The Green Party of the United States is putting together a special email to producers  promoting the GPUS speakers on  health care to coincide with the  national opening of "Sicko" this Friday.  I was asked to provide a couple of sentences for this.  Listen to it here.

Michael Moore's new documentary, "Sicko", will open this Friday all over the U.S.  Listen to Democarcy Now's Amy Goodman interview Michael Moore on Sicko here.

The L.A. debut of "Sicko" was held on the streets of Skid Row Monday night.  Michael Moore welcomed hundreds of homeless and low income to come out for free and see his film and he provided free popcorn and soda pop.

The film promises to be an eye opener into health care around the world and how the U.S.'s health care system fares compared to other countries. 

I participated in the Women's Health Rights Honk and Wave organized by Planned Parenthood on Wednesday.  This was in protest to the Supreme Court's recent decision to uphold the Federal Ban on abortion.  Mind you, six white guys have decided what the fate of women's health issues are in this country.  Women, we have been raped.

Here are some photos:

Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret Morning News

Planned Parenthood Protests Supreme Court Ban of Partial Birth Abortions

In Salt Lake, women's rights advocates held signs and rallied against the court's decision to ban partial birth abortions.

Demonstrators say the abortion ruling opens the door to lawmakers to make medical decisions for American women.

The recent ruling is the court's first decision to uphold a federal ban since Roe versus Wade.

This is my green sister, Nan Garrett, who was going to run for President in 2008 but had to choose between her job and campaigning. Survival won.

Here is her Green Party respsonse to the State of the Union:

I am cautiously optimistic after seeing this in today's news: Abortion bill opposed: 52% don't support spending millions on Roe challenge

According to a poll conducted by the Deseret News, a little over half of those polled do not want to spend money on this issue. I am optimistic because it means that folks are thinking now about what the government should be spending money on:
Services and Programs, not personal and moral issues. It's o.k. not to believe in abortion. It's not o.k. to spend millions of dollars taking away a woman's right to have one.

If you read the entire article, you will see that there are lawmakers who won't stop, though and that there are people stepping forward with tons of money to see that the bill goes through and that ensuing litigation is funded.

Where are these people with this money for food for the starving and healthcare for the poor?

It's bad enough that the men of our legislature are making decisions regarding women's reproductive choices for women of our state. Now they are continuing to "put women in their place" by preventing them from other health care needs.

A House Committee killed a bill for healthcare that would potentially prevent a fatal form of cancer in women.

HB358 would have given the Utah Department of Health $1 million to educate females about cervical cancer and immunize girls and young women against it with the new Gardasil vaccine. Bill sponsor Rep. Karen Morgan, D-Cottonwood Heights, said she thought the bill would pass out of the House Health and Human Services Committee.
"Many people are afraid of something new," she said. "I think these are individuals who are against immunization altogether. But this is the first vaccine to protect against cancer."

Upon reading the article, it is clear that conservative lobbyists in this state have had influence over the death of this bill because heaven forbid we provide any kind of education on health care to young girls and teenagers.

They might learn something and that would be (gasp!)unthinkable.

So women of Utah remember your place.

Liberal AND Conservative:

Bush gives State of the Union
Bay Area delegates give Bush's State of Union an 'F'Democrats deplore president's address
Bush Continues to Unite the World... Against Him
Bush Health Proposal in State of the Union Message Won't Make Insurance Affordable
Community conversation: President Bush's State of the Union address
President Bush, State of Union: New Orleans, Not Burma
Bush State of the Union addresses on energy: yada, yada, yada

Reaction to President Bush's State of the Union address

Skeptics say energy proposal unrealistic: Push to use more ethanol finds detractors on both sides of the issue

Minutemen Blast President Bush's State of the Union Address

The Deseret News today has an article about a woman in a wheelchair stopping traffic on a highway to call attention to the lack of health insurance her husband is able to get for treatment of a medical condition. Medicare won't pay for the treatment that he needs.

Police met the woman and her supporters at the intersection of the protest and compromised on escorting her around the intersection with her signs.

I had to cringe, however, at this:

....traffic speeds on Bangerter are too high in early evening hours to ensure Landers' safety and that she would more effectively call attention to her story if she told it to a nearby newspaper reporter.
If she had wanted to stay on the sidewalk and hold a sign, officers said, they had no problem with that.
"I've tried everything else," Landers said with tears in her eyes.

Uh, we all know that the media does not cover everything and when this woman says she has tried everything, I believe her. I'll bet she has written letters and contacted newspapers and this was a desperate measure on her part.

And guess what - it made the news.

Last week I posted a piece on the fact that the U.S. population was expected to hit the 300 million mark any day. Well it has. And Utah has contributed to that growth.

The United States hit the population milestone at about 5:46 this morning, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates. The nation's population clock, online at www.census.gov, was at 299,995,920 at 5 p.m. Monday.
"It's something worth celebrating," said Dan Griswold, director of the Center for Trade Policy Studies at the Cato Institute. "We're a unique nation. We have a large population and a high standard of living. That magnifies our influence."</o>

As if our "influence" needed any more magnifying.
( Read more... )

The first meeting of the Medicaid Interim Committee of the Utah Legislature is Wednesday, June 14, 8 a.m., in Room W135 in the House building. The Medicaid funding for indigent dental care, was not approved in the recent special session.
Read background materials

Here is the proposed agenda:

( Read more... )

It has been 25 years sinces the AIDS epidemic was declared. The UN projects that by the year 2025 31 million people in India and 18 million in China will die from complications associated with AIDS.

A man who suffers with AIDS, Eric Sawyer, has an article published on Common Dreams, What 25 years of AIDS Has Taught Me, where he addresses the lack of a global funding commitment on the U.S.'s part to combat the disease and the lack of information being desseminated to the public.

Sawyer attended last week's United Nations General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS and reports what was......or more significantly, what was not.....accomplished.

According to Utah Policy's Lavaar Web in his "Monday Buzz". Lavaar's piece, "Population Bomb is a Bust", highlights parts of readings on population around the world, the decline of population in Europe and how Utah's high birth rate will one day be an advantage:

One day Utah’s high birth rate will be seen as a significant competitive advantage. We’ll have a workforce when others are lacking.

While the U.S. increases the size of its population with force, the dollars spent on services to support its population is severely lacking, something that many European countries have an advantage over the U.S.

See my post on the numbers of people who die each year as a result of not being able to afford healthcare.

The latest news in the "War on Terrorism" is the NSA Phone Records Confiscation. The reason being given for this invasion of privacy is that it is necessary to combat the war on terrorism. Sadly, many Americans feel that it is o.k. for this violation of rights to occur in the name of "protecting" U.S. citizens from terrorist attacks.

Even more sad is that there are more people who die each year from lack of health care than from terroists attacks. Approximtately three times more people in the United States die each year as a result of not being able to obtain the necessary health care than died in the single terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York on Septebmer 11, 2001.

The Citizens Healthcare Report, a government initiated working group to study and report on health care in America, acknowledges that Health care services are not available to everyone, and millions of Americans can’t afford to pay for health care services even when they are available, and these problems are getting worse.

So are we more at risk of dying from disease and malnutirition.......or from terrorist attacks?
The answer is obvious.

While the regime that is currently at the helm of running the United States focuses most of our money and efforts on combating terrorism and degrading our civil liberties, more and more people are suffering and dying as a result of not being able to access much needed services to sustain a quality of life. Basic human needs are a right outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which the U.S. is a signatory.