That raucous noise you heard emanating from K Street in Washington that started yesterday afternoon and carried on into the evening was the sound of health insurance lobbyists celebrating as if they’d just won the lottery. And essentially they had after basically being told by the Senate Finance Committee that their industry would be able, with their blessing, to continue legally stealing money from the American public for the foreseeable future.
The Senate Democrats, five of them in particular and three of them twice in the same session, sold us out. By turning thumbs down on not one but two plans for Health Care Reform that included a public insurance option, Max Baucus of Montana, Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Bill Nelson of Florida, and Tom Carper of Delaware, served notice that they’re more concerned about the bottom lines of the health insurance companies that have been ripping us off than they are with our bottom lines.
We all knew the Republicans on the Finance Committee, all ten of them, would vote no to any proposal that contained a public option. But we were hoping, against hope it would seem, that when push came to shove the Committee Democrats would somehow find the spine to unite in support of such a plan. Unfortunately, the five listed above all joined the GOP contingent in voting against (15 – 8) West Virginia Democrat Jay Rockefeller’s proposal… and Baucus, Lincoln and Conrad teamed up with the Republicans yet again to defeat (13 – 10) the plan put forward by New York Democrat Charles Schumer.
The sad truth of the matter is that the Senators who have and will oppose any public option plan that’s proposed are little more than paid shills for the health insurance industry. We’ve come to expect nothing less from Republicans…it’s who they are, they’re not our friends…but we sent the Democrats to Washington expecting so much more.
The bottom line, however, is that money talks, and all you have to do is go to the Open Secrets.org website to find out just how deeply into the pockets of our lawmakers the health care sector has gotten. Pay particular attention to the information regarding the shameless five…Baucus, Lincoln, Conrad, Nelson and Carper. They’ve been well taken care of by the industry they stood up for yesterday. Now, if there’s any justice, they’ll be paid back by the voters, the people they stood against yesterday, the next time they face an election.
On a lighter note, former Alaska Governor and Vice-Presidential hopeful Sarah ‘The Quitter’ Palin has a book coming to market. Just four months after the deal was signed Palin’s memoir is finished and will be available in book stores on November 17 (oh goody…just in time for a late birthday or early Christmas present!).
The tome, entitled “Going Rogue”, will have an enormous first printing of 1.5 million copies. As one wag put it on MSNBC last night, “This could be the first time in history that someone writes a book before they actually read one”.
It’s not clear at this point if it will be enclosed in plastic wrapping like all the other first-edition comic books, but we do know this. It was ghost written by a fellow Evangelical Christian…presumably not the Holy Ghost! Nevertheless, that news prompted another observer to ask “…if that means the right wing will push to have it added to the New Testament?”
And so it goes.
SC
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Stick It Out the Window!
More than a few things been burnin’ my ass lately. Here are a couple of ‘em.
First, Sen. Max Baucus just proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is in this for the politics, not the American people. Voting against BOTH “public option” amendments to the Finance Committee’s health care “reform” legislation, he said he liked the Schumer amendment better than the Rockefeller amendment, but he didn’t think it could get 60 votes in the Senate, so he had to vote against it.
What an idiot. What a traitor to the people who put him in office. Rather than do what he thought was best for the American people, and what he had to know his constituents want, he bowed to the pressure from Republicans, Blue Dog Democrats, and, no doubt, his corporate insurance benefactors.
With the final vote being 13 to 10 against, if any two of the three Judas Democrats had voted with the progressives and moderates, it would have passed, and the chances of getting a true public option out of Congress would have been greatly improved.
Your earliest opportunity to show how out of touch a Senator can be will be 2010, when Sen. Blanche Lincoln faces the electorate. Any volunteers for the Arkansas primary? Add North Dakota’s Senator Kent Conrad to the list for 2012. Baucus must be hoping everyone in Montana will have forgotten by 2014, when he is up for a primary thrashing. Call these folks TODAY and let them know how shamefully they’ve behaved.
Second, on a different subject:
The so-called “toxic mortgages” are still in the news. I thought the idea behind the bank bail out was to clean those up and get the banks back on an even keel. Well, the banks seem to be claiming to be on that even keel, but they still have the toxic mortgages on the books. Begs the question, were those bail out funds really necessary? Did the banks cry poor to sucker the government into handing over billions in cash so they could shore up their own credit, and not do a thing for the folks who were struggling under outrageous interest rates and balloon payments? I’m thinkin’ it looks like a duck.
And now we’re hearing the mantra that those toxic loans were given to undeserving people. Not people who got suckered. People who should have known they didn’t deserve such good fortune as a home of their own.
I’m hearing code words here. Over-represented in the group are African-Americans and Latinos. Undeserving.
And the bleeding heart liberals are blamed, of course. We wanted those lazy welfare bums to have a mansion of their own, and we wanted the mean nasty bankers to pay for it. Oh, and we wanted tax dollars to subsidize the whole thing.
I’d like to remind those who are selling this snake oil that it was their very own hero, President George Bush, who sold it in the first place. Take a look at these flash back videos… dating back to 2002, the start of it all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNqQx7sjoS8&feature=related The compassionate conservative President Bush promised to help us realize the American Dream by subsidizing downpayments with tax dollars, streamlining the lending process, making it “easy to understand” (read “even the dumb people can do it”) and keeping interest rates low.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW9viaJatpo&feature=related (radio with pictures) – President Bush speaks to African-Americans and Latino Americans, (pointing out that less than half of the people in these groups own homes) and promises to provide more money – beefing up Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, etc. He promised that even a “low income homebuyer can have just as nice a home as anybody else” with his plan.
And we all know what a bleeding heart liberal George Bush was.
What I see is a plan to funnel the hard-earned savings of first time homebuyers to banks, through fee-taking brokers, subsidize it with $7,000 or $8,000 of tax dollars, then, when the poor sucker can’t keep up with his mortgage, kick him out, keep his downpayment and the tax dollars, and then cry poor to Congress (while slipping them millions in campaign contributions).
I even know of cases, like here in South Carolina, where they took some of their subsidized housing, did a bit of a re-paint job, and offered it to Section 8 renters on a rent-to-own basis. If the resident could keep up their payments for a few months, come up with a small downpayment, get that government subsidy, they would apply part of their already-paid rent to the purchase price. For those residents who managed to keep up their payments, it was a chance to own low-income housing in a not-so-nice neighborhood. Whoopee! And for those who couldn’t make consistent payments, the housing authority got to keep the downpayments, rent, and subsidy. Not a bad deal, eh?
OK, so maybe some people took out mortgages they knew full well they couldn’t keep up. Some should have known they weren’t in a position to own a half million dollar house. But these people have paid the price – they’re out on the street. The bankers are still smokin’ their cigars on Wall Street, gettin’ those daily massages.
Who’s the villain here?
And if the buyers realized they couldn’t keep it up, and needed to get out from under by selling the house within 5 years, they’d have to pay back the subsidy over the next15 years. So they could never save up a downpayment again! Even if that first-time low-income undereducated homebuyer managed to keep it up for four years, improved his education, got a better job, and decided to move up in the housing chain, they have to pay it back. So they had to add that payment to their budget in their new home.
Who was this “program” designed to help? Do you really have to ask? Consider the source.
JM
First, Sen. Max Baucus just proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is in this for the politics, not the American people. Voting against BOTH “public option” amendments to the Finance Committee’s health care “reform” legislation, he said he liked the Schumer amendment better than the Rockefeller amendment, but he didn’t think it could get 60 votes in the Senate, so he had to vote against it.
What an idiot. What a traitor to the people who put him in office. Rather than do what he thought was best for the American people, and what he had to know his constituents want, he bowed to the pressure from Republicans, Blue Dog Democrats, and, no doubt, his corporate insurance benefactors.
With the final vote being 13 to 10 against, if any two of the three Judas Democrats had voted with the progressives and moderates, it would have passed, and the chances of getting a true public option out of Congress would have been greatly improved.
Your earliest opportunity to show how out of touch a Senator can be will be 2010, when Sen. Blanche Lincoln faces the electorate. Any volunteers for the Arkansas primary? Add North Dakota’s Senator Kent Conrad to the list for 2012. Baucus must be hoping everyone in Montana will have forgotten by 2014, when he is up for a primary thrashing. Call these folks TODAY and let them know how shamefully they’ve behaved.
Second, on a different subject:
The so-called “toxic mortgages” are still in the news. I thought the idea behind the bank bail out was to clean those up and get the banks back on an even keel. Well, the banks seem to be claiming to be on that even keel, but they still have the toxic mortgages on the books. Begs the question, were those bail out funds really necessary? Did the banks cry poor to sucker the government into handing over billions in cash so they could shore up their own credit, and not do a thing for the folks who were struggling under outrageous interest rates and balloon payments? I’m thinkin’ it looks like a duck.
And now we’re hearing the mantra that those toxic loans were given to undeserving people. Not people who got suckered. People who should have known they didn’t deserve such good fortune as a home of their own.
I’m hearing code words here. Over-represented in the group are African-Americans and Latinos. Undeserving.
And the bleeding heart liberals are blamed, of course. We wanted those lazy welfare bums to have a mansion of their own, and we wanted the mean nasty bankers to pay for it. Oh, and we wanted tax dollars to subsidize the whole thing.
I’d like to remind those who are selling this snake oil that it was their very own hero, President George Bush, who sold it in the first place. Take a look at these flash back videos… dating back to 2002, the start of it all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNqQx7sjoS8&feature=related The compassionate conservative President Bush promised to help us realize the American Dream by subsidizing downpayments with tax dollars, streamlining the lending process, making it “easy to understand” (read “even the dumb people can do it”) and keeping interest rates low.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW9viaJatpo&feature=related (radio with pictures) – President Bush speaks to African-Americans and Latino Americans, (pointing out that less than half of the people in these groups own homes) and promises to provide more money – beefing up Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, etc. He promised that even a “low income homebuyer can have just as nice a home as anybody else” with his plan.
And we all know what a bleeding heart liberal George Bush was.
What I see is a plan to funnel the hard-earned savings of first time homebuyers to banks, through fee-taking brokers, subsidize it with $7,000 or $8,000 of tax dollars, then, when the poor sucker can’t keep up with his mortgage, kick him out, keep his downpayment and the tax dollars, and then cry poor to Congress (while slipping them millions in campaign contributions).
I even know of cases, like here in South Carolina, where they took some of their subsidized housing, did a bit of a re-paint job, and offered it to Section 8 renters on a rent-to-own basis. If the resident could keep up their payments for a few months, come up with a small downpayment, get that government subsidy, they would apply part of their already-paid rent to the purchase price. For those residents who managed to keep up their payments, it was a chance to own low-income housing in a not-so-nice neighborhood. Whoopee! And for those who couldn’t make consistent payments, the housing authority got to keep the downpayments, rent, and subsidy. Not a bad deal, eh?
OK, so maybe some people took out mortgages they knew full well they couldn’t keep up. Some should have known they weren’t in a position to own a half million dollar house. But these people have paid the price – they’re out on the street. The bankers are still smokin’ their cigars on Wall Street, gettin’ those daily massages.
Who’s the villain here?
And if the buyers realized they couldn’t keep it up, and needed to get out from under by selling the house within 5 years, they’d have to pay back the subsidy over the next15 years. So they could never save up a downpayment again! Even if that first-time low-income undereducated homebuyer managed to keep it up for four years, improved his education, got a better job, and decided to move up in the housing chain, they have to pay it back. So they had to add that payment to their budget in their new home.
Who was this “program” designed to help? Do you really have to ask? Consider the source.
JM
Monday, September 28, 2009
The Take On America: How We Look From The Outside
It’s Monday, so we’ve all had plenty of time to figure out how we feel about President Obama’s speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York and his appearance at the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh last week…all of us…and as usual, the rest of the world has been watching our reactions with interest.
Predictably, it’s the loudest voices that are getting heard…and the vile and venom from the right is coming fast and furious, just as it has ever since this President took office. No matter what he says or does, Republican politicians will tell all who want to listen that he’s wrong… then their media mouthpieces will set out to vilify him...and the people who listen to Rush Limbaugh and watch Faux News will once again work themselves into a rabid lather. It’s a repeating cycle that has our friends and neighbors from around the world shaking their heads in dismay at what we have become.
Following is a column from Saturday’s Globe and Mail, Canada’s National newspaper, about the ‘Joe Wilson’ phenomenon. It illustrates what people in other parts of the world are thinking about what we say and do…what their perceptions are…and it’s typical of what you’d find nowadays in any country in the Western world.
From the Globe and Mail, Saturday September 26, 2009 :
By Sonia Verma
West Columbia, S.C. — Roxanne Wilson answers the door in a white T-shirt, aqua-blue shorts and a pair of pearl earrings. This morning she meant to mow the lawn, take in the trash cans and wash down the aluminum siding on her sprawling, ranch-style home. Instead, her thoughts hover on her husband, whom she drove to catch his flight to Washington just a few hours ago.
To much of the country, including former president Jimmy Carter, Congressman Joe Wilson's heckling of Barack Obama during the U.S. President's address to a joint session of Congress betrayed the ugly, possibly even racist side of his Southern heritage.
To his wife, though, Mr. Wilson is just “a typical Southern gentleman.” And here in Lexington County, the heart of South Carolina's overwhelmingly white and Republican second district, he is nothing short of a hero. The Wilsons have received hundreds of letters of support and even a few personal cheques. At their church, the First Presbyterian, Mrs. Wilson was applauded.
Their home, nestled on a street of towering pines, is hushed, unfussy and full of cluttered charm. The sitting room is scattered with grandchildren's toys and Ali G DVDs. Family photos, including some posed with Republican presidents past, crowd the shelves.
“I know Joe's upset, but for good reason,” explains Mrs. Wilson, who revealed in a campaign video last week that she was shocked at first by her husband's outburst herself. “He thinks we're just going down a road that we are never going to be able to recover from. There's plenty of people who agree.”
Across this county of Baptist churches and barbecue joints, Mr. Wilson's supporters feel galvanized by their unlikely new voice in Washington and their shared opposition to big government. And almost all of them say what Mrs. Wilson does: “Race has nothing to do with this.” Yes, the Wilsons did fly a Confederate flag on their front lawn before Mr. Wilson was elected to Congress, but “that was about heritage not hate,” Mrs. Wilson says. (The rebel banner still flies in front of the South Carolina state assembly building in Columbia.)
Mr. Obama won a surprising victory against Hillary Rodham Clinton in the South Carolina Democratic primary, but the state is now emerging as a significant hurdle to his policies. Mr. Wilson's “You lie!” has become a rallying cry not only among a lunatic fringe but in Main Street America; indeed, at least in Lexington County, the line between the two is getting blurry.
Joe Wilson's heartland today is a place where everyone from Tea Party Patriots to state-governor hopefuls are uniting over fears of the deepening reach of the federal government.
“The changing of America is what we're talking about. We're fighting for our freedom,“ says Ron Parks, a 53-year-old construction worker who for most of his life stayed far away from politics. Today he is a local organizer in the anti-Obama, cross-country Tea Party movement; he objects to everything from the economic-stimulus package to seatbelt laws.
Meanwhile, Mr. Wilson, previously an undistinguished backbencher, has become someone people here talk about as a future contender for the Oval Office.
“Throughout the course of this nation's history there have been extraordinary events which have lead to extraordinary acts of defiance,” says Larry Grooms, a long-time Republican state senator. “People are beginning to understand that some of the basic rights that most Americans hold dear are quickly being eroded.” Without men such as Mr. Wilson, he adds, America is destined to become like North Korea.
High passions
In a rundown strip mall next to an indoor shooting range, Mr. Wilson's campaign office has been inundated. It raised $1.5-million in the week after the incident; cheques and letters are still pouring in from across the country. “Glad to know you're not apologizing again. Stay strong,” reads one letter from Arizona, taped to the office's bathroom door.
“It's just been overwhelming,” says Preston Grisham, Mr. Wilson's 26-year-old campaign manager. “The most common call I get is from people who say Joe said what they have always wanted to say.” Which is what, exactly? After all, he spoke only two words. “I hear a lot of different things,” Mr. Grisham says hesitantly. “Before this, they really didn't know Joe, so everyone's just taking their own interpretation of what he actually said.”
The passion of the support for Mr. Wilson often seems to run deeper than its logic. In Lexington, residents express suspicions of Mr. Obama and policies such as health-care reform, but they are equally angry at the cost of their insurance. They believe his economic stimulus package will bankrupt their country, but many of them have lost their jobs, with South Carolina posting double-digit unemployment last summer. They think Mr. Obama is a liar, but can't explain why.
Two miles down the road from Mr. Wilson's campaign office at the Southern Restaurant, former Vice-President Dick Cheney's picture hangs on the wall alongside the Sept. 12, 2001, front page of the local paper. Here emotions run raw.
“I don't trust [Mr. Obama]. I think a lot of his ideas are too far out in left field,” says Wyman Abstance, celebrating his 57th birthday with two friends from work, over $7.50 plates of steaming fried chicken, mashed potatoes and collard greens. Which ideas does he mean? “I can't name a specific one,” Mr. Abstance says. “But he loves to spend money too quick, and money isn't always the solution. I think he's going to get this country to a point where we could be taken over by another country.”
His friend Kenny, who also works at the local utilities company, is riled up about the health-care bill, which he says he doesn't understand. “All I know is it's going to cost a bunch of money … one way or the other,” he says before taking a sip of “unsweet” iced tea.
Richard Freedman, sitting across the table, couldn't bring himself to watch the President's speech. “I don't trust him. He lies every time he opens his mouth.” Mr. Freedman doesn't distrust all Democrats, though. “I guess I don't feel as uncomfortable with Bill or Hillary as I do with President Obama,” he says, though he can't say why.
John Gissendaner, a 67-year-old retired official with the department of interior works, is much clearer on his reasons: “Obama's ruining our country with all these social programs and giveaway programs. I hate him. And it's not 'cause he's black. It's 'cause he's a Muslim socialist.”
That's the kind of statement that outside observers use to dismiss these voters' sentiments as mere cover for cultural prejudice. But others say the resentment here arises from more nuanced, legitimate and lasting causes. “South Carolina has a long history of spitting in the face of federal authority,” says Walter Edgar, Director of Southern Studies at the University of South Carolina. “Now people are losing their homes and their jobs and can no longer afford to send their children to the right schools. For them, the federal government is a good whipping boy.”
Prof. Edgar says the rest of the country should heed the undertones in all the noise around Mr. Wilson's words: “This is not a fringe movement,” he says. “It speaks to a growing uncertainty, a growing unease, and Washington should take stock. This is not going to die out.”
Sonia Verma is a Globe and Mail reporter.
So there you have it. Apparently we’ve become a kind of third-world political joke that, to our friends and neighbors, is really much more sad than it is funny. We can blow it off by saying we don’t really care what the rest of the world thinks…but we should care. We’ve got to stop carrying on as if Americans are the only people in the world who can think, or who’s opinions matter.
We need to once more become that ‘shining city on the hill’ that every other country looked up to. But after eight years of the blustering, bullying Bush administration, and the hate-filled political grandstanding and rhetoric that has badly sullied our national image since Barack Obama became President, we’ve got some work to do before we can climb that hill again.
SC
Predictably, it’s the loudest voices that are getting heard…and the vile and venom from the right is coming fast and furious, just as it has ever since this President took office. No matter what he says or does, Republican politicians will tell all who want to listen that he’s wrong… then their media mouthpieces will set out to vilify him...and the people who listen to Rush Limbaugh and watch Faux News will once again work themselves into a rabid lather. It’s a repeating cycle that has our friends and neighbors from around the world shaking their heads in dismay at what we have become.
Following is a column from Saturday’s Globe and Mail, Canada’s National newspaper, about the ‘Joe Wilson’ phenomenon. It illustrates what people in other parts of the world are thinking about what we say and do…what their perceptions are…and it’s typical of what you’d find nowadays in any country in the Western world.
From the Globe and Mail, Saturday September 26, 2009 :
By Sonia Verma
West Columbia, S.C. — Roxanne Wilson answers the door in a white T-shirt, aqua-blue shorts and a pair of pearl earrings. This morning she meant to mow the lawn, take in the trash cans and wash down the aluminum siding on her sprawling, ranch-style home. Instead, her thoughts hover on her husband, whom she drove to catch his flight to Washington just a few hours ago.
To much of the country, including former president Jimmy Carter, Congressman Joe Wilson's heckling of Barack Obama during the U.S. President's address to a joint session of Congress betrayed the ugly, possibly even racist side of his Southern heritage.
To his wife, though, Mr. Wilson is just “a typical Southern gentleman.” And here in Lexington County, the heart of South Carolina's overwhelmingly white and Republican second district, he is nothing short of a hero. The Wilsons have received hundreds of letters of support and even a few personal cheques. At their church, the First Presbyterian, Mrs. Wilson was applauded.
Their home, nestled on a street of towering pines, is hushed, unfussy and full of cluttered charm. The sitting room is scattered with grandchildren's toys and Ali G DVDs. Family photos, including some posed with Republican presidents past, crowd the shelves.
“I know Joe's upset, but for good reason,” explains Mrs. Wilson, who revealed in a campaign video last week that she was shocked at first by her husband's outburst herself. “He thinks we're just going down a road that we are never going to be able to recover from. There's plenty of people who agree.”
Across this county of Baptist churches and barbecue joints, Mr. Wilson's supporters feel galvanized by their unlikely new voice in Washington and their shared opposition to big government. And almost all of them say what Mrs. Wilson does: “Race has nothing to do with this.” Yes, the Wilsons did fly a Confederate flag on their front lawn before Mr. Wilson was elected to Congress, but “that was about heritage not hate,” Mrs. Wilson says. (The rebel banner still flies in front of the South Carolina state assembly building in Columbia.)
Mr. Obama won a surprising victory against Hillary Rodham Clinton in the South Carolina Democratic primary, but the state is now emerging as a significant hurdle to his policies. Mr. Wilson's “You lie!” has become a rallying cry not only among a lunatic fringe but in Main Street America; indeed, at least in Lexington County, the line between the two is getting blurry.
Joe Wilson's heartland today is a place where everyone from Tea Party Patriots to state-governor hopefuls are uniting over fears of the deepening reach of the federal government.
“The changing of America is what we're talking about. We're fighting for our freedom,“ says Ron Parks, a 53-year-old construction worker who for most of his life stayed far away from politics. Today he is a local organizer in the anti-Obama, cross-country Tea Party movement; he objects to everything from the economic-stimulus package to seatbelt laws.
Meanwhile, Mr. Wilson, previously an undistinguished backbencher, has become someone people here talk about as a future contender for the Oval Office.
“Throughout the course of this nation's history there have been extraordinary events which have lead to extraordinary acts of defiance,” says Larry Grooms, a long-time Republican state senator. “People are beginning to understand that some of the basic rights that most Americans hold dear are quickly being eroded.” Without men such as Mr. Wilson, he adds, America is destined to become like North Korea.
High passions
In a rundown strip mall next to an indoor shooting range, Mr. Wilson's campaign office has been inundated. It raised $1.5-million in the week after the incident; cheques and letters are still pouring in from across the country. “Glad to know you're not apologizing again. Stay strong,” reads one letter from Arizona, taped to the office's bathroom door.
“It's just been overwhelming,” says Preston Grisham, Mr. Wilson's 26-year-old campaign manager. “The most common call I get is from people who say Joe said what they have always wanted to say.” Which is what, exactly? After all, he spoke only two words. “I hear a lot of different things,” Mr. Grisham says hesitantly. “Before this, they really didn't know Joe, so everyone's just taking their own interpretation of what he actually said.”
The passion of the support for Mr. Wilson often seems to run deeper than its logic. In Lexington, residents express suspicions of Mr. Obama and policies such as health-care reform, but they are equally angry at the cost of their insurance. They believe his economic stimulus package will bankrupt their country, but many of them have lost their jobs, with South Carolina posting double-digit unemployment last summer. They think Mr. Obama is a liar, but can't explain why.
Two miles down the road from Mr. Wilson's campaign office at the Southern Restaurant, former Vice-President Dick Cheney's picture hangs on the wall alongside the Sept. 12, 2001, front page of the local paper. Here emotions run raw.
“I don't trust [Mr. Obama]. I think a lot of his ideas are too far out in left field,” says Wyman Abstance, celebrating his 57th birthday with two friends from work, over $7.50 plates of steaming fried chicken, mashed potatoes and collard greens. Which ideas does he mean? “I can't name a specific one,” Mr. Abstance says. “But he loves to spend money too quick, and money isn't always the solution. I think he's going to get this country to a point where we could be taken over by another country.”
His friend Kenny, who also works at the local utilities company, is riled up about the health-care bill, which he says he doesn't understand. “All I know is it's going to cost a bunch of money … one way or the other,” he says before taking a sip of “unsweet” iced tea.
Richard Freedman, sitting across the table, couldn't bring himself to watch the President's speech. “I don't trust him. He lies every time he opens his mouth.” Mr. Freedman doesn't distrust all Democrats, though. “I guess I don't feel as uncomfortable with Bill or Hillary as I do with President Obama,” he says, though he can't say why.
John Gissendaner, a 67-year-old retired official with the department of interior works, is much clearer on his reasons: “Obama's ruining our country with all these social programs and giveaway programs. I hate him. And it's not 'cause he's black. It's 'cause he's a Muslim socialist.”
That's the kind of statement that outside observers use to dismiss these voters' sentiments as mere cover for cultural prejudice. But others say the resentment here arises from more nuanced, legitimate and lasting causes. “South Carolina has a long history of spitting in the face of federal authority,” says Walter Edgar, Director of Southern Studies at the University of South Carolina. “Now people are losing their homes and their jobs and can no longer afford to send their children to the right schools. For them, the federal government is a good whipping boy.”
Prof. Edgar says the rest of the country should heed the undertones in all the noise around Mr. Wilson's words: “This is not a fringe movement,” he says. “It speaks to a growing uncertainty, a growing unease, and Washington should take stock. This is not going to die out.”
Sonia Verma is a Globe and Mail reporter.
So there you have it. Apparently we’ve become a kind of third-world political joke that, to our friends and neighbors, is really much more sad than it is funny. We can blow it off by saying we don’t really care what the rest of the world thinks…but we should care. We’ve got to stop carrying on as if Americans are the only people in the world who can think, or who’s opinions matter.
We need to once more become that ‘shining city on the hill’ that every other country looked up to. But after eight years of the blustering, bullying Bush administration, and the hate-filled political grandstanding and rhetoric that has badly sullied our national image since Barack Obama became President, we’ve got some work to do before we can climb that hill again.
SC
Friday, September 25, 2009
Jeopardy – it’s not just a game show anymore!
Did you watch Jeopardy the other day when one of the categories was about brand names of prescription drugs? I found it frightening that no one missed any of them. The clue was the brand name, and contestants had to guess the condition it was meant for. Accutane? Acne. Zoloft? Depression. They knew ‘em all, A to Z.
These are products you can’t just walk into Walgreen’s and buy. You have to go to your doctor, convince them you have (whatever), and that you need (the drug). Doc has to write a prescription, you go to your favorite pharmacy, and they sell you the product (sometimes at an outrageously high price because there is no generic equivalent). Why would the average person, even really smart people, have reason to be familiar with these diverse drugs? Surely they didn’t all have every one of those conditions?
Television advertising. Online advertising. That’s why. Billions - that's with a B -of dollars spent every year in promoting their products. Direct to consumer ads designed to make people think they have a condition and that the manufacturer’s product is the only thing that will fix it. Go tell your doc you need it. And s/he will write the scrip.
Guess who ultimately pays for that? YOU and ME! Not just specifically the high price of drugs, which of course includes the marketing costs, but also the high price of health insurance. Prescription plans get lumped into the expenses of those middlemen, and spread around to everyone with that particular health insurance plan. (And by the way, have you ever paid for your prescription out-of-pocket and compared what they charged your insurance company? Insurance companies pay MORE than cash customers!)
But that’s not the only outrageous aspect of this issue. We’re treating ourselves for things we might not have because some ad made us think we did. Outrageous.
And then there’s The Media, beneficiary of all that advertising expenditure. If your business got billions of dollars from a customer, wouldn’t you go out of your way to treat them nicely? Think about that when you watch the news.
And ultimately, Congress. I could almost cut and paste the sentence from the paragraph above here. (“If your business got billions…”) Forget the big “health care reform” issue on the front pages right now. We’ll get to that in a minute. Consider that Medicare prescription plan put in place near the end of the Bush administration that explicitly forbids the government from negotiation for lower prices. How could even the most corrupt and idiotic legislator sign on to that? But they did. Both sides. Yet they’d all tell you they want to cut waste out of the budget. Yeah, right.
Unless you are hopelessly naïve, you understand that spending by lobbyists, including lunches and trips and parties, and campaign contributions, has had a profound effect on the way Congress votes. And it’s not just one side or the other getting those contributions. It’s virtually everyone, albeit some more than others.
Just look at this Blue Dog lineup… Since 1989, Rep. Earl Pomeroy of North Dakota took in $628,805 from health insurance companies, and $130,999 from the pharmaceutical industry. His pal and fellow North Dakotan Senator Kent Conrad, got $828,000 and $255,000 from those same groups.
The four boys from Tennessee, Democratic Representatives Gordon, Tanner, Cooper, and Davis, each pocketed hundreds of thousands from various health sector donors over the past 20 years, with Tanner getting a quarter mil from the health insurance industry and $300,970 from big Pharma. Are you surprised they’re dragging their feet on the “Public Option?”
Blue Dog Representatives from at least 25 states held their hands out when the health insurance money train went by. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, our source for all these numbers, the “typical Blue Dog Democrat took $10,300 more from the insurers than Non-Blue Dog Democrats,” and “only $3,625 less than the typical House Republican.”
Senators are doing their bit, too. Says the CRP, “Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) has received $1.3 million from the health sector since 1995. Her campaign committee and leadership PAC have also collected more than $155,150 from health insurers.”
Sen. Joe Lieberman has been handed “more than $2.5 million from the health sector since 1989 for his campaign committee and leadership PAC, and more than $455,000 from health insurers.” (Same CRP source.) Surprise surprise!
One more thing. If the campaign contributions have their desired effect, the pharmaceutical manufacturers and other health care industries and special interests of all types, are more than generous with jobs. The legislator can walk away from his responsibility by leaving Congress and working for those who paid the piper and called the tune.
Don’t believe me? Example: Jim McCrery, Republican from Louisiana and former member of the House Ways and Means committee responsible for overseeing health care policy, joined the lobbying firm Capitol Counsel, that got $6.7 million last year from Roche and AstraZeneca (both big Pharma). (Thanks to Bloomberg.com for that one.) He’s not alone. A study by the University of Michigan shows that 27% of federal legislators become lobbyists as their first job after leaving government. 37% more join the K Street mob as their second or third job after leaving.
And all these millions have to come from somewhere, don’t they? It’s hard to say whether more comes from your health insurance premiums or your tax dollars. Either way, wouldn’t it be nice if we could control it?
Call your representatives and senators. NOW! We need health care reform, and we need to stop the gravy train of special interest lobbies.
JM
These are products you can’t just walk into Walgreen’s and buy. You have to go to your doctor, convince them you have (whatever), and that you need (the drug). Doc has to write a prescription, you go to your favorite pharmacy, and they sell you the product (sometimes at an outrageously high price because there is no generic equivalent). Why would the average person, even really smart people, have reason to be familiar with these diverse drugs? Surely they didn’t all have every one of those conditions?
Television advertising. Online advertising. That’s why. Billions - that's with a B -of dollars spent every year in promoting their products. Direct to consumer ads designed to make people think they have a condition and that the manufacturer’s product is the only thing that will fix it. Go tell your doc you need it. And s/he will write the scrip.
Guess who ultimately pays for that? YOU and ME! Not just specifically the high price of drugs, which of course includes the marketing costs, but also the high price of health insurance. Prescription plans get lumped into the expenses of those middlemen, and spread around to everyone with that particular health insurance plan. (And by the way, have you ever paid for your prescription out-of-pocket and compared what they charged your insurance company? Insurance companies pay MORE than cash customers!)
But that’s not the only outrageous aspect of this issue. We’re treating ourselves for things we might not have because some ad made us think we did. Outrageous.
And then there’s The Media, beneficiary of all that advertising expenditure. If your business got billions of dollars from a customer, wouldn’t you go out of your way to treat them nicely? Think about that when you watch the news.
And ultimately, Congress. I could almost cut and paste the sentence from the paragraph above here. (“If your business got billions…”) Forget the big “health care reform” issue on the front pages right now. We’ll get to that in a minute. Consider that Medicare prescription plan put in place near the end of the Bush administration that explicitly forbids the government from negotiation for lower prices. How could even the most corrupt and idiotic legislator sign on to that? But they did. Both sides. Yet they’d all tell you they want to cut waste out of the budget. Yeah, right.
