Deep Something

Would Health Care Reform Help You?

Barbara O'Brien — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 23:29:14 +0000

Guest Post: I am thrilled and honored to have a guest post today from Barbara O’Brien. Barbara’s blogging at The Mahablog, Crooks and Liars, AlterNet, and elsewhere on the progressive political and health blogophere has earned her the notoriety of being a panelist at the Yearly Kos Convention and a featured guest blogger at the Take Back America Conference in Washington, DC. I read The Mahablog daily, and am always interested in the thoughtful and provocative posts there, so we are very excited here at Deep Something to have our very first guest post, and we couldn’t be more excited that it’s Barbara.

Many obstacles and stumbling blocks remain in the way of health care reform. The House and Senate bills will have to be merged, and then the House and Senate both will vote on the final bill. We don’t yet know what will be in the final bill, or if the final bill will be passed into law. Passage will be especially difficult in the Senate, where it will need 60 votes to pass. It is still possible that after all this angst, just one grandstanding senator could kill the whole thing.

But just for fun, let’s look at what conventional wisdom says will be in the final bill and see if there is anything in it that will be an immediate benefit to people with mesothelioma cancer and other asbestos-related disease.

It is likely that the final bill will provide additional funding for state high-risk insurance pools. Currently more than 30 states run such pools, which are nonprofit, state-sponsored health insurance plans for people who can’t buy insurance because of pre-existing conditions. The biggest problem with such pools is that, often, the insurance they offer is too expensive for many who might need it. Both the Senate and House bills provide $5 billion in subsidies for state high-risk pools to make the insurance more affordable.

Under the Senate bill, beginning in 2014, private companies would no longer be able to deny coverage to adults with pre-existing conditions, nor could they charge higher premiums for people with pre-existing conditions. Until then, the state high-risk pools could provide some help.

Closing the Medicare Part D coverage gap — also called the “doughnut hole” — is another potential provision that could help some patients with asbestos-related disease. The “doughnut hole” is the gap between the coverage for yearly out-of-pocket expenses provided by Medicare Part D and Medicare’s “catastrophic coverage” threshold.

For example, in 2009 Medicare Part D paid at least 75 percent of what patients paid for prescription drugs up to $2,700. After that, patients must pay for all of their prescription medications until what they have paid exceeds $6,154. At that point, the catastrophic coverage takes over, and Medicare pays for all but 5 percent of the patient’s drug bills. The final health care reform bill probably will provide for paying at least 50 percent of out-of-pocket costs in the doughnut hole.

You may have heard the bills include budget cuts to the Medicare program, and this has been a big concern to many people. Proponents of the bill insist that savings can be found to pay for the cuts, and that people who depend on Medicare won’t face reduced services. But this is a complex issue that I want to address in a later post.

The long-term provisions probably will include many other provisions that would benefit patients with asbestos-related disease, including increased funding for medical research. Although there are many complaints about the bill coming from all parts of the political spectrum, on the whole it would be a huge benefit to many people.

Robo Plow – If You’re Tired of Shoveling

John — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 23:03:55 +0000

I must admit, shoveling snow is not much of a concern when you live in Tampa, but for my many friends in the colder climates further north, here’s a little something you probably wish you had…especially this winter. Here is the Robo Plow, built obviously by a bunch of people with a lot of time on their hands during the winter.

Now, if they’d just come up with one for raking those damned Live Oak leaves. Now that I could go for.

You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

Precious – A Movie Review

John — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:22:14 +0000

Clareece “Precious” Jones is an overweight, illiterate African-American teen in Harlem. Just as she’s about to give birth to her second child, Jones is accepted into an alternative school where a teacher helps her find a new path in her life.

Genres: Drama, Adaptation and Teen; Running Time: 1 hr. 49 min.; Release Date: November 6th, 2009 (limited); MPAA Rating: R for child abuse including sexual assault, and pervasive language.

Starring: Mo’Nique , Paula Patton, Mariah Carey, Gabourey Sidibe, Sherri Shepherd

Directed by: Lee Daniels

We watched this movie on DVD Friday night after seeing Alice in Wonderland and having a quick dinner. Frankly, I wasn’t sure I was up for watching this movie, as I knew it was a very dark tale. To my surprise, this movie was neither as painful nor depressing as the subject matter would imply. In fact, director Lee Daniels’ treatment alternates so fluently between realism, social uplift, and episodes of fantasy that the end result is as much enthralling as it is emotionally draining. First-time screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher does a solid job adapting the 1996 source novel by Sapphire, “Push”, but the strength and honesty of the cast is what makes the film.

