We are hosting a town hall on the upcoming health care legislation on Tuesday, July 28, 2009 at Eastmonte Civic Center, 830 Magnolia Dr, Altamonte Springs, FL. The meeting will begin promptly at 6:30pm.

Panelists include: Rick Scott, Founder and Chairman of Conservative for Patients’ Rights (CPR); State Representative D. Alan Hays, District 25; Kenneth J. Miller, MD, Anesthesiology; and Jason Brodeur, Procter & Gamble Account Executive, Healthcare for the Eastern United States.

Rick Scott founded Conservative for Patients’ Rights in February 2009 as a response to Obama’s health care plan. CPR believes that true health care reform centers on 4 pillars of Patients’ Rights: Choice, Competition, Accountability, and Personal Responsibility.

Rick, an attorney by trade has been in the health care industry since 1987 when he founded Colombia Hospital Corporation. In 1997, he left Colombia Hospital Corporation to start Richard Scott Investments, which has stakes in health care, manufacturing and technology companies. In 2001, he founded Solantic Corporation, which operates walk in urgent care centers.

State Representative Alan Hays is a Dentist by trade. He earned his DMD from the University of Florida in 1976. In 2004, he was elected to the State House of Representatives, and was re-elected in 2008. During that time he served as the Vice-Chair of the Insurance, Business, and Financial Affairs Policy Committee, and was a member of the Health and Family Policy Council. In addition, he served on the Full Appropriations Council on General Government & Health Care.

He is currently the Vice Chair of the Committee on Health Quality, a member of the Health Care Council and the Committee on Insurance.

His awards include the Florida Dental Association Representative of the Year 2006, Dr. Lewis Earle Legislative Service Award 2009, Florida Association of Health Plans Appreciation Award 2005, and Crown Council, Humanitarian Award for Dental Service in Third World Countries 1999.

He is a member of the Florida Medical Association Council on Legislation and the Dental Association.

Kenneth J. Miller, MD, is a Board Certified, private practice Anesthesiologist. From 1985-1987 he served as Chairman of the Department of Anesthesiology at Winter Park Memorial Hospital. He received his MD in 1980 from Wake Forest University’s Bowman Gray School of Medicine. Three years later in 1983, he completed his Internship and Anesthesiology Residency at the University of Florida.

He is a member of the Florida Society of Anesthesiology, the American Medical Association, and the Florida Medical Association.

Miller believes: Doctors must set the standard of care, not the government; and patients must remain an equal partner in decisions that affect them.

Jason Brodeur is an Healthcare Account Executive for Procter & Gamble. His territory includes the Eastern United States. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Food and Resource Economics and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Florida. He recently earned a Executive Education Certificate, Negotiation and Decision Making from Harvard University.

Brodeur was appointed to the State of Florida Medicaid Pharmaceutical and Therapeutics Committee by Governor Crist to adjudicate preferred drug list for the 2.2 million Medicaid recipients in Florida, representing over $1 billion in annual spending.

He is also on the Board of Directors of Community Based Care of Seminole County and is a member of the Florida Society of Health System Pharmacists and an active American Cancer Society Volunteer.

CBS News reports that if you choose Obama’s government-run health plan, you may be able to keep your doctor, but your doctor might not want to keep you.

CBS sat down with Cato health care expert Michael C. Cannon to discuss why doctors might be reluctant to accept patients who are insured under the government plan.

From Cato Institute

The explosion of twitter has everyone tweeting these days about something. celebrities, news anchors, congressmen, senators, and even the white house seem to have something to tweet about.

But on twitter, you are not judged by the quality of your tweets but the number of followers that you have. A new website called We Follow tracks the number of followers for everyone who has submitted their tweet feed.

As I was poking around on there I came across some startling revelations that may reveal some insight into today’s culture. We follow ranks the top ten twitterers- regardless of category.

Our president Barack Obama, who thinks that he is the most important man in the world, has 1,623,513 followers and is ranked 6. But Oprah, CNN, Brittney Spears, Ellen DeGeneres are all ranked higher than him. In fact, Ellen has almost twice as many followers with 2,323,281. But she was slightly edged out by Ashton Kutcher at 2,610,810 who is ranked number 1. So I guess Ashton Kutcher punked all of you!

