I think a key issue at the heart of some such of programs is the balance between long term effectiveness and the fierce urgency of now. I agree that the programs she describes would play a very small role in an ideal global health care service, but ultimately what we need more than any specific program is for people to give a damn. Some people have excess resources; we need them to care enough that they are willing to share some of those resources with the rest of the human family. If irrational programs will occasionally inspire people, perhaps they are worth the cost.

I’d like to discuss an example. The organization Partners in Health works in Haiti, and will occasionally fly patients to Boston to receive complex treatments that are not available in Haiti. They call it their Right To Health Care program. One recent patient was a young boy who needed to have a hole in his skull repaired. The flight and the procedure were admittedly expensive; the same amount of money might have purchased many bed nets or vaccines. But for the health care providers involved, the issue at stake was whether they were willing to treat this little boy like a beloved family member, whether they were willing to do whatever it would take to help him be healthy. In this instance PIH chose to respond to the fierce urgency of now.

PIH’s difficult work is possible in part because they have attracted very dedicated staff by telling controversial and emotionally charged stories, and following up with stories of hope and healing. Such acts are not purely metaphysical, they shape PIH programs. PIH has incredible, even enviable support in the communities where they work, in part because community members hear about stories like this little boy’s and they think, “wow, these people must really truly care about us an awful lot.” I also know individuals in the USA who have had the course of their lives changed by this brand of irrationally inspiring dedication. I’ve met people who heard a PIH story like this and decided that they were going to donate what they could to PIH every month from that point on - indefinitely. In my own case, I read of such efforts and decided that I too would become a doctor for the poor. I dare say my contributions to humanity will outweigh the cost of flying one needy child to Boston and performing a pro-bono surgery. I cannot emphasize enough how plausible it is that I might not have come to care, that I might have marched though life without being inspired.

Logistically, economically, such decisions do not make sense. They are irrational. And yet, a great many people ache for that kind of leadership, and to emulate such reckless devotion. I am forced to conclude that there are depths of the human soul which I do not yet understand.

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Does that necessarily mean that Israel does not “desire to completely exterminate a set population” by “causing the death of all of the groups members, or enough of them that the population as defined will not survive for long?” (this is the definition of genocide). Is it possible that Israel is determined to destroy a “set population,” but that the set population includes all violent extremist Palestinian Muslims rather than Palestine as a whole? Quotes like this, from a recent New York Times article, seem to indicate that many Israelis are indeed out to completely destroy a very specific ideological/religious population within Palestine.

�??We do feel bad about it, but we don�??t feel guilty,�?? Mr. Jager added. �??The most ethical moral imperative is for Israel to prevail in this conflict over an immoral Islamist philosophy. It is a zero sum conflict. That is what is not understood outside this country.�??

It could be construed that Mr. Jager believes all of Islam to be immoral, but it is more likely that the zero sum conflict he mentions is about “prevailing over” a specific, violent faction of Islamists who reside in Palestine. To make the argument that this could constitute genocide, one would need to demonstrate that culturally/ideologically/religiously, violent extremist Palestinian Muslims are a qualitatively distinct subset of Palestinians.

Is it possible that an ideological propensity to violence makes this particular population of Palestinians qualitatively different from the majority of other Palestinians who are just terrified and desperate and want to be protected? Personally, I think that when you imply that people who use Islam to justify radical and violent aggression are the same group as peaceful Palestinians or peaceful Muslims in general, you are doing a disservice to peaceful Muslims. Radical violent Islam is sooooo different than the religion and cultural identity of the Muslims I know. As a practitioner of an Abrahamic religion (Christianity), I sometimes feel like I have more in common with peaceful Muslims than peaceful Muslims have in common violent extremist Muslims. Having never been to Palestine it’s easy for me to think of all Palestinians as just one bunch, but having never been to Rwanda I probably would have said Hutus and Tutsis were all just Rwandans until the ethnic conflict started.