Unless you are hopelessly naïve, you understand that spending by lobbyists, including lunches and trips and parties, and campaign contributions, has had a profound effect on the way Congress votes. And it’s not just one side or the other getting those contributions. It’s virtually everyone, albeit some more than others.
Just look at this Blue Dog lineup… Since 1989, Rep. Earl Pomeroy of North Dakota took in $628,805 from health insurance companies, and $130,999 from the pharmaceutical industry. His pal and fellow North Dakotan Senator Kent Conrad, got $828,000 and $255,000 from those same groups.
The four boys from Tennessee, Democratic Representatives Gordon, Tanner, Cooper, and Davis, each pocketed hundreds of thousands from various health sector donors over the past 20 years, with Tanner getting a quarter mil from the health insurance industry and $300,970 from big Pharma. Are you surprised they’re dragging their feet on the “Public Option?”
Blue Dog Representatives from at least 25 states held their hands out when the health insurance money train went by. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, our source for all these numbers, the “typical Blue Dog Democrat took $10,300 more from the insurers than Non-Blue Dog Democrats,” and “only $3,625 less than the typical House Republican.”
Senators are doing their bit, too. Says the CRP, “Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) has received $1.3 million from the health sector since 1995. Her campaign committee and leadership PAC have also collected more than $155,150 from health insurers.”
Sen. Joe Lieberman has been handed “more than $2.5 million from the health sector since 1989 for his campaign committee and leadership PAC, and more than $455,000 from health insurers.” (Same CRP source.) Surprise surprise!
One more thing. If the campaign contributions have their desired effect, the pharmaceutical manufacturers and other health care industries and special interests of all types, are more than generous with jobs. The legislator can walk away from his responsibility by leaving Congress and working for those who paid the piper and called the tune.
Don’t believe me? Example: Jim McCrery, Republican from Louisiana and former member of the House Ways and Means committee responsible for overseeing health care policy, joined the lobbying firm Capitol Counsel, that got $6.7 million last year from Roche and AstraZeneca (both big Pharma). (Thanks to Bloomberg.com for that one.) He’s not alone. A study by the University of Michigan shows that 27% of federal legislators become lobbyists as their first job after leaving government. 37% more join the K Street mob as their second or third job after leaving.
And all these millions have to come from somewhere, don’t they? It’s hard to say whether more comes from your health insurance premiums or your tax dollars. Either way, wouldn’t it be nice if we could control it?
Call your representatives and senators. NOW! We need health care reform, and we need to stop the gravy train of special interest lobbies.
JM
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Who’s Looking Out For You? It’s most assuredly not the Republicans
Okay, the pity party is officially over. The distressing lack of spine displayed by many of the Democrats in both the House and Senate regarding a Public health insurance Option has had us crying in our beer for the last couple of days, and that’s long enough. Now there’s work to be done, so let’s get serious about the task at hand. It’s apparently being left up to us to convince everyone we possibly can, particularly the Blue Dogs, that meaningful Health Care Reform is in the best interests of the country as a whole.
We all need to play a part in this, even if it just means making a phone call or communicating in some other way with your Senators and House Reps…unless, of course, they’re Republicans. In that case, forget it! You’d be wasting your time…time that could be better spent calling friends and neighbors who need more convincing. The GOP has shown repeatedly since this process began that they have absolutely no interest in Health Care Reform, meaningful or otherwise. They are not your friends!
This really shouldn’t surprise anyone because the Republicans have fought and voted against the best interests of 95% of Americans…the best interests of your families and ours…on every significant social issue since the 1940s. They have consistently sided with huge financial institutions, large corporations, and the 5% of our population that’s comprised of the country’s wealthiest individuals, rather than with us.
They have a tradition of being on the wrong side of history whenever it comes to the overall wellbeing and lifestyle security of the working class. If you doubt that, all you have to do is look at the evidence. It’s so stark that one can’t help but wonder why anyone who is counted among the 95% would ever vote Republican… unless you’ve been deluded into believing, like so many have, that they consider you one of them.
The GOP waged a savage campaign against the advent of Social Security back before it became law…and even today they’re continually lobbying behind the scenes to either privatize the program or, preferably in their minds, get rid of it altogether. If you need your memory jogged, just think back to the failed efforts of W’s administration in that regard. Were they trying to derail Social Security with your future in mind?
Republicans fought bitterly against Medicare before the Democrats prevailed and it became law back in the 1960s. For some reason they just never seem to want to give anything back to the people who spend their entire lives working to help make America the country that it is. Why do you suppose that is?
And why do you suppose it is that the GOP always so vehemently opposes any proposed increase in the minimum wage…even knowing full well that as the cost of living continues to rise, many Americans end up in a deeper and deeper financial hole. Do you think they’re campaigning and voting against these paltry increases because they have your best interests at heart? Not bloody likely. It’s because they know that if the minimum wage goes up, so will everyone else’s wages…and that’s what they're really trying to prevent!
The same goes for unemployment benefits. Even though we all faithfully pay into this pool…for insurance purposes…Republicans consistently vote to limit the payouts as much as possible, and they never, ever vote to extend benefits no matter what’s happening with the economy or the job market. In fact it’s because of the GOP that today’s job market is as bad as it is. It was under their watch, and with their blessing, that so many companies were allowed to close down plants in the United States and open up off-shore operations so they could access all that inhumanely cheap, third-world labor. The resulting loss of good-paying American jobs will be felt for at least a generation.
Now, once again, the debate on Health Care Reform resumes. This is something the Democrats have been working unsuccessfully to accomplish for almost 70 years…and the Grand Old Party has been working successfully to prevent for just as long. The rules of the game changed dramatically in the 1970s when Richard Nixon opened the door for Health Care to become a for-profit industry…Hippocratic Oath be damned! Ever since then, the need for meaningful reform has been even greater.
The biggest problem is a health insurance sector run amok. The insurance companies are essentially operating without any real oversight or competition. They collude to charge premiums at rates that would embarrass loan sharks. They cancel policies and deny further coverage to even long-time customers who happen to get sick or injured and have to make a claim. When confronted with claims, especially large claims, they routinely deny coverage…either on technicalities as mundane as typos, or for some trumped-up issue that they’ve suddenly discovered in the client’s health history or policy application.
They pay employees huge performance bonuses based solely upon the dollar value of the claims they manage to deny. And they pay their highest-ranking executives ridiculous amounts of money to ensure that their companies continue making obscene profits.
This is who the Republicans are fighting to protect. They couldn’t care less about you or me…or the tens of millions of Americans who are either underinsured or have no insurance at all. You want to talk obscene, just listen to what Virginia GOP Congressman Eric Cantor told one of his constituents at a recent Town Hall Meeting in Richmond:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-yyiJpeA4w
So the Republican answer seems to be, if you don't have insurance, maybe you can get charity. And good luck with that. Get well soon!
We’ll leave you with a prescient piece about the plight of the deservedly maligned American health insurance industry done by comedian Will Ferrell and several other notable performers, published on ‘funnyordie.com’. Keep up the good fight!
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/041b5acaf5/protect-insurance-companies-psa
SC
We all need to play a part in this, even if it just means making a phone call or communicating in some other way with your Senators and House Reps…unless, of course, they’re Republicans. In that case, forget it! You’d be wasting your time…time that could be better spent calling friends and neighbors who need more convincing. The GOP has shown repeatedly since this process began that they have absolutely no interest in Health Care Reform, meaningful or otherwise. They are not your friends!
This really shouldn’t surprise anyone because the Republicans have fought and voted against the best interests of 95% of Americans…the best interests of your families and ours…on every significant social issue since the 1940s. They have consistently sided with huge financial institutions, large corporations, and the 5% of our population that’s comprised of the country’s wealthiest individuals, rather than with us.
They have a tradition of being on the wrong side of history whenever it comes to the overall wellbeing and lifestyle security of the working class. If you doubt that, all you have to do is look at the evidence. It’s so stark that one can’t help but wonder why anyone who is counted among the 95% would ever vote Republican… unless you’ve been deluded into believing, like so many have, that they consider you one of them.
The GOP waged a savage campaign against the advent of Social Security back before it became law…and even today they’re continually lobbying behind the scenes to either privatize the program or, preferably in their minds, get rid of it altogether. If you need your memory jogged, just think back to the failed efforts of W’s administration in that regard. Were they trying to derail Social Security with your future in mind?
Republicans fought bitterly against Medicare before the Democrats prevailed and it became law back in the 1960s. For some reason they just never seem to want to give anything back to the people who spend their entire lives working to help make America the country that it is. Why do you suppose that is?
And why do you suppose it is that the GOP always so vehemently opposes any proposed increase in the minimum wage…even knowing full well that as the cost of living continues to rise, many Americans end up in a deeper and deeper financial hole. Do you think they’re campaigning and voting against these paltry increases because they have your best interests at heart? Not bloody likely. It’s because they know that if the minimum wage goes up, so will everyone else’s wages…and that’s what they're really trying to prevent!
The same goes for unemployment benefits. Even though we all faithfully pay into this pool…for insurance purposes…Republicans consistently vote to limit the payouts as much as possible, and they never, ever vote to extend benefits no matter what’s happening with the economy or the job market. In fact it’s because of the GOP that today’s job market is as bad as it is. It was under their watch, and with their blessing, that so many companies were allowed to close down plants in the United States and open up off-shore operations so they could access all that inhumanely cheap, third-world labor. The resulting loss of good-paying American jobs will be felt for at least a generation.
Now, once again, the debate on Health Care Reform resumes. This is something the Democrats have been working unsuccessfully to accomplish for almost 70 years…and the Grand Old Party has been working successfully to prevent for just as long. The rules of the game changed dramatically in the 1970s when Richard Nixon opened the door for Health Care to become a for-profit industry…Hippocratic Oath be damned! Ever since then, the need for meaningful reform has been even greater.
The biggest problem is a health insurance sector run amok. The insurance companies are essentially operating without any real oversight or competition. They collude to charge premiums at rates that would embarrass loan sharks. They cancel policies and deny further coverage to even long-time customers who happen to get sick or injured and have to make a claim. When confronted with claims, especially large claims, they routinely deny coverage…either on technicalities as mundane as typos, or for some trumped-up issue that they’ve suddenly discovered in the client’s health history or policy application.
They pay employees huge performance bonuses based solely upon the dollar value of the claims they manage to deny. And they pay their highest-ranking executives ridiculous amounts of money to ensure that their companies continue making obscene profits.
This is who the Republicans are fighting to protect. They couldn’t care less about you or me…or the tens of millions of Americans who are either underinsured or have no insurance at all. You want to talk obscene, just listen to what Virginia GOP Congressman Eric Cantor told one of his constituents at a recent Town Hall Meeting in Richmond:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-yyiJpeA4w
So the Republican answer seems to be, if you don't have insurance, maybe you can get charity. And good luck with that. Get well soon!
We’ll leave you with a prescient piece about the plight of the deservedly maligned American health insurance industry done by comedian Will Ferrell and several other notable performers, published on ‘funnyordie.com’. Keep up the good fight!
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/041b5acaf5/protect-insurance-companies-psa
SC
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Looking to the Polls for Answers?
The news was filled with charts and graphics of the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll today.
Let’s start by saying I have a little experience with survey research – known popularly as polling. I studied methodology and statistics. I worked as a research officer in mental health for years. I’m not a world renowned expert, but I am an informed consumer.
Some principles are absolutely essential for results that have any value:
* random selection of participants
* large sampling (at least 2000 to have real statistical significance)
* pre-testing the questions to ensure participants understand what you’re asking
* unbiased statement of the questions
* adequate range of responses
* timing – complete the survey efficiently so relevant events don’t intervene (some people get asked before the relevant event, and others after, potentially changing the results – i.e., “Is your home insurance adequate?” asking some before the hurricane hits and some after – the first people might have given you a different answer after!)
The next time you pick up a newspaper or turn on the news and see another poll telling you how the American people are feeling on any particular subject, try to find out whether those principles have been met. It’s hard to do, because the most you usually get is the “+ or – “ levels. If the + or – levels are higher than 2%, ignore the data completely if anything important is riding on a close result.
That said, I was interested to see the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll. I searched around a bit until I found the full report. They surveyed only 1005 people, in 350 geographic regions, made sure they got an even number of males and females … not truly random sampling, but they tried to ensure a “representative” sample … and their results had an error rating of +- 3.1% for some questions, and +/- 4.4% for other questions. That pretty much wipes out most of the differences in this poll. The pundits, of course, are finding evidence for just about everybody’s viewpoint in these results.
But there were a few things that are probably accurate reflections of American sentiment. I’ll cherry pick a little.
To start, “What do you think will be an indicator that the economy is improving?” 58% said increased employment – only 9% are looking at the stock market. Can somebody please tell that to politicians and media pundits? Economists have their formulas, but people live in the real world.
51% approve of the job Obama is doing. This is unchanged. 77% approve of him as a person, also pretty steady.
22% approve of the way Republicans in Congress are handling health care reform, 66% disapprove. Even with a small sample and large margin of error, this is a significant finding. But not a surprising one.
Who will be to blame (remember that part about unbiased questions?) if health care reform fails? 10% blame the President; Dems 16%; the Repubs 37%; everyone equally 23%.
39% approval on Obama’s health care plan – 41% disapprove, 20% no opinion. This is an improvement over last month’s poll, where the approval was only 36%, disapproval was 42%, and the no opinion/not sure was 22%. If it were a bigger sample, I’d say this is evidence of a swing in favor of the proposals President Obama has been touting.
45% said it would be better to pass the plan than stick to the status quo; 39% favor keeping the current health system.
This is one of my favorite questions:
“Thinking about efforts to reform the health care system, which would concern you more? Not doing enough to make the health care system better than it is now by lowering costs and covering the uninsured; OR Going too far and making the health care system worse than it is now in terms of quality of care and choice of doctor.”
The way they asked that question was unclear, contained apparent bias, and was pretty restrictive in the responses. They only asked half the respondents this one, so the sample was even smaller. It would be hard to base your vote on this response if you were a member of the Senate Finance Committee, but let’s bet some will.
The responses? Not doing enough 44%; Going too far 48%; Not sure 8%
For what it’s worth, one month ago the responses to that question were: Not doing enough 41%; Going too far 54%; Not sure 5%.
You might interpret this to mean that President Obama’s public sales pitch has been working, because this time more were afraid the reform wouldn’t go far enough, and fewer were afraid it would go too far.
Consider the possibility that of the 41% who disapprove of Obama’s plan, many are progressives who think he hasn’t gone far enough.
Commenting on MSNBC today, White House advisor David Axelrod said they don’t look at the polls (though he was familiar with this one). He said “Washington thinks every day is election day”, and the Obama group doesn’t take that approach. They see a problem and address it without concern for the political fallout.
Fact is, virtually every day IS election day for Congress – with elections every two years for ALL of House and 1/3 of Senate.
That’s why everyone pours over the latest poll results and bases the future of America on them. Here’s one that seems interesting - 49% said they would like to get a new representative, 40% said they would “keep the one I have.” I thought that was encouraging – the higher the number in favor of change, the better – but pundits on both sides claim this one as good news for their side. Truth is, it turns out the numbers have been about the same on nearly every poll since 1992! And incumbents almost always get re-elected.
Cross your fingers for change, but don't bet the kids' college funds on this one.
JM
Let’s start by saying I have a little experience with survey research – known popularly as polling. I studied methodology and statistics. I worked as a research officer in mental health for years. I’m not a world renowned expert, but I am an informed consumer.
Some principles are absolutely essential for results that have any value:
* random selection of participants
* large sampling (at least 2000 to have real statistical significance)
* pre-testing the questions to ensure participants understand what you’re asking
* unbiased statement of the questions
* adequate range of responses
* timing – complete the survey efficiently so relevant events don’t intervene (some people get asked before the relevant event, and others after, potentially changing the results – i.e., “Is your home insurance adequate?” asking some before the hurricane hits and some after – the first people might have given you a different answer after!)
The next time you pick up a newspaper or turn on the news and see another poll telling you how the American people are feeling on any particular subject, try to find out whether those principles have been met. It’s hard to do, because the most you usually get is the “+ or – “ levels. If the + or – levels are higher than 2%, ignore the data completely if anything important is riding on a close result.
That said, I was interested to see the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll. I searched around a bit until I found the full report. They surveyed only 1005 people, in 350 geographic regions, made sure they got an even number of males and females … not truly random sampling, but they tried to ensure a “representative” sample … and their results had an error rating of +- 3.1% for some questions, and +/- 4.4% for other questions. That pretty much wipes out most of the differences in this poll. The pundits, of course, are finding evidence for just about everybody’s viewpoint in these results.
But there were a few things that are probably accurate reflections of American sentiment. I’ll cherry pick a little.
