Despite Newsweek's silly cover story this week on The Post-Imperial Presidency (for starters, Newsweek might look at plans for military expansion in Africa, the takeover of air facilities in Columbia, the exponential growth of our military presence on Guam, Obama's increase by many multiples in the use of pilotless aircraft in the undeclared invasion of Pakistan, the grotesque $680 billion 2010 DOD budget, the tens of billions of dollars in war funding Congress is poised to pass quickly this session, and the additional supplemental spending bill that will arrive early next year to support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan...), there really was some hope last year that, if he became president, Barack Obama would rein in the abuses of power that get tarted up in the rhetoric of unitary executive theory.
On the more limited matter of war making, in this video The Nation's political correspondent John Nichols "sheds light on the American founding principle that presidents cannot define the debate about wars -- and reminds us that it is up to Congress, not the Commander-in-Chief, to set the debate and the terms of war." As the White House pursues its escalation of the war in Afghanistan, Nichols points out, Congress can still do its duty, starting with support for a sensible "war surtax" that will make the wealthiest Americans pay more so that the cost of the war is covered by concurrent revenues.
See, also: Grijalva Pushes to Block War Funding (AfterDowningStreet.Org 2009-12-08, reprinted from Roll Call)
Accountability: Congress should take back its constitutionally mandated role in making military policy
Clip File: Wrecked town points the way to economic recovery
With all eyes on US efforts to combat climate change at next week's UN summit in Copenhagen, one Kansas town is going green in a big way -- and setting an example for American communities.
The U.S. dominated the world economy in the 1950s and 1960s partly because its infrastructure was unparalleled. Without going in to other reasons for our long, slow decline since the early 1970s, any discussion of the process by which this nation can be restored to greatness must begin with how we will rebuild our physical plant. One small Kansas town is providing lessons in the ways disaster can be greeted as opportunity. Lets hope it won't require that conditions become as dire in the rest of the country as they have in Greensburg before we are motivated to act.
The rest of the story: Destroyed US town a model of eco-living as it rebuilds (Agence France Presse/AlterNet)
See, also:
After tornado, town rebuilds by going green (CNN.com 2009-04-29)
Greensburg, Kansas: Rebuilding After the May 4, 2007, Tornado (Earth Gauge 2009-03)
Rebuilding Greensburg, Kansas (EPA)
Better, Stronger, Greener! — City of Greensburg, Kansas (local government site)
Greensburg GreenTown (nonprofit)
The U.S. dominated the world economy in the 1950s and 1960s partly because its infrastructure was unparalleled. Without going in to other reasons for our long, slow decline since the early 1970s, any discussion of the process by which this nation can be restored to greatness must begin with how we will rebuild our physical plant. One small Kansas town is providing lessons in the ways disaster can be greeted as opportunity. Lets hope it won't require that conditions become as dire in the rest of the country as they have in Greensburg before we are motivated to act.
On the evening of May 4, 2007, a category-five tornado swept through the rural midwestern town of Greensburg, killing nine people and obliterating 95 percent ofthe urban landscape, including the school, the hospital and more than 900 houses.
But this community of 1,400 is rebuilding stronger than ever, in a remarkable comeback billed by Greensburg GreenTown -- a grassroots organization involving town residents, local officials and business owners -- as a "model for sustainable building and green living."
In the wake of disaster, local leaders vowed to rebuild their town as the first in the United States to have all municipal projects constructed to the highest environmental and efficiency design standards.
The rest of the story: Destroyed US town a model of eco-living as it rebuilds (Agence France Presse/AlterNet)
See, also:
After tornado, town rebuilds by going green (CNN.com 2009-04-29)
Greensburg, Kansas: Rebuilding After the May 4, 2007, Tornado (Earth Gauge 2009-03)
Rebuilding Greensburg, Kansas (EPA)
Better, Stronger, Greener! — City of Greensburg, Kansas (local government site)
Greensburg GreenTown (nonprofit)
Clip File: Primum non nocere
Shouldn't there be some form of Hippocratic Oath for planners, designers and architects?
It is as tragic as it is absurd that we are eating the dust of Europe and Asia in the development of green technology. Take this light 'triple-zero' house in the EU that produces more energy than it uses.
The rest of the story: Lightweight 'triple-zero' house produces more energy than it uses by Carina Storrs (Scientific American 2009-12-05)
It is as tragic as it is absurd that we are eating the dust of Europe and Asia in the development of green technology. Take this light 'triple-zero' house in the EU that produces more energy than it uses.
Overlooking the city of Stuttgart in southern Germany, a four-story modern glass house stands like a beacon of environmental sustainability. Built in 2000, it was the first in a series of buildings that are "triple-zero," a concept developed by German architect and engineer Werner Sobek, which signifies that the building is energyThe most recent addition to triple-zero house raises the bar for energy efficiency: It produces more energy than it uses.self-sufficient (zero energy consumed), produces zero emissions, and is made entirely of recyclable materials (zero waste).
Since the construction of the first triple-zero home, Werner Sobek's firm of engineers and architects, based in Stuttgart, has designed and built five more in Germany, with a seventh planned in France. The energy used by these buildings, including the four-story tower where Sobek resides, comes from solar cells and geothermal heating.
The rest of the story: Lightweight 'triple-zero' house produces more energy than it uses by Carina Storrs (Scientific American 2009-12-05)
Action: “No You Can’t!”
Rally at White House December 12 - Unity Among Peace Movement Groups against Obama War Escalation - Warning of Reprisals to Troop Surge (adapted from press release)
Over 100 leading peace activists have called an 'Emergency Anti-Escalation Rally' at the White House on December 12, from 11a.m. to 4 p.m., to reject Pres. Barack Obama’s planned military escalation in Afghanistan. The rally is organized by End US Wars, a newly formed coalition of national and grass-roots antiwar organizations, with endorsements from leading peace leaders.
Rally organizers are calling for the left wing to end its support for Obama if he declares a surge in troops, and for condemnation of Obama’s war policy by his own party faithful. In addition, efforts will begin to cut short his term in office, along with Congress; and protests will intensify against U.S. war involvement in Afghanistan, Iraq and any other countries.
Speakers include: Cynthia McKinney, Sen. Mike Gravel, Kathy Kelly, Chris Hedges, David Swanson, Phyllis Bennis, Rev. Graylan Hagler, Coy McKinney, Debra Sweet, Brian Becker, Mathis Chiroux, Lynne Williams, Hon. Betty Hall, Elaine Brower, Marian Douglas, Michael Knox, Ralph Lopez, Ron Fisher, and statements from Col. Ann Wright, Stephen Zunes and Granny D (turning 100).
The coalition End US Wars follows a letter, written by Laurie Dobson of Maine, demanding that Obama end the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars; importantly, adding a specific call for a ceasefire on Predator drone attacks over Pakistan; and requesting that immediate reconstruction and recovery in war torn regions begin. Along with the rally on Saturday, December 12 at 11 a.m. in Lafayette Park, the film Rethink Afghanistan will be shown Friday December 11, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m., at Busboys & Poets, 14th and V Streets, NW, Washington, DC. For information, email: contact@enduswars.org or visit www.enduswars.org. For press inquiries, phone: 207-604-8988.
Over 100 leading peace activists have called an 'Emergency Anti-Escalation Rally' at the White House on December 12, from 11a.m. to 4 p.m., to reject Pres. Barack Obama’s planned military escalation in Afghanistan. The rally is organized by End US Wars, a newly formed coalition of national and grass-roots antiwar organizations, with endorsements from leading peace leaders.
Rally organizers are calling for the left wing to end its support for Obama if he declares a surge in troops, and for condemnation of Obama’s war policy by his own party faithful. In addition, efforts will begin to cut short his term in office, along with Congress; and protests will intensify against U.S. war involvement in Afghanistan, Iraq and any other countries.
Speakers include: Cynthia McKinney, Sen. Mike Gravel, Kathy Kelly, Chris Hedges, David Swanson, Phyllis Bennis, Rev. Graylan Hagler, Coy McKinney, Debra Sweet, Brian Becker, Mathis Chiroux, Lynne Williams, Hon. Betty Hall, Elaine Brower, Marian Douglas, Michael Knox, Ralph Lopez, Ron Fisher, and statements from Col. Ann Wright, Stephen Zunes and Granny D (turning 100).
The coalition End US Wars follows a letter, written by Laurie Dobson of Maine, demanding that Obama end the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars; importantly, adding a specific call for a ceasefire on Predator drone attacks over Pakistan; and requesting that immediate reconstruction and recovery in war torn regions begin. Along with the rally on Saturday, December 12 at 11 a.m. in Lafayette Park, the film Rethink Afghanistan will be shown Friday December 11, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m., at Busboys & Poets, 14th and V Streets, NW, Washington, DC. For information, email: contact@enduswars.org or visit www.enduswars.org. For press inquiries, phone: 207-604-8988.