The second criteria for genocide, that the group be exterminated by killing of its members, I think is even more clear. Israel publicly justifies bombing the university in Gaza by saying that Hamas was making bombs there. Israel is “taking out” any people who proscribe to the violent ideology and support the violence, whether or not they are soldiers or leaders in any traditional sense.

The argument that genocide is occurring, and Israel’s acts are intentionally genocidal, targeting a specific ideological/cultural group that is a small subset of and dispersed throughout the geographic area of Palestine is important because it forces us to ask an important question. Are there some cultural/religious/ideological groups that we wish would cease to exist (whether or not we condone violent means)? Are there bounds to moral relativism? Can we draw a line in the sand and say this or that line of thinking is poisoned; it must be changed (again, by non-violent or violent means - I would choose non-violent). Is it possible that genocide could be just the violent approach to something that we actually want to happen (don’t know about you, but these thoughts are very unsettling for me).

I’ve been wondering at how many Americans tacitly support what is happening right now in Israel/Palestine. I wonder if it is because many Americans support genocide in this case. They want to see violent religious (especially Islamic) extremism disappear forever and they are willing to condone violence and accept that some, perhaps many non-extremists will be caught in the cross-fire. Of course most would not call it genocide, but I suspect that more Americans support Israel in this conflict because they think that the killing is going to help eliminate religious extremist ideology (I think that sounds like genocide). I think fewer Americans would support Israel if they perceived the conflict solely as part of an endless tit for tat, cycle of violence.

To close, I’d like to suggest one reason why it could be productive to argue that Israel’s actions are genocidal. Right now most relatively uninformed observers would say that Israel is attacking Palestine. When we point out that the nature of this attack does not constitute genocide on the Palestinian people, we mask the possibility that the purpose of this attack is to permanently alter the cultural/religious/social order of the world. If we are not clear that the goal is to change culture, than we too frequently seem to be reduced to understanding the conflict as a brutish tit for tat that says Israel is justified in fighting back. If so, when will the cycle of violence end? And how? An alternative is to step back and admit we want to drastically change the cultural/religious/social order of this part of the world. What tools do we have at our disposal to change culture? I learned of one from our president elect, Mr. Barack Hussein Obama. It’s called community organizing. I know the Gaza strip is dangerous right now, and I daresay community organizing in this region must necessarily be the burden of peaceful Muslims rather than Christians like me (perhaps explaining in part why western powers have failed to promote non-violent social change in this region).

Personally, I feel that genocidal intent is the best explanation I’ve heard of WHY this conflict is happening (I’d love to be proven wrong). Once I understand better why it is happening, it is easier for me to determine what the alternatives are. Ultimately my most important question is, do others come to the same conclusions about culture change and peaceful alternatives when they hear about genocide in this context? Probably not, unfortunately, but I’d love to hear your opinions.

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We�??d like to put together a bridge between mobile phones using phone software like FrontlineSMS or OpenRosa, and OpenMRS.  OpenMRS is a super neat medical records system that is gaining a lot of traction throughout the global south, thanks to an awesome community of developers and implementers, and institutional support from impressive organizations like, Partners In Health, the WHO, Google, and many others. Specifically, our project would enable community health workers in the field to access and interact with the medical records database. This would, for instance, allow them to instantly query the last time a tuberculosis patient had reported taking their treatment medicine. Daniel and I are also very interested in sorting together an OpenMRS module that would �??watch�?? the data going in and out of the database. If a bit of data passed through tagged with, say, �??#emergency�??, it would go to whomever the on-call doctor was. This type of functionality, as far as we can tell, doesn�??t already exist. We think it would be sweet if it did.

Now, most of this project is in the very preliminary stages. With your help, though, and funding from NetSquared/USAID, we can take it to the next step. Here�??s the details:

• Voting started on Monday and will run until Friday December 12th at 5:00 pm Pacific.
• To vote on our application, you must first register.
• Once you�??ve registered, you then have one (1) ballot with up to five (5) votes. You have to vote at least three (3) times.