To start, “What do you think will be an indicator that the economy is improving?” 58% said increased employment – only 9% are looking at the stock market. Can somebody please tell that to politicians and media pundits? Economists have their formulas, but people live in the real world.
51% approve of the job Obama is doing. This is unchanged. 77% approve of him as a person, also pretty steady.
22% approve of the way Republicans in Congress are handling health care reform, 66% disapprove. Even with a small sample and large margin of error, this is a significant finding. But not a surprising one.
Who will be to blame (remember that part about unbiased questions?) if health care reform fails? 10% blame the President; Dems 16%; the Repubs 37%; everyone equally 23%.
39% approval on Obama’s health care plan – 41% disapprove, 20% no opinion. This is an improvement over last month’s poll, where the approval was only 36%, disapproval was 42%, and the no opinion/not sure was 22%. If it were a bigger sample, I’d say this is evidence of a swing in favor of the proposals President Obama has been touting.
45% said it would be better to pass the plan than stick to the status quo; 39% favor keeping the current health system.
This is one of my favorite questions:
“Thinking about efforts to reform the health care system, which would concern you more? Not doing enough to make the health care system better than it is now by lowering costs and covering the uninsured; OR Going too far and making the health care system worse than it is now in terms of quality of care and choice of doctor.”
The way they asked that question was unclear, contained apparent bias, and was pretty restrictive in the responses. They only asked half the respondents this one, so the sample was even smaller. It would be hard to base your vote on this response if you were a member of the Senate Finance Committee, but let’s bet some will.
The responses? Not doing enough 44%; Going too far 48%; Not sure 8%
For what it’s worth, one month ago the responses to that question were: Not doing enough 41%; Going too far 54%; Not sure 5%.
You might interpret this to mean that President Obama’s public sales pitch has been working, because this time more were afraid the reform wouldn’t go far enough, and fewer were afraid it would go too far.
Consider the possibility that of the 41% who disapprove of Obama’s plan, many are progressives who think he hasn’t gone far enough.
Commenting on MSNBC today, White House advisor David Axelrod said they don’t look at the polls (though he was familiar with this one). He said “Washington thinks every day is election day”, and the Obama group doesn’t take that approach. They see a problem and address it without concern for the political fallout.
Fact is, virtually every day IS election day for Congress – with elections every two years for ALL of House and 1/3 of Senate.
That’s why everyone pours over the latest poll results and bases the future of America on them. Here’s one that seems interesting - 49% said they would like to get a new representative, 40% said they would “keep the one I have.” I thought that was encouraging – the higher the number in favor of change, the better – but pundits on both sides claim this one as good news for their side. Truth is, it turns out the numbers have been about the same on nearly every poll since 1992! And incumbents almost always get re-elected.
Cross your fingers for change, but don't bet the kids' college funds on this one.
JM
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Playing To Win: Why the GOP almost always gets what they want!
Don’t you sometimes wish that more Congressional Democrats would somehow find their spines? Wouldn’t you love to see them wield that big stick like the Republicans did during the eight years of W’s administration?
Hell, the GOP still carried on like the cock of the walk even after they lost control of the House and Senate following the 2006 midterms! They regarded the Democrats as more of a nuisance to be ignored than any kind of real obstruction…and they basically continued doing whatever they wanted to do…right up until they lost control of everything in November of 2008.
Even that hasn’t stopped them because except for the White House, they’re still controlling the show in Washington. The GOP has framed the Health Care Reform debate since the outset with one outrageous claim after another…putting the Dems consistently on the defensive. Death Panels, rationed care, socialized medicine, covering illegal immigrants, Medicare cuts…the Republicans, their activist organizations and their media shills throw whatever they can think of at the wall, knowing full well that even though it’s all bullshit, some of it will stick and all of it leaves a stain and a stink that never quite goes away.
In short, they play the game however they have to in order to achieve their goals. When they were in power, the Republican objective was to craft virtually every single piece of legislation and tailor every other decision in such a way that it would benefit big business and the wealthiest Americans. And now that they’re not in power, at least not in theory, their sole objective is to stop the Democrats at every turn.
They succeeded wildly then, and they’re succeeding wildly now…and it would seem that the Dems, at least insofar as they’re currently constituted, are not capable of winning this game. With far too few exceptions they just don’t appear to have the stomach for the fight. So once again the GOP is controlling the show, and that my friends is a sad commentary on the people we sent to Washington to bring about ‘change we could believe in’.
Look at the evidence! Every time someone speaking for the Dems stands up to be counted by speaking his or her mind on an issue, they end up being villainized by the right wing and that’s the story the mainstream media runs with. Worse yet, no one on the left comes to their defense. But every time a Republican stands up, even someone like South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson who’s only claim to fame was acting like an unprincipled idiot, they end up being lionized by the right wing…and guess what story the mainstream media runs with in that instance?
The real tragedy in all of this is that for the first time in our history the stars all seemed to be aligned for meaningful Health Care Reform, but the Democrats look as if they can’t, or won’t, carry the ball across the goal line. On the surface, the reasons might seem complicated…but they’re really not. Simply put, too many Democrats are more afraid of losing the financial support they receive from the health industry lobby than they are concerned about losing the support of their electorate. Apparently money talks louder than votes.
We may yet end up with some sort of a Health Care bill being passed into law, but it’s looking less likely every day that it will contain any meaningful reform…that it will have the teeth to bring the health insurance industry to heel. We sincerely hope we’re wrong… but as of right now it just doesn’t look very promising. The Republicans are still being allowed to wield their big stick even though the Democrats have the power of numbers on their side. But the numbers don’t mean jack if the Dems aren’t willing to use this advantage as their hammer. That’s what the GOP would do!
When are we ever going to learn? If it’s worthwhile playing the game, it’s worthwhile playing to win. Carpe diem Democrats…Carpe diem.
SC
Hell, the GOP still carried on like the cock of the walk even after they lost control of the House and Senate following the 2006 midterms! They regarded the Democrats as more of a nuisance to be ignored than any kind of real obstruction…and they basically continued doing whatever they wanted to do…right up until they lost control of everything in November of 2008.
Even that hasn’t stopped them because except for the White House, they’re still controlling the show in Washington. The GOP has framed the Health Care Reform debate since the outset with one outrageous claim after another…putting the Dems consistently on the defensive. Death Panels, rationed care, socialized medicine, covering illegal immigrants, Medicare cuts…the Republicans, their activist organizations and their media shills throw whatever they can think of at the wall, knowing full well that even though it’s all bullshit, some of it will stick and all of it leaves a stain and a stink that never quite goes away.
In short, they play the game however they have to in order to achieve their goals. When they were in power, the Republican objective was to craft virtually every single piece of legislation and tailor every other decision in such a way that it would benefit big business and the wealthiest Americans. And now that they’re not in power, at least not in theory, their sole objective is to stop the Democrats at every turn.
They succeeded wildly then, and they’re succeeding wildly now…and it would seem that the Dems, at least insofar as they’re currently constituted, are not capable of winning this game. With far too few exceptions they just don’t appear to have the stomach for the fight. So once again the GOP is controlling the show, and that my friends is a sad commentary on the people we sent to Washington to bring about ‘change we could believe in’.
Look at the evidence! Every time someone speaking for the Dems stands up to be counted by speaking his or her mind on an issue, they end up being villainized by the right wing and that’s the story the mainstream media runs with. Worse yet, no one on the left comes to their defense. But every time a Republican stands up, even someone like South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson who’s only claim to fame was acting like an unprincipled idiot, they end up being lionized by the right wing…and guess what story the mainstream media runs with in that instance?
The real tragedy in all of this is that for the first time in our history the stars all seemed to be aligned for meaningful Health Care Reform, but the Democrats look as if they can’t, or won’t, carry the ball across the goal line. On the surface, the reasons might seem complicated…but they’re really not. Simply put, too many Democrats are more afraid of losing the financial support they receive from the health industry lobby than they are concerned about losing the support of their electorate. Apparently money talks louder than votes.
We may yet end up with some sort of a Health Care bill being passed into law, but it’s looking less likely every day that it will contain any meaningful reform…that it will have the teeth to bring the health insurance industry to heel. We sincerely hope we’re wrong… but as of right now it just doesn’t look very promising. The Republicans are still being allowed to wield their big stick even though the Democrats have the power of numbers on their side. But the numbers don’t mean jack if the Dems aren’t willing to use this advantage as their hammer. That’s what the GOP would do!
When are we ever going to learn? If it’s worthwhile playing the game, it’s worthwhile playing to win. Carpe diem Democrats…Carpe diem.
SC
A Peace Plan for Afghanistan
Unusual for us, but here's a quickie post...
Instead of sending thousands more battle-trained troops, how 'bout we beef up our presence in Afghanistan with Peace Corps workers, with the military already there to protect them. Train a few thousand to speak the language (Rosetta Stone says it can happen in a few months) and let them visit with the locals, help them improve their schools and water supplies and small businesses, maybe even teach a little English. Show them they don't have to grow poppies to enter the world market. Show them that Americans don't want to take over, we want to help them wrest control from the Taliban and take back of an improved nation. Show them that Americans know more than force and killing.
It's a dream, I know, but some of the best plans start with a dream, and end with real success. Whaddaya think?
Instead of sending thousands more battle-trained troops, how 'bout we beef up our presence in Afghanistan with Peace Corps workers, with the military already there to protect them. Train a few thousand to speak the language (Rosetta Stone says it can happen in a few months) and let them visit with the locals, help them improve their schools and water supplies and small businesses, maybe even teach a little English. Show them they don't have to grow poppies to enter the world market. Show them that Americans don't want to take over, we want to help them wrest control from the Taliban and take back of an improved nation. Show them that Americans know more than force and killing.
It's a dream, I know, but some of the best plans start with a dream, and end with real success. Whaddaya think?
Monday, September 21, 2009
Signs of the times - Nazism?
Seeing the signs held at Tea Parties and the 9/12 March on Washington was something of a rude awakening. Protesters exclaimed that President Obama and the Democratic Congress were Fascists, Nazis, Socialists, or Communists. It’s been a while since we were in school, but we’re pretty sure not all of these could be true, because they mean dramatically different things. The signs also indicated that the Obama agenda would mean the end of capitalism.
Judging by the man-on-the-street interviews with protesters, these folks do not have the education to understand what they were asserting. We’ll go even farther – the elected representatives speaking to them didn’t know what they were talking about either.
More than half of all Americans were not alive for fascism and Nazism, and clearly have no idea what they actually were. On the other hand, socialism is alive and well in many democratic states, and there are still a few communist states – notably China and Cuba. And surprising as it may be, capitalism can actually be mixed into some of the other systems.
Whoaaaa! How can this be?
Let’s start with the basics. Definitions. According to Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary:
Fascism - a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
Nazism - the body of political and economic doctrines held and put into effect by the Nazis in Germany from 1933 to 1945 including the totalitarian principle of government, predominance of especially Germanic groups assumed to be racially superior, and supremacy of the führer
Socialism - 1 : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods; 2 a : a system of society or group living in which there is no private property; b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state; 3 : a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done
Communism - 1 a : a theory advocating elimination of private property; b : a system in which goods are owned in common and are available to all as needed; 2 (capitalized) a : a doctrine based on revolutionary Marxian socialism and Marxism-Leninism that was the official ideology of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; b : a totalitarian system of government in which a single authoritarian party controls state-owned means of production; c : a final stage of society in Marxist theory in which the state has withered away and economic goods are distributed equitably
Capitalism - an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market
Wikepedia (for those of us who have any confidence in it) gives more elaboration on all four. Here are a few of those comments:
Fascism - Fascists believe that nations and/or races are in perpetual conflict whereby only the strong can survive by being healthy, vital, and by asserting themselves in conflict against the weak.
Nazism - Nazism is often considered by scholars to be a form of fascism. While it incorporated elements from both left and right-wing politics, the Nazis formed most of their alliances on the right. … Among the key elements of Nazism were anti-parliamentarism, Pan-Germanism, racism, collectivism, eugenics, antisemitism, anti-communism, totalitarianism and opposition to economic liberalism and political liberalism.
Socialism - Contrary to popular belief, socialism is not a political system; it is an economic system distinct from capitalism.
Communism - The term "Communism", usually spelled with the capital letter C, is however often used to refer to a form of government in which the state operates under a one-party system and declares allegiance to Marxism-Leninism or a derivative thereof, even if the party does not actually claim that the society has already reached communism.
Capitalism - typically refers to an economic and social system in which the means of production (also known as capital) are privately controlled; labor, goods and capital are traded in a market; profits are distributed to owners or invested in new technologies and industries; and wages are paid to labor. The extent to which different markets are free, as well as rules determining what may and may not be private property, is a matter of politics and policy and many states have what are termed "mixed economies.”
Historically, Americans like the idea of everybody owning their own stuff and doing whatever they want – as long as they don’t hurt other people. Technically, that doesn’t qualify us as pure capitalists, socialists, fascists, nazis, or communists.
What President Obama has claimed as his agenda – health care reform, re-regulating the banks and stock markets to fix our economy, removing some social restrictions like gay civil unions and military service, removing subsidies from banks who fund government backed student loans, etc. – is not, by any educated interpretation, fascism, Nazism, socialism, or communism.
One could argue that former President Bush’s administration came closer to fascism than what our current president proposes. (Go back and re-read the definitions if you doubt it.) Don't recall seeing any signs saying that -- oh, wait, that's right. When President Bush appeared, any negative signs were banned to places a mile or two away from the TV cameras.
At the risk of going too far, you could even argue that the "one-party state" that characterizes communism is vaguely reminiscent of the vision of many right wing leaders who tried to engineer the demise of the Democratic party and establish dominance of the Republicans for all future generations.
Our education system has apparently let us down in the civics/political science/history department. Just remember – don’t believe everything you read – especially if it’s on a protester’s sign.
Judging by the man-on-the-street interviews with protesters, these folks do not have the education to understand what they were asserting. We’ll go even farther – the elected representatives speaking to them didn’t know what they were talking about either.
More than half of all Americans were not alive for fascism and Nazism, and clearly have no idea what they actually were. On the other hand, socialism is alive and well in many democratic states, and there are still a few communist states – notably China and Cuba. And surprising as it may be, capitalism can actually be mixed into some of the other systems.
Whoaaaa! How can this be?
Let’s start with the basics. Definitions. According to Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary:
Fascism - a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
Nazism - the body of political and economic doctrines held and put into effect by the Nazis in Germany from 1933 to 1945 including the totalitarian principle of government, predominance of especially Germanic groups assumed to be racially superior, and supremacy of the führer
Socialism - 1 : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods; 2 a : a system of society or group living in which there is no private property; b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state; 3 : a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done
Communism - 1 a : a theory advocating elimination of private property; b : a system in which goods are owned in common and are available to all as needed; 2 (capitalized) a : a doctrine based on revolutionary Marxian socialism and Marxism-Leninism that was the official ideology of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; b : a totalitarian system of government in which a single authoritarian party controls state-owned means of production; c : a final stage of society in Marxist theory in which the state has withered away and economic goods are distributed equitably
Capitalism - an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market
Wikepedia (for those of us who have any confidence in it) gives more elaboration on all four. Here are a few of those comments:
Fascism - Fascists believe that nations and/or races are in perpetual conflict whereby only the strong can survive by being healthy, vital, and by asserting themselves in conflict against the weak.
Nazism - Nazism is often considered by scholars to be a form of fascism. While it incorporated elements from both left and right-wing politics, the Nazis formed most of their alliances on the right. … Among the key elements of Nazism were anti-parliamentarism, Pan-Germanism, racism, collectivism, eugenics, antisemitism, anti-communism, totalitarianism and opposition to economic liberalism and political liberalism.
Socialism - Contrary to popular belief, socialism is not a political system; it is an economic system distinct from capitalism.
Communism - The term "Communism", usually spelled with the capital letter C, is however often used to refer to a form of government in which the state operates under a one-party system and declares allegiance to Marxism-Leninism or a derivative thereof, even if the party does not actually claim that the society has already reached communism.
Capitalism - typically refers to an economic and social system in which the means of production (also known as capital) are privately controlled; labor, goods and capital are traded in a market; profits are distributed to owners or invested in new technologies and industries; and wages are paid to labor. The extent to which different markets are free, as well as rules determining what may and may not be private property, is a matter of politics and policy and many states have what are termed "mixed economies.”
Historically, Americans like the idea of everybody owning their own stuff and doing whatever they want – as long as they don’t hurt other people. Technically, that doesn’t qualify us as pure capitalists, socialists, fascists, nazis, or communists.