Small "d" Democracy: Instant Runoffs
We've discussed instant runoffs at length in past posts (see, for instance, Impractical Proposals 2004-12-29) because the strategy makes voting more efficient and the outcomes more democratic. Instant Runoff Voting: The road to better elections is a website dedicated to advancing the cause.
According to the site, "voters have approved IRV by significant margins in nearly all municipalities and cities where it has been introduced to voters. IRV legislation is also rapidly gaining support in a number of state legislatures.
Linkage: InstantRunoff.com
Clip File: Enjoyed the Health-Care Debate? We'll Keep Chasing Our Tails Until We Start Taking American Democracy Seriously by Joshua Holland (AlterNet 2009-12-01)
According to the site, "voters have approved IRV by significant margins in nearly all municipalities and cities where it has been introduced to voters. IRV legislation is also rapidly gaining support in a number of state legislatures.
IRV is a voting system for single-winner elections that guarantees majority winners in a single round of voting. IRV allows voters to vote their hopes instead of their fears by ranking candidates in order of preference without worrying about spoiler dynamics or wasted votes. IRV also eliminates the need for low-turnout, high-cost runoffs.The site includes info on how IRV works, where it is used, who endorses it, and how you can get involved in improving elections on the local, state and federal levels.
Linkage: InstantRunoff.com
Clip File: Enjoyed the Health-Care Debate? We'll Keep Chasing Our Tails Until We Start Taking American Democracy Seriously by Joshua Holland (AlterNet 2009-12-01)
The Long War: Kucinich explains what's wrong with Obama's AfPak plan
During the late presidential campaign, several candidates offered concrete proposals far more likely to produce real change than the platitudinous sonorities proffered by the eventual winner, none more than Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich. No johnny-come-lately to political combat on behalf of progressive policies, Kucinich is a leader in the fight for Medicare-for-All and in the struggle against military adventurism. Here he is interviewed by Anderson Cooper in the aftermath of Pres. Obama's expansion of the AfPak mess. (AC360 CNN 2009-12-01).
Clip File: Some Journalism Deserves Respect
Writing in the New Yorker, George Packer reminds us that, every year, the Committee to Protect Journalists holds a fund-raising gala at the Waldorf-Astoria in midtown Manhattan to raise the budget it needs to "continue for another year doing its job of defending journalists around the world — calling attention to murders, threats, attacks, and imprisonments, lobbying for journalists’ safety and release, supporting endangered journalists and their families and survivors."
Murders, threats, attacks and imprisonments. This litany of intimidation goes on, in part, because in most places where journalists suffer such mistreatment either no government exists or the government itself is violent, corrupt and autocratic. The CPJ dinner is a reminder that behind many stories it honors are "brave, humorous, quietly defiant men and women, rarities and eccentrics who nonetheless seem to exist in every country, upholding high journalistic standards in the world’s most dangerous places, with no powerful backers, and almost no one paying attention except government thugs or anonymous gunmen."
The rest of the story: Annual Reminder: Some Journalism Deserves Respect! by George Packer (The New Yorker 2009-11-30).
In thinking about the situation of these brave writers, editors, researchers, photographers and videographers, it occurred to me that digital technology might enable a mechanism that would provide more support and protection. Many of these abuses are possible, inevitable even, because they take place in the metaphorical dark. What if there existed an organization pledged to carry on the work of a journalist who is intimidated, imprisoned or killed even after the original reporter has been eliminated? That an act of violence or intimidation intended to silence a reporter would only assure that an even brighter light would shine on his or her investigation?
It might work like this: a secure website is established where journalists can store copies of notes, phone books, appointment calendars, documentary evidence, audio, video and image files, drafts, manuscripts, and so on. These reporters let it be known to their contacts, subjects, bosses, etc., that this cache of information exists, and that it will be followed up on if anything untoward happens. Professional journalists in safer parts of the world, volunteering to pair up with the at-risk reporters, commit either to continuing the work themselves or making sure that the research is handed over to reporters in the field who can finish the job. With communication around the planet now virtually instantaneous, this website will also provide a trail of cookie crumbs behind reporters when their work carries them into dangerous situations. To take an example from within our own shores, isn't it likely that the goons from the Black Muslim Bakery might have had second thoughts about gunning down Chauncey Bailey if they'd known that the Oakland Post editor's notes and other materials would be instantly in the hands of other investigators at the Chronicle, the Bee or the Times dedicated to carrying on with the story? In addition, wouldn't it provide a small measure of security if a reporter going into a dangerous situation -- a meeting with an informant in a remote location, say -- could leave a real-time record of who, when & where so that immediate action could be taken if he or she didn't check in at a designated time?
Such a website would not be terribly difficult or expensive to create and could be operated with a very small staff. An operating budget would have to be found, but in that respect it would be no different than any other non-profit. The greatest difficulty would be in finding journalists with the wherewithal to genuinely provide the back up, although it wouldn't be a surprise if aggressive media operations like the BBC, Reuters, CNN, McClatchy, the Washington Post and the New York Times would find it in their interest to provide institutional support to employees inclined to participate.
Murders, threats, attacks and imprisonments. This litany of intimidation goes on, in part, because in most places where journalists suffer such mistreatment either no government exists or the government itself is violent, corrupt and autocratic. The CPJ dinner is a reminder that behind many stories it honors are "brave, humorous, quietly defiant men and women, rarities and eccentrics who nonetheless seem to exist in every country, upholding high journalistic standards in the world’s most dangerous places, with no powerful backers, and almost no one paying attention except government thugs or anonymous gunmen."
Since 1992, almost eight hundred journalists have been killed for doing their job, and the graph of the annual total rises steadily upward over time. Many thousands more have been imprisoned, including — just to put one name on the statistic — Thet Zin, an editor of the Myanmar Nation weekly in Rangoon, who was arrested shortly before I was to meet him on a trip to Burma last year, and who is serving a seven-year sentence for possessing a report issued by the United Nations special envoy to Burma for human rights. The one organization that can be counted on to keep alive the names and fates of these easily forgotten men and women is the Committee to Protect Journalists.As Packer writes, the CPJ carries on its crucial work on the shoestring budget it manages to scrape together at its annual dinner: here's a link to information on how to help the CPJ to help at-risk journalists.
The rest of the story: Annual Reminder: Some Journalism Deserves Respect! by George Packer (The New Yorker 2009-11-30).
In thinking about the situation of these brave writers, editors, researchers, photographers and videographers, it occurred to me that digital technology might enable a mechanism that would provide more support and protection. Many of these abuses are possible, inevitable even, because they take place in the metaphorical dark. What if there existed an organization pledged to carry on the work of a journalist who is intimidated, imprisoned or killed even after the original reporter has been eliminated? That an act of violence or intimidation intended to silence a reporter would only assure that an even brighter light would shine on his or her investigation?
It might work like this: a secure website is established where journalists can store copies of notes, phone books, appointment calendars, documentary evidence, audio, video and image files, drafts, manuscripts, and so on. These reporters let it be known to their contacts, subjects, bosses, etc., that this cache of information exists, and that it will be followed up on if anything untoward happens. Professional journalists in safer parts of the world, volunteering to pair up with the at-risk reporters, commit either to continuing the work themselves or making sure that the research is handed over to reporters in the field who can finish the job. With communication around the planet now virtually instantaneous, this website will also provide a trail of cookie crumbs behind reporters when their work carries them into dangerous situations. To take an example from within our own shores, isn't it likely that the goons from the Black Muslim Bakery might have had second thoughts about gunning down Chauncey Bailey if they'd known that the Oakland Post editor's notes and other materials would be instantly in the hands of other investigators at the Chronicle, the Bee or the Times dedicated to carrying on with the story? In addition, wouldn't it provide a small measure of security if a reporter going into a dangerous situation -- a meeting with an informant in a remote location, say -- could leave a real-time record of who, when & where so that immediate action could be taken if he or she didn't check in at a designated time?
Such a website would not be terribly difficult or expensive to create and could be operated with a very small staff. An operating budget would have to be found, but in that respect it would be no different than any other non-profit. The greatest difficulty would be in finding journalists with the wherewithal to genuinely provide the back up, although it wouldn't be a surprise if aggressive media operations like the BBC, Reuters, CNN, McClatchy, the Washington Post and the New York Times would find it in their interest to provide institutional support to employees inclined to participate.
quote unquote: Eisenhower on corporate power
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." -- Pres. Dwight David Eisenhower
Change Watch: New Executive Order to Avoid Year-End Declassification Deadline
As we have noted before, though the government is now nominally controlled by Democrats, abuse of power by the executive continues unimpeded. One such abuse is government by fiat. Another is excessive secrecy. The two abuses amplify each other in a current effort to issue a new executive order designed to keep government documents of historical interest from being released.
