Health Reform in The USA

Since the health care reform debate seems to keep dragging on, I figured it might be interesting to some of us if I outlined a short summary of the history of this issue. Some of you probably think this all just start popping up this year, or last year. You would be wrong. Your parents and grandparents probably debated this issue. And it looks like their generations actually got something done!

If you think I left something out, please feel free to register and comment! These are just notes, rather than an essay. I just wanted to give everybody an outline of the basics of heath reform ideas, progress, and battles in this century.

By the way, I got inspired for this by Health Care Reform – Where are We Now?

Teddy Roosevelt, FDR and Truman

In the 1910s Teddy Roosevelt was actually a progressive candidate. He campaigned on the promise of national health care, women’s voting rights, and safer working conditions for workers. He lost that campaign to Woodrow Wilson.

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Republicans Setting Filibuster Record In the US Senate

President Obama had an ambitious agenda when he took office. A majority of Americans voted for that agenda. However, there are rules in place that give the minority some power, and one of those is the ultimate tool of obstruction – the filibuster. Right now, Republicans are using this tool at a record place. This means that a simple majority will not be enough to get legislation through Congress.

What it also means, in my opinion, is that we taxpayers are spending a lot of money to get nothing done. It is amazing that the wheels of our nation are moving at all with these obstructionist tactics. And what is it all for?

Well the concept arose from our national sense that the majority rules, but the minority must be protected. However, in this case, I hardly think it is used to protect some disadvantaged minority, but simply for political gain. The minority, in this case the Republicans in Congress, want to score political points by keeping the majority from getting anything done. They want to stall progress, and so they want to stop progressives.

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Should You Buy or Rent a Home?

Even though the image of owning our own home, complete with a white fence, seems to always stay with us, nobody can disregard the news of how home ownership has meant financial disaster for many American families in the past several months.  Most of us, over 50, probably always assumed we would own our own residence by middle age. And many of us have bought a house or two.  How has that worked out for you?

For many families, home ownership has been great. The family home has provide security and pride. For others, the home has become a burden which ended up costing a lot of money without much real return in the end.

Costs of Home Ownership

Let us take a quick glance at some of the costs of home ownership. Consider these, and then try to determine if owning will give you a real advantage. Understand that this is not about what is good for your coworkers, friends, or Aunt Jane. This is all about what is good for you.

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Will Obama Tax Cuts Help the Sandwich Generation?

What is the Sandwich Generation? If you have not heard this term before, you can go right to the source and look at SandwichGeneration.com. It refers to late baby boomers (myself) and early Gen Xers. (Yeah, we know – sometimes that is called Generation Jones) who are caring for aging parents while still caring for kids at home. That includes many of us!

Anyway, let me get away from defining popular terms for different generations and back to the proposed tax changes. These proposals should be announced in President Obama’s State of the Union Address tomorrow (1/27/10).

According the New York Times, we may get help in a couple of areas.

Increased Child Care Tax Credit – The proposal may almost double this valuable credit for families that make less than $85,000. This is more incentive for both parents to go back to work, and it should help working families pay bills. This should be popular for families with younger kids.  I know that when my own kids were young, before child care tax credits, about 1/3 of my net income went for child care.

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Good-bye Captain 11

One man in each century is given the power to control time. The man chosen to receive this power is carefully selected. He must be kind. He must be fair. He must be brave. You have fulfilled these requirements; and, we of the Outer Galaxies designate to you the wisdom of Solomon and the strength of Atlass. You are Captain 11!

Gosh, I got the sad news that Dave Dedrick passed away. That certainly took me back to a childhood in South Dakota where my aftenoon routine consisted of sitting in front of the tv to tune into Captain 11. In those days, we only had 3 tv stations to choose from. There were no 24 hour a day kid’s stations. So a kid’s show with cartoons was a rare treat we had to work into our schedules.

Captain 11 ran for 40 years, making it the longest running kid’s show on television. If you grew up in the KELO-11 area, you certainly have fond memories of this show, and of Captian 11 (Dave Dedrick). In case you did not realize it, because he looked different out of his Captain 11 suit, Dave Dedrick was also the KELO weatherman.