What President Obama has claimed as his agenda – health care reform, re-regulating the banks and stock markets to fix our economy, removing some social restrictions like gay civil unions and military service, removing subsidies from banks who fund government backed student loans, etc. – is not, by any educated interpretation, fascism, Nazism, socialism, or communism.
One could argue that former President Bush’s administration came closer to fascism than what our current president proposes. (Go back and re-read the definitions if you doubt it.) Don't recall seeing any signs saying that -- oh, wait, that's right. When President Bush appeared, any negative signs were banned to places a mile or two away from the TV cameras.
At the risk of going too far, you could even argue that the "one-party state" that characterizes communism is vaguely reminiscent of the vision of many right wing leaders who tried to engineer the demise of the Democratic party and establish dominance of the Republicans for all future generations.
Our education system has apparently let us down in the civics/political science/history department. Just remember – don’t believe everything you read – especially if it’s on a protester’s sign.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Inciting The Lunatic Fringes: When does responsibility kick in?
At the risk of offending some people…as if this blog might actually have followers amongst the ‘Ditto Heads’…Rush Limbaugh is about as disgusting an example of the human species as we can imagine. This pathetic excuse of a man has sunk to a low that we didn’t believe even he could find…all to the end of building even more audience to further line his already overstuffed pockets. And damn the consequences of his words!
We’ve all seen or heard any number of these Christian Evangelists on TV and/or radio over the years…some of them quite reasonable, but others so ridiculous that their routine is actually laughable. Well, in a way, that’s what Limbaugh has become… although there’s nothing either Christian or laughable about his act.
Rush Limbaugh is a ‘Hate Evangelist’. His core audience is the lunatic fringe of what has become the extreme right, extremely white wing of the Republican Party…the party of Abraham Lincoln for crying out loud. And this blustering, offensive man has these crazies in his pocket, lapping up all the vitriol and divisiveness and anti Barack Obama, anti Democrat garbage that he consistently vomits out of his pie hole.
His latest proselytizing concerned that incident that occurred on a school bus a few days ago, where a white student was, unfortunately, beaten up by some black students. Limbaugh described it as just another example of what it’s going to be like for white people to live in Barack Obama’s America. Nice…as if something like this, or the reverse of it, had never happened before he became President. And even though the police who investigated the incident said they found nothing to indicate it had been in any way racially motivated, that apparently wasn’t good enough for the odious Mr. Limbaugh.
He indignantly said of the police, “…they’re wrong”. That’s because he wants his listeners to believe IT WAS a racially motivated attack, and they will. Most of them believe whatever he tells them… and far too many of them, if so directed, would act on whatever he tells them too. And therein lies the very real problem with this alarmingly dangerous, hate-mongering, fear-mongering sack of crap… and every other bloviator of his ilk that’s on the air today. They’re dangerous, and they shouldn’t be allowed to spew their venom on our public airwaves.
To inflame the passions of his listeners and viewers even further, Limbaugh also opined, we can only hope jokingly, that perhaps we should return to segregated school buses for the safety of the country’s white students. Right, and then what, Rush…segregated schools, segregated neighborhoods, separate water fountains and public rest rooms, whites only restaurants and hotels. Pretty soon we’ll be back to the way it was before the Civil Rights Act…or is that actually what you want? It sure seems like it!
Much of the impact of broadcast trash such as Limbaugh, the frighteningly psychotic Glenn Beck, bullying blowhard Bill O’Reilly, self-serving apologist Sean Hannity, and the increasingly xenophobic Lou Dobbs, could be neutralized if someone from the GOP had the guts to stand up and say “Enough! These people and their paranoid, hateful disciples don’t speak for or represent me…and I don’t speak for or represent them. What they say and do bears no resemblance to my Republican Party”.
That’s what we’d like to hear, somebody in that party willing to take the first step towards bringing civility and sanity back to our political discourse and debate. But sadly it’s unlikely to happen because truth to tell, their de facto leader is Limbaugh...and there isn't one of them who'd be willing to risk the ire of Java The Hutt by speaking out against him or his herd.
Republicans decided over 40-years ago that no price was too high to pay in their quest for power…not even if it meant embracing Richard Nixon’s soul-selling Southern Strategy. It began with their courting of the Christian Right, and has evolved into this mélange of fanatics and extremists you see the GOP pandering to today…the people who show up at Town Hall meetings, and events such as the recent 9/12 assembly, brandishing guns and carrying those vile, racist, threatening posters you’ve seen so often in the news lately. The GOP has become so locked in, so beholden to this extreme right wing of THEIR party, that they likely couldn’t extricate themselves even if they wanted to…which, obviously, they don’t.
Republican political leaders claim these people are motivated by patriotism, not racism…and that their posters and guns and threats are just a way of expressing concern about America’s future. But that dog ain’t gonna hunt. They may not all be racists, and they may not all be dangerous, but with Limbaugh and the rest of the enablers and encouragers, politicians and broadcast trash alike, fanning the flames of fear and hatred, they’re rapidly assuming the mentality of an angry mob.
The GOP rails against anyone who dares suggest that their extremist followers might be racist, but they’ll gladly toss the race bomb in the other direction whenever it suits their purpose...as Limbaugh clearly showed when discussing that school bus fight on his radio program. The very next day, when former President Jimmy Carter said that he believed much of the venom directed at President Obama was racially motivated, the big man almost lost his lunch on the air.
“Jimmy Carter is America’s hemorrhoid”, Limbaugh mockingly proclaimed.
To which Keith Olberman adroitly responded, during his show on MSNBC, “…Well, I’ll have to defer to Rush on that…because who would know more about hemorrhoids than America’s asshole”.
Oh snap! Apparently civil discourse must await another day.
And so it goes.
SC
We’ve all seen or heard any number of these Christian Evangelists on TV and/or radio over the years…some of them quite reasonable, but others so ridiculous that their routine is actually laughable. Well, in a way, that’s what Limbaugh has become… although there’s nothing either Christian or laughable about his act.
Rush Limbaugh is a ‘Hate Evangelist’. His core audience is the lunatic fringe of what has become the extreme right, extremely white wing of the Republican Party…the party of Abraham Lincoln for crying out loud. And this blustering, offensive man has these crazies in his pocket, lapping up all the vitriol and divisiveness and anti Barack Obama, anti Democrat garbage that he consistently vomits out of his pie hole.
His latest proselytizing concerned that incident that occurred on a school bus a few days ago, where a white student was, unfortunately, beaten up by some black students. Limbaugh described it as just another example of what it’s going to be like for white people to live in Barack Obama’s America. Nice…as if something like this, or the reverse of it, had never happened before he became President. And even though the police who investigated the incident said they found nothing to indicate it had been in any way racially motivated, that apparently wasn’t good enough for the odious Mr. Limbaugh.
He indignantly said of the police, “…they’re wrong”. That’s because he wants his listeners to believe IT WAS a racially motivated attack, and they will. Most of them believe whatever he tells them… and far too many of them, if so directed, would act on whatever he tells them too. And therein lies the very real problem with this alarmingly dangerous, hate-mongering, fear-mongering sack of crap… and every other bloviator of his ilk that’s on the air today. They’re dangerous, and they shouldn’t be allowed to spew their venom on our public airwaves.
To inflame the passions of his listeners and viewers even further, Limbaugh also opined, we can only hope jokingly, that perhaps we should return to segregated school buses for the safety of the country’s white students. Right, and then what, Rush…segregated schools, segregated neighborhoods, separate water fountains and public rest rooms, whites only restaurants and hotels. Pretty soon we’ll be back to the way it was before the Civil Rights Act…or is that actually what you want? It sure seems like it!
Much of the impact of broadcast trash such as Limbaugh, the frighteningly psychotic Glenn Beck, bullying blowhard Bill O’Reilly, self-serving apologist Sean Hannity, and the increasingly xenophobic Lou Dobbs, could be neutralized if someone from the GOP had the guts to stand up and say “Enough! These people and their paranoid, hateful disciples don’t speak for or represent me…and I don’t speak for or represent them. What they say and do bears no resemblance to my Republican Party”.
That’s what we’d like to hear, somebody in that party willing to take the first step towards bringing civility and sanity back to our political discourse and debate. But sadly it’s unlikely to happen because truth to tell, their de facto leader is Limbaugh...and there isn't one of them who'd be willing to risk the ire of Java The Hutt by speaking out against him or his herd.
Republicans decided over 40-years ago that no price was too high to pay in their quest for power…not even if it meant embracing Richard Nixon’s soul-selling Southern Strategy. It began with their courting of the Christian Right, and has evolved into this mélange of fanatics and extremists you see the GOP pandering to today…the people who show up at Town Hall meetings, and events such as the recent 9/12 assembly, brandishing guns and carrying those vile, racist, threatening posters you’ve seen so often in the news lately. The GOP has become so locked in, so beholden to this extreme right wing of THEIR party, that they likely couldn’t extricate themselves even if they wanted to…which, obviously, they don’t.
Republican political leaders claim these people are motivated by patriotism, not racism…and that their posters and guns and threats are just a way of expressing concern about America’s future. But that dog ain’t gonna hunt. They may not all be racists, and they may not all be dangerous, but with Limbaugh and the rest of the enablers and encouragers, politicians and broadcast trash alike, fanning the flames of fear and hatred, they’re rapidly assuming the mentality of an angry mob.
The GOP rails against anyone who dares suggest that their extremist followers might be racist, but they’ll gladly toss the race bomb in the other direction whenever it suits their purpose...as Limbaugh clearly showed when discussing that school bus fight on his radio program. The very next day, when former President Jimmy Carter said that he believed much of the venom directed at President Obama was racially motivated, the big man almost lost his lunch on the air.
“Jimmy Carter is America’s hemorrhoid”, Limbaugh mockingly proclaimed.
To which Keith Olberman adroitly responded, during his show on MSNBC, “…Well, I’ll have to defer to Rush on that…because who would know more about hemorrhoids than America’s asshole”.
Oh snap! Apparently civil discourse must await another day.
And so it goes.
SC
Thursday, September 17, 2009
The Politically Correct Version of Racism
President and statesman Jimmy Carter has set off something of a furor. During an interview on NBC, he stated unequivocally that the “intensely demonstrated animosity” toward the current President was rooted in racism. As a southerner, indeed, former governor of Georgia, he’s seen plenty of it, and knows what it looks like.
His distress was due, in part, to the “912” demonstration this past Saturday promoted by Fox News (notably, Glenn Beck), sponsored by the faux grassroots FreedomWorks and other groups aligned with white militia movements. It featured speeches that virtually called for revolt, including some by Republican Senator DeMint (another South Carolina embarrassment), and Congresspersons Cantor, Blackburn and Pense. The demonstrators carried signs that varied from insulting the President, to likening him to Hitler, to threatening him.
Then there's South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson (who was originally supposed to speak at that gathering) -- famous for being the first congressman to call any president a liar during a presidential address to Congress. He also voted to keep the Confederate flag flying atop the SC capitol building; he accused the late Sen. Strom Thurmond's illegitimate daughter (by an African-American family maid) of smearing her father by "going public" with the truth of her parentage after he had died; and he is a member of Sons of Confederate Veterans, an organization that has gradually been taken over by people with a racist rather than a preservationist perspective. So, was there any racist undertone in his outburst of "You lie!"?
Is racism behind the explosion of hate and threats? Doesn’t the election of a mixed-race President prove America is beyond that?
Critics of Pres. Carter’s insistence that racism is behind the truly passionate outbursts, say that’s not the cause, that it’s based on economic fear more than anything else. Last November some of our very white neighbors here in South Carolina – to our great surprise – told us they just might vote for Obama, even though they never thought they’d vote for a black man for president. But, they said, all the other choices on both sides looked like more of the same, and maybe it was time to try something new. But the continuation of the Bush administration’s bailout policies, the Afghan war policy, and the onslaught of the lies told about his health care reform has made them wonder if President Obama isn’t just one more politician cut from the same cloth.
Those same Carter critics cite President Obama’s drop in approval rating from 70% to 50% after 8 months in office – saying the 20% drop undoubtedly is based on upset about the economy, the war, health care reform, etc. They didn't suddenly become racist. Undoubtedly true.
But Carter's critics ignore the relevant number - that 30% who never approved of him. There is no doubt that 30% has a contingent of racists who will never approve - even if Pres. Obama completely changes course and does everything they want. They wouldn’t have voted for him if he ran against Hitler himself.
It would be a major mistake to cater to them. Those are the folks Pres. Carter was talking about. And the worst part of that is they feel not just the freedom to express their hatred and racism, but they are encouraged to express it by those Republican leaders who will do anything to defeat President Obama. And that’s why President Carter called attention to it. Despite the backlash his remarks caused, he has repeated them publicly since.
America has come a long way in battling the lingering hatred and inequity stemming from the horrid days of slavery. At one time in our history probably half the white population in the country, maybe even more than that, could have been counted as racists. Thankfully that number has dropped significantly. Change like that takes generations, though, not months. Perhaps when our children’s children go to the polls, race truly will not matter. But if we don’t stand up to it, it will not go away. Indeed, the rising and outspoken resentment of our Latino immigrants is a sign of a new target for racists.
Courageous people like President Carter will continue to remind us of the risk of ignoring such hate-mongering. The vast majority of us will not succumb to the seduction of joining those lunatic racists, but we might succumb to the temptation to ignore it. This danger is expressed very well by blogger Paul Woodward in his 'War in Context' website:
“The difference between racism in America now and its earlier incarnations is that we now live in a society largely cleansed of racial slurs. Bigotry hides behind a facade of civility. Whenever the facade slips, it can quickly be re-hoisted while those who point an accusatory finger will themselves be accused of prejudice.
What we have failed to recognize is that lack of candor is actually more corrosive than bigotry. Bigotry paraded in the open can be challenged, but bigotry well-tutored in all the lessons of political correctness gets free reign.”
We need to call it when we see it, and talk about it seriously.
JM
His distress was due, in part, to the “912” demonstration this past Saturday promoted by Fox News (notably, Glenn Beck), sponsored by the faux grassroots FreedomWorks and other groups aligned with white militia movements. It featured speeches that virtually called for revolt, including some by Republican Senator DeMint (another South Carolina embarrassment), and Congresspersons Cantor, Blackburn and Pense. The demonstrators carried signs that varied from insulting the President, to likening him to Hitler, to threatening him.
Then there's South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson (who was originally supposed to speak at that gathering) -- famous for being the first congressman to call any president a liar during a presidential address to Congress. He also voted to keep the Confederate flag flying atop the SC capitol building; he accused the late Sen. Strom Thurmond's illegitimate daughter (by an African-American family maid) of smearing her father by "going public" with the truth of her parentage after he had died; and he is a member of Sons of Confederate Veterans, an organization that has gradually been taken over by people with a racist rather than a preservationist perspective. So, was there any racist undertone in his outburst of "You lie!"?
Is racism behind the explosion of hate and threats? Doesn’t the election of a mixed-race President prove America is beyond that?
Critics of Pres. Carter’s insistence that racism is behind the truly passionate outbursts, say that’s not the cause, that it’s based on economic fear more than anything else. Last November some of our very white neighbors here in South Carolina – to our great surprise – told us they just might vote for Obama, even though they never thought they’d vote for a black man for president. But, they said, all the other choices on both sides looked like more of the same, and maybe it was time to try something new. But the continuation of the Bush administration’s bailout policies, the Afghan war policy, and the onslaught of the lies told about his health care reform has made them wonder if President Obama isn’t just one more politician cut from the same cloth.
Those same Carter critics cite President Obama’s drop in approval rating from 70% to 50% after 8 months in office – saying the 20% drop undoubtedly is based on upset about the economy, the war, health care reform, etc. They didn't suddenly become racist. Undoubtedly true.
But Carter's critics ignore the relevant number - that 30% who never approved of him. There is no doubt that 30% has a contingent of racists who will never approve - even if Pres. Obama completely changes course and does everything they want. They wouldn’t have voted for him if he ran against Hitler himself.
It would be a major mistake to cater to them. Those are the folks Pres. Carter was talking about. And the worst part of that is they feel not just the freedom to express their hatred and racism, but they are encouraged to express it by those Republican leaders who will do anything to defeat President Obama. And that’s why President Carter called attention to it. Despite the backlash his remarks caused, he has repeated them publicly since.
America has come a long way in battling the lingering hatred and inequity stemming from the horrid days of slavery. At one time in our history probably half the white population in the country, maybe even more than that, could have been counted as racists. Thankfully that number has dropped significantly. Change like that takes generations, though, not months. Perhaps when our children’s children go to the polls, race truly will not matter. But if we don’t stand up to it, it will not go away. Indeed, the rising and outspoken resentment of our Latino immigrants is a sign of a new target for racists.
