Most doctors and several hospitals in the NY metropolitan area do not accept private insurance. For example, the NYSHIP Empire Plan ( to which most teachers, fireman and police officers belong) is not accepted by 95% of the doctors at NYPresbyterian/Colombia/ Cornell Hospital/ Hospital for Special Surgery (one of the best and largest in the country). Out of pocket expenses for a consultation alone can run thousands of dollars making it prohibitive for most patients. The healthcare system in this country continues to be rife with inequities in accessibility, cost and quality, and abundantly mismanaged, cost ineffective and corrupt. Our legislators need to continue to work on this problem to maximize quality, eliminate fraud and minimize the inequities that currently exist.

Norquist pledge keeps Congress from being the greatest deliberative body in the world. Congressmen should be open & humble critical thinkers, & statesmen willing to compromise for the common good.

This petition is for all Americans, stating how I view our President and what he has accomplished. There is a correction or two from the earlier version, where vulgar language was used in reference to the previous president causing the petition to be blocked by the SignOn committee. Hopefully, this petition will be distributed to all members of Congress as well as the media to show overwhelming support for all that President Obama has done.

The Patriot Act is anything but patriotic in its nature and intent. The privacy and civil liberties of American citizens are disregarded in this law, created in the wake of September 11, 2001.

Closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba

The movement that started with Occupy Wall Street needs to move forward. The government needs to always consider the 99% whenever they are making decisions that affect most of the nation. They can't be thinking only about the 1% or the people who give money to politicians

Justice Thomas has not only covertly but also overtly flaunted his dual relationships while refusing to recuse himself from a number of cases in which he and /or his wife (who is with the Heritage Foundation) has benefited both financially as well as legislatively. This has never before been overlooked tolerated.

In 2004, the Clinton Assault weapons ban was allowed to expire . Senate Bill 6396 banning the sale of assault weapons was introduced shortly after Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was wounded and others were killed at the "Congress on Your Corner" event in Tucson Arizona. The House allowed the bill to die. This country needs to reinstate the Ban of Assault Weapons so that tragedies of this magniitude are prevented. We urge congress to pass this very important "Homeland Security" bill.

It is utterly insane the amount of spent on political campaigns, we need to put a limit, use the money to help poor and homeless

Adding Yield Spread Premium will cost thousands of extra dollars over the life of your loan. Please support this petition with your signature.

Teacher working conditions are student learning conditions. Adjuncts teaching college students have more than doubled since 1970. Today, contingent faculty teaches 75% of classes nationwide, yet we are paid shamefully little in comparison to our tenured or tenure track counterparts. According to the Coalition on the Academic Workforce (http://www.academicworkforce.org/CAW_portrait_2012.pdf), on average, we are paid $2700 per course with no benefits. Multiply this by a full load of courses per year, and what do we get? Of course, we usually have limits on courses too. So as you can see, we do not get a living wage! We have almost no chance for advancement, we have insecure continuity with our semester-to-semester schedule, and we have relatively little say on anything pertaining to our university or college. Moreover, because we are compensated so unequally, we need to hold several teaching positions in order to support ourselves, making our workload unfeasible. How can we survive? If you want a better education for students, then you must demand better pay and status for the majority of faculty teaching in today's institutions of higher education across the country. Demand better salaries for the underpaid and undervalued adjuncts, the contingency labor force that teaches most of the imperative core classes students need in order to succeed in today's competitive academic climate.

Get corporate money out of politics!