Saturday, November 30, 2013

14 years ago Phillip Morris Fight Against Hunger began. In 2012, this video was made to express the continued need of Americans.

In the May 14, 2000 edition of "The New York Times Magazine" Lewis Niblack was featured as an example of an American that needed good food to live his senior years in wellness.

Hunger is not new to the USA. What is new is the withholding of vital benefits to return dignity to those unable to provide all the food their families need.

Mr. Lewis stated as the headline of the ad,... 

"Dignity ... is life without hunger."

As one of the growing number of homebound seniors, his daily struggle to get nutritious food limited his cherished sense of independence. Thank to local grants from "Senior Helping" initiative created as part of The Phillip Morris Fight Against Hunger, Lewis and thousands of hungry seniors across the country are no longer kept on waiting lists by their neighborhood meals-on-wheels programs. Now that the wait for food is over, Lewis has regained his self-sufficiency. And with it, his sense of dignity...

On Thanksgiving Eve...

...a dear friend stated the food pantry where she volunteers was nearly empty of anything on their shelves. They had a few frozen turkey breasts left and some fresh vegetables brought that morning by a local organic food market. But, she said they apologized to the last three people as they received their share of the food banks remaining stock, including one wearing a Burger King uniform as she just got off work and stopped before going home to feed her family.

True story.

Taking it offline for maintenance was a smart thing to do.

The website has become such a huge focus of political fervor it doesn't have a chance. If hackers can get into secure government sites who is to say this one is immune. I actually believe computer access, while considered a CONVENIENCE, isn't at all the way to go. I think the application should be on paper, scanned into a secure data bank and shredded.

There can be secure computer sites for storage without any connection to the internet. Every computer in the world is not connected. File the scanned paper copy with the same's income tax return and leave it there in case there is fraud. That is the way it should be handled.

Was it Friday I heard a journalist state he called to apply and found out nine different options for his family, then asked the telephone consultant if the information he provided would be saved to the site for future reference and subscription and she stated yes. He then went back to find his information and it wasn't there. So, now the telephone consultants are also suppose to be secretaries. I don't think so. The government isn't their private secretary nor is the government interested in commercial application of their information. 

I think the entire process at this point focused on customer service in a way that isn't applicable to government use of the information. A person is suppose to find options for health care, find a subsidy and then subscribe. It isn't Amazon or any other website interested in marketing and preserving information without the permission in order to market on an individual basis. It is nonsense.

I want a full investigation to the monies spent on this venture and why it didn't happen. There was no loyalty to it's outcome until there were complaints. Typical. I think there is a lot of politics behind the scenes no one will admit to. As a matter of fact if there was failure right from the beginning in choosing the contractor that speaks eons to it's outcome.


WASHINGTON
Sat Nov 30, 2013 5:26am EST

(Reuters) - A crucial weekend (click here) for the troubled website that is the backbone of President Barack Obama's healthcare overhaul appears to be off to a shaky start, as the U.S. government took the HealthCare.gov site offline for an unusually long maintenance period into Saturday morning.
Just hours before the Obama administration's self-imposed deadline to get the insurance shopping website working for the "vast majority" of its users by Saturday, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced that it was taking down the website for an 11-hour period that would end at 8 a.m. EST on Saturday.

It was unclear whether the extended shutdown of the website - about seven hours longer than on typical day - represented a major setback to the Obama administration's high-stakes scramble to fix the portal that it hopes eventually will enroll about 7 million uninsured and under-insured Americans under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare....