Lower the cost of health care and create jobs at the same time.  The new health care reform bill or a new stimulus plan should allow for the building of prompt care centers across America in small towns and cities.

Larger cities in the country provide these types of clinics, saving the ER's in hospitals for major emergencies instead of those that just can't wait till Monday or the next day.

This would not only provide cheaper service for emergencies, like broken bones, sinus infections, flu, stomach aches, cuts or bruises, etc..., it would create thousands of jobs.

Jobs for realtors, lawyers, lumber companies, electric companies, medical equipment companies,  plumbing equipment companies, surveyors, architects, construction workers, plumbers, electricians, concrete layers. 

Property must be negotiated for, surveyed and razed.  Buildings must be designed and accountants must tally up the costs of building supplies, etc...  Equipment and supplies must be purchased and ordered.  Builders may need places to live while building the centers.  The construction workers, plumbers, electricians and concrete layers are hired to meet the required standards for such a clinic and then to build them.

Each center will require medical equipment, pharmaceuticals, office equipment and furniture.  The stores that provide these items may need to hire additional workers to provide this service.

Each clinic will require office personnel, office managers, nurses and doctors to run it and provide much needed service.

Accountants, bookkeepers and computer professionals will be needed to keep tabs of the budget and payrolls of these clinics.

In short folks, millions of sick people could not only get cheaper health care for those minor emergencies, they could get it a little faster.  Millions of major emergency patients could get a little faster service as well because the ER's in hospitals would be responsible for only those cases.  Thousands of short term jobs would be created to build the clinics and thousands of long term jobs would be created to run those same clinics.

I think this idea could be considered outside the whelm of Health Care Reform bill, and instead written up as a second stimulus plan.

One of the bloggers here at TPM asked a very good question on one of my posts, "why can't Afghanistan be used to launch another attack against the USA?"

Good question, why can't it?  For that matter why can't any nation or even a State be used to launch another attack against the United States of America?

Condi Rice(R) recently said the following:

"If you want another terrorist attack in the US, abandon Afghanistan," she said in an interview with Fortune magazine on Tuesday.

U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak(D) said the following:

We can't keep America safe if we let al-Qaida return

President Hamid Karzai warned

The world must remain engaged in Afghanistan until the country manages to stand on its own feet or ''terrorists'' will strike again,

American Legion National Commander Clarence E. Hill said:

"According to The Washington Post, General Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. and NATO Commander, is warning us that without more forces within the next year, the mission in Afghanistan 'will likely result in failure.' Considering that Afghanistan was the breeding ground for the 9/11 attacks, we cannot allow that to happen,"

What makes Afghanistan so unique?  Why are these people claiming that if we get attacked again the attackers will most likely come from Afghanistan, especially if we walk away from that war.  If we walk away, the terrorists will unite once again and make plans to attack the U.S..

Why couldn't the same possibility hold true with respects to Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Yemen, Saudi Arabia or for that matter, the United States of America itself?

Didn't we just hear about the U.S. Justice Department arresting two men in the city of Chicago for plotting a terrorist attack against a Danish newspaper that published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

Didn't we also just hear about an American convert to Islam that charged with a plot to blow up the court building in Springfield in Illinois state and trigger mass murder.
And didn't we just read about a 19-year-old Jordanian man living in Texas that was arrested  on charges he intended to bomb a downtown Dallas skyscraper.
What about the physicist that recently accused of providing a list of strategic terrorist targets to North African Islamic radicals.

There's also the Sudbury man who was planning to obtain automatic weapons and use these to attack shopping malls.

And there was the three suspects that were arrested in the United States on charges of plotting to set off explosive devices in public places in several U.S. states, the CNN reported.
Couldn't terrorists also be right here in the U.S. plotting to kill others outside the U.S.?  Didn't we just hear about Federal agents arresting seven men in North Carolina for plotting to wage "violent jihad" outside the United States.

This is just a small sampling that were arrested this year in these United States of America. 

Again I say, what makes Afghanistan or Iraq so unique when it comes to plotting the death of thousands?

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration is giving a jolt to the futuristic "smart" electric grid, hoping to more quickly bring America's power transmission system into the digital age.

President Barack Obama, during a visit to a solar energy facility in Arcadia, Florida, is announcing Tuesday that he is making available $3.4 billion in government support for 100 projects aimed at modernizing the power grid. The projects include installing "smart" electric meters in homes, automating utility substations, and installing thousands of new digital transformers and grid sensors...

The $3.4 billion in grants from the government's economic stimulus program will be matched by $4.7 billion in private investments, the officials said. The smallest grant will be $400,000 and the largest $200 million...

The push to essentially bring modern computer and communications technology to the electric grid has been under way for some time but has gained momentum with the prospect of billions of dollars in federal support.

Matt Rogers, the Energy Department official involved in the program, said the 100 projects were selected from 400 proposed...

"This will save or create tens of thousands of jobs,"

Not only is this smart and good for the economy, it's the right thing to do for our future generations.  When it was mentioned that our electric grids would be upgraded with the Recovery and Reinvestment act (stimulus) money, I knew it would give our economy a boost as well as much needed improvements with our system.