Our application is called �??Mobilizing Medical Records In Resource Poor Settings�??. We would be very much obliged if you took the time to vote for us and, if you do and leave a comment on this blog post, I�??ll send you a personal thank you.

Also, if you don�??t know who else to vote for, there were a few other projects which caught my eye:

• Providing Business Opportunities Information To Farmers And Producers Via SMS
• QuestionBox - Democratizing Information and News for the Illiterate, Poor and Unconnected
• Building A Sustainable Supply Chain For Portable Appropriate Technology

Thanks for the support!

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(The following is cross-posted at my blog with the Archimedes Movement)
Since the community presenters training last spring I’ve been lucky enough to give a few presentations. The most recent was last Tuesday the 4th (election day!) for a class of nursing students at Apollo College of Nursing. I gave an hour long presentation to a different class at the same school in late August, but I had technical problems and scheduling difficulties, so I didn’t fee terribly successful. I was invited to come back though, this time for a 2 hour lecture on Health Policy, The Archimedes Movement, and Leadership in the health professions.

My powerpoint slides are based on the draft generic presentation that Liz gave us at the speakers training, but pretty extensively modified. Here are a few major differences.

1. I re-arranged the order of the slides so that it all fits into three questions. At the bottom of every slide I indicate which question the slide is addressing, to help them keep track of the overall scheme of the presentation

How did we get here (the broken system)?
What do we really want (our needs, what would a new system look like)?
How do we get there (agree on vision, political tension)?

2. To start, I ask them to give me a list (I wrote it on the white board) of why they want to be nurses. Throughout the presentation I continually refer to these motivators, how they are affected by each issue I talk about (e.g. cost-shifting). A major theme is that EVERYONE has their own unique list of motivators, and we have to understand that whatever solution we come up with WILL be the best compromise of everyone’s motivators, otherwise it won’t be a solution at all. I think this is more personal, and easier for them to apply in their lives than the “I commit to be a citizen first and stake holder second” idea.

3. I use funny pictures of Dr. Quinn medicine woman (from an old TV show), and an old french TB poster to introduce the infectious disease model of care.

4. Dr. Kitzhaber uses an analogy where the delivery system is like a car, it’s top speed is a product of the car, not how you “finance” the car. I’ve switched to a hover craft analogy. I say:

I just finish talking about the American frontier in which the infectious disease model of care was established

I transition by saying imagine an American frontier without roads. Without roads, a hover craft would be great - you can go 30 miles per hour over all kinds of terrain.

Now imagine an America with roads - on the highway your stupid hover craft only goes 30 miles per hour, it doesn’t have a sharp enough turning radius, stop time, or covering/protection on the top to even be safe when all the traffic is concentrated on these roads.

What we really need is cars that can go fast, stop quickly, turn quickly, and have protection and padding in the case of these new kinds of accidents (like colliding with other vehicles) that only happen in a world with roads.

Here’s why I like it better:

It’s comical - everyone laughs but I think the hilarity of saying politicians are calling for “universal hover crafts” when they should call for electric cars is instructive.

It emphasizes that the reason our health system has become inefficient is that the context of care has changed - we now can and do treat chronic diseases etc.

It emphasizes that the infectious disease model (hover crafts) is qualitatively different than a chronic disease model (cars). The hover crafts (infectious disease) are so different from what we need today that they aren’t even safe anymore.

It makes a solution seem more tangible. Switch from hover crafts to cars jives better with switching from infectious disease model to a triple aim-centric chronic disease model better than thinking about a car that just needs to go faster.

5. I included slides on Barack Obama’s and John McCain’s health care plans, emphasizing that both are talking mainly about financing rather than changing delivery models (I base it on Dr. K’s October 16th video). I also include a quote by John McCain saying that the solution to lowering costs is to deregulate health care like we did with banking (because it turns out banking isn’t doing very well with extreme/radical deregulation in the long term).

6. Finally, this lecture introduced these nursing students to a whole semester on the topic of leadership, so we discussed specifically how health care providers can be leaders. I was pleased that someone had said a motivator was “scrubs = respect.” I argued that the reason people respect professionals who wear scrubs is that they expect them to take responsibility in difficult situations. I even encouraged them to show up to a town hall or the capital in Salem wearing scrubs; it’s harder for legislators to ignore advice about our health system if it comes from someone wearing scrubs.

Some of the slides won’t make very much sense without me explaining them individually, and my notes are certainly incomplete, but I would be happy to answer an email if you have any questions.

I’m getting to the busiest part of my semester now, so I don’t know if I’ll be doing any more presentations until late December. I’ve really enjoyed them though, and I’m excited to have two more talks schedules for January. Let me know if you find any more opportunities!

cheers
Isaac

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Today thousands of bloggers will unite to discuss a single issue - poverty. We aim to raise awareness, initiate action and to shake the web!

For my part, I’d like to let you know about an organization called Village Health Works. They do amazing work in Burundi, a small country in east Africa. They work in a small village called Kigutu. VHW and the people of Kigutu definitely have their work cut out for them; the 2006 World Bank statistics peg Burundi as the poorest country in the world and most Burundians are not able to access effective medical care.

Where there is health, there is hope, is the VHW motto. It pretty well sums up my opinion of medicine, and captures why I want to be a physician. It’s about using medical science, collegiality, empathy and entrepreneurship to offer health and hope to people who would otherwise go without. That’s why I hope to join my good friend Joey in Burundi, and work with VHW sometime after I graduate.

If the VHW cause speaks to you, please check out the powerful slide show they recently put on their website, and consider pitching them a few bucks to help with the wonderful work they do.

And if you are interested in more Blog action Day stuff, check out their website, or my friend Daniel’s blog action day post.

cheers

Isaac

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In recent weeks, several prominent conservatives have challenged Illinoise Senator Barack Obama’s “Full-Blooded” Americanism. Their apparent argument: only an American who was raised in America by 100% American parents is able to fully understand what it means to be American. Peggy Noonan writes in the Wall Street Journal,

Hillary Clinton is not Barack Obama’s problem. America is Mr. Obama’s problem…[H]as he ever gotten misty-eyed over… the Wright Brothers and what kind of country allowed them to go off on their own and change everything? How about D-Day, or George Washington, or Henry Ford, or the losers and brigands who flocked to Sutter’s Mill, who pushed their way west because there was gold in them thar hills?…

Lucius Malfoy John McCain carries it in his bones. Mr. Malfoy McCain learned it in school, in the Naval Academy, and, literally, at grandpa’s knee….

Mr. Potter Obama? What does he think about all that history? Which is another way of saying: What does he think of America?

In an election characterized by unusual activity among youth, such sentiments are occasionally expressed more bluntly by young voters. Student Draco Malfoy recently was recorded as saying “No one asked your opinion, you filthy little Mudblood” to Hermione Granger, a fellow student whose parents were born outside of the wizarding world America.

The Harry Potter Super Serious Politics wiki provides an explanation of this term:

“Mudblood” is a derogatory term for a Muggleforeign-bornwizard or witch citizen; that is, individuals with no wizarding American parents or grandparents. There does not appear to be any difference in the magical power judgement or character of Muggleforeign-borns compared to those who are pure-blood or half-blood, but those prejudiced against Muggle foreign-borns consider them to be of “lower breeding” or worth, and undeserving of magic citizenship. The term implies that the individual has ‘dirty blood’.
Many older wizarding , elitist political families place great emphasis on “blood purity” and reject association with Muggles foreigners andMuggle foreign-borns. The notion is foremost in the minds of Dark Wizards, Death Eaters, and other followers of Lord VoldemortKarl Rove. It is possible that some well-meaning pureblood families espouse this prejudice as well, but to a less virulent degree.

