Cherly Pintello

Bark Buckle UP Has Tails Wagging for Top Dog: Ford Edge Named Pet Safe Vehicle of the Year

NEW YORK, April 1 /PRNewswire/ – Bark Buckle UP the recognized leader and experts for pet travel safety – awarded the Pet Safe Choice Vehicle Awards “TOP DOG” today at the 2010 New York International Auto Show. This year, Bark Buckle UP's founder Pet Safety Lady Christina Selter and her furry friends awarded “TOP DOG” Pet Safe Vehicle of Choice and announced the Pet Safe Hotel, Retailer, and Airline of choice. During the presentation, Greg Kleva, host of Martha Stewart radio show “It's a Dogs Life,” the Pet Safety Lady, and furry friends wearing the Doggie Seat Belt hopped in and out of cars and stole the show with their animal antics and demonstrations of dog and car travel safety.

This year's Pet Safe winners included the Ford Edge (Vehicle of the Year), BassPro Shops (Retailer of the Year), Sheraton Hotels (Hotel of the Year) and Southwest Airlines (Airline of the Year).

“Most people don't think about it, but in only a 35 mph accident with a 60-pound pet it becomes a 2,700-pound projectile. This will injure the pet, passengers, driver or the pet may escape the vehicle and cause a second accident or become agitated and bite the first responder that is on scene doing their job,” stated Selter.

The registered vehicles are evaluated on a variety of pet-related aspects, including how easily the vehicle accommodates animals and kennels of various sizes, ease of access to pet from within the vehicle, ease of pet entry and exit, ventilation for animals in the rear, as well as whether the vehicle has pet-friendly surfaces, adaptability for third party pet travel or safety gear. Ford received four out of the top ten honors for 2010 Pet Safe Vehicles of Choice List, including the Ford Transit Connect, Edge and Flex and the Lincoln MKT.

“With more than 340,000 vehicles sold since it was originally launched in late 2006, the Ford Edge has been meeting the needs of customers who demand style, technology, performance and capability in a compelling package,” said Brett Burin, Ford Edge Marketing Manager. “We look ahead with excitement this summer to the arrival of the new 2011 Edge, which adds even more revolutionary technology and class-leading performance. And with a suite of safety features, flexible seating and nearly 70 cubic feet of cargo space, the Ford Edge is perfect for those traveling with pets.”

Doggie Seat Belt is the newest As Seen On TV product to offer real solutions to problems without breaking the bank. “When the weather is nice, you see dog heads hanging out the window all of the time,” said Anand “Andy” Khubani, President and CEO of Ideavillage Products Corp. and distributor of the Doggie Seat Belt. “Since we all love our pets and enjoy taking them with us, Doggie Seat Belt was designed to be as easy and convenient as possible to buckle up our pets when they are in the car. This should help to decrease the chance of injury to a dog or passenger in the event of an accident.”

The 2010 Pet Safe Vehicle of Choice TOP DOG Ford Edge award was accepted by Burin.

2010 Pet Safe Retailer, Hotel and Airline
– BassPro Shops
– Sheraton Hotels
– Southwest Airlines

Statistics
– 35 mph accident with a 60-pound pet unrestrained becomes a 2,700-pound
projectile
– 98% of dogs do not travel properly restrained in a moving vehicle
– Driver distraction causes more accidents than any other issue
– 82% of pets travel on vacation with their owners
– Pet friendly lodging has increased 300% since 2005
– Over 70 million homes in America have a pet

About Christina Selter

“Pet Safety Lady” has been featured on more than 250 TV stations nationwide including National networks, as well as radio, print, and online venues. Recently featured in her first national TV commercial, produced several PSA's and the Pet Safety seminar that will be attended by the public FREE at more than 4000 locations in the U.S. and Canada summer 2010. Selter's first children's book, “Be Smart Ride Safe®,” will be published in 2010. Pet Safety Lady founder of Bark Buckle UP and the Bark Buckle UP Charity, works closely with first responders, auto manufacturers, airline, marine and other pet experts to help educate, inform, and protect America's pets. Pet Safety Lady travels the country teaching pet safety to the public and works with Police, Fire, National Guard, Coast Guard EMT, K9 units, FEMA dogs, animal services, pet rescues, and volunteers her time to help save pets lives. Her Bark 10-4 program has delivered more than 8,000 pet oxygen masks to Fire Chiefs in the U.S. and Canada. She has been featured with many Fire and Police Chiefs in the media educating the public on pet safety and has frequently been the host of first responder press conferences nationwide.

About Ford Motor Company

Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F) , a global automotive industry leader based in Dearborn, Mich., manufactures or distributes automobiles across six continents. With about 198,000 employees and about 90 plants worldwide, the company's automotive brands include Ford, Lincoln, Mercury and, until its sale, Volvo. The company provides financial services through Ford Motor Credit Company. For more information regarding Ford's products, please visit http://www.ford.com/www.ford.com.