We’re now all pretty familiar with the story of Gabourey Sidibe, an untrained actress, cast in the title role. She is able to elicit empathy by giving herself completely to the character, and when Precious breaks down from the weight of yet another seemingly insurmountable development, Sidibe gives the scene a halting honesty. She was definitely deserving of her Oscar nomination. Paula Patton gets to play the Sidney Poitier role of the elegantly transformative teacher, interestingly named Blu Rain, but she gives the too-good-to-be-true character a real sense of passion. As Mrs. Weiss, Mariah Carey brings an audacious toughness to her smallish but pivotal role.

And I see why Mo’Nique got her Oscar. She provides the film a perfect performance. I don’t know where she pulled up those emotions, but she nails Mary with a fury so startling and realistic that it’s impossible to trivialize the source of her villainy. She never compromises the hardness in her character, and her self-justifying monologue is an impressive piece of work.

The cinematography captures perfectly the dark grittiness of the home and street life the author and screenwriter wanted to portray. Each scene managed to pull me more and more into the story, and you can’t help but start to root for Precious and the others in her class who come to give her more of a family than she’s had at home.

It’s still not a fun film to watch, but it’s worth watching to see real struggles portrayed in such an authentic story by excellent actors who nail their parts.

Note: There is a rating embedded within this post, please visit this post to rate it.

Alice In Wonderland

John — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:08:05 +0000

19-year-old Alice returns to the whimsical world she first met as a young girl, reuniting with her childhood friends: the White Rabbit, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, the Dormouse, the Caterpillar, the Cheshire Cat, and of course, the Mad Hatter. Alice embarks on a fantastical journey to find her true destiny and end the Red Queen’s reign of terror.

Genres: Fantasy and Adaptation; Running Time: 1 hr. 49 min.; Release Date: March 5th, 2010 (wide); MPAA Rating: PG for fantasy action/violence involving scary images and situations, and for a smoking caterpillar.

Starring: Johnny Depp, Mia Wasikowska, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway, Crispin Glover

Directed by: Tim Burton

I love Tim Burton and I love Johnny Depp even more, which means I really wanted to love this movie. But alas, it is a unrequieted love.

Favorite Characters

While we love Johnny Depp, it was the CGI creations Tweedledee and Tweedledum that had us laughing the most.

It’s often said a camel is a horse designed by a committee, and having served on lots of committees, I know of whence they speak. Alice in Wonderland is a Tim Burton film designed by Disney fatcats in a boardroom. They spent so much time worrying about selling it as a product that they completely forgot about putting together a half-decent story.

Mia Wasikowska’s Alice has no character arc; she is exactly the same by the end of the film, and her journey is utterly pointless. I came out of the theater wondering if it were just the mediocre script or the director who had failed to meet my expectations. The narrative thrust is so weak that they have to resort to a mostly hollow battle scene in order to keep everyone awake.

Depp, as usual, played his part perfectly. That man can say more with the lift of eyebrow (prominent ones in this film), that most actors in pages of dialogue. The visuals themselves were stunning, and as in Avatar (although I admit to dodging one time), I was pleased that the 3-D effects were used more to immerse you in Wonderland, than to used to startle. However, as beautiful as the visuals were, they just didn’t seem to add to the story, and the story is all about Wonderland. By the end of the movie, I just kept wanting the Rabbit break out into the “I’m Late, I’m Late” song.

All that being said, the movie is probably worth seeing, but I don’t know if I’d worry about paying the extra for the 3-D version, and you might just enjoy it more on DVD when it comes out.

Note: There is a rating embedded within this post, please visit this post to rate it.

More in the Having a Bad Day Series

John — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:01:19 +0000

You’ll recall a brief post last week about a guy who got hit by a car, which knocked him in front a bus, which hit him. No update on his condition, but a few other people have had pretty bad days too.

Sunday a man came to the Largo Hospital with chest pains and numbness in his left arm. I’d head to the hospital too with those symptoms. They admitted him to the cardiac unit, but around 5am Monday morning he decided he just had to have a cigarette. The nurses told him he couldn’t leave, but he insisted. Went outside, and apparently decided to wonder around a bit, and on a dark stretch of the road, a woman in a Suburban, on the way to her early morning Yoga class, hit and killed the guy. Hope the cigarette was worth it.

And the Tribune is reporting this morning that the Dade City Police are investigating a murder. Armando Uribe, Jr. was found dead in the street with a gunshot wound. Uribe had just been released from the Pasco County Jail Sunday after serving a 10 day sentence for driving while his license was suspended.

The BS on Reconciliation

John — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 19:45:39 +0000

Below is a youtube of a segment from Meet The Press this past Sunday in which E. J. Dionne calls out Sen. Orrin Hatch for the Republican’s continuing bullshit about the use of reconciliation to pass things based on a simple majority vote in the Senate. We need to be discussing policy and health insurance reform (or elimination), but instead, all the Republicans can come up with to try to “win” is to run around like Chicken Little complaining that the sky will fall if some Senate procedure is “out-procedured.”

