LADY IN SHINING ARMOR IS NOW RELEASED ON KINDLE & AMAZON AT:
http://www.amazon.com/LADY-IN-SHINING-ARMOR/dp/B001ALAO7C/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1220982998&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.com/LADY-SHINING-ARMOR-READY-LEAD/dp/1438229712/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1220982998&sr=8-2
Welcome to this blog. I am releasing my book - Lady in Shining Armor - Ready to Lead on Day Zero, shortly. I will post a link to where the book will be available for purchase online at that time.
The aim of this book is to explain to readers why it is important to embrace Hillary Clinton as America's First Woman President. The book profiles twelve women heads of government of countries around the world and the hope is that Americans will use those examples as inspiration and choose Ms. Clinton as the 44th President of the United States of America. Those examples show that when women are trusted by being elected to the highest executive positions of their respective countries, they have risen to the occasion and proven worthy of that trust.
America is a great country that has a proven political system that can be run well by any seasoned politician who has survived this nation's extraordinary vetting process. Any Presidential candidate who has advanced sufficiently in their political party's primary system, will do well if elected to Presidential office, regardless of race or gender. The United States of America is a nation in a fortunate place in history. It is blessed with an extremely stable and well thought out system of government that will generally do well under any President. In fact, it is amazingly true that any incumbent President will be Ready to Lead on Day Zero, on his or her very first day in office.
In addition, US Presidents are unfettered by the need to overhaul various aspects of government in order to propel the country forward towards more progress. They are free to pursue their favorite agendas that could result in changes in areas close to their hearts and that of the majority of voters who elected them. Unlike other countries, such changes are seldom if ever focussed on radically changing the existing social, economic and political fabric of the nation. These efforts at change might be directed at improving the transportation system, the taxation system, the immigration system or the welfare system among others. In other countries, the system of government itself may be at fault, resulting in an urge on part of the incumbent head of government to attempt to try and reinvent the wheel. Those attempts are often disastrous and unwise, but sadly often in need. However, in the case of America, the fact that the core political system needs no change, is an added opportunity for the President to focus their energies on improving the lives of the people. The stability, strength and power of this nation is an important underlying factor. This country practically runs itself!
Hillary Clinton's candidacy is indeed that of a LADY IN SHINING ARMOR, galloping forth to lead the way to a new way of providing affordable, world class health care to all of this nation's citizens. Her candidacy offers hope for reform at an extremely critical and opportune time, when this country's health care system is increasingly becoming out of reach to millions of people. The majority of people in this country who have access to the best health care system in the world are those that are covered by health insurance. Access to affordable, top notch health care is generally available only to those who have membership in group health insurance plans, which are generally provided only by employers. Even independently wealthy individuals without health insurance are at the mercy of an extraordinarily complex pricing system that penalizes individuals without health insurance and rewards members who belong to a group insurance plan. Well to do individuals who are prepared to pay with cash, prior to treatment, are shocked to see that they pay several times more for the same procedure than someone with group health insurance. Such is the nature of this beast.
Hillary Clinton proposes to champion the provision of universal healthcare, with a proposal to introduce what i consider incremental reform within the existing system. By requiring everyone to get health insurance, and mandating the inclusion of people with pre-existing conditions, Ms, Clinton fells several birds with one swoop. Health care is priced differently for people with insurance and for those without insurance. The latter are asked to pay substantially higher prices and are effectively "penalized", because they do not carry insurance. The justification is that uninsured or under-insured patients are a burden to the system because they cannot afford to pay the full costs. Insured patients receive a much better "deal", because their insurance companies have negotiated "contracts", that guarantee discounted prices. If everyone is insured, there is no more incentive or need for health care providers to price their services differently for different people. The overall cost of health care is borne by both healthy and unhealthy individuals and therefore the per person cost will be much lower than it is today under the current system. The net effect will be to drive insurance premiums substantially lower.
Now, before you cry foul over the seeming "unfairness", of the proposed system, consider this. Every state mandates car insurance for every car owner, regardless of whether or not that person has ever caused an accident. I don't see people complaining about that. This may not be a perfect analogy, but it works. Ms. Clinton is not talking about radically altering the current system. In the interest of the general social, economic and political health of this nation (pun intended), she is proposing a system that will ensure the affordability of quality health care by asking everyone to share the cost, regardless of the state of their current health. I think she has correctly interpreted the true meaning of the word "insurance".