The plight of these so called “mudbloods” in the wizarding world United States may in fact be worsening. Two resolute Democratic analysts describe the situation:

Remus Lupin: “Muggleforeign-borns are being rounded up as we speak.”
Ron Weasley: “But how are they supposed to have �??stolen�?? magiccitizenship? It�??s mental, if you could steal magicAmericanism, there wouldn�??t be any Squibs people who want American citizenship but can’t get it, would there?”
Remus Lupin: “I know. Nevertheless, unless you can prove that you have at least one close wizarding non-elitist American relative, you are now deemed to have obtained your magical power citizenship illegally and must suffer the punishment.”

Fortunately, Presidential hopeful Barack Obama is in fact near relative to several patriotic and well respected Americans. He has two white grandparents from Kansas; his grandfather fought in WWII, and his grandmother worked on a bomber assembly line. Obama was later born to a white teenage mother, and his father left while Barack was just two years old. He can also trace his family tree back to a more distant relationship with Vice President Dick Cheney, and even as far back in America’s history as George Washington. Indeed, under serious scrutiny, it seems Barack’s biography may in fact be one of the most poignantly and thoroughly American stories of any Presidential hopeful since Harry Truman.

Nonetheless, critics still choose to highlight Obama’s ties to family outside of the wizarding world America. Being a decendant of some patriotic Americans, or “half-blood” is apparently not enough, as conservatives are increasingly calling for “pure-blood”. Columnist Kathleen Parker writes:

Full-bloodedness is an old coin that’s gaining currency in the new American realm. Meaning: Politics may no longer be so much about race and gender as about heritage, core values, and made-in-America. Just as we once and still have a cultural divide in this country, we now have a patriot divide.
�?�Who ‘gets’ America? And who doesn’t?…It’s about blood equity, heritage and commitment to hard-won American values. And roots.
Some run deeper than others and therein lies the truth of Josh Fry’s political sense. In a country that is rapidly changing demographically — and where new neighbors may have arrived last year, not last century — there is a very real sense that once-upon-a-time America is getting lost in the dash to diversity.
We love to boast that we are a nation of immigrants — and we are. But there’s a different sense of America among those who trace their bloodlines back through generations of sacrifice.

While these remarks may seem politically motivated to some (they must be referring to the father who didn’t raise him, or to the 4 years he spent in Indonesia, or implying that Hawaii is another country), they are certainly rooted in sentiments held deeply by many Americans. Bridging the gaps between Muggle foreign-borns, half-bloods, and pure-bloods may even be the challenge that defines the next great chapter in the American Story.

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originally uploaded by Isaac on I Can Has Cheesburger.

I just made my first lol cat. Check it out…
vote it up so it will get more views on the i can has cheesburger site

Update: My friend Liz just told me about www.yeswecanhas.com. Awesome!

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I think we have a brilliant mission statement:

The mission of the Archimedes Movement is to create a new space for civic engagement outside our traditional legislative and governance structures to advance solutions to the common problems we face �?? starting with the crisis in the U.S. health care system.

But it doesn’t say what we actually do. It is the kind of visionary, 30,000 foot high mission statement that always makes people ask “so what are you doing to achieve that mission, what is it that you guys actually do?” This doesn’t mean it is a bad mission statement, it means we need a mission execution statement to explain exactly how we will execute our visionary mission statement. Last June our mission execution statement was as simple and persuasive as our mission statement:

In an extensive grass-roots process that has engaged thousands of Oregonians, we created Senate Bill 27, the Oregon Better Health Act. This bill contains a blue print for national health care reform, starting here in Oregon. We are currently working with legislators and special interest groups to rally the votes we need in the Oregon legislature to pass this awesome bill.

When SB 27 didn’t pass during the summer legislative session, our mission execution statement deflated in a big way, and we haven’t developed a very good one to replace it.

We have a speaker training soon, and a member meeting scheduled for May. We have set the goal of having a concrete mission execution statement ready for speakers before the upcoming speaker training. I would like to help speed that effort along, so I offer a few potential mission execution statements that we can all discuss.