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Why Care About the Clinton Bush Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund

You can just skip this and go right to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund.  As a website owner, my mission is usually to keep people on my own website as long as possible. So please remember us and come back later!

But today, I am sending you off. You can head to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund website and  find plenty of information about this total calamity. In fact, you may have thought you knew what a calamity was, but this may bring new scope to that word.

Just like after watching Hurricane Katrina news, and my own experience with Hurricane Ike, this renews my faith in humanity while decreasing my faith in the power of any government, relief organization to step in and save people fast. But more money cannot hurt. Some prayers won’t hurt either.

From the Clinton Bush Haiti Find Website (See, you could have read this over there.)

The earthquake that rocked the coast of Haiti killed or injured a devastating number of people. Even more were left in need of aid, making this is one of the great humanitarian emergencies in the history of the Americas.

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What is a Baby Boomer Anyway?

We tend to use the term, baby boomer, to refer to middle aged people these days. But what, exactly, is a baby boomer? You may be very surprised to know that this issue generates some debate.

Baby Boom: After WWII, the returning soldiers tended to start their post-war lives. This met an increase in weddings. This lead to an increase in babies. So the baby boom usually refers to the post-war increase in families in the US, UK, Australia, and Canada. There was also an increase in the birth rate in Russia (Sputnik Generation), and in Western Europe. Being an American, I think that most of us tend to think of the baby boom as a US thing, but it really spread over much of the world.

Birth Years of Baby Boomers : Here is where the debate starts. The term has been applied to babies who were born between 1946 and 1964, but this is an 18 year spread. Technically, a baby born in 1946 could grow up and have a child in 1964. So would the offspring of a baby boomer also be considered a baby boomer?

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How to Help Haiti Earthquake Survivors

I found a website with a list of several aid agencies with Haiti Relief Funds. These are well known charities, and you can designation your donation to a particular relief effort. So make sure you designate your contribution to “Haiti Earthquake” if that’s where you want it to go.

Why Give Relief to Haiti Earthquake Survivors

Haiti is already the poorest country in the hemisphere, and they have endured their share of disasters. Some of these have been natural disasters like hurricanes, but many have been political upheavals. And yet this country has also spread a rich culture all over this part of the world, and many immigrants have contributed to the US.

It is tough to imagine the scope of this disaster. Estimates of the current death toll range from a few thousand to a hundred thousand to five hundred thousand. This is hard to imagine, and is certainly worse than anyrecent disasters that we thought were horrible. 

Having been through a hurricane while living in a middle class area of an affluent city (Near Houston), I saw a lot of damage. But after a couple of weeks of inconvenience, life went back to normal. But we were still shocked by the damage, but once the power came back on, we pretty much went back to our regular routines.

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Does Your Government want to help with New Years Resolutions?

OK, that was sort of a title and heading I crafted to get attention. But before you run off, it really isn’t that far off. The US federal government does want to help Americans with some New Year’s resolutions! USA.gov, a website run by the federal government, has information on such a variety of topics that I really am surprised that more of us don’t know about it. For one thing, I am all for having our government spend our federal tax dollars on something useful!

Happy New Year from The USA!

The New Years Resolution Page of USA.gov is here. This contains a variety of topics related to common New Year’s resolutions. Weight loss, quitting smoking, getting out of debt, finding a better jobs, or planning a great vacation are some samples. The website serves as a link between other government websites (state and federal) in order to make a central search location to use for all sorts of questions.

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Do You Have Cheap Meal Planning Ideas?

Do you have any great ideas for simple and inexpensive meals? If you don’t have any ideas, or if you feel as if yours are overused in your home, would you like to get some more. Frugal Mavens is running a contest you may really enjoy. I know that my family is stick of spaghetti, but I still make it once a week because it is inexpensive, affordable, and quick to prepare.

The general guidelines ask for affordable, simple, and healthy meal plans. Beyond that, you can come up with anything that you think other readers would enjoy.  If you have been cooking for a family for years, you are bound to have several ideas. If not, you are bound to learn something.

You can stop by this post to learn about the cheap meal planning tips contest. And you can register for free, and then post your own tips in the comment form for a chance to get rated.  The highly rated meal plans will get a chance to have an entire article published with a link back to their own favorite website!

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