In the news category, George Stephanopoulos is ranked eight with 883,663 followers while David Gregory is ranked 12 with 761,379. Anderson Cooper ranked 24 with 272,951. And Katie Couric again brings up the rear at 49 with 37,614 followers.

The latest Nielsen ratings had David Gregory (NBC) in the lead followed by Charlie Gibson (ABC) and Katie Couric (CBS) bringing up the rear again. That is fairly consistent with their twitter rank. Charlie Gibson was not ranked. Maybe George Stephanopoulos should be anchoring the nightly news. Hmm…something for ABC to think about. Somehow, Katie Couric has more TV viewers than twitter followers. Must be a fluke!

Rush, Hannity, Glenn Beck are not listed and have no ranking.

In the politics category, Al Gore is ranked 2, with 1,156,450 followers slightly behind Obama with 1,156,450. Makes you wonder exactly, how Obama won the last election, since Al Gore has the personality of a tree! John McCain is ranked 5 with 931,603- behind NPR and Time Magazine. But he has more followers than all the nightly news anchors. Martha Stewart was slightly more popular than McCain with 969,514 followers. Mitt Romney is ranked 59 with 12,255 followers- Katie Couric has twice as many followers as him. Hmmm…

Under the blogger category Perez Hilton is ranked 2 with 1,146,482 slightly behind P Diddy Sean Combs who is ranked 1 with 1,388,423.

So what does all this mean? Well, Obama won the presidency with a strong grassroots campaign on the internet- using a variety of social media that was largely ignored by the Republicans. While our party is trying to delve into the arena now- we still have a long way to catch up to get our message out.

The numbers also reveal that politics is not high on twitter users minds. This may just be a reflection of the attitude of voter apathy- or the frustration of voters to effect change. It might also be a result of the sluggish economy- people tuning out politicians and tuning into entertainers like Ellen and Oprah.

But the fact remains that twittering the future. More people are tapping into mobile news with their phones and ipods- especially in our on demand society. The more ways that they can keep in touch with their constituents the better.- The first rule in politics is to go where the votes are- and the sooner that politicians adapt to the new media the more likely they are to appeal to younger voters.

The US has 535 legislators (US House and Senate). As of now, 170 on twitter. Florida is allotted 27 legislators. Out of those 27 only 7 are on twitter. Of those, 5 are Republican. They include:

• Sen Mel Martinez (R)
• Sen Bill Nelson (D)
• Rep Vern Buchanan (R)
• Rep Ander Crenshaw (R)
• Rep Kendrick Meek (D)
• Rep Tom Rooney (R)
• Rep Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R)

Let’s encourage more of our representatives at the state and federal levels to use twitter and other online social marketing sites to keep in touch with their constituents. Tweet the Vote!

All too often we forget what we are really celebrating on the fourth of July. It is not about the celebration itself but the reason for it. It is about the men and women (our founding fathers) who were willing to sacrifice everything for the cause of freedom. And it is about those that made the ultimate sacrifice (our troops) in blood. Today remember all our troops that are in harm’s way around the world and be thankful that they are willing to die so that we may live free!

Lets Say Thanks to one of our soldiers today!

Lincoln, our first Republican President freed the slaves from the oppression of the south. Obama, our first Black President, in the course of a few months has made us all slaves to the government.

It started with the bailouts, then grew to a hostile takeover of the banking system and the auto industry. And the administration isn’t done there. They are planning a hostile takeover of the healthcare industry- which is equal to 1/7 of our economy.

This is not a war on the recession but a war on prosperity. With the spending out of control, Congress is coming up with new ways to tax us to pay for it. They have already raised taxes on tobacco and are considering taxing soda and junk food. But it doesn’t stop there. They are about to pass cap and trade which will be the biggest tax increase ever on the American public. In addition, they are talking about adding a Value Added Tax (VAT)- which is an additional Federal Sales Tax on goods and services.

Currently we have to work 120 days to pay what we owe in taxes. This year – if you started paying taxes on Jan 1- and you worked a standard 5 day work week you would have to work until June 17 to get to your 120 days. While literally 120 is about 1/3 of your year. It would take you about half the year to pay it.

If Congress adds anymore taxes to our already burdened public it would literally add months of more service to the government making us all slaves to the New Republic of Obama.