"Development of a new executive order on classification of national security information is now proceeding at an accelerated pace," according to Secrecy News, Steven Aftergood's blog about secrecy, intelligence and national security policy for the Federation of American Scientists, "in order to preempt a deadline that would require the declassification of millions of pages of historical records next month....
See Draft Order Would Set New Limits on Classification (Secrecy News 2009-09-29)
Some general background on the national security classification system from the Congressional Research Service can be found in Security Classification Policy and Procedure: E.O. 12958, as Amendedsecred (pdf) (2009-11-03)
"Development of a new executive order on classification of national security information is now proceeding at an accelerated pace," according to Secrecy News, Steven Aftergood's blog about secrecy, intelligence and national security policy for the Federation of American Scientists, "in order to preempt a deadline that would require the declassification of millions of pages of historical records next month....
There is an incentive to complete the development of the executive order before December 31, 2009 because of a deadline for declassification of historical records that falls on that date. Under the current Bush executive order, classified records that are at least 25 years old and that have been referred from one agency to another because they involve multiple agency interests are supposed to be automatically declassified at the end of this year. (See E.O. 13292, section 3.3(e)(3)).So we face the ironic prospect that the "pro-openness" Obama administration will relax or annul a declassification requirement that was imposed by the ultra-secretive Bush administration.
In fact, the whole process has become an awkward mix of exaggerated and deflated expectations. The failure of the Bush Administration’s declassification deadline to take hold this year does not augur well for new, more ambitious efforts to advance classification reform. If the “automatic declassification” procedures that were prescribed in prior executive orders are not “automatic” after all, and if binding deadlines can be extended more or less at will, then any new declassification requirements in the Obama order will be similarly subject to doubt or defiance.The rest of the story: New Executive Order Aims to Avoid Declass Deadline (Secrecy News 2009-11-23)
See Draft Order Would Set New Limits on Classification (Secrecy News 2009-09-29)
Some general background on the national security classification system from the Congressional Research Service can be found in Security Classification Policy and Procedure: E.O. 12958, as Amendedsecred (pdf) (2009-11-03)
Projects: Fighting desertification with sand dunes (TED)
At TED, Magnus Larsson details his bold plan to transform the harsh Sahara desert using bacteria and a surprising construction material: the sand itself.
Clip File: Is Belief in God Hurting America?
According to a new study, prosperity is highest in countries that practice religion the least.
In a paper posted recently on the online journal Evolutionary Psychology, independent
researcher Gregory S. Paul reports a strong correlation within First World democracies between socioeconomic well-being and secularity. In short, prosperity is highest in societies where religion is practiced least.
The rest of the story: Is Belief in God Hurting America? by David Villano, Miller-McCune.com (Alternet 2009-11-25)
In a paper posted recently on the online journal Evolutionary Psychology, independent
researcher Gregory S. Paul reports a strong correlation within First World democracies between socioeconomic well-being and secularity. In short, prosperity is highest in societies where religion is practiced least.The rest of the story: Is Belief in God Hurting America? by David Villano, Miller-McCune.com (Alternet 2009-11-25)
Clip File: Grass roots candidate runs for Ted Kennedy's seat
People-centric movement fuels Alan Khazei’s campaign: Candidate relies on grass-roots politics
A U.S. Senate candidacy in Massachusetts offers voters who want real change an opportunity to cast a vote that will actually make a difference.
The rest of the story: People-centric movement fuels Khazei’s campaign by Eric Moskowitz (Boston.com 2009-11-24)
See, also: Khazei Sneaking Up? by David S. Bernstein (Boston Phoenix 2009-11-24)
A New Patriotism by Alan Khazei (Huffington Post 2009-04-21)
Visit Alan Khazei for Senate.
Action:
Contribute to Alan Khazei for Senate
Volunteer for Alan Khazei for Senate
A U.S. Senate candidacy in Massachusetts offers voters who want real change an opportunity to cast a vote that will actually make a difference.
Alan Khazei makes no secret of his underdog status among the Democrats now running for Senate, pointing out that he lacks the name recognition of Attorney General Martha Coakley, the congressional base of US Representative Michael E. Capuano, and the advertising budget of Celtics co-owner Stephen G. Pagliuca.Khazei is unequivocally against expanding the war in Afghanistan, by the way.
What the City Year cofounder has instead is experience building a movement,a few people at a time, and it is the basis for his campaign strategy. For reasons of necessity and personal style, Khazei is pinning everything on a word-of-mouth, door-to-door, people-powered approach, a tactic proven in long campaigns but virtually unheard of in a special-election sprint....
"What I’m relying on is good, old-fashioned, grass-roots politics," he said. "If we get 1,000 people, we will fundamentally change the dynamic of this election."
The rest of the story: People-centric movement fuels Khazei’s campaign by Eric Moskowitz (Boston.com 2009-11-24)
See, also: Khazei Sneaking Up? by David S. Bernstein (Boston Phoenix 2009-11-24)
A New Patriotism by Alan Khazei (Huffington Post 2009-04-21)
Visit Alan Khazei for Senate.
Action:
Contribute to Alan Khazei for Senate
Volunteer for Alan Khazei for Senate
Accountability: Dem Rep. Obey Proposes Tax to Fund War
"If we have to pay for the healthcare bill, we should pay for the war as well," Wisconsin Rep. David Obey told ABC News in an interview, "by having a war surtax." Obey is just one of a number of restive Congressional Democrats, including Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, to urge that the government stop hiding and deferring the true cost of AfPak.
See, also: The Brewing Democratic Civil War by David Chalian (ABC News 2009-11-23)
Plan C for Afghanistan by E.J. Dionne, Jr (Washington Post 2009-11-23)
The Democrats’ War Tax by Justin Raimondo (AntiWar.com 2009-11-23)
War Surtax: Pay As You Fight by David Rogers (Politico 2009-11-23)
Updates:
Will Biden And Kerry Support A War Surtax Again? by Sam Stein (Huffington Post 2009-11-25)
Talk of war surtax for Afghanistan expenses heats up by Janet Hook and Christi Parsons (Los Angeles Times 2009-11-25)
See, also: The Brewing Democratic Civil War by David Chalian (ABC News 2009-11-23)
Plan C for Afghanistan by E.J. Dionne, Jr (Washington Post 2009-11-23)
The Democrats’ War Tax by Justin Raimondo (AntiWar.com 2009-11-23)
War Surtax: Pay As You Fight by David Rogers (Politico 2009-11-23)
Updates:
Will Biden And Kerry Support A War Surtax Again? by Sam Stein (Huffington Post 2009-11-25)
Talk of war surtax for Afghanistan expenses heats up by Janet Hook and Christi Parsons (Los Angeles Times 2009-11-25)
Health Insurance Reform: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly for Consumer Protection in the U.S. Senate Bill
Pre-emption of State Health Benefit Laws Is a Major Retreat; Insurance Rate Justification Shows Promise (press release)
Consumer Watchdog released a list today of the 10 key positive and negative consumer protection provisions of the U.S. Senate health reform bill, HR 3590, which passed an important procedural vote this weekend.
The group lauded the bill’s dramatic expansion of coverage for those currently without health insurance and subsidies to help consumers afford care, but called for amendments as the bill is debated next week.
Consumer Watchdog said that two provisions allowing for pre-emption of state laws by less protective federal standards amounted to a major step backwards in coverage and affordability. Provisions requiring insurance companies to justify their rates and providing grants to states to develop “prior approval” systems are promising, but need further development to protect Americans from price gouging by health insurers.
“The ‘bad’ and the ‘ugly’ of the Senate bill threaten to undermine the ‘good.’ In particular, provisions of the Senate bill that would pre-empt more protective state standards will result in insurance policies that do not provide needed services and treatments when patients get sick and need health care the most,” said Jerry Flanagan, Health Care Policy Director for Consumer Watchdog. “If the government is going to require all Americans to have health insurance, then the government has the duty to ensure coverage is affordable. Insurance rate justification and prior approval of rates are essential to achieve affordability. However, even some of the ‘good’ provisions of the bill need additional clarifications and fixes to ensure that consumers get the coverage they pay for when the health care reform bills become law.”
The List of 10 of Consumer Protections (details are below):
The Good:
Rate Increase Justification, State Grants for Prior Approval (page 37, § 2794). Insurance rate increase justification, and prior approval of those rates, are essential components of controlling the kind of double-digit health insurance rate increases that led U.S. Representative Crowley (D-NY), and U.S. Senators Durbin (D-IL) and Landrieu (D-LA), to spearhead a letter from 119 Members of Congress asking the health insurance industry to explain the unusually high increases predicted for 2010. Specifically, section 2794 of the Senate bill provides that:
Public Option (page 182, § 1323). The public insurance option is now called the "Community Health Insurance Option." Under the Senate bill:
Consumer Rebates if Insurer Overhead Exceeds 20-25% (Page 30, § 2718). Insurers will be required to provide annual rebates to consumers if the insurer's overhead costs (administration and profit) exceed 20% for coverage sold to employers and 25% for coverage sold to individuals. States may require lower overhead percentages. Rebates would equal the amount by which an insurer exceeds the overhead limit.