About Ideavillage Products Corporation

Headquartered in Wayne, New Jersey, Ideavillage Products Corporation has been bringing innovative products to market under the As Seen On TV banner since 1999. Dedicated to providing affordable quality products offering solutions to life's everyday problems, the As Seen On TV category has become one of today's most popular lines of consumer goods and includes Doggie Seat Belt, Smooth Away, HD Vision WrapArounds, MicroTouch Magic, and more. All products are available directly while select products are available at food, drug, and mass retail outlets nationwide. Ideavillage actively supports charitable organizations such as the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, Cherish the Children Foundation, and more. For more information on the Doggie Seat Belt visit http://www.doggieseatbelt.com/http://www.doggieseatbelt.com.

Source: Bark Buckle UP

Amid all the well-deserved celebrations and self-congratulations on the passage of the health insurance reform bill, I thought I heard a dog bark. I was wrong. From the very beginnings of the late great debate, this dog didn't bark.

I speak of the one most popular alternative to provide guaranteed comprehensive and universal health care coverage-not just private insurance — for all of us-Medicare for All– was not even considered. As a state legislator, senator and candidate that was Barack Obama's choice. But despite what he now says, he does not tell the truth when he says every idea was truly considered. In fact, he refused to allow others in his administration to consider any proposal for single-payer health coverage.

As a result, Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and most health research groups, and the main stream press boycotted and wouldn't permit discussions of the simplest, most straight forward possibility for health care reform, Medicare for All. It was shut out of White House meetings. Not even Kaiser, or the Commonwealth Fund or AARP responded to my repeated appeals to at least give an airing to the single-payer alternative. The reason: it wasn't going to pass, so why bother? Eventually, the process passed it by.

So it was ironic that John Dingell, a Michigan Democrat and the longest serving member of the House was given the honor of calling for the decisive vote on the reform bill. But the universal health care legislation he and his late New Dealer father championed for years was ignored. Nevertheless, Dingell gallantly praised the passage of the Obama bill and was at the signing.

But the second longest serving member of Congress, John Conyers, Jr, also from Michigan, was nowhere to be seen in the celebrations. His bill, HR 676, the U.S. National Health Care Act, Expanded and Improved Medicare for All, just 30 pages long, had nearly 100 congressional sponsors, including several blue-dog Democrats who voted against the Obama bill, plus more unions, doctors, nurses, advocacy groups and consumers than the White House was able to enlist for its proposal.

But Conyers was gracious, praising passage of “the first comprehensive set of reforms to our ailing health care system.” He noted that he “would have preferred a different approach,” but he didn't repeat an earlier observation, that after a year of debate and compromises and deals with insurance companies and drug makers, the Obama bill passed the House by only three votes. Conyers reiterated his support for a public health option, which Obama gave away, “because I fundamentally believe in the value of public health insurance and remain an ardent supporter of universal single-payer health care,” like Medicare. And he called for a new campaign to achieve it. Now that the Health Care Activists have been awakened, they won't easily leave the scene-especially if Americans get impatient with the slow pace of change built in to the health insurance reforms.

Obama has said he would have favored Medicare For All “if we were starting from scratch.” So let's review what might have been and may yet be. The Conyers legislation would have established a “publicly financed, privately delivered health care system that uses the already existing Medicare program…”

It would cover, at no charge, all medically necessary services, dentistry, long term care, with patients having the right to choose their providers. And because the free care would be paid for by taxes and premiums, private health insurers would be unnecessary and would be prohibited from selling coverage that duplicates the benefits. And unlike the plan that has passed, HR 676 would eliminate the need for dozens of fragmented, wasteful programs by including the Children's Health Insurance Program, Medicaid, and other government funded programs with the exception of the VA health program, which may eventually become part of the system. And it sets a goal of converting to a non-profit system in 15 years. Read for yourself here.

One problem with the bill that has passed, it leaves in place all the federal, state and private insurance bureaucracies for the dozens of competing and duplicative agencies, with their complex rules that differ from state to state. Premiums for Medicare Advantage and the Part D drug benefit, for example, may differ from one county to another. While subsidies for Medicare Advantage insurers are to be eliminated over time, the current system is to remain in place, although these plans will be required to spend at least 85 percent of their revenues on the care of patients.

Indeed, to give the Obama bill its due, while it is not a health care plan it is a health insurance reform, which can be strong measure to regulate and restrict the behavior of health insurance providers. Insurance companies will be barred from dropping people from coverage when they get sick. They will be barred from excluding children for pre-existing conditions; later that will apply to adults as well. They must provide immediate access to insurance for Americans who are uninsured because of a pre-existing condition. Children will be able to remain on their parents' health plan until age 26.

In addition, insurers cannot impose lifetime or yearly caps on benefits, and new plans are required to cover preventive services, such as mammograms, colonoscopies and immunizations without cost-sharing. That's to become a standard Medicare benefit for all beneficiaries, who have been required to pay for co-insurance.

As expected the 40,000-member Physicians for a National Health Program, which supports HR 676, worried that the bill that has passed will take too long to implement, that it will further enrich the for-profit insurance industry by $447 billion, that costs will go higher and that the new regulations are riddled with loopholes.

All we can do is see how it works. If things don't really change for the better and Democrats remain in the majority in Congress maybe we can come closer to the Conyers bill, and hear the sleeping dog bark.

Friedman also writes for www.timegoesby.net. He can be contacted at saulfriedman@comcast.net.

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