When people get sick and die because they don’t have health care, they are the victims of a moral crisis in our nation. What most people don’t realize is that these sick people are only a fraction of the victims; we are also victimizing our children and their children because our health care system has such an inefficient structure that it is bankrupting our entire nation.

Right now our members are meeting up with local chapters, speaking in their communities, canvassing, tabling at public events, writing and engaging their legislators, and knocking on doors to educate people about these future victims. We are not doomed to ignorance or shortsightedness, we can do better. We can fix the sad structure of our health care system if we work together.

Or this mission execution statement:

When people get sick and die because they don’t have health care, they are the victims of a moral crisis in our nation. What most people don’t realize is that these sick people are only a fraction of the victims, we are also victimizing our children and their children because our health care system has such an inefficient structure that it is bankrupting our entire nation.

We are currently lobbying Oregon State Representative Mitch Greenlick, asking him to make modest changes in his proposed Hope Initiative so that we as an organization can support it. If we are successful, we will engage Representative Greenlick, other legislators, and thousands of Oregonians to pass this initiative in Oregon, and lay the foundation for health care reform in Oregon and the nation.

I think the first part is true to the Archimedes Movement, and to Dr. Kitzhabers most recent video “The Unfinished Business of the Baby Boom Generation.” I also think it is necessary to highlight the plight of future generations, because if we only care about offering our current broken system to more people, then it be more logical to just campaign for Senators Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, both of whom intend to institute universal access to some kind of health care in the US. This frame of caring for future Americans, this perspective is what makes AM very important and very, very unique as a health care reform effort.

The second part is way more up in the air, and will change more as we go along.

Please discuss. Tell us all what you think.

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On Friday the 29th, leap day, some members of my a cappella group and I did a benefit show called Barackappella at my college in Portland, Oregon. It was so much fun, I wanted to share the story with you.

I support Barack Obama. I am very happy about the phenomenal voter turn out and political participation his campaign for the presidency is inspiring, and I am so excited about what I believe he will do as president. One of the many things I like about Obama is that he inspires action among really diverse groups of people. He inspires different people in different ways, but a lot of us love his speeches. A few weeks ago a group of famous artists put portions of some of his speeches to music, and made a very cool video called Yes We Can. Millions of people have watched it at the original site and also on YouTube, where it was re-posted.

I cried the first time I watched this video, and I know I was not alone. It is so nice to hear a “We” instead of an “I”. It is so nice to be so proud of a person who represents our country as a senator, and who I believe will be our President. Words do matter. I feel empowered when I say “Yes I Can,” and I feel even more empowered when I feel connected to something large enough to say “Yes We Can”. I believe more empowerment and civic engagement would be great for our country, and our world.

Just days after first watching this video, some friends and I wondered if we could arrange an a cappella version. I was already in an a cappella group at my school called MoMo and the Coop, and I knew that most of the other members were also Obama supporters. Long story short, most members of our group and another friend decided to do a benefit concert, and to call our concert Barackappella. Our performance was one of many “Leap for Change” events nationwide. About eighty people attended, including some of MoMo and the Coop’s fan base, and many Obama supporters we had not seen before. Some in the audience were much younger than me, and others could have been my grandparents. The video above is our version of Yes We Can, we also posted videos of the seven other songs we sang that night.

I am the guy with pink pants in the video, in case you were curious. I hope you enjoy it, it was so wonderful for me. By the end of the song my normally confident voice was quivering - definitely a symptom of my strong emotions, not stage fright. The audience really loved it, but I cherish most the proud and excited expressions of my friends who helped build this version of Yes We Can. Thanks guys.

The original Yes We Can speech was phenomenal, and the Yes We Can video is probably a lot more impressive musically, but I think our project is special. We are not famous or powerful, I think we are an interesting bunch, but all things considered we are ordinary Americans. But, we are participating in this movement in a way we would not have for any other politician since we were born. We are participating in our own way because a very inspiring person told us that ordinary Americans could do extraordinary things, and now our YouTube video is getting an awesome ton of views.