Recommendation: See 85% Administrative Cost Cap.
85% Administrative Cost Cap (Page 204, § 1331). Some analyses of the bill say that it requires private health insurance plans to spend at least 85% of premium revenue on medical costs. However, the placement of this language in the bill appears to apply the 85% requirement only to state “alternative programs” for low-income individuals.
Recommendation: The 85% so-called “medical loss ratio” should be applied to all insurers and all coverage. The required consumer rebates should be triggered if the insurer exceeds a 15% cap on administrative costs and profits, instead of the current limit in the bill of 20-25%.
Prohibition on Rescission. (page 16, § 2712). Under the U.S. Senate bill, health insurers are barred from retroactively canceling coverage after a patient gets sick, a practice known as “rescission,” unless the patient committed fraud or made an intentional misrepresentation of a material fact as “prohibited by the terms of the plan or coverage.”
Recommendation: The bill must clarify the grounds on which a rescission of coverage is justified, not leave it up to insurers to define in the fine print of their coverage contracts. For example, if an applicant’s health condition is not a factor in determining whether an individual or group is eligible for coverage under the bill’s Guaranteed Issue provisions, then failure to disclose such information cannot be grounds for rescission of the policy.
Guarantee Issue, Guaranteed Renewability, & Community Rating (page 82, § 2702; page 83, § 2703; page 83, § 2705). The bill bars a health insurer from refusing to sell coverage, refusing to renew coverage, or charging more for coverage due to a patient’s past health condition.
Recommendation: No change.
BAD
Individual mandate (page 320 § 1501). The bill requires every American, with some exceptions, to show proof of owning a health insurance policy or receiving health coverage from a public program. (For example, Medicaid or Medicare). Failure to do so will result in a fine of up to $750.
Recommendation: A mandatory purchase regime, particularly one without a true public option such as universal access to Medicare and without vigorous cost controls and guaranteed benefits, amounts only to a government-funded customer delivery system for the fragmented, wasteful private insurance market. The Senate should:
No matter what the premium price, strapped middle-class Americans who buy these plans will get horrible sticker shock on their deductibles and copays when they need to use the policy for anything beyond basic preventive care. Such costs deter families from seeking needed treatment for themselves and their children.
Recommendation: Bronze plan should provide benefits at 75% of actuarial value.
Employer “Fine” Shifts Burden of Health Care Costs to Individuals and Families (Page 348, § 1513). The bill requires employers with 50 or more employees to provide health coverage or pay a fine of $750 per employee each year. Those employers would only be required to pay a fine if any of its employees qualify for a subsidy to buy coverage on their own through the Exchange.
Recommendation: Health insurance for a family of four costs $13,375 each year. Allowing business owners to choose between paying for health coverage or paying a small fine will result in individuals and families bearing more of the cost burden. The Senate should amend the bill to require employers to pay a significant share of the cost of coverage in line with the requirements of the House of Representatives bill.
UGLY
Pre-emption of State Benefit Mandate Laws (Page 219, § 1333). Insurers may form “health care compacts” (page 219) and “Nationwide plans” (page 222) which would only be subject to the health benefit mandate laws and regulations of the State in which the plan was “written or issued.” Assuming that the proposed new national minimum benefit guidelines (page 102, § 1302) would apply to the compacts and Nationwide plans, the national minimums would become default rules because insurers would certainly choose to be regulated by the weakest state. As a result, millions of Americans could lose insurance coverage of important medical treatments and services such as AIDS/HIV testing, reconstructive surgery, home health care services, and child delivery and mastectomy minimum hospital stays.
Provisions in the bill allowing states to “opt-out” of permitting Nationwide plans and “opt-in” to interstate compacts offer little protection. The 1,000 health insurance lobbyists estimated to be working the federal health reform bill, and the industry’s unlimited capacity to buy votes with campaign contributions, would be marshaled to advance the insurers’ interest at the state level.
Click here to read Consumer Watchdog's analyses of the pre-emption provisions and the group’s letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Recommendation: States have traditionally been the laboratories of innovation in health care and insurance reform. States also have a greater ability to respond quickly to local needs. The Senate health reform bill should be modeled on existing federal health care laws which provide for a federal-state partnership rather than federal pre-emption of more protective state standards. Minimum federal standards should set a floor, not a ceiling, on state health care protections. In all cases, including Nationwide plans, heath care compacts, and Co-Ops, states must be free to impose their own required benefits and consumer protection laws if those benefits and laws are more protective than the laws of state where the policy was written or issued or the new federal guidelines.
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Consumer Watchdog is a nonpartisan consumer advocacy organization with offices in Washington, D.C. and Santa Monica, CA.
Consumer Watchdog released a list today of the 10 key positive and negative consumer protection provisions of the U.S. Senate health reform bill, HR 3590, which passed an important procedural vote this weekend.
The group lauded the bill’s dramatic expansion of coverage for those currently without health insurance and subsidies to help consumers afford care, but called for amendments as the bill is debated next week.
Consumer Watchdog said that two provisions allowing for pre-emption of state laws by less protective federal standards amounted to a major step backwards in coverage and affordability. Provisions requiring insurance companies to justify their rates and providing grants to states to develop “prior approval” systems are promising, but need further development to protect Americans from price gouging by health insurers.
“The ‘bad’ and the ‘ugly’ of the Senate bill threaten to undermine the ‘good.’ In particular, provisions of the Senate bill that would pre-empt more protective state standards will result in insurance policies that do not provide needed services and treatments when patients get sick and need health care the most,” said Jerry Flanagan, Health Care Policy Director for Consumer Watchdog. “If the government is going to require all Americans to have health insurance, then the government has the duty to ensure coverage is affordable. Insurance rate justification and prior approval of rates are essential to achieve affordability. However, even some of the ‘good’ provisions of the bill need additional clarifications and fixes to ensure that consumers get the coverage they pay for when the health care reform bills become law.”
The List of 10 of Consumer Protections (details are below):
The Good:
1. Rate review. Insurers must publicly justify “excessive” rate increases, and federal grants would encourage states to require full “prior approval” of such increases. (Needs strengthening of prior approval, definition of “excessive.”)The Bad:
2. Public Option. Bill retains an op-out public option and allows states to expand access to large employers.
3. Consumer rebates. Requires insurer rebates to consumers of administrative and overhead costs higher than 20% to 25%.
4. Minimum “loss ratio.” Insurers in some cases must assure that 85% of premiums are spent on medical care. (Should be expanded to all policies.)
5. Rescission ban. Insurers may not rescind policies except for “intentional misrepresentation” of material facts as determined by the coverage contract. (Needs much tighter definition.)
6. Guaranteed issue. Health insurance must be available to all, renewable for all, and rate differences, such as for age, are limited.
7. Mandate. Proof of insurance coverage is required of all Americans, while insurers are still largely free to charge what they want. (To keep insurers in check the bill needs a broader public option and mandatory rate approval to curb prices.)The Ugly:
8. Poor minimum coverage. Allowable minimum health plan, the “bronze” level, would cover only 60% of overall patient costs, including copays and deductibles. (Should be at least 75%.)
9. No employer requirement. Employers face only very weak fees for failing to even offer coverage. (Need more realistic requirements in House bill.)
10. Race to the bottom on state protections. State benefit requirements would be preempted by “nationwide plans” and multistate “compacts,” which would be ruled by laws of the weakest states; weaker federal requirements would become the norm. Coverage of AIDS/HIV testing, reconstructive surgery, home health care services, and child delivery and mastectomy minimum hospital stays and more would likely be lost. (States must retain freedom to require stronger coverage for all types of policies.)GOOD
Rate Increase Justification, State Grants for Prior Approval (page 37, § 2794). Insurance rate increase justification, and prior approval of those rates, are essential components of controlling the kind of double-digit health insurance rate increases that led U.S. Representative Crowley (D-NY), and U.S. Senators Durbin (D-IL) and Landrieu (D-LA), to spearhead a letter from 119 Members of Congress asking the health insurance industry to explain the unusually high increases predicted for 2010. Specifically, section 2794 of the Senate bill provides that:
(1) The Secretary of Health and Human Services, in conjunction with states, shall require health insurance companies to justify unreasonable premium increases prior to implementing them. Insurers are required to post the justifications on their websites.Recommendation: Consumer Watchdog, which pioneered the most successful insurance premium regulation law in the nation, Proposition 103, called on the Senate to adopt amendments reflecting key provisions of California’s landmark insurance reform law, including:
(2) The Secretary of Health and Human Services will provide $250 million in grants to assist states “in reviewing and, if appropriate under State law, approving premium increases for health insurance coverage...”
