Thursday February 25

Lisa started the show today announcing that the focus would be on the Health Care Summit currently under way in Washington. President Obama decided he would bring together leaders and choice representatives from the Senate and the House to a roundtable discussion and talk about what can be agreed upon and and what will have to be changed. Lisa said that she is going to be playing some clips from the summit and she invited listeners to call in and give their opinion. She feels it is important for the people to give their opinions right along with the opinions of our leaders.

Some of the things discussed during the summit have been malpractice insurance and what Texas has done to sort of bring back doctors to that state, and also the deficit.

Lisa then began to play some audio clips from the summit.

Audio Clip #1
President Obama: "The federal budget and state budgets, business budgets and family budgets are all going to be gobbled up by this thing, so I hope that in fact that we have the courage to make some of these changes".

Lisa then played a couple more clips from the summit, stating that Obama's point was that the bottom line is that while we complain and carry on that our federal deficit is bankrupting our children and our children's children with generations of debt, the argument is that if we do not get control over our entitlement programs that we can never in fact get control of our debt. Lisa thinks that one of the main things that we the people need to grapple with is: What is it that we are willing to give up in order to get?

Lisa then plays a couple of audio clips from Tom Coburn congressman from Oklahoma and one of the only former practicing physicians in the house or senate.

Audio Clip #2
Congressman Tom Coburn: "..And that is we get stuck in the idea of treating the symptom instead of the disease",
"If we got together and fixed fraud we could cut health care by 7.5% tomorrow"
"So what we ought to do is do the Willy Sutton plan, we ought to go to where the money is".

Lisa agrees that a lot of the way Medicare, Medicaid, and other government programs are administered are full of inefficiencies and red tape, and the time and money spent to unravel that is something that none of us look forward to. But Lisa believes that most people would agree that it is far better to deal with private enterprise than some government program, with the exception maybe of our health insurance companies. And therein lies the rub.

Lisa then played a couple of clips featuring Lamar Alexander regarding the increasing and current astronomical cost of malpractice insurance in this country for OB GYN doctors. Lisa stated that she personally knows doctors who no longer practice obstetrics and gynecology because they cannot afford the $300,000 per year insurance premiums. Mr. Alexander also said that he believed that the approach to the Health Care Crisis is to sit down and start with a blank piece of paper. Obama put the nix on that idea pretty definitively. Also the process of reconciliation was brought up numerous times.

Going to break, Lisa announces that she will lighten up the conversation a bit with a report from the Olympics in Vancouver later and then further discussion on the Health care summit from Washington. She will also have tickets to give away.

Back from break, Lisa switched gears and welcomed her Olympic correspondent Mr. Crai Bower. Mr. Bower said that the weather has not been great, and there have been some visibility issues for the spectators and cloud issues. Lisa wanted to know what the big stories were in Vancouver, what everybody was talking about, and who the heros and the villians are? Mr. Bower said that the real story is how after the games Canada will be pulling back their support going forward. Lisa wanted to know why that is and Mr. Bower thought that it had to do with economic realities and the fact that in the mind of Canada the Olympics is their showcase this year because it was in Canada.

Lisa asked for Mr. Bower to clear up for her audience exactly what happened with the speed skater who was told by his coach to take the wrong lane and ended up disqualified from the event, costing him a gold medal. He explained that for 3 of the 4 laps around the stadium the skater takes the lane marked "Lap" and that on the 4th time around they are supposed to take the lane called "finish". The Dutch coach made an error and didn't send the skater to the finish lap and he was disqualified.

Commercial Break

When Lisa came back she reported that the Wall Street Journal was reporting that the final medal count might come down to the event known as "Curling". Mr. Bower talked about how captivating and popular the sport has become. He said it is sweeping the U.S. right now.
Lisa asked Mr. Bower about figure skating and he said that the big story in Canada right now in the figure skating realm is the commentator who had made fun of Johnny Weir and his sexual orientation. In Canada any kind of disparaging remark about one's sexual orientation is taken very seriously. Canada is considered the most tolerant country in the world with regard to ones sexual orientation, offering its people complete marital rights to gays and lesbians.
Mr. Bower then said that the match-up this evening with the USA and Canada women's hockey teams is something he hopes that NBC will cover. He believes they are the best two teams out there due to Canada and the US's University system and title 9.
Lisa asked if he knew Tammy Dryden and he thought the name sounded familiar, so Lisa explained that she had met Tammy at the Connecticut School of Broadcasting several years back. Tammy had been part of the Gold Medal women's hockey team in Salt Lake City. She decided she wanted to become a sports broadcaster and so she and Lisa ended up in class together.
For more information and to read Crai Bower's blog you can go to www.skiresorts.com.

Commercial Break

Coming from break Lisa mentioned that although the temperature is near 40, there is some talk of very treacherous weather to come. Stay tuned to WSTC/WNLK for updates.

Lisa also wanted listener "Joy" who had called in and won tickets last week, to call back in so they can get her last name. There will be a problem at will call without it.

Then Lisa gave today's trivia question: "What was the name of the woman credited with bringing birth control and birth control rights to America?"
She asked listeners to call in and answer the trivia question to win a pair of tickets to the local production of "The Vagina Monologues". These tickets are worth $70.00!
Jane Green will be there as well as Dani Shapiro, and other well known names from the area.

Lisa then went into her part of the show known as "News stories you may have missed". The first story came from the middle section of The New York Times. The story was about the police officer who shot and killed Travis the Chimp in Stamford. The policeman gave his own news conference on Tuesday and talked about how traumatic it was for him to have to kill Travis. He had known the chimp personally for 15 years. The city of Stamford paid for all of his mental health bills. Lisa then said that there is actually a bill in Hartford right now that would make it mandatory for mental health bills to be paid for any officer having to kill an animal in the line of duty. Lisa can't believe we actually need to have legislation for this. Lisa believes that we need no more statutes to deal with things like this, but that we can follow common law in cases.

