut, or to deal with the rising cost of perscription drugs. As Mark notes, there is some talk about “socialized medicine” and how the US has the best health care system in the world and how we should focus on free market solutions.There is no talk about people’s fears or concerns about this issue.

Nobel Laureate Economist Milton Friedman explores the troubling dynamics set into motion by government-run healthcare. Excerpts from a speech delivered in 1978 at the Mayo Clinic.

by Dr. Ada Fisher
As a physician of more than thirty years I get concerned when I see the emphasis put on race and economics as the sole cause of health care disparities. High cholesterol comes not just from diet, but lipid or fat disorders and also has a genetic component as deceased tennis great Arthur Ashe’s life demonstrated. Obesity correlates with diet, lack of exercise and sometimes genetics. Diabetes reflects obesity, diet, and genetics.
High blood pressure results from intrinsic poorly understood likely genetic etiologies in 90%+ of the cases; however, the influence of diet, diabetes, and obesity cannot be discounted. …

by Dennis Sanders
Back in 2005, President Bush tried to reform Social Security. I don’t know if his partial privatization plan was the best, but at least he was acknowledging there was a problem with Social Security. Democrats, opposed to privatization, fought back against any reform by saying “there was no crisis.”
In the concern over health care reform this year, many Republicans and conservatives are basically saying the same thing about health care in the United States: there is no crisis.

Michael Barone, a writer for US News comes to such a conclusion in his latest column. He throws out several statements …

Less than two weeks ago, while speaking on a panel for Fox News Strategy Room, actress Shery Lee Ralph and I spoke on the incredible silence draped over the issue of HIV and AIDS in America. The reality of AIDS, especially in the black community, is clear but not heard.
The question of which political party will address this issue becomes irrelevant, because of the virulent nature of this deadly virus. Despite President Bush’s unpopular presidency for eight years, the President directed $500 million dollars in federal spending towards HIV-AIDS relief and research, more than any U.S. President in history. Previously …

By Cleo E. Brown
On Friday, May 15th, 2009 I attended a Geriatrics Mental Health Conference in Brooklyn, New York at The Marriott Hotel. Amazingly, I found out that for the next twenty-five years, as the baby boom generation matures joining the ranks of our Nation’s Senior Citizens, the numbers of elderly people in The United States who are mentally-ill will also increase dramatically. According to Michael B. Friedman, who is the Chairperson for The Geriatric Mental Health Alliance of New York, in any given year twenty percent of all older adults have a diagnosable mental illness. During the next twenty-five …

By Cleo E. Brown
Their names are Mathew Canussen, Seth Margolis, Digna Quinones, and Carlton Whitmore. They have each been diagnosed as disabled and unable to work. In today’s society, however, each now works in some capacity as a Peer Counselor, Specialist, and/or Supervisor. Each person’s story is a story of perseverance and personal triumph in which each Individual overcame enormous obstacles to once again enter the work force in a full-time capacity.
Once a person is diagnosed as disabled and unable to work, to the extent that the person receives SSI (Social Security Income) or SSDI (Social Security Disability Insurance), it …

By  Deborah Honeycutt, MD
The current news of the FBI and police searching for a Minnesota mom, Colleen Hauser, and her thirteen year old son, Daniel, who are refusing chemotherapy gives a lot of fodder for consideration. Correct me if I am wrong, but this is still the USA. We still have the right to choose which medical therapies we desire and which we choose to refuse. Other people, some of whom have had a chemotherapy cure of their case of Hodgkins lymphoma have urged the mother to bring her son back home for chemotherapy. I am happy for the people …

By Star
Ten years ago, you could turned on T.V. at anytime and you would hear a report on AIDS. Why now is the disease such a dirty word? Especially since it’s claiming so many lives in the black community. The character Lynn from the popular television show Girlfriends caught my attention on this issue. Years ago on an episode she made an AIDS documentary. The first lines in the film captures the reality of too many African-Americans.
“You are dying. Black women are dying. And AIDS is their Killer.”
Black people represent 13% of the U.S. population, but account for 49% of …

By Cleo Brown
My brother Lance died in August of 2008. He was only forty-five years old. Although he was a Diabetic with a failing heart he did not have Health Insurance. The consequence of not having Health Insurance for Lance was that his basic need to remain healthy was not met. Eventually, therefore, after living in Phoenix, Arizona for two-and-a-half years without the benefit of appropriate medical care he dropped dead of a heart-attack one month shy of his forty-sixth birthday.
 The issue of health care for me, therefore, has become a common sense matter which transcends party lines and affiliations. …

By Brandon Brice
Policymakers, voters and our nation’s top experts have all argued that healthcare is the top issues in America second to only solving our countries unemployment crisis. Unfortunately, policymakers in Washington have once again missed the mark by not taking into full consideration that by granting healthcare to all, you forfeit the best in quality for all.
Healthcare experts suggest that the federal government should regulate cost by allowing the quality of healthcare services to equate to that of cost. What healthcare experts have failed to realize is this puts America in an economic bind. By suggesting that the government …

 
 WASHINGTON-Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe has been blaming the cholera epidemic that has already killed 1,100 people and may have infected 20,000 others, along with a famine that threatens another 5 million, on-who else?-Western colonialism. But both are of his own making and should shame most of the 14 governments, led by South Africa, that make up the Southern African Development Community. They have abetted the world’s most evil ruler.
Zimbabwe was once one of Africa’s promising economies. Although Mugabe did not mess with it too much in the first part of his 28-year rule, in the last decade he has systematically destroyed …

HHR BREAKING NEWS-UPDATE
We just received this information from the DRAFT STEELE COALITION they are reporting that the signatures for Steele’s nomination are huge and come from all 50 STATES!! They are coming from all over and from various groups. In a show of uniformity Jewish bloggers who know Steele is a strong supporter of Israel and Evangelicals who know he is pro choice to moderates who know old way of doing things will not work and that the party needs to change. Steele is the first RNC potential chairman in history to reach out to bloggers and get there says …