(3) Any state receiving a federal grant is required to make recommendations about whether particular health insurers should be excluded from participation in the Exchange “based on a pattern or practice of excessive or unjustified premium increases.”
• Mandatory justification of any rate increase (including premiums, deductibles, co-pays), not merely justifications of "unreasonable" premium increases.Click here to read about California’s landmark law to rein in gouging by property and casualty insurers.
• Increased amount of funding available for grants to assist states developing 'prior approval' systems. The U.S. House of Representatives bill provides $1 billion in such state grants.
• Mandatory prior approval, which means requiring insurers to seek permission from government regulators, in addition to justifying rate increases, before imposing the new rates. The language conditioning such prior approval on whether it is “appropriate under state law” should be deleted. In its place, states should be required to adopt Prop 103-styled prior approval in order to maximize saving and decrease insurance company waste and overhead. Since 1988, California’s Proposition 103 has saved drivers $62 billion while fostering a competitive and profitable insurance market.
• An intervenor system that provides consumers a forum to challenge unnecessary or excessive rate increases. Since 2003, Consumer Watchdog has saved the state’s consumers $1.7 billion by challenging unnecessary premium increases using the public intervention process.
Public Option (page 182, § 1323). The public insurance option is now called the "Community Health Insurance Option." Under the Senate bill:
(1) States may opt out entirely, but also may opt back in later.Recommendation: The Senate bill should make clear that any individual or employer can choose to buy coverage under the Community Health Option.
(2) The plans under this option, though offered through the state exchanges to individuals and small businesses, are federally administered by the Secretary of HHS.
(3) The public option benefit is limited to the "essential health benefits" described in the law, though states may offer additional benefits. In such cases, the state must fund said benefits.
(4) All enrollees in the public plan are treated as a nationwide single pool (not state by state).
(5) Plans are subject to state "consumer protection and solvency laws, with a federal minimum standard.
(6) States accepting the option shall form a "State Advisory Council" including patients and providers to provide recommendations to HHS on policies, public awareness and payment structures.
Consumer Rebates if Insurer Overhead Exceeds 20-25% (Page 30, § 2718). Insurers will be required to provide annual rebates to consumers if the insurer's overhead costs (administration and profit) exceed 20% for coverage sold to employers and 25% for coverage sold to individuals. States may require lower overhead percentages. Rebates would equal the amount by which an insurer exceeds the overhead limit.
Recommendation: See 85% Administrative Cost Cap.
85% Administrative Cost Cap (Page 204, § 1331). Some analyses of the bill say that it requires private health insurance plans to spend at least 85% of premium revenue on medical costs. However, the placement of this language in the bill appears to apply the 85% requirement only to state “alternative programs” for low-income individuals.
Recommendation: The 85% so-called “medical loss ratio” should be applied to all insurers and all coverage. The required consumer rebates should be triggered if the insurer exceeds a 15% cap on administrative costs and profits, instead of the current limit in the bill of 20-25%.
Prohibition on Rescission. (page 16, § 2712). Under the U.S. Senate bill, health insurers are barred from retroactively canceling coverage after a patient gets sick, a practice known as “rescission,” unless the patient committed fraud or made an intentional misrepresentation of a material fact as “prohibited by the terms of the plan or coverage.”
Recommendation: The bill must clarify the grounds on which a rescission of coverage is justified, not leave it up to insurers to define in the fine print of their coverage contracts. For example, if an applicant’s health condition is not a factor in determining whether an individual or group is eligible for coverage under the bill’s Guaranteed Issue provisions, then failure to disclose such information cannot be grounds for rescission of the policy.
Guarantee Issue, Guaranteed Renewability, & Community Rating (page 82, § 2702; page 83, § 2703; page 83, § 2705). The bill bars a health insurer from refusing to sell coverage, refusing to renew coverage, or charging more for coverage due to a patient’s past health condition.
Recommendation: No change.
BAD
Individual mandate (page 320 § 1501). The bill requires every American, with some exceptions, to show proof of owning a health insurance policy or receiving health coverage from a public program. (For example, Medicaid or Medicare). Failure to do so will result in a fine of up to $750.
Recommendation: A mandatory purchase regime, particularly one without a true public option such as universal access to Medicare and without vigorous cost controls and guaranteed benefits, amounts only to a government-funded customer delivery system for the fragmented, wasteful private insurance market. The Senate should:
- Adopt a “public option” to the private market that is open to all Americans.Low in Price, High in Cost -- 60% Actuarial Cap on Basic Coverage (page 112, § 1302(d)). The bill, responding to insurance industry lobbying, has lowered the overall value of the cheapest "bronze" plan to below that of almost any current employer-sponsored plan. The bronze plan has an actuarial value of 60%, 5% below the previous Senate plan, and 10% below the House plan. That means patients will have to pay, between premiums and out of pocket costs, 40% on average of their supposedly covered costs.
- Adopt a robust health insurance rate prior approval and rate justification system.
- Bar any new federal health care reforms from preempting state laws and regulations; they should follow the model of existing federal law, which promotes a state-federal partnership. (See “Ugly” below).
No matter what the premium price, strapped middle-class Americans who buy these plans will get horrible sticker shock on their deductibles and copays when they need to use the policy for anything beyond basic preventive care. Such costs deter families from seeking needed treatment for themselves and their children.
Recommendation: Bronze plan should provide benefits at 75% of actuarial value.
Employer “Fine” Shifts Burden of Health Care Costs to Individuals and Families (Page 348, § 1513). The bill requires employers with 50 or more employees to provide health coverage or pay a fine of $750 per employee each year. Those employers would only be required to pay a fine if any of its employees qualify for a subsidy to buy coverage on their own through the Exchange.
Recommendation: Health insurance for a family of four costs $13,375 each year. Allowing business owners to choose between paying for health coverage or paying a small fine will result in individuals and families bearing more of the cost burden. The Senate should amend the bill to require employers to pay a significant share of the cost of coverage in line with the requirements of the House of Representatives bill.
UGLY
Pre-emption of State Benefit Mandate Laws (Page 219, § 1333). Insurers may form “health care compacts” (page 219) and “Nationwide plans” (page 222) which would only be subject to the health benefit mandate laws and regulations of the State in which the plan was “written or issued.” Assuming that the proposed new national minimum benefit guidelines (page 102, § 1302) would apply to the compacts and Nationwide plans, the national minimums would become default rules because insurers would certainly choose to be regulated by the weakest state. As a result, millions of Americans could lose insurance coverage of important medical treatments and services such as AIDS/HIV testing, reconstructive surgery, home health care services, and child delivery and mastectomy minimum hospital stays.
Provisions in the bill allowing states to “opt-out” of permitting Nationwide plans and “opt-in” to interstate compacts offer little protection. The 1,000 health insurance lobbyists estimated to be working the federal health reform bill, and the industry’s unlimited capacity to buy votes with campaign contributions, would be marshaled to advance the insurers’ interest at the state level.
Click here to read Consumer Watchdog's analyses of the pre-emption provisions and the group’s letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Recommendation: States have traditionally been the laboratories of innovation in health care and insurance reform. States also have a greater ability to respond quickly to local needs. The Senate health reform bill should be modeled on existing federal health care laws which provide for a federal-state partnership rather than federal pre-emption of more protective state standards. Minimum federal standards should set a floor, not a ceiling, on state health care protections. In all cases, including Nationwide plans, heath care compacts, and Co-Ops, states must be free to impose their own required benefits and consumer protection laws if those benefits and laws are more protective than the laws of state where the policy was written or issued or the new federal guidelines.
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Consumer Watchdog is a nonpartisan consumer advocacy organization with offices in Washington, D.C. and Santa Monica, CA.
The Long War: What is the impact of the war on Afghanistan on the greater region?
The rest of the story: Rethink Afghanistan
Change Watch: Why Greg Craig had to go
Pres. Obama turned to Craig to roll back Bush-era policies in the war on terrorism. But by September, Craig had been sidelined by "pragmatists."