Commercial Break

When Lisa returned from break, she announced that President Obama was making closing remarks at the Health Care Summit, ending a very candid, intense and thoughtful discussion today. She believes that Democrats and Republicans both had a chance to give their point of view. Some of the more important points of the summit were, do we have a commitment to insuring all Americans? Should we as Congressman offer the rest of the country what we get as Congressman? If we should, we should do it now and not wait. And if we shouldn't then why? Why aren't all Americans entitled to what we have?

During the summit Rep. Eric Cantor (R), was chastised by President Obama for bringing the entire 2000 page health care bill into the meeting.

Lisa then said that she wanted to play more audio clips from the summit and began with John McCain audio in which he says that both he and Obama during the campaign had promised change in Washington, but that unfortunately this health care bill was not done in that fashion. To which President Obama stated that the election is over. Mr. McCain said he is reminded of that everyday.

Lisa said that although they had received calls from listeners during the break that no one had given the right answer yet, so she is going to let it ride through the next break. She also said that her listeners are very smart people, and that someone will call with the correct answer.

Next Lisa played audio clips featuring speaker of the house, Nancy Pelosi. Her audio clip was summed up by Lisa as being along the same line as Charlie Rangle, which is Americans are not so much interested in the process as they are in the result.

Other audio was played by Rep. Hoyer talking about the lack of transparency. Not until today has the American people had a view into the discussions.

Lisa wanted to ask a question to her listeners "What is wrong with your status quo right now? Because all we keep hearing about is how unhappy everyone is with their health insurance. She asked listeners to call in and tell her about their own "war story". She then told her own personal story of dealing with her health care. She was happy with the way she was able to in 10 minutes secure an appointment with one of the most prestigious surgeons at Yale. She also said that the way you find the "best" doctor is to ask your own doctors. Ask your internist, your dermatologist, you general practioner and when you start getting the same name over and over you'll know. Don't forget about asking about a surgeon's hands.

Commercial Break

When Lisa returned she had a caller named Anita who was able to answer the trivia question correctly. The answer was Margaret Sanger. Lisa shared some interesting facts about Mrs. Sanger, including the fact that her mother had had 18 pregnancies and 11 births in her life. Ultimately she died of cervical cancer and tuberculosis. She was an activist who risked a lot, including violating the Comstock law regarding obscenity of that time, to get information to women about avoiding pregnancy.

Lisa then shared that she at times like everyone else gets sick and tired of the health care debate. Sometimes we all want to turn our heads and cover our ears to it, but it's not going away and we are going to have to face that and deal with it. It affects every one of us. We are going to play more audio when we return and she invited listerners to call in.

Coming back from break Lisa said that she had seen Harry Reid outside the capital talking to the press and saying that President Obama was the most patient man ever, and that the Republicans simply went off of their talking points but that it didn't matter because he and the rest of the Democrats were going to get something done regardless.

Lisa explained that there is some other news going on right now including Bernie Madoff's son and wife have changed their last name for their children to avoid the stigma that is attached to Madoff. They will now be known as Morgan. From Jews to Wasps in one fell swoop! Lisa agrees that this is a good idea. The children are innocent victims.

Another story that comes from the Washington Post, is that although the Obama administration said they were going to create a consumer protection agency to oversea and regulate Wall Street, that instead of creating a whole new agency they would be fine with having a regulator inside another agency like the treasury dept.

Next Lisa talked about the Governor Paterson scandal. She gave some background about his aide David Johnson who started out as Gov. Patersons driver but then was promoted to the upper echelon of Gov. Patersons office. Mr. Johnson's girlfriend is said to have tried to file domestic battery and assault charges against Mr. Johnson, but that after phone calls from the state police and the Governor himself, no charges materialized. The atty general is going to investigate. Lisa said that she had met Governor Paterson and she found him to be a charming and engaging man, but that it's becoming obvious that he is not up to the job.

The next news story that Lisa talked about was Goldman Sachs. She said that while helping Greece, Goldman Sachs invested in Credit swap defaults. They are now being investigated.

Lisa then went back to the Health Care discussion today and asked listeners who caught any of it to call in and give their views. Lisa shared that she does not like a lot of things in the current 2000 page health reform bill, including making insurance mandatory and having the IRS police and fine and possibly jail Americans for not having it.

News, weather and Traffic Break

Coming from break Lisa said she is now hearing some Republicans talking to the press and saying that what needs to be done is a blank piece of paper needs to brought to the table and start over. Lisa agrees that really this sounds like a good idea, and isn't this what negotiating is? You start with what you can agree on and go from there. It just seems to her that Democrats have the attitude our way or no way! Then Lisa wanted to end the show playing a couple more audio cuts from Jay Rockefeller, Eric Cantor and others.

Lisa concluded the show sharing a story she has told before about how the press exaggerates so much. She has seen it first hand. She went to Yale as a member of the press to cover Hillary Clinton's speech while she was campaigning for President. A few days earlier in New Hampshire she had cried, and some credited the crying for her win there. During this speech at Yale, she was given a wonderful and beautiful introduction by an old friend and teacher at Yale about how far she had come and how proud they were of her. When she stood up she said "I'm not going to cry", and then went on with her speech. However, right next to Lisa she was able to watch another reporter on his laptop file a story entitled "Hillary cries again". It was such a biased, gross distortion. And she is reminded of this event because already there is a headline out that says "Obama and McCain Feud at summit".

Written By: Michael Schweitzer