Misdirection on the Polls.

At one point during the interview Hatch claims the polls show that 58% of Americans don’t like the reform bill, “and only a few like it.” Well, sounds me to as if 42% must like it…that’s not just “a few.” In addition, while there is one poll with that result, others show a majority favoring reform, and when the provisions of the Bill are explained to people, they actually like the provisions in the bill. Funny how that works.

The host puts up portions of a Hatch statement in which he says things like:

“would be unprecedented in scope,” - BS meter high-turns out the Republicans used reconciliation to pass the Bush the tax cuts which added $1.7 trillion to our federal deficit. I realize in Congress they don’t have much of a concept of money, but $1.7 trillion to me is pretty unprecedented in scope.
“the havoc wrought would threaten our system of checks and balances” - BS meter through the roof-the system of checks and balances is based on three equal branches of government, each have a check on the other two. What procedures Congress decides to use in how it how it acts on legislation has nothing to do with “checks and balances.”
“corrode the legislative system” – BS meter headed to low earth orbit-lest we all forget (which the Republicans are counting on) there is NOTHING, nada, zilch, zero, in the Constitution about the Senate requiring a sixty vote majority to pass normal legislation. The Constitution does require certain super-majorities in very special situations, but not for passing every-day legislation. This magical sixty vote thing is purely a creation of the Senate, and for those who argue about majority rule, this “super-majority” requirement would seem to fly in the face of that.
“degrade our system of government” -BS meter now on an inter-planetary trajectory-A sitting member of the most corrupt Senate (and government in general) has the temerity to talk about “degrading our system of government?” This is the system has not created a system of state sponsored torture, taken us into a war of aggression against a country that had done nothing to us, has shredded the Constitution with the so called PATRIOT Act. Senator, “have you no shame?”

You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

I just can’t fathom how these people can sit there and lie with a totally straight face. I am convinced they could not and would not tell the truth if that actually favored them.

Crazy Heart – A Movie Review

John — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:13:26 +0000

Jeff Bridges stars in this drama based on Thomas Cobb’s first novel about an alcoholic country singer. The musician’s career is going downhill as he watches his protégé’s star ascend, but his encounters with a journalist (THE DARK KNIGHT’s Maggie Gyllenhaal) might just keep him from hitting rock bottom. Oscar winner Robert Duvall costars and serves as one of the film’s producers.

Genres: Drama, Musical/Performing Arts and Adaptation; Running Time: 1 hr. 51 min.; Release Date: December 16th, 2009 (limited); MPAA Rating: R for language and brief sexuality.

Starring: Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Robert Duvall, James Keane (II), Anna Felix

Directed by: Scott Cooper

We finally went out to see a movie. We’re dying to see Alice in Wonderland, but were not about to see it opening weekend. Indeed, there were the expected wrap-around lines waiting to see Alice. We instead opted for Crazy Heart, and it was worth the ticket price.

I wouldn’t call it perfect, and it certainly wouldn’t be my vote for movie of the year. I think I would probably vote for Jeff Bridges for leading actor honors. Bridges is reserved, charismatic, and raw. Bridges’ 58-year-old Blake is one of the better performances of the year. There are obvious comparisons to to Mickey Rourke’s work in The Wrestler, but this is unique in its own way. Bridges doesn’t overcook the role which would have been easy, he’s effortless and sings quite well. I was very surprised with the singing.

Jeff Bridges inhabits the songs he sings on screen as convincingly and seamlessly as he fits into the shambles of a life and mess of a body that is the film’s protagonist. This musical integrity is important because Bad Blake is one of those disintegrating performers whose art has not faltered, though his life has. The songs he sings are his own, and when he’s on stage, he’s alive. The rest of the time he’s lying, deceiving, or numbing out.

Maggie Gyllenhaal is average in her work. She’s coy with Jean and underplays her, but unlike Bad Blake, her role doesn’t call for it. Jean is a bruised, kindhearted, and devoted mother to her four-year old son Buddy (Jack Nation, as cute as can be), but uneven in forming her character.

Cooper’s direction is very subtle, and while the story doesn’t lend itself to action or even a lot of tension, he does let the story drag. In several scenes, he portrays the loneliness of the road showing Bridges driving his beat up Suburban over long empty roads. Effective, but instead three or four cuts, I got the message after about two of these.

The music was another bright spot in the movie. The song “The Weary Kind,” which is submission for Best Original Song for the Academy Awards, is one of the best songs written for a film in recent years. Delightful lyrics and exquisitely executed, the song is the perfect song for this film.