The rest of the story: The Fall of Greg Craig by Massimo Calabresi and Michael Weisskopf (Time 2009-11-19)
Obama Is Playing Politics With Gitmo by Nick Baumann (Mother Jones Online/AlterNet 2009-11-23)
The rest of the story: The Fall of Greg Craig by Massimo Calabresi and Michael Weisskopf (Time 2009-11-19)
Obama Is Playing Politics With Gitmo by Nick Baumann (Mother Jones Online/AlterNet 2009-11-23)
Resource: Filibusted takes aim at GOP obstructionism in the Senate
Part of the reason that Republicans can get away with their destructive and antidemocratic reliance on the filibuster to interrupt the functioning of the legislative branch, aside from the reluctance of the Democrats to fight back unless 
they are certain they have 60 safe votes, is that so much Senate business happens in the dark. Filibusted aims to change that by using data from from GovTrack and Sunlight Labs to shine a light on legislative piracy as it happens. Most news stories about Congress don’t mention filibusters or cloture votes, but if you follow @filibusted on Twitter, you'll find out about them as they happen. No more will the Jim DeMints, Jim Bunnings, Tom Coburns, Jim Inhofes and their reactionary allies be able to cripple the legislature behind the people's back. Go to Filibusted.
they are certain they have 60 safe votes, is that so much Senate business happens in the dark. Filibusted aims to change that by using data from from GovTrack and Sunlight Labs to shine a light on legislative piracy as it happens. Most news stories about Congress don’t mention filibusters or cloture votes, but if you follow @filibusted on Twitter, you'll find out about them as they happen. No more will the Jim DeMints, Jim Bunnings, Tom Coburns, Jim Inhofes and their reactionary allies be able to cripple the legislature behind the people's back. Go to Filibusted.
Resource: Who Gets PAC Money ... and How Much?
Where the Money Goes, using politicians' biographical information from Sunlight Labs and data about PACs and their campaign contributions from OpenSecrets.org, makes it easier to visualize the contributions that political action committees make to your members of Congress and to each other. You can also view contributions received by a congressmember directly and by that member's PAC, making it clear exactly how much each legislator costs. The application allows you to see how the process works, such as how the Freedom Fund PAC receives donations from hundreds of lesser PACs and passes the swag along only to Republican candidates. You can choose either a PAC from an economic sector, to see where the money goes -- which politicians receive money from that PAC in each election cycle 1998-2008, or a legislator from any state, to see how much money he/she gets in each election cycle 1998-2008 and from whom, at Where the Money Goes.
AfPak: Democrats to Obama - Get Out of Afghanistan
"We need progressives in every state Democratic Party to pass a similar resolution calling for an end to the U.S. occupation and air war in Afghanistan. Bring the veterans to the table, bring our young into the room, and demand an end to this occupation that only destabilizes the region. There is no military solution, only a diplomatic one that requires we cease our role as occupiers if we want our voices to be heard. Yes, this is about Afghanistan -- but it's also about our role in the world at large. Do we want to be global occupiers seizing scarce resources or global partners in shared prosperity? I would argue a partnership is not only the humane choice, but also the choice that grants us the greatest security." -- Activist Marcy Winograd, on the adoption by the executive board of the California Democratic Party of a resolution to "End the U.S. Occupation and Air War in Afghanistan" (Winograd is mounting a primary challenge against Rep. Jane Harman, a supporter of the war).
The rest of the story: Democrats to Obama: Get Out of Afghanistan by John Nichols (The Nation 2009-11-16)
The rest of the story: Democrats to Obama: Get Out of Afghanistan by John Nichols (The Nation 2009-11-16)
Perspective: 75 million children around the world are not attending primary school. We could educate them all for far less than the cost of the proposed military “surge” in Afghanistan.
Clip File: Healthcare bills could jeopardize states' consumer protection laws
"Healthcare overhaul bills working their way through Congress could jeopardize laws in California and other states that require insurers to pay for treatments such as AIDS testing, second surgical opinions and reconstructive surgery for breast cancer patients.
"What's more, the federal legislation could make it virtually impossible for states to enforce other consumer protection laws, such as the right to appeal if an insurer denies coverage for a particular treatment."
The rest of the story: Healthcare bills could jeopardize states' consumer protection laws by Lisa Girion (Los Angeles Times 2009-11-16)
"What's more, the federal legislation could make it virtually impossible for states to enforce other consumer protection laws, such as the right to appeal if an insurer denies coverage for a particular treatment."
The rest of the story: Healthcare bills could jeopardize states' consumer protection laws by Lisa Girion (Los Angeles Times 2009-11-16)
Change Watch: Gates Invokes New Authority to Block Release of Detainee Abuse Photos
"Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has blocked the release of photographs depicting US soldiers abusing detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan, invoking new powers just granted to him by Congress that allows him to circumvent the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and keep the images under wraps on national security grounds."
The rest of the story: Gates Invokes New Authority to Block Release of Detainee Abuse Photos by Jason Leopold (truthout 2009-11-14)
Follow up: Why Isn't Gates Blocks Torture Photos Bigger News? by RFK Lives (Daily Kos 2009-11-15)
The rest of the story: Gates Invokes New Authority to Block Release of Detainee Abuse Photos by Jason Leopold (truthout 2009-11-14)
Follow up: Why Isn't Gates Blocks Torture Photos Bigger News? by RFK Lives (Daily Kos 2009-11-15)
Activism: The left doth protest too much
The left too often -- always? -- lets the right dominate the debate and dictate the political agenda:
"Here are some action items for Democrats and Progressives that don’t hinge on what conservatives, Republicans or tea party activists do, or do not do:
The rest of the story: The left doth protest too much by Karoli (odd time signatures 2009-11-13)
"Here are some action items for Democrats and Progressives that don’t hinge on what conservatives, Republicans or tea party activists do, or do not do:
1. Declare a party-wide unified moratorium on whatever spew comes out of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Lou Dobbs, and anyone else who seeks to shift the dialogue away from what’s truly important."Bill Clinton is right, whether anyone wants to listen or not. Killing health care reform will spell another 10 years of conservative governance in this country and consign Barack Obama to be a one-term president. By then it won’t matter, because the conservatives will have completed their kingmaking of corporations and media propaganda empires."
2. Discipline is required. Now. It’s time to set aside sniping and criticism of the President and the Democratic leadership and adhere to a consistent and strong progressive message.
3. Define, push, and own the news cycles. If the national conversation isn’t focused to what WE want to talk about and what WE are accomplishing, WE will fail. It will not be focused until we get some folks out there actually speaking for us consistently on a daily basis in the mainstream, the internet and cable channels.
4. Enforce. The Democratic Party platform is not some nicey-nice concept put together for the purpose of one speech at a nominating convention. It’s a statement of VALUES. It means something. It has WEIGHT. It’s time for the so-called leaders of this party to stand up and use that weight. After all, voters expect you to. It’s why they put these Congressional clowns (even the Conservaclowns) in office. Look what North Dakota Democrats did with Kent Conrad. They gave him a reminder…if he doesn’t listen, I’m sure they’ll be looking for a different candidate to put up in a primary against him.
5. GET HEALTH CARE REFORM DONE. NOW. Stand on the Senate and make them get the debate moving, open, closed and voted on before the end of this year. Whatever anyone does, they cannot stall. Stalling is death. Get Grayson and Weiner out there alongside whoever else can speak strongly for what the House has done. Push these Senators to do the deal. Now.
6. Abandon bipartisan effort. There is none. The only bipartisanship is between the confines of the Democratic party itself — the in-name only bluedogs, and the rest of us.
7. Stop kowtowing to the budget (and yes, Mr. President, that means you, too) and start framing debates in terms of the people suffering in this country. We are not a bottom line. We are the citizens of this country who elected you and we have been exploited by corporate interests and professional gamblers on Wall Street while the last administration looked the other way. Quit worrying about deficits and start thinking about solutions. Then start implementing them. Let the budget hawks dither. This is a time for action.
The rest of the story: The left doth protest too much by Karoli (odd time signatures 2009-11-13)
Clip File: Al Qaeda prefers US to stick around
"A withdrawal of coalition forces from Afghanistan would undoubtedly hand al-Qa'ida and the Taliban a propaganda victory. However, a victory would deny al-Qa'ida its most potent source of power, influence, funding and recruits -- the armed jihad."
The rest of the story: Al-Qa'ida prefers U.S. to stick around by Leah Farrell (The Australian 2009-11-12)
The rest of the story: Al-Qa'ida prefers U.S. to stick around by Leah Farrell (The Australian 2009-11-12)
Health Care Reform: Will the current bills help?
Donna Smith appeared in Michael Moore's Sicko, along with other Americans with health care issues. Now that health care legislation is moving through Congress, she wonders if the bills under consideration will help the other "American Sickos" who were suffering from the abuses of the rapacious and dysfunctional insurance industry. The answer is a resounding "No," as this heart-wrenching video shows.
See, also: Health Care Reform 2009: No Bill Is Better Than a Bad Bill by John Geyman MD: "The new House bill for health care reform (HR 3962) ... will not fundamentally reform U.S. health care." (Guaranteed Health Care 2009-11-04)
See, also: Health Care Reform 2009: No Bill Is Better Than a Bad Bill by John Geyman MD: "The new House bill for health care reform (HR 3962) ... will not fundamentally reform U.S. health care." (Guaranteed Health Care 2009-11-04)
Health Care Reform: Not!