Courageous people like President Carter will continue to remind us of the risk of ignoring such hate-mongering. The vast majority of us will not succumb to the seduction of joining those lunatic racists, but we might succumb to the temptation to ignore it. This danger is expressed very well by blogger Paul Woodward in his 'War in Context' website:
“The difference between racism in America now and its earlier incarnations is that we now live in a society largely cleansed of racial slurs. Bigotry hides behind a facade of civility. Whenever the facade slips, it can quickly be re-hoisted while those who point an accusatory finger will themselves be accused of prejudice.
What we have failed to recognize is that lack of candor is actually more corrosive than bigotry. Bigotry paraded in the open can be challenged, but bigotry well-tutored in all the lessons of political correctness gets free reign.”
We need to call it when we see it, and talk about it seriously.
JM
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
A Swing and A Miss: Max Baucus and the Bipartisan Six
Okay, so here’s the thing. It really wasn’t a bipartisan six because no matter how many times the three Democratic members on this Senate committee caved to the demands of the three GOP members during negotiations…and as their final submission to the full Senate graphically illustrates, they obviously caved early and often…none of the three Republicans ended up approving the proposal anyway. That means none of them will vote for it, if it ever comes to a full Senate vote, and none of the other Republicans in the Senate will vote for it either.
For that, ironically, we as Democrats…or Progressives…or Independents…or Americans of any political stripe who want meaningful Health Care Reform…should be grateful, because the Baucus Bill is a pathetic piece of nothing. Speaking to the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee yesterday, Cigna whistleblower Wendell Potter called it “an absolute gift to the insurance industry”. And this guy knows whereof he speaks because before he found his conscience, he was a long-time executive in that very industry.
Potter went on to say that “if congress fails to create a public insurance option to compete with private insurers, the bill it sends to the president might as well be called the Insurance Industry Profit Protection and Enhancement Act…and contrary to the misinformation being disseminated by the Health Insurance Industry and its allies, the public insurance option WOULD NOT have a competitive advantage over private plans. It would have to meet the same benefit requirements and comply with the same insurance market reforms as private plans”.
Let’s put this in easy to understand terms. The Baucus Bill would provide absolutely no meaningful help or relief in the following scenario which, by the by, happens to be a real family’s real story.
Mom and Dad and their two youngest kids had been paying a healthy premium for family plan coverage for about 15 years. Even with no major claims the premiums and deductibles climbed inexorably higher while the coverage parameters got more restrictive and lower with each passing year. Then, Dad is diagnosed with colon cancer…but fortunately the surgery and subsequent chemo therapy regimen work and ten years later he’s still around. Medically they consider you cancer free and cured after five years, but the insurance industry continues to rate him so their premiums keep going ever upward.
Then, ten years after Dad’s big event, Mom ends up with a dissected aorta. After defying the odds and pulling through a high-risk, low-percentage initial surgery that necessitated a new aorta and 14 other prosthetic repairs, as well as a second surgery, she began living life as someone who will be medical care and medication dependent until the day she dies. And boy how the insurance companies love to hear that prognosis.
Now, two years later, 12 years out from his colon cancer Dad is fine, and Mom is back to normal except for the doctor monitoring and medication she’ll always need. Meanwhile, the insurance company abacus is running out of whatever it is that an abacus runs out of. Even with the kids grown and gone, the premiums have gotten so high that they no longer feel they can afford to pay them. So two people who have always been well-employed, albeit self-employed, and who paid ever-escalating premiums to their insurance carriers for over 20 years, are now being forced to play Health Roulette until they qualify for Medicare.
And because we know you’ll ask, we’re going to tell you. Premium estimates for covering the two of them, depending upon deductibles and coverages and exclusion of pre-existing conditions, ranged from $1,700 to $2,100 per month in round numbers when they finally came to the realization that they had hit the financial wall. For those of you without an abacus handy, that’s between $20,400 and $25,200 after-tax dollars per year…and that’s ridiculous!
They could do it, but they won’t do it. They would have to sell their house, rent a small apartment in a low-rent district, possibly sell their car, and never leave home, to be able to afford health insurance coverage at these rates. They don’t want to do that because they’ve spent most of their lives working hard so that they’d be able to pay for the house that they could retire in. It’s the American dream…the kids are educated and out on their own, and now it’s time to reap the benefits of all those years of hard work.
Except for them, it’s the American nightmare. They had the misfortune to be stricken with major health issues, and under the current system in this country that means they’re shit out of luck. Now they’re left to hope that their luck will change…at least until they both qualify for Medicare. If not, well, then their story could really get scary.
Think it couldn’t happen to you…either because you’re too young to get sick or because you've always been healthy? Well, so were they until...so you’d better think again! Under the prevailing system, everyone in this country who’s responsible for their own health insurance faces a similar scenario if they’re ever confronted with any serious medical issues… EVER.
And those of you fortunate enough to have your health insurance locked in for life because someone else is paying for it…like we the taxpayers or that big company you worked for…take a long, hard look in the mirror before you turn your back on the rest of us. Because some day, someone else in your family, or someone you care about, will be out on their own, and under this system, if they get sick or badly injured, God help them!
SC
For that, ironically, we as Democrats…or Progressives…or Independents…or Americans of any political stripe who want meaningful Health Care Reform…should be grateful, because the Baucus Bill is a pathetic piece of nothing. Speaking to the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee yesterday, Cigna whistleblower Wendell Potter called it “an absolute gift to the insurance industry”. And this guy knows whereof he speaks because before he found his conscience, he was a long-time executive in that very industry.
Potter went on to say that “if congress fails to create a public insurance option to compete with private insurers, the bill it sends to the president might as well be called the Insurance Industry Profit Protection and Enhancement Act…and contrary to the misinformation being disseminated by the Health Insurance Industry and its allies, the public insurance option WOULD NOT have a competitive advantage over private plans. It would have to meet the same benefit requirements and comply with the same insurance market reforms as private plans”.
Let’s put this in easy to understand terms. The Baucus Bill would provide absolutely no meaningful help or relief in the following scenario which, by the by, happens to be a real family’s real story.
Mom and Dad and their two youngest kids had been paying a healthy premium for family plan coverage for about 15 years. Even with no major claims the premiums and deductibles climbed inexorably higher while the coverage parameters got more restrictive and lower with each passing year. Then, Dad is diagnosed with colon cancer…but fortunately the surgery and subsequent chemo therapy regimen work and ten years later he’s still around. Medically they consider you cancer free and cured after five years, but the insurance industry continues to rate him so their premiums keep going ever upward.
Then, ten years after Dad’s big event, Mom ends up with a dissected aorta. After defying the odds and pulling through a high-risk, low-percentage initial surgery that necessitated a new aorta and 14 other prosthetic repairs, as well as a second surgery, she began living life as someone who will be medical care and medication dependent until the day she dies. And boy how the insurance companies love to hear that prognosis.
Now, two years later, 12 years out from his colon cancer Dad is fine, and Mom is back to normal except for the doctor monitoring and medication she’ll always need. Meanwhile, the insurance company abacus is running out of whatever it is that an abacus runs out of. Even with the kids grown and gone, the premiums have gotten so high that they no longer feel they can afford to pay them. So two people who have always been well-employed, albeit self-employed, and who paid ever-escalating premiums to their insurance carriers for over 20 years, are now being forced to play Health Roulette until they qualify for Medicare.
And because we know you’ll ask, we’re going to tell you. Premium estimates for covering the two of them, depending upon deductibles and coverages and exclusion of pre-existing conditions, ranged from $1,700 to $2,100 per month in round numbers when they finally came to the realization that they had hit the financial wall. For those of you without an abacus handy, that’s between $20,400 and $25,200 after-tax dollars per year…and that’s ridiculous!
They could do it, but they won’t do it. They would have to sell their house, rent a small apartment in a low-rent district, possibly sell their car, and never leave home, to be able to afford health insurance coverage at these rates. They don’t want to do that because they’ve spent most of their lives working hard so that they’d be able to pay for the house that they could retire in. It’s the American dream…the kids are educated and out on their own, and now it’s time to reap the benefits of all those years of hard work.
Except for them, it’s the American nightmare. They had the misfortune to be stricken with major health issues, and under the current system in this country that means they’re shit out of luck. Now they’re left to hope that their luck will change…at least until they both qualify for Medicare. If not, well, then their story could really get scary.
Think it couldn’t happen to you…either because you’re too young to get sick or because you've always been healthy? Well, so were they until...so you’d better think again! Under the prevailing system, everyone in this country who’s responsible for their own health insurance faces a similar scenario if they’re ever confronted with any serious medical issues… EVER.
And those of you fortunate enough to have your health insurance locked in for life because someone else is paying for it…like we the taxpayers or that big company you worked for…take a long, hard look in the mirror before you turn your back on the rest of us. Because some day, someone else in your family, or someone you care about, will be out on their own, and under this system, if they get sick or badly injured, God help them!
SC
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Mad as Hell? It Gets You Nowhere
When you’re mad, you want to act it out. No doubt we’re all mad right now. Economy “recovering” slowly, job loss still going up. Some stocks have started to go back up, but not all, and what about those of us who got out of the market at the bottom because we were scared? Our money is in the bank, and for sure those interest rates aren’t going up.
Banks are back to doing the same thing they were doing that got us into this mess, but now they can risk tax dollars as well.
Health care costs each of us so much we want to scream. We can’t believe insurance companies and hospitals and Pharma are allowed to get away with this.
We ALL are feeling this anger and frustration. Dems and Repubs alike. So we want to join up with others who will express this anger and get things moving in the right direction.
How do we do that? Calls and letters and emails to our representatives in Washington. Petitions online. Posting comments on blogs. Marching in the streets. Speaking up at town hall meetings. Signs on our lawns.
But where do you get the idea that it’s OK to lose it? To scream and yell and ultimately take violent action? Threaten to take your chips out of the pot and off the table, and start afresh, even if it takes violence to achieve that? Who tells you to throw a fit and smash whatever is in front of you? Not your mama.
Because Mama knows that hitting and screaming and biting doesn’t get you what you want.
One must suppose that Joe Wilson’s Mama never taught him that. Same goes for Glenn Beck, and the half-cocked pistols that want Texas to secede, the (IMHO) nutcases who “stormed” Washington on September 12, and the scary folks who set their sites, literally, on our President (400 times as many as any other president!).
Following what Mama taught, most of us use our inside voices. We talk. We bring up the reasons we think the way we do. We cite the evidence for our beliefs. We ask what the other guy thinks. We don’t sit on our hands, but we use enthusiastic non-threatening gestures to help make our points.
In the end, is either approach the best way to accomplish what you want? Will you be happy with what you get? We’re beginning to think neither way works.
The talkers are talking to people who won’t listen. They don’t show the emotions that make fellow sufferers feel that they take the situation seriously. On the other hand, the screaming hitters drive away the people they want to contribute to their hoped-for resulting situation.
Perhaps we take a page from President Reagan - the way to get things fixed is to poll your experts and pick a path and go down it. Tell ‘em what you did, not what you’re thinking about doing. After a while, if it doesn’t work, you stop, reassess, and head in the new direction. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to that last stage under President Reagan, but you have to admit he certainly took the country in the direction he thought best.
President Obama is bright enough to poll a broad range of experts, and put together a plan. Now he needs to make it happen. Screaming and yelling and threatening won’t work, but neither will intelligent discussion alone. “Talk softly, and carry a big stick…” Maybe Teddy Roosevelt knew what he was doing. President Obama has the eloquence, but he needs to add a sense of determination and urgency. The Democratic Congress can be a big stick. Of course, they have to decide there’s no future in debating with hitters, or they will continue to be limp as a … well, fill in your own favorite metaphor here.
Our President faces two extremely critical challenges as we speak: the re-regulation of the financial industry, and health care reform. In both cases, he needs to get everything he can on the first go. Once he has his plan underway, he can explain it enthusiastically, watch how it performs, and do the tuning up.
Our options are getting smaller by the day.
* * * * * * * *
ACORN – gaming the system. OMG! Do you believe it? Giving advice to pimps about how to fool the IRS and get a loan to buy a house! In three different states! They fired those people, but they probably weren’t the only advisors who would have done that. So the Senate votes not to give them a grant.
While we agree these advisors should have told them to leave or they would be reported to the IRS and the police, we can’t help but see the similarities between what ACORN did and what the banking and investment community did – look for loopholes and exploit them, in complete disregard for legality and morality. The difference being that the banking folks engineered the loopholes through lobbyists, got billions from the Senate, and they didn’t fire the dirty advisors.
What's the lesson? If you’re going to game the system, do it BIG.
JM
Banks are back to doing the same thing they were doing that got us into this mess, but now they can risk tax dollars as well.
Health care costs each of us so much we want to scream. We can’t believe insurance companies and hospitals and Pharma are allowed to get away with this.
We ALL are feeling this anger and frustration. Dems and Repubs alike. So we want to join up with others who will express this anger and get things moving in the right direction.
How do we do that? Calls and letters and emails to our representatives in Washington. Petitions online. Posting comments on blogs. Marching in the streets. Speaking up at town hall meetings. Signs on our lawns.
But where do you get the idea that it’s OK to lose it? To scream and yell and ultimately take violent action? Threaten to take your chips out of the pot and off the table, and start afresh, even if it takes violence to achieve that? Who tells you to throw a fit and smash whatever is in front of you? Not your mama.
Because Mama knows that hitting and screaming and biting doesn’t get you what you want.
One must suppose that Joe Wilson’s Mama never taught him that. Same goes for Glenn Beck, and the half-cocked pistols that want Texas to secede, the (IMHO) nutcases who “stormed” Washington on September 12, and the scary folks who set their sites, literally, on our President (400 times as many as any other president!).
Following what Mama taught, most of us use our inside voices. We talk. We bring up the reasons we think the way we do. We cite the evidence for our beliefs. We ask what the other guy thinks. We don’t sit on our hands, but we use enthusiastic non-threatening gestures to help make our points.
In the end, is either approach the best way to accomplish what you want? Will you be happy with what you get? We’re beginning to think neither way works.
The talkers are talking to people who won’t listen. They don’t show the emotions that make fellow sufferers feel that they take the situation seriously. On the other hand, the screaming hitters drive away the people they want to contribute to their hoped-for resulting situation.
Perhaps we take a page from President Reagan - the way to get things fixed is to poll your experts and pick a path and go down it. Tell ‘em what you did, not what you’re thinking about doing. After a while, if it doesn’t work, you stop, reassess, and head in the new direction. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to that last stage under President Reagan, but you have to admit he certainly took the country in the direction he thought best.
President Obama is bright enough to poll a broad range of experts, and put together a plan. Now he needs to make it happen. Screaming and yelling and threatening won’t work, but neither will intelligent discussion alone. “Talk softly, and carry a big stick…” Maybe Teddy Roosevelt knew what he was doing. President Obama has the eloquence, but he needs to add a sense of determination and urgency. The Democratic Congress can be a big stick. Of course, they have to decide there’s no future in debating with hitters, or they will continue to be limp as a … well, fill in your own favorite metaphor here.
Our President faces two extremely critical challenges as we speak: the re-regulation of the financial industry, and health care reform. In both cases, he needs to get everything he can on the first go. Once he has his plan underway, he can explain it enthusiastically, watch how it performs, and do the tuning up.
Our options are getting smaller by the day.
* * * * * * * *
ACORN – gaming the system. OMG! Do you believe it? Giving advice to pimps about how to fool the IRS and get a loan to buy a house! In three different states! They fired those people, but they probably weren’t the only advisors who would have done that. So the Senate votes not to give them a grant.
While we agree these advisors should have told them to leave or they would be reported to the IRS and the police, we can’t help but see the similarities between what ACORN did and what the banking and investment community did – look for loopholes and exploit them, in complete disregard for legality and morality. The difference being that the banking folks engineered the loopholes through lobbyists, got billions from the Senate, and they didn’t fire the dirty advisors.
What's the lesson? If you’re going to game the system, do it BIG.
JM
Monday, September 14, 2009
The Joe Wilson Agenda: Racism by any other name is still…
South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson showed the country and the world what he really is during Barack Obama’s Health Care Reform speech to a joint session of Congress last Wednesday…and by that we don’t mean just an ignorant, unprincipled peckerwood with no respect for the office of President of the United States, or the institution to which he was, incredibly, elected to serve. Unfortunately, it’s much more distressing than that.