Eugene Robinson of Washington Post

By turning from Afghanistan prematurely to launch an elective, unnecessary and ill-advised invasion of Iraq, Bush and Cheney managed to transform one war we were winning into two that we were in danger of losing....

But the decisions on Afghanistan truly are either-or. Obama can decide to pursue a counterinsurgency strategy or a counterterrorism strategy. He can do one or the other -- not both. If he chooses counterinsurgency, he has to send enough troops to make that strategy work. If he doesn't want to send all those troops, he needs to pursue counterterrorism or do something else...

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan who has devised the counterinsurgency strategy, is asking for 40,000 or more additional troops. Obama is right to examine the general's calculations, but it would make no sense to try a middle path and approve, say, a troop increase of 20,000. That would just put more Americans in harm's way without giving McChrystal the resources he says he needs. This game's been going on for eight years. It's time to raise or fold...

We invaded Afghanistan to ensure that the country could never again be used to launch attacks against the United States. That mission is accomplished, and our only goal should be making sure it stays accomplished -- whether the place is run by Hamid Karzai or the Taliban. The counterinsurgency campaign that Obama is contemplating looks like a step onto the slipperiest slope imaginable. It doesn't matter whether the step is tentative or bold.

Sometimes a "war president" has to decide to start bringing the troops home. That's what Obama must do.

I'm sorry Eugene but I have to disagree.  This is not the time to be rushing the troops out of Afghanistan.  You are correct, we've spent 8 years there, you are wrong however in thinking we've given it our 'all' and that Afghanistan will never again be used to launch attacks against us. 

As you pointed out, the war we 'thought' we were winning was suddenly dropped or forgotten by President Bush and Vice President Cheney for a war they preferred to be fighting --in Iraq.

We haven't given half the attention we gave Iraq to Afghanistan, not in troop strength nor politically.  For the past 6 years our troops have been in limbo in Afghanistan, protecting a few major cities like Kabul.  This is not fighting a war, it's policing a city.  It's kind of like having police in downtown Chicago and not training more police officers to help control the violence across the rest of Chicago

I'm guessing because I don't know the details of what's happening over there (we hear very little from you in the media about the actual war - except for the political side of it); but I think perhaps there needs to be enough troops sent over to help protect the other troops, give them reinforcements, to cover their backs - and possibly spread the security around the nation. 

Think about Chicago during the mob days in the 40's and 50's.  If the cops had just gone downtown and ignored the suburbs (which they did in the beginning), they would have never gotten control of Chicago.  Instead, the cops were sent across the city, showing up on the streets of small neighborhoods, giving at least the sense of 'control' - giving those that lived there a feeling of security and in some cases making them feel a little braver.  Because of that feeling, they began squealing on the bad guys to those same cops on the streets.

There needs to be a surge alright Eugene; but not in combat troops, in the training of Afghans to fight for their own country.

Until we have given Afghanistan our 'all', as was done in Iraq, we should not leave.

As for the U.S. political side of the issue;  Can't you just hear the Republican Party's accusations toward the Democratic Party and President Barack Obama if he were to come out tomorrow and say, "Enough is enough, we're leaving Afghanistan"?  

"Be prepared to be attacked again because Democrats are weak on defense.  We warned you", they would say.  Ignoring of course that odds are, we'll be attacked whether we stay or not.

No sir, it's not time yet.  President Obama and his administration must prove they've given Afghanistan their 'all'; then and only then should he announce our withdrawal of troops from there.

TEHRAN, Iran - A team of U.N. inspectors prepared Sunday for their first look inside a formerly secret -- though still unfinished -- uranium enrichment facility that has raised Western suspicions about the extent of Iran's nuclear program.

The inspection tour will provide the world's first independent details of the heavily protected site, carved into a mountainside near the holy city of Qom south of Tehran. It also coincides with the countdown to Iran's expected decision on whether to accept a U.N.-brokered plan to process its nuclear fuel abroad...

First independent details of site?  Wow, I wonder if this would have happened under the Bush/Cheney administration?  PROBABLY NOT, instead, we would have bombed it and killed innocent citizens while doing so. 

Geez, and the media wants to see the CHANGE President Obama has promised?  It's right under their noses -- this is one great example of CHANGE!

Oct. 25 (Bloomberg) -- The economy in the U.S. probably grew in the third quarter at the fastest pace in two years as government stimulus helped bring an end to the worst recession since the 1930s, economists said before reports this week.

The world's largest economy grew at a 3.2 percent pace from July through September after shrinking the previous four quarters, according to the median estimate of 65 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. Other reports may show sales of new homes and orders for long-lasting goods increased.

The fastest pace in TWO YEARS?  Geeh, does that mean that President Obama and the Democrats have done better with the economy in his first 9 months in office then President George W. Bush did in his last year and a quarter?

Yup!  Why, you ask?  The Recovery and Reinvestment (Stimulus) bill that Obama and the Democratic Party passed within in a month of being in total control -- that's why.

Yet we continue to hear the Republican Party and most in the media bickering over how 'slow' the economy is improving after we came very close to having another Great Depression.  Geez, will they ever see the light?  I doubt it.