Here's a statement by Healthcare-NOW! summing up the prospects for affordable, universal health care:
See, also: Why I Voted "No" by Rep. Dennis Kucinich.
On Saturday, November 7, 2009, the House passed H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, to much celebration by the Democratic party. Healthcare-NOW!'s view, however, is that the House bill is a gift to the insurance industry at the further expense of the people of this nation.Action: Donate to Healthcare-NOW!
The bill's advocates claim it will cover an additional 36 million people, subsidize the cost of insurance for families up to 400% above the poverty level, increase Medicaid coverage to 150% above the poverty level, close the Medicare donut hole by 2019, place a surcharge on individuals making more than $500,000 and couples making more than $1,000,000, will end rescissions and pre-existing conditions.
What the Democrats fail to mention is the bill leaves millions of people uninsured, allows medical bankruptcies to persist, criminalizes and fines the uninsured, increases the number of underinsured, does nothing to contain the sky rocketing costs, blocks women from their reproductive rights, transfers massive public funds to private insurance companies strengthening their control over care, protects pharmaceutical companies' superprofits at patient expense, fails to reclaim the 31% of waste in our system, expands Medicaid without regard to the state budget crises, discriminates based on immigration status and age, and sets up several levels of care covering less for those without the ability to pay. Those who have coverage will increasingly find care unaffordable and will go without. The whole system will inevitably fail from being fiscally unsustainable.
So is the House bill better than nothing?
"I don't think so," writes Marcia Angell, M.D. , former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine. "It simply throws more money into a dysfunctional and unsustainable system, with only a few improvements at the edges, and it augments the central role of the investor-owned insurance industry. The danger is that as costs continue to rise and coverage becomes less comprehensive, people will conclude that we've tried health reform and it didn't work. But the real problem will be that we didn't really try it. I would rather see us do nothing now, and have a better chance of trying again later and then doing it right."
Given that the bill does nothing to contain or reduce rising costs or end the private health insurance industry's dominance, we hoped that the Progressive Caucus would stand strong. But they did not. All but two of H.R. 676's cosponsors voted for H.R. 3962 -- Rep. Eric Massa [D-NY] and Rep. Kucinich [D-OH].
Rep. Massa stated, "At the highest level, this bill will enshrine in law the monopolistic powers of the private health insurance industry, period. There's really no other way to look at it."
Despite telling single-payer advocates that Congressman Weiner's single-payer amendment could not go to vote because it would open the floodgates for regressive amendments on abortion and immigrant access, the Democratic leadership allowed votes on both. Prior to the vote on H.R. 3962, the Stupak Amendment passed that will prevent women receiving tax subsidies from using their own money to purchase private insurance that covers abortion and in many cases will prevent low-income women from accessing abortion entirely.
"The House of Representatives has dealt the worst blow to women's fundamental right to self-determination in order to buy a few votes for reform of the profit-driven health insurance industry," writes Terry O'Neill, President of National Organization for Women. "We must protect the rights we fought for in Roe v. Wade. We cannot and will not support a health care bill that strips millions of women of their existing access to abortion."
Healthcare-NOW! fought to win a fair and open debate on healthcare reform including the merits of a single-payer system. This has not yet happened, but the advocacy for this system has greatly impacted the debate in meaningful ways.
We need to continue to build the grassroots movement for single-payer, not-for-profit, national healthcare. We look forward to much brain-storming at our upcoming national strategy conference in St. Louis this weekend, and the opportunity to move forward with renewed energy, creative ideas, and resolve.
Meanwhile, we have the opportunity NOW to continue to support the Sanders' Single-Payer Amendment to be introduced in the U.S. Senate, Congressman Kucinich's efforts to get the state single-payer amendment back in when the House and Senate bills are reconciled, and the efforts of the Mobilization for Health Care for All.
See, also: Why I Voted "No" by Rep. Dennis Kucinich.
Health Care Reform: Or Not
The big players in the insurance industry are very happy with the direction "reform" is headed:
"eHealth looks forward to being an active partner in implementing meaningful health reform legislation, and is poised and ready to connect the uninsured to coverage quickly." (CNN)
eHealth says it's "Ready to Connect America to Coverage."
Contrast that with the Physicians for a National Health Program Quote of the Day from by Don McCanne, M.D.: "This is yet one more reason why the model of reform selected by Congress and the Obama administration is the most expensive of all. With all of the other wasteful administrative expenses, brokers' fees are added on top, though often hidden in the premium as a commission rather than a fee.
"Compare this to Medicare enrollment. The administrative costs for automatic enrollment in Medicare, at that only once in a lifetime, are negligible for the government and its taxpayers."
"Imagine the simplicity and efficiency of automatic, lifetime Medicare enrollment at birth for everyone. But Congress won't go there... not until the nation demands it."
Physicians for National Health Plan: http://www.pnhp.org
"eHealth looks forward to being an active partner in implementing meaningful health reform legislation, and is poised and ready to connect the uninsured to coverage quickly." (CNN)
eHealth says it's "Ready to Connect America to Coverage."
Contrast that with the Physicians for a National Health Program Quote of the Day from by Don McCanne, M.D.: "This is yet one more reason why the model of reform selected by Congress and the Obama administration is the most expensive of all. With all of the other wasteful administrative expenses, brokers' fees are added on top, though often hidden in the premium as a commission rather than a fee.
"Compare this to Medicare enrollment. The administrative costs for automatic enrollment in Medicare, at that only once in a lifetime, are negligible for the government and its taxpayers."
"Imagine the simplicity and efficiency of automatic, lifetime Medicare enrollment at birth for everyone. But Congress won't go there... not until the nation demands it."
Physicians for National Health Plan: http://www.pnhp.org
Health Care Reform: Why I voted "no" - Rep. Dennis Kucinich
Dennis Kucinich Explains Why He Voted Against the Affordable Health Care for America Act
Congressman Kucinich has been one of the strongest voices for health care for all. With Rep. John Conyers, he introduced HR 676, the single-payer or Medicare-for-All bill, the proposal that had the widest support among Democrats in Congress until Pelosi and Obama pulled it "off the table" to make way for H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, a.k.a., the Save-the-Insurance-Companies bill that passed Saturday. Thirty-six Democrats joined all but one Republican in voting "nay," Kucinich among them. On his website, he explains why:
Congressman Kucinich has been one of the strongest voices for health care for all. With Rep. John Conyers, he introduced HR 676, the single-payer or Medicare-for-All bill, the proposal that had the widest support among Democrats in Congress until Pelosi and Obama pulled it "off the table" to make way for H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, a.k.a., the Save-the-Insurance-Companies bill that passed Saturday. Thirty-six Democrats joined all but one Republican in voting "nay," Kucinich among them. On his website, he explains why:
“We have been led to believe that we must make our health care choices only within the current structure of a predatory, for-profit insurance system which makes money not providing health care. We cannot fault the insurance companies for being what they are. But we can fault legislation in which the government incentivizes the perpetuation, indeed the strengthening, of the for-profit health insurance industry, the very source of the problem. When health insurance companies deny care or raise premiums, co-pays and deductibles they are simply trying to make a profit. That is our system.Why I Voted NO by Dennis Kucinich
“Clearly, the insurance companies are the problem, not the solution. They are driving up the cost of health care. Because their massive bureaucracy avoids payingbills so effectively, they force hospitals and doctors to hire their own bureaucracy to fight the insurance companies to avoid getting stuck with an unfair share of the bills. The result is that since 1970, the number of physicians has increased by less than 200% while the number of administrators has increased by 3000%. It is no wonder that 31 cents of every health care dollar goes to administrative costs, not toward providing care. Even those with insurance are at risk. The single biggest cause of bankruptcies in the U.S. is health insurance policies that do not cover you when you get sick.
“But instead of working toward the elimination of for-profit insurance, H.R. 3962 would put the government in the role of accelerating the privatization of health care. In H.R. 3962, the government is requiring at least 21 million Americans to buy private health insurance from the very industry that causes costs to be so high, which will result in at least $70 billion in new annual revenue, much of which is coming from taxpayers. This inevitably will lead to even more costs, more subsidies, and higher profits for insurance companies — a bailout under a blue cross.
“By incurring only a new requirement to cover pre-existing conditions, a weakened public option, and a few other important but limited concessions, the health insurance companies are getting quite a deal. The Center for American Progress’ blog, Think Progress, states 'since the President signaled that he is backing away from the public option, health insurance stocks have been on the rise.' Similarly, healthcare stocks rallied when Senator Max Baucus introduced a bill without a public option. Bloomberg reports that Curtis Lane, a prominent health industry investor, predicted a few weeks ago that 'money will start flowing in again' to health insurance stocks after passage of the legislation. Investors.com last month reported that pharmacy benefit managers share prices are hitting all-time highs, with the only industry worry that the Administration would reverse its decision not to negotiate Medicare Part D drug prices, leaving in place a Bush Administration policy.