If it were that simple, President Obama’s subsequent, gracious acceptance of Wilson’s so-called apology would have led us to conclude that it’s time to move on…except that it’s not that simple. Oh, Joe Wilson is everything we said above, but he’s more than that. He’s also a racist who, because of enablers and apologists like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh and Lou Dobbs and Sean Hannity and Sarah Palin, now feels it’s acceptable to bring his racism out of the closet and put it on display for the world to see.
So there was Wilson offering to keep the welcome mat out at his Washington office Saturday for somewhere between an estimated fifty and a hundred thousand like-minded people who gathered in our nation’s capitol for something called the 912 Project or the 912 March…a staged event conceived in the twisted, unbalanced, paranoid mind of the aforementioned Beck. And although they arrived both as individuals and groups who claimed kinship with or interest in any number of causes, what they were really there to do was show their true color…WHITE!
They can hide behind any banner they find and call themselves whatever they like, but the truth of the matter is that the vast majority of those who participated in this event are extreme, right-wing ideologues who became unhinged when a black man was duly and constitutionally elected President of these United States. And now, because the enablers are telling them it’s okay to hate the President and anyone who supports him, overt racism is the right-wing flavor of the moment.
If it wasn’t such a sad commentary on what public discourse and deportment in America has become, it would be laughable. Actually, no it wouldn’t. It’s just plain sad!
Two things before we wrap it up for this edition of our PWC blog. First, one of the funniest albeit saltiest journals we regularly follow is the Rude Pundit. For his take on Saturday’s display of lunacy at the 912 event in Washington, go to http://www.rudepundit.blogspot.com/ . Suffice it to say that ‘The Rude One’ has a way of putting things the way we’d often like to put them…if only we weren’t worried about what our mothers would think.
And finally, here’s an editorial that was sent to us by a friend which appeared in today’s Toronto Globe and Mail. It concerns the Health Care Reform debate currently raging in America. It’s short, concise, and, in our estimation, right on the money.
By Eugene Lang and Philip DeMont
From Monday's Globe and Mail Last updated on Monday, Sep. 14, 2009 03:21AM EDT
"It is rare for Canada to get noticed in the United States. In fact, it is almost unprecedented for anything Canadian to be the focal point of debate in Washington. Yet we have seen just that in recent months during the congressional wrangling over U.S. President Barack Obama's attempts to reform health insurance.
Canada's medicare system has suddenly been thrust into the spotlight south of the border. It has been pilloried by the Republicans in Congress, the subject of derisive and distorted television advertisements, described variously as a system of medicine by bureaucrat, a statist form of health care afflicted by gross inequities and inefficiencies, one that pales in comparison to the U.S. model. The hysterical tone of the anti-medicare rhetoric among Republicans would make one think Canada is North Korea.
But there is an inconvenient truth that the Republican ideology cannot dispute. Canada's approach to providing citizens with universal health insurance is superior to the U.S. model of private insurance. When we get beyond the anti-medicare ideology and histrionics on Capitol Hill, we can establish this by reference to four basic numbers that give a good sense of our system versus the system in the United States.
Life expectancy is a basic measure of the quality of health care. In the U.S., a citizen will live 77.8 years on average. In Canada, you can expect to live two and a half years longer (80.4 years). Infant mortality is also a vital indicator of health care. In the United States, 6.37 infants die out of every 1,000. In Canada the number is 5.4 out of a 1,000.
But what about the cost differences of the two approaches to health care? Surely our Leviathan-like system, which produces such enviable results, must cost a fortune relative to the U.S. model.
The best measure of health care costs is the percentage a country spends relative to the size of its economy, or its gross domestic product (GDP). Canadians spend about 10 per cent of GDP on health. Americans spend 16 per cent to achieve inferior results on life expectancy and infant mortality.
Finally, it is estimated that there are somewhere around 40 million Americans – about 12 per cent of their population, well in excess of the total population of Canada – who have no medical insurance whatsoever. These unfortunate people are literally on their own in paying for any and all medical treatments they require. That gap in coverage is staggering, making the United States an outlier among all advanced Western nations.
One might ask how many uninsured citizens exist in Canada? The answer is zero – all Canadians are insured. In this country, good-quality, universally accessible medical care is regarded as a basic element of citizenship, kind of like owning a gun is in the U.S.
So to sum up. We live longer than the Americans do. We are less likely to die at or soon after birth than the Americans are. All Canadians have medical insurance, whereas a huge number of Americans don't. And we pay less as a society for health care than they do in the United States. Four numbers paint a stark picture. And when you strip away the anti-medicare ideological rants and falsehoods on display in Washington, Canada's approach to health insurance would probably sound pretty good to many Americans.
To their credit, by putting public insurance on the table as a supplement to private plans, the Democrats in the U.S. Congress are trying to drag the United States into the club of civilized nations when it comes to health care. We've been in that club since the establishment of medicare more than 40 years ago.
Don't get us wrong here. We are not saying medicare is perfect; it is far from that, and it requires constant improvement, as most Canadians understand. But it is not a bad deal for citizens of this country.
The Republican-led anti-medicare lobby in Congress knows these numbers and facts. But they are regarded as inconvenient truths that must be ignored in the crusade to discredit the Canadian approach to health insurance, to ensure no public option creeps into the U.S. system. Anti-government ideology is running amok in Washington, trumping facts and rational debate, distorting one of the most important public policy issues the United States has grappled with in decades.
Ultimately, the U.S. public will pay the price for that."
So there you have it. As always, your comments and opinions are encouraged. We’ll talk to you again tomorrow.
SC
If it were that simple, President Obama’s subsequent, gracious acceptance of Wilson’s so-called apology would have led us to conclude that it’s time to move on…except that it’s not that simple. Oh, Joe Wilson is everything we said above, but he’s more than that. He’s also a racist who, because of enablers and apologists like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh and Lou Dobbs and Sean Hannity and Sarah Palin, now feels it’s acceptable to bring his racism out of the closet and put it on display for the world to see.
So there was Wilson offering to keep the welcome mat out at his Washington office Saturday for somewhere between an estimated fifty and a hundred thousand like-minded people who gathered in our nation’s capitol for something called the 912 Project or the 912 March…a staged event conceived in the twisted, unbalanced, paranoid mind of the aforementioned Beck. And although they arrived both as individuals and groups who claimed kinship with or interest in any number of causes, what they were really there to do was show their true color…WHITE!
They can hide behind any banner they find and call themselves whatever they like, but the truth of the matter is that the vast majority of those who participated in this event are extreme, right-wing ideologues who became unhinged when a black man was duly and constitutionally elected President of these United States. And now, because the enablers are telling them it’s okay to hate the President and anyone who supports him, overt racism is the right-wing flavor of the moment.
If it wasn’t such a sad commentary on what public discourse and deportment in America has become, it would be laughable. Actually, no it wouldn’t. It’s just plain sad!
Two things before we wrap it up for this edition of our PWC blog. First, one of the funniest albeit saltiest journals we regularly follow is the Rude Pundit. For his take on Saturday’s display of lunacy at the 912 event in Washington, go to http://www.rudepundit.blogspot.com/ . Suffice it to say that ‘The Rude One’ has a way of putting things the way we’d often like to put them…if only we weren’t worried about what our mothers would think.
And finally, here’s an editorial that was sent to us by a friend which appeared in today’s Toronto Globe and Mail. It concerns the Health Care Reform debate currently raging in America. It’s short, concise, and, in our estimation, right on the money.
By Eugene Lang and Philip DeMont
From Monday's Globe and Mail Last updated on Monday, Sep. 14, 2009 03:21AM EDT
"It is rare for Canada to get noticed in the United States. In fact, it is almost unprecedented for anything Canadian to be the focal point of debate in Washington. Yet we have seen just that in recent months during the congressional wrangling over U.S. President Barack Obama's attempts to reform health insurance.
Canada's medicare system has suddenly been thrust into the spotlight south of the border. It has been pilloried by the Republicans in Congress, the subject of derisive and distorted television advertisements, described variously as a system of medicine by bureaucrat, a statist form of health care afflicted by gross inequities and inefficiencies, one that pales in comparison to the U.S. model. The hysterical tone of the anti-medicare rhetoric among Republicans would make one think Canada is North Korea.
But there is an inconvenient truth that the Republican ideology cannot dispute. Canada's approach to providing citizens with universal health insurance is superior to the U.S. model of private insurance. When we get beyond the anti-medicare ideology and histrionics on Capitol Hill, we can establish this by reference to four basic numbers that give a good sense of our system versus the system in the United States.
Life expectancy is a basic measure of the quality of health care. In the U.S., a citizen will live 77.8 years on average. In Canada, you can expect to live two and a half years longer (80.4 years). Infant mortality is also a vital indicator of health care. In the United States, 6.37 infants die out of every 1,000. In Canada the number is 5.4 out of a 1,000.
But what about the cost differences of the two approaches to health care? Surely our Leviathan-like system, which produces such enviable results, must cost a fortune relative to the U.S. model.
The best measure of health care costs is the percentage a country spends relative to the size of its economy, or its gross domestic product (GDP). Canadians spend about 10 per cent of GDP on health. Americans spend 16 per cent to achieve inferior results on life expectancy and infant mortality.
Finally, it is estimated that there are somewhere around 40 million Americans – about 12 per cent of their population, well in excess of the total population of Canada – who have no medical insurance whatsoever. These unfortunate people are literally on their own in paying for any and all medical treatments they require. That gap in coverage is staggering, making the United States an outlier among all advanced Western nations.
One might ask how many uninsured citizens exist in Canada? The answer is zero – all Canadians are insured. In this country, good-quality, universally accessible medical care is regarded as a basic element of citizenship, kind of like owning a gun is in the U.S.
So to sum up. We live longer than the Americans do. We are less likely to die at or soon after birth than the Americans are. All Canadians have medical insurance, whereas a huge number of Americans don't. And we pay less as a society for health care than they do in the United States. Four numbers paint a stark picture. And when you strip away the anti-medicare ideological rants and falsehoods on display in Washington, Canada's approach to health insurance would probably sound pretty good to many Americans.
To their credit, by putting public insurance on the table as a supplement to private plans, the Democrats in the U.S. Congress are trying to drag the United States into the club of civilized nations when it comes to health care. We've been in that club since the establishment of medicare more than 40 years ago.
Don't get us wrong here. We are not saying medicare is perfect; it is far from that, and it requires constant improvement, as most Canadians understand. But it is not a bad deal for citizens of this country.
The Republican-led anti-medicare lobby in Congress knows these numbers and facts. But they are regarded as inconvenient truths that must be ignored in the crusade to discredit the Canadian approach to health insurance, to ensure no public option creeps into the U.S. system. Anti-government ideology is running amok in Washington, trumping facts and rational debate, distorting one of the most important public policy issues the United States has grappled with in decades.
Ultimately, the U.S. public will pay the price for that."
So there you have it. As always, your comments and opinions are encouraged. We’ll talk to you again tomorrow.
SC
Friday, September 11, 2009
3250% APR – and it’s legal!
Have you ever opened your bank statement and wondered why your debit card was charged $70 for the $20 worth of gas you pumped the other day? When you call the bank, you find out it is only a temporary “Hold” on the funds, when the final tally is applied, the $20 charge will be there, and the $70 will be erased.
You check a few days later online, and, sure enough, the $70 charge is gone, replaced by the $20 you expected. But wait a minute… it looks like you had a negative balance for some of those days… but that can’t be! You had $51 in the account that day!
There’s also listed a $27 charge for an overdraft, make that three overdraft charges of $27 each. Then there are the $4.98 combo burger meal you bought right after buying the gas, and the $11 worth of stamps at the Post Office kiosk. And then there’s the “daily” overdraft fee - $5 for each of three days. And then finally the deposit you made of, say, $2,010.00, the morning after you bought the gas
As they say on Facebook, WTF????.
And thus you discover one of the biggest banking scams of our times.
It’s called “automatic overdrafts.” Used to be if there wasn’t enough money in your account, the little window on the gas pump read “Not Approved”, and your debit card transaction was canceled. Today, the bank does you the big favor of giving you automatic overdraft privileges, so when you go a little bit over, they’ll say “Approved” anyway. Oh, and by the way, they’ll charge you for it – in the range of $25 to $35 for each transaction.
Since you didn’t have $70 when you pumped the gas, the wheels were set in motion.
So the gas wasn’t $20, it was $70 for three days, and ultimately $47. The hamburger meal was $31.98, and the stamps were $38.00. Plus the $5 daily fee, times 3. You thought you had $51.00, enough to cover $20 + $4.98 + $11.00, with a bit to spare. Instead, you’ve been charged $131.98, leaving you with a negative balance of -$80.98.
Oh, and that deposit… since the gas charges didn’t finish being processed for three days, and you made that deposit the very next morning, you might have thought everything would have been fine. But no. The deposit was over $2,000, so they put a “Hold” on those funds until the check cleared. So you didn’t get credited for three days. Presto, the bank made a tidy little sum of $96. The $20 gas draft alone earned them $27 in interest, for an APR of 3250%. In America.
And this is how the banks of America pocketed $27 Billion – yes, that’s BILLION, in debit card overdraft charges last year.
About 77% of large banks have automatic overdraft privileges. And some will change the sequence of their charges to their advantage, to multiply the fees you owe.
These are the banks, the folks who came so close to bankruptcy that they needed Billions of dollars in tax payer money just to keep the doors open.
It just seems to us that if they can legally steal money from us this way, and still can’t make a go of it, there is something really, really rotten in Denmark – or on Wall Street.
If you want more info on these outrageous, and quite common, banking practices, visit the Center for Responsible Lending. http://www.responsiblelending.org/ It’s probably a good idea to find out what YOUR bank does. You can demand that they remove the automatic overdraft – or change banks.
* * * * * *
And while we’re on the subject of money, we can’t fail to take note of the outpouring of dollars inspired by Rep. Joe Wilson (SC) and his unprecedented and unbelievably rude heckling of the President during his address to the Joint Session of Congress. The good news is, Rob Miller, who will be running against Rep. Wilson in 2010, has received over $700,000 in campaign contributions since the country discovered what a sad sack of you-know-what that Wilson is. The bad part is, Mr. Wilson seems to be turning a pretty penny himself, with the crazies championing him as a hero and martyr, sending money, and buying T-shirts that say “I’m with Joe Wilson”. In America.
* * * * * * *
Finally, we offer respectful silence, meditation and prayer for the victims of that fateful day exactly eight years ago, when America's domestic tranquility was shattered, changing us forever.
Lots to ponder over the weekend.
JM
You check a few days later online, and, sure enough, the $70 charge is gone, replaced by the $20 you expected. But wait a minute… it looks like you had a negative balance for some of those days… but that can’t be! You had $51 in the account that day!
There’s also listed a $27 charge for an overdraft, make that three overdraft charges of $27 each. Then there are the $4.98 combo burger meal you bought right after buying the gas, and the $11 worth of stamps at the Post Office kiosk. And then there’s the “daily” overdraft fee - $5 for each of three days. And then finally the deposit you made of, say, $2,010.00, the morning after you bought the gas
As they say on Facebook, WTF????.
And thus you discover one of the biggest banking scams of our times.
It’s called “automatic overdrafts.” Used to be if there wasn’t enough money in your account, the little window on the gas pump read “Not Approved”, and your debit card transaction was canceled. Today, the bank does you the big favor of giving you automatic overdraft privileges, so when you go a little bit over, they’ll say “Approved” anyway. Oh, and by the way, they’ll charge you for it – in the range of $25 to $35 for each transaction.
Since you didn’t have $70 when you pumped the gas, the wheels were set in motion.
So the gas wasn’t $20, it was $70 for three days, and ultimately $47. The hamburger meal was $31.98, and the stamps were $38.00. Plus the $5 daily fee, times 3. You thought you had $51.00, enough to cover $20 + $4.98 + $11.00, with a bit to spare. Instead, you’ve been charged $131.98, leaving you with a negative balance of -$80.98.
Oh, and that deposit… since the gas charges didn’t finish being processed for three days, and you made that deposit the very next morning, you might have thought everything would have been fine. But no. The deposit was over $2,000, so they put a “Hold” on those funds until the check cleared. So you didn’t get credited for three days. Presto, the bank made a tidy little sum of $96. The $20 gas draft alone earned them $27 in interest, for an APR of 3250%. In America.
And this is how the banks of America pocketed $27 Billion – yes, that’s BILLION, in debit card overdraft charges last year.
About 77% of large banks have automatic overdraft privileges. And some will change the sequence of their charges to their advantage, to multiply the fees you owe.
These are the banks, the folks who came so close to bankruptcy that they needed Billions of dollars in tax payer money just to keep the doors open.