Updated: I didn’t get this finished yesterday, and now Bridges did get top honors at the Academy Awards last night, so congratulations to him.

Note: There is a rating embedded within this post, please visit this post to rate it.

Some Days It Just Doesn’t Pay to Get Up

John — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 03:49:53 +0000

And you thought your day was bad. An unidentified person in Tampa had about the worst day a person can have. He was apparently trying to cross Nebraska Avenue, one of the busier streets here in town, and he got hit by a car. Now that would be bad enough, but apparently the car knocked him into one of the HART buses. Not surprisingly, he’s in critical condition at Tampa General Hospital. It would be like something out of a cartoon if it happened for real.

Guests Still Here

John — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 01:24:47 +0000

My two cardinals are still in residence around here, and still come and knock on the door most mornings. I went out and got another bag of bird seed yesterday morning. This morning I came through the dinning room and they were enjoying some breakfast, so I was able to get a couple of good photos.

I also finally got around to uploading pictures from the State Fair.

Amelia – A Movie Review

John — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 14:15:10 +0000

After becoming the first woman to fly across the Atlantic, Amelia was thrust into a new role as America’s sweetheart – the legendary “goddess of light,” known for her bold, larger-than-life charisma. Yet, even with her global fame solidified, her belief in flirting with danger and standing up as her own, outspoken woman never changed. She was an inspiration to people everywhere, from First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to the men closest to her heart: her husband, promoter and publishing magnate George P. Putnam, and her long time friend and lover, pilot Gene Vidal. In the summer of 1937, Amelia set off on her most daunting mission yet: a solo flight around the world that she and George both anxiously foresaw as destined, whatever the outcome, to become one of the most talked-about journeys in history.

Genres: Drama and Biopic; Running Time: 1 hr. 51 min.; Release Date: October 23rd, 2009 (wide); MPAA Rating: PG for some sensuality, language, thematic elements and smoking.

Starring: Hilary Swank, Richard Gere, Ewan McGregor, Christopher Eccleston, Joe Anderson

Directed by: Mira Nair

I wanted to see this movie when it was out in theaters, but we never made it. I downloaded it from Amazon, and Lay and me watched it Saturday night. We were both disappointed.

This film had so much on its side. Excellent actors, a fascinating subject, in fact the whole thing reeked of Oscar-Worthy…until I saw it. I can tell an attempt was made at an epic movie, but it falls short.

Swank gives a solid performance as the flying ace. She both looks the part and acts the part very well. I must say that I did not know an awful lot about Amelia Earhart other than the common knowledge about her, but I feel like Swank embodied pretty much what I would expect Amelia to be, and her physical likeness to Amelia remarkable. But the director failed to remind Richard Gere that he wasn’t playing Billy Flynn in “Chicago”, coming across as a shallow opportunist whose emotion for Amelia seemed forced, as he was only in love with money. Ewen McGregor was no less wooden, appearing as just another rich sleazebag in search of a shag. Add in a faint hint of lesbianism, dropped completely no sooner than it was picked up, so why bother? Add in an excessive amount of focus on Gore Vidal, maybe to try and portray Amelia’s suppressed maternal instincts, but again, merely toyed with in the bedroom scene, in which I genuinely thought she was about to break into “whistle a happy tune”!

“Amelia” is a highlights reel of Amelia Earhart’s life, faithfully chronicling all the significant events of the famed aviatrix’s career. However, it is hollow and nowhere is this more apparent than in the depiction of Earhart’s relationships. Or the lack of it. There’s no buildup, no exposition, no sort of character interaction to motivate any kind of bond or love forming between individuals. Things just kind of happen. Amelia falls in love, falls out of love, and falls in love all over again, all without any sort of event or prompt to motivate it.

In fact, that’s the problem of the entire film. Things just happen with little or not buildup or motivation in between. Poignant moments come and go with no warning or conclusion, rendering them meaningless and out of context. It seems almost as though the director Mira Nair tried a little too hard in the wrong direction.

The script fails with the jumping around in time. While this can be an effective technique, it did not work here because we weren’t given queues as to where/when we were in each scene until later in the scene. We were both disappointed in this film.

Note: There is a rating embedded within this post, please visit this post to rate it.

Deep Something

Would Health Care Reform Help You?

Related posts

Robo Plow – If You’re Tired of Shoveling

Related posts

Precious – A Movie Review

Related posts

Alice In Wonderland

Related posts

More in the Having a Bad Day Series

Related posts

The BS on Reconciliation

Related posts

Crazy Heart – A Movie Review

Related posts

Some Days It Just Doesn’t Pay to Get Up

Related posts

Guests Still Here

Related posts

Amelia – A Movie Review

Related posts