“During the debate, when the interests of insurance companies would have been effectively challenged, that challenge was turned back. The 'robust public option' which would have offered a modicum of competition to a monopolistic industry was whittled down from an initial potential enrollment of 129 million Americans to 6 million. An amendment which would have protected the rights of states to pursue single-payer health care was stripped from the bill at the request of the Administration. Looking ahead, we cringe at the prospect of even greater favors for insurance companies.
“Recent rises in unemployment indicate a widening separation between the finance economy and the real economy. The finance economy considers the health of Wall Street, rising corporate profits, and banks’ hoarding of cash, much of it from taxpayers, as sign of an economic recovery. However in the real economy -- in which most Americans live -- the recession is not over. Rising unemployment, business failures, bankruptcies and foreclosures are still hammering Main Street.
“This health care bill continues the redistribution of wealth to Wall Street at the expense of America’s manufacturing and service economies which suffer from costs other countries do not have to bear, especially the cost of health care. America continues to stand out among all industrialized nations for its privatized health care system. As a result, we are less competitive in steel, automotive, aerospace and shipping while other countries subsidize their exports in these areas through socializing the cost of health care.
“Notwithstanding the fate of H.R. 3962, America will someday come to recognize the broad social and economic benefits of a not-for-profit, single-payer health care system, which is good for the American people and good for America’s businesses, with of course the notable exceptions being insurance and pharmaceuticals.”
Health Care Reform: Planned Parenthood Condemns Passage of Stupak/Pitts Amendment (Press Release)
Statement by Cecile Richards, President, Planned Parenthood Federation of America Condemning Passage of Stupak/Pitts Amendment
“Planned Parenthood condemns the adoption of the Stupak/Pitts amendment in HR 3962 this evening. This amendment is an unacceptable addition to the health care reform bill that, if enacted, would result in women losing health benefits they have today. Simply put, the Stupak/Pitts amendment would restrict women’s access to abortion coverage in the private health insurance market, undermining the ability of women to purchase private health plans that cover abortion, even if they pay for most of the premiums with their own money. This amendment reaches much further than the Hyde Amendment, which has prohibited public funding of abortion in most instances since 1977.
“Planned Parenthood serves three million women every year through its more than 850 affiliate health centers across the country and has worked tirelessly on behalf of those patients for affordable, quality health care. On behalf of the millions of women Planned Parenthood health centers serve, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America has no choice but to oppose HR 3962. The bill includes the Stupak/Pitts amendment that would leave women worse off after health care reform than they are today, violating President Obama’s promise to the American people that no one would be forced to lose her or his present coverage under health reform.
“The Stupak/Pitts amendment violates the spirit of health care reform, which is meant to guarantee quality, affordable health care coverage for all. In fact, this amendment would create a two-tiered system that would punish women, particularly those with low and middle incomes, the very people this bill is intended to assist. The majority of private health insurance plans currently offer abortion coverage, and the Stupak/Pitts amendment would result in the elimination of private abortion coverage in the ‘exchange,’ the new insurance market created under health care reform, as well as in the public option, if one is created.
“The Stupak/Pitts amendment would purportedly allow women who want comprehensive reproductive health care coverage to purchase a separate, single-service rider to cover abortion. But such abortion riders do not exist because women do not plan to have unintended pregnancies or medically complicated pregnancies that require ending the pregnancy. These so-called ‘abortion riders,’ which would be the only insurance policy through which abortion care could be covered in the ‘exchange,’ are discriminatory and illogical. Proposing a separate ‘abortion rider’ or ‘single-service plan’ is tantamount to banning abortion coverage since no insurance company would offer such a policy.
“It is extremely unfortunate that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and anti-choice opponents were able to hijack the health care reform bill in their dedicated attempt to ban all legal abortion In the United States. Most telling is the fact that the vast majority of members of the House who supported the Stupak/Pitts amendment in today’s vote do not support HR 3962, revealing their true motive, which is to kill the health care reform bill. These single-issue advocates simply used health care reform to advance their extreme, ideological agenda at the expense of tens of millions of women.
“Planned Parenthood applauds the members of Congress who stood up for women’s health and voted to oppose the Stupak/Pitts amendment. We will work with those members to rectify this travesty.
“As a health care provider, Planned Parenthood is committed to passing health care reform that will guarantee affordable, quality health care coverage for all, including access to comprehensive reproductive health care. In the coming weeks, Planned Parenthood will work with its allies in the Senate to ensure that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and those who oppose abortion do not once again hijack the legislative process in their ongoing campaign to make abortion illegal. Planned Parenthood will join forces with women and their families and health providers to ensure that health care reform does not take away benefits that most women with private health coverage have today. Together, women and their allies are going to make their voices heard, so that they do not become second-class citizens in a newly reformed health care system in the United States.”
“Planned Parenthood condemns the adoption of the Stupak/Pitts amendment in HR 3962 this evening. This amendment is an unacceptable addition to the health care reform bill that, if enacted, would result in women losing health benefits they have today. Simply put, the Stupak/Pitts amendment would restrict women’s access to abortion coverage in the private health insurance market, undermining the ability of women to purchase private health plans that cover abortion, even if they pay for most of the premiums with their own money. This amendment reaches much further than the Hyde Amendment, which has prohibited public funding of abortion in most instances since 1977.
“Planned Parenthood serves three million women every year through its more than 850 affiliate health centers across the country and has worked tirelessly on behalf of those patients for affordable, quality health care. On behalf of the millions of women Planned Parenthood health centers serve, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America has no choice but to oppose HR 3962. The bill includes the Stupak/Pitts amendment that would leave women worse off after health care reform than they are today, violating President Obama’s promise to the American people that no one would be forced to lose her or his present coverage under health reform.
“The Stupak/Pitts amendment violates the spirit of health care reform, which is meant to guarantee quality, affordable health care coverage for all. In fact, this amendment would create a two-tiered system that would punish women, particularly those with low and middle incomes, the very people this bill is intended to assist. The majority of private health insurance plans currently offer abortion coverage, and the Stupak/Pitts amendment would result in the elimination of private abortion coverage in the ‘exchange,’ the new insurance market created under health care reform, as well as in the public option, if one is created.
“The Stupak/Pitts amendment would purportedly allow women who want comprehensive reproductive health care coverage to purchase a separate, single-service rider to cover abortion. But such abortion riders do not exist because women do not plan to have unintended pregnancies or medically complicated pregnancies that require ending the pregnancy. These so-called ‘abortion riders,’ which would be the only insurance policy through which abortion care could be covered in the ‘exchange,’ are discriminatory and illogical. Proposing a separate ‘abortion rider’ or ‘single-service plan’ is tantamount to banning abortion coverage since no insurance company would offer such a policy.
“It is extremely unfortunate that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and anti-choice opponents were able to hijack the health care reform bill in their dedicated attempt to ban all legal abortion In the United States. Most telling is the fact that the vast majority of members of the House who supported the Stupak/Pitts amendment in today’s vote do not support HR 3962, revealing their true motive, which is to kill the health care reform bill. These single-issue advocates simply used health care reform to advance their extreme, ideological agenda at the expense of tens of millions of women.
“Planned Parenthood applauds the members of Congress who stood up for women’s health and voted to oppose the Stupak/Pitts amendment. We will work with those members to rectify this travesty.
“As a health care provider, Planned Parenthood is committed to passing health care reform that will guarantee affordable, quality health care coverage for all, including access to comprehensive reproductive health care. In the coming weeks, Planned Parenthood will work with its allies in the Senate to ensure that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and those who oppose abortion do not once again hijack the legislative process in their ongoing campaign to make abortion illegal. Planned Parenthood will join forces with women and their families and health providers to ensure that health care reform does not take away benefits that most women with private health coverage have today. Together, women and their allies are going to make their voices heard, so that they do not become second-class citizens in a newly reformed health care system in the United States.”
Change Watch: Whaddaya Mean Obama Hasn't Done Anything?
As one quick to point to the gap between Barack Obama's rhetoric and his actions as chief executive (insert the words "Change Watch" in the search box at left for examples), I read with interest John H. Richardson's defense of the president in the November issue of Esquire. The current conventional wisdom about President Obama, he thinks, was captured by a headline on the recent one-year-anniversary cover of Newsweek: YES HE CAN (BUT HE SURE HASN'T YET). ** Or, as Saturday Night Live 
had it a few weeks ago, Obama's two biggest accomplishments thus far are "Jack and Squat."
Richardson argues that the prevailing sentiment that Obama hasn't accomplished anything may be the only example of real bipartisanship in America, ignoring