It just seems to us that if they can legally steal money from us this way, and still can’t make a go of it, there is something really, really rotten in Denmark – or on Wall Street.
If you want more info on these outrageous, and quite common, banking practices, visit the Center for Responsible Lending. http://www.responsiblelending.org/ It’s probably a good idea to find out what YOUR bank does. You can demand that they remove the automatic overdraft – or change banks.
* * * * * *
And while we’re on the subject of money, we can’t fail to take note of the outpouring of dollars inspired by Rep. Joe Wilson (SC) and his unprecedented and unbelievably rude heckling of the President during his address to the Joint Session of Congress. The good news is, Rob Miller, who will be running against Rep. Wilson in 2010, has received over $700,000 in campaign contributions since the country discovered what a sad sack of you-know-what that Wilson is. The bad part is, Mr. Wilson seems to be turning a pretty penny himself, with the crazies championing him as a hero and martyr, sending money, and buying T-shirts that say “I’m with Joe Wilson”. In America.
* * * * * * *
Finally, we offer respectful silence, meditation and prayer for the victims of that fateful day exactly eight years ago, when America's domestic tranquility was shattered, changing us forever.
Lots to ponder over the weekend.
JM
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Kudos for Cojones!
Our President called a joint session of Congress last night, and finally took the reins on guiding health care reform through the legislative obstacle course. We expected his usual eloquence, but we were gratified, to say the least, at the strength he displayed.
Early indicators show that many concerned people of America felt reassured by his comments. That could be because he put the lie to the lies that have been floated out there by opponents of health care reform. It could also be because he repeated that he believes a public option is necessary to keep insurance companies from maintaining their price gouging - increasing premiums 2.5 times faster than inflation.
You see, a lot of the disapproval the President faced in all those Gallup and NBC and Zogby polls was from people who felt he didn’t go far enough in reforming a critically ill system. We were buoyed by the tenor of his speech, and by the specifics he outlined.
We do have some questions remaining, though. And here we speak as part of the 47 million uninsured in America.
It seems everyone, Republicans and Dems and independents alike, agree that we have to force insurance companies to accept people with pre-existing conditions. That’s good news for us, but will they also limit the excessive premiums they can charge based on health history? We were getting raised 20% every year on premiums that had already been “rated” to higher rates than the base charged people with no pre-existing conditions. If an insurance company offers us a policy that covers us completely, but costs $2000 per month, what good will that do us? We’d like to see assurances that there will be some plan we can afford.
There was also mention of some sort of catastrophic plan offered to the uninsured during the run up to the 2013 implementation. It might be better than nothing, but if there are high deductibles for ordinary preventive care, like mammograms and colonoscopies and the well-worn ear ache scenario, we will see four more years of people failing to get early care, leading to the unnecessary catastrophes those plans are designed for.
Out-of-pocket limits, also mentioned, won’t address that issue either, unless they are truly reasonable. Who is going to determine what that sum is? If we leave it to insurance companies, just remember what they have been up to all these years, penalizing for pre-existing conditions, inflating premiums, and denying payments for made-up reasons.
They squeezed us for as much as they could, and no doubt about it, they will continue to do so. Rules without limits won’t be enough. Competing with a non-profit, no frills entity is the only thing that will keep them from strangling us – both individuals, and our national economy. Virtually no other modern democracy in the world allows private companies to make a profit from basic health care insurance.
This morning the President’s foremost opponents have cranked up the attack machine again.
Rep. Charles Boustany tried to reprise his lackluster performance last night in his rebuttal to the speech, insisting that the “bill is deeply flawed” -- as usual, there were few specifics and no alternatives.
Minority leader John Boehner tried to tell us again that the President’s plan will get the government involved in delivery of health care; that insurance companies will have to have all plans approved by the government within 5 years; that “illegals” will be covered at taxpayer expense.
Apparently some lies just won’t die, if Republicans have anything to say about it.
Illegals can buy insurance privately now. That won’t change. If Blue Cross is willing to take their money, they’ll still be able to do that. (If any of you have traveled outside the United States, you probably bought a supplementary insurance package to cover you while you were away from home. Does that help you understand how illegals will be covered after the reform takes place?)
Perhaps we could just post some Border Patrol officers at every emergency room to deport any illegal who shows up with a gunshot wound or heart attack? (And which would cost more, an air ambulance to return them to their home country, or emergency room care?)
President Obama declared that not a dime would be added to the deficit – Republicans don’t believe it. No mystery here - because THEY COULDN”T DO IT, they don’t believe anyone else can!
One subject raised by the Opposition and NOT addressed last night was the removal of barriers to interstate marketing of insurance. The market is quite monopolistic with the current rules. One company owns 80% of the Alabama market, with 40-to-75% one-carrier dominance in many other states. Removing restrictions on interstate competition would no doubt achieve more competition in the early going, possibly leading to lower premiums across the board. But if history is any predictor, as time goes by companies will begin to swallow each other, leading to fewer competitors, and we could be back where we started from.
Finally, Joe Wilson. We heard the word “shame” this morning – a word we don’t hear much these days in relation to Congress – describing what Congressman Wilson should feel today. Something tells us he doesn’t.
The so-called apology amounted to “I was told by the leadership to call the White House and say my remarks were inappropriate, and I did” – that’s an apology? We don’t believe it was at all sincere...but President Obama graciously accepted it at face value.
Not once did a Democratic congressman or senator call out “You lie!” when George Bush addressed congress in the leadup to the war, or after, and they had a lot more reason to do it than Wilson had. Even folks from my dear state of South Carolina were taught by their mamas not to show disrespect to the President.
Worse, while McCain and Hatch said he should apologize to Congress, some other Republicans, notably Michael Burgess, are saying what Wilson did was OK.
And they want President Obama to pursue “bipartisanship”. Get real. Mr. President, keep up the good fight for the American people. We appreciate it.
JM
Early indicators show that many concerned people of America felt reassured by his comments. That could be because he put the lie to the lies that have been floated out there by opponents of health care reform. It could also be because he repeated that he believes a public option is necessary to keep insurance companies from maintaining their price gouging - increasing premiums 2.5 times faster than inflation.
You see, a lot of the disapproval the President faced in all those Gallup and NBC and Zogby polls was from people who felt he didn’t go far enough in reforming a critically ill system. We were buoyed by the tenor of his speech, and by the specifics he outlined.
We do have some questions remaining, though. And here we speak as part of the 47 million uninsured in America.
It seems everyone, Republicans and Dems and independents alike, agree that we have to force insurance companies to accept people with pre-existing conditions. That’s good news for us, but will they also limit the excessive premiums they can charge based on health history? We were getting raised 20% every year on premiums that had already been “rated” to higher rates than the base charged people with no pre-existing conditions. If an insurance company offers us a policy that covers us completely, but costs $2000 per month, what good will that do us? We’d like to see assurances that there will be some plan we can afford.
There was also mention of some sort of catastrophic plan offered to the uninsured during the run up to the 2013 implementation. It might be better than nothing, but if there are high deductibles for ordinary preventive care, like mammograms and colonoscopies and the well-worn ear ache scenario, we will see four more years of people failing to get early care, leading to the unnecessary catastrophes those plans are designed for.
Out-of-pocket limits, also mentioned, won’t address that issue either, unless they are truly reasonable. Who is going to determine what that sum is? If we leave it to insurance companies, just remember what they have been up to all these years, penalizing for pre-existing conditions, inflating premiums, and denying payments for made-up reasons.
They squeezed us for as much as they could, and no doubt about it, they will continue to do so. Rules without limits won’t be enough. Competing with a non-profit, no frills entity is the only thing that will keep them from strangling us – both individuals, and our national economy. Virtually no other modern democracy in the world allows private companies to make a profit from basic health care insurance.
This morning the President’s foremost opponents have cranked up the attack machine again.
Rep. Charles Boustany tried to reprise his lackluster performance last night in his rebuttal to the speech, insisting that the “bill is deeply flawed” -- as usual, there were few specifics and no alternatives.
Minority leader John Boehner tried to tell us again that the President’s plan will get the government involved in delivery of health care; that insurance companies will have to have all plans approved by the government within 5 years; that “illegals” will be covered at taxpayer expense.
Apparently some lies just won’t die, if Republicans have anything to say about it.
Illegals can buy insurance privately now. That won’t change. If Blue Cross is willing to take their money, they’ll still be able to do that. (If any of you have traveled outside the United States, you probably bought a supplementary insurance package to cover you while you were away from home. Does that help you understand how illegals will be covered after the reform takes place?)
Perhaps we could just post some Border Patrol officers at every emergency room to deport any illegal who shows up with a gunshot wound or heart attack? (And which would cost more, an air ambulance to return them to their home country, or emergency room care?)
President Obama declared that not a dime would be added to the deficit – Republicans don’t believe it. No mystery here - because THEY COULDN”T DO IT, they don’t believe anyone else can!
One subject raised by the Opposition and NOT addressed last night was the removal of barriers to interstate marketing of insurance. The market is quite monopolistic with the current rules. One company owns 80% of the Alabama market, with 40-to-75% one-carrier dominance in many other states. Removing restrictions on interstate competition would no doubt achieve more competition in the early going, possibly leading to lower premiums across the board. But if history is any predictor, as time goes by companies will begin to swallow each other, leading to fewer competitors, and we could be back where we started from.
Finally, Joe Wilson. We heard the word “shame” this morning – a word we don’t hear much these days in relation to Congress – describing what Congressman Wilson should feel today. Something tells us he doesn’t.
The so-called apology amounted to “I was told by the leadership to call the White House and say my remarks were inappropriate, and I did” – that’s an apology? We don’t believe it was at all sincere...but President Obama graciously accepted it at face value.
Not once did a Democratic congressman or senator call out “You lie!” when George Bush addressed congress in the leadup to the war, or after, and they had a lot more reason to do it than Wilson had. Even folks from my dear state of South Carolina were taught by their mamas not to show disrespect to the President.
Worse, while McCain and Hatch said he should apologize to Congress, some other Republicans, notably Michael Burgess, are saying what Wilson did was OK.
And they want President Obama to pursue “bipartisanship”. Get real. Mr. President, keep up the good fight for the American people. We appreciate it.
JM
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Waiting and Hoping: You Gotta Know When to Hold ‘Em
Well, here we are all waiting with our fingers crossed…hoping against hope, it would seem, especially if you listen to all the pundits and prognosticators on both sides of the debate…for the President to make his case on Health Care Reform before a joint session of Congress and a National television audience this evening.
What we know already is that the best case scenario, a single payer system, was off the table virtually before this game even began. If this was Texas Hold ‘Em, it was as if the administration folded that hand before they even looked at their hole cards. End of story!
The second best scenario, the public option, appears to be on life support…and if you believe everything you read and hear, the plug may be pulled on it before the ‘river’ card is turned over. From what we’ve seen so far, the Democrats appear to be the kind of poker player every other player dreams about seeing across the table. No bluff…no cojones… just keep chuckin’ in your ante and throwin’ in your hand…and thanks for coming.
That would seem to leave the Dems with only two cards to play: some sort of co-op system that would still leave us at the whim of the same insurance companies who have been stealing us blind for almost 40 years; or a trigger mechanism that would again leave our fates, at least initially, in the hands of the money-grubbing insurance industry.
Frankly, neither of these options is very appealing to those of us who worked so hard to elect this President on the promise of meaningful Health Care Reform. But it probably doesn’t matter all that much anyway because there’s a seemingly insurmountable stumbling block in these negotiations that we haven’t even addressed yet. When it comes right down to it, the Republicans, the mouthpieces for the insurance lobby, won’t even agree to one of these less desirable options. There will always be something unacceptable to them in every proposal that’s put on the table.
That’s because they’re not negotiating in good faith. They never have throughout this whole process, just like they didn’t in 1994 when the Clinton Administration tried to usher in a Health Care Reform package that was palatable to everyone. Every time the Dems take a negotiating step towards the middle, the GOP takes a step further to the right…and the reason is simple. Their benefactors, the insurers, don’t want them to reach an agreement because they don’t want the system to change.
The status quo is like a license to print money for the insurance industry. They make billions…by refusing to cover anyone who poses any sort of risk such as a pre-existing condition, and by denying payment of as many claims as possible for whatever reason they can come up with. And if the claim is substantial, you can take it to the bank that they’ll use every unconscionable, dirty tactic they possibly can to avoid paying it. That’s the biggest single reason why their profits are so enormous.
So what we’re left with heading into tonight’s speech is the hope that President Obama has the steel to look the Republicans, and by extension the insurance industry, squarely in the eyes and play out his hand without blinking. We’re hoping that he’ll man up, buoyed by the knowledge that something approaching 70% of the people in the country will back his play if the changes he proposes are meaningful and equitable…and by the conviction that throwing in his cards would not only be a tragedy for the millions of uninsured, it would also be a disaster for the country as a whole.
He’s got to be willing to say to hell with South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint and everyone else of his ilk, in either the House or the Senate, whose only interest is in taking the feet out from under this administration. These people really don’t give a tinker’s dam about what’s good for this country or the people they represent. Their only interest is in playing politics in the nastiest way possible…so in this debate they should be considered as insignificant as the piles of dog crap that they have shown themselves to be!
And he’s also got to be willing to say the Democrats are ready to go it alone if the Republicans continue their stance as the PARTY OF NO! Meaningful Health Care Reform would be the single most important step this administration could take in their continuing quest to lead this country out of the financial mess it was left in by George W. Bush and his band of special-interest rogues.
So what’s it going to be Mr. President? Are you ready to stand up for us, or are you going to fold?
SC
What we know already is that the best case scenario, a single payer system, was off the table virtually before this game even began. If this was Texas Hold ‘Em, it was as if the administration folded that hand before they even looked at their hole cards. End of story!
The second best scenario, the public option, appears to be on life support…and if you believe everything you read and hear, the plug may be pulled on it before the ‘river’ card is turned over. From what we’ve seen so far, the Democrats appear to be the kind of poker player every other player dreams about seeing across the table. No bluff…no cojones… just keep chuckin’ in your ante and throwin’ in your hand…and thanks for coming.
That would seem to leave the Dems with only two cards to play: some sort of co-op system that would still leave us at the whim of the same insurance companies who have been stealing us blind for almost 40 years; or a trigger mechanism that would again leave our fates, at least initially, in the hands of the money-grubbing insurance industry.
Frankly, neither of these options is very appealing to those of us who worked so hard to elect this President on the promise of meaningful Health Care Reform. But it probably doesn’t matter all that much anyway because there’s a seemingly insurmountable stumbling block in these negotiations that we haven’t even addressed yet. When it comes right down to it, the Republicans, the mouthpieces for the insurance lobby, won’t even agree to one of these less desirable options. There will always be something unacceptable to them in every proposal that’s put on the table.
That’s because they’re not negotiating in good faith. They never have throughout this whole process, just like they didn’t in 1994 when the Clinton Administration tried to usher in a Health Care Reform package that was palatable to everyone. Every time the Dems take a negotiating step towards the middle, the GOP takes a step further to the right…and the reason is simple. Their benefactors, the insurers, don’t want them to reach an agreement because they don’t want the system to change.
The status quo is like a license to print money for the insurance industry. They make billions…by refusing to cover anyone who poses any sort of risk such as a pre-existing condition, and by denying payment of as many claims as possible for whatever reason they can come up with. And if the claim is substantial, you can take it to the bank that they’ll use every unconscionable, dirty tactic they possibly can to avoid paying it. That’s the biggest single reason why their profits are so enormous.
So what we’re left with heading into tonight’s speech is the hope that President Obama has the steel to look the Republicans, and by extension the insurance industry, squarely in the eyes and play out his hand without blinking. We’re hoping that he’ll man up, buoyed by the knowledge that something approaching 70% of the people in the country will back his play if the changes he proposes are meaningful and equitable…and by the conviction that throwing in his cards would not only be a tragedy for the millions of uninsured, it would also be a disaster for the country as a whole.
He’s got to be willing to say to hell with South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint and everyone else of his ilk, in either the House or the Senate, whose only interest is in taking the feet out from under this administration. These people really don’t give a tinker’s dam about what’s good for this country or the people they represent. Their only interest is in playing politics in the nastiest way possible…so in this debate they should be considered as insignificant as the piles of dog crap that they have shown themselves to be!
And he’s also got to be willing to say the Democrats are ready to go it alone if the Republicans continue their stance as the PARTY OF NO! Meaningful Health Care Reform would be the single most important step this administration could take in their continuing quest to lead this country out of the financial mess it was left in by George W. Bush and his band of special-interest rogues.
So what’s it going to be Mr. President? Are you ready to stand up for us, or are you going to fold?
SC
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