Song in my head: How many times must a man look up...before he can see the sky... Bob Dylan

ALTER-ABLED NEWS

Here's a nice comprehensive article comparing New Zealand, Taiwan, Canada, Great Britain, and USA's health care system. A panel of health care professionals state the case for national health care..... LINK

Mid-Valley Health Care Advocates invited forum attendees to consider HR 676, the United States National Health Insurance Act, otherwise known as the "Expanded and Improved Medicare For All Bill." By creating a publicly financed, privately delivered health care program, the legislation would ensure that all Americans, guaranteed by law, have access to the highest quality and cost effective health care services regardless of employment, income, or health care status.

Measure 33, OMMA2, is a controversial medical marijuna provision that creates dispensaries run by the state to provide patients with an adequate supply of medicine. Opinions abound in the local papers.........

Measure 33 is wrong prescription on marijuana

Study medical effectiveness before expanding
distribution. Medical-marijuana advocates wrote a lousy law six years ago and
talked Oregon voters into passing it. Measure 33 would only make that law
worse. LINK

Marijuana initiative revisits notions about existing law

Backers say Measure 33 is needed because
current law is too restrictive, but foes view it as a backdoor step toward
legalization. The debate over Measure 33, which would make it easier for
patients to get medical marijuana and allow them to have more, turns on whether
voters think Oregon's 6-year-old law works or is needlessly restrictive. LINK

And, because the new medicare drug program sucks.......

Medicare to Mail Discount Drug Cards

Nearly two million poor people will soon receive Medicare drug discount
cards in the mail, a new step by the Bush administration to boost enrollment in
the program. The administration has been battered by election-year criticism of
the Medicare prescription drug law and the temporary discount card program that
will be replaced by drug insurance under Medicare in 2006. Only 1.3 million poor
people, out of more than 7 million who are eligible, have so far signed up for a
discount card and the $600 subsidy that accompanies it. Total enrollment is 4.4
million people. The administration has resisted broad automatic enrollment of
low-income Medicare beneficiaries, saying it lacked authority to choose a
card for people. LINK