It’s been 24 hours since we performed (to the minute…as I write this), and we have already received some pretty awesome press. The Oregonian covered the event in an article that hasn’t been published yet. The Youtube video already has over 300 views and a bunch of great comments. The site that originally published the Yes We Can video linked to us along with other Dip Inspired projects. We have already received a request to perform this song in other parts of Oregon, and I hope we will. I am so excited. I would like to thank Jon Wash (red shirted guy in video)et al. for arranging this piece, Ben Brysacz (leader of Lewis & Clark students for Barack Obama) for helping promote the event, the lovely audience, Wil.i.am (main creator of the Yes We Can video), and Barack Obama, for inspiring all of us. If you hear of any press/publicity that I have not mentioned in this blog, please do leave a comment to let me know. If you like this story, please post it to your Facebook profile, blog, del.i.cious, etc. Please send us an email at momoandthecoop [at] gmail [dot] com for questions or performance requests.
cheers

Update: We are now approaching 50,000 views on YouTube and more than 20 comments on my blog here; we really love that people are enjoying the video. Our YouTube fans are leaving some really nice comments, and it looks like we will definitely continue to work on this song, and plan on performing again. A few people have even suggested that we try to sing at the Democratic National Convention. I think people really like that we are just a group of relatively ordinary folk being part of something extraordinary. People seem to be enjoying our efforts more because we are less famous, and closer to the grassy roots - that’s pretty different from traditional campaigns isn’t it? What do you all think? DNC?

Update II: Barack the Vote! Over 65,000 views and we recently performed again at a Barack the Vote rally at Lewis & Clark College. I think Obama is more than popular enough to win Oregon, our great challenge right now is registering voters. I grew up in conservative central/eastern Oregon, and I now attend one of the most progressive schools in progressive Portland Oregon. The Obama campaign is really the first time I’ve been able to talk with friends from school, friends from home, and family, and everyone is excited about the same thing. This movement for change has captured the attention of a very broad swath of Oregon’s great political diversity, and so now we really just need to focus on getting everyone registered to vote (due to Oregon’s mail in ballot, you must be registered by April 29th, 20 days before the actual primary, find more info on registering to vote here).

We were also honored to have Congressman Earl Blumenauer speak about why Obama inspires him. After it was all over we had pizza and doughnuts with the Obama logo on the frosting. It was a fun and I think successful event. Thank you so much everyone for encouraging me and my group to keep being part of the Obama movement.

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When I began researching presidential candidates, I thought health care would be my top issue, but sadly all of the candidates are being more pragmatic (in terms of getting elected) than visionary on this issue. Obama or Clinton health plans would continue to fund health care by mortgaging the nation, and hoping that my generation will be able to pay it off. The NYT op-ed argues that Clinton’s plan is much more affordable than Obama’s, but the difference is a pittance relative to the total sum we will spend if our current system is forced to accommodate the baby boomer demographic as they age. Both plans would solve the issue of access fairly well. Neither would begin to address the looming financial crisis.

I’m going to base my voting decision on these candidate’s more substantive differences, like fund raising ethics, propensity to bridging dogmatic/party devisions, and the way they inspire ordinary people to do extraordinary things. No current Presidential candidate will create a sound and sustainable health care system, unlesss We demand it of them. However, a certain kind of President is more likely to help us in our work towards a sustainable health system and economy (not accepting money from lobbyists = less beholden to fiscal stakeholders that oppose reform, less partisan = less political gridlock, inspiring average Joe = better for the grass-roots efforts that will be needed to fix health care).

I’m voting for Barack Obama. I think he will move our country in the right direction, even though his platform, as it stands, would not solve our health care financial crisis. The prospect of tens of trillions in unfunded Medicare/Medicaid liability still scares me terribly, so I’m working with the Archimedes Movement instead of pretending that any of the current presidential plans is sufficient. I think Clinton is a stronger candidate than we’ve had in a while (at least since the last Clinton), Obama is a whole lot more exciting, but when it comes to health care, We Can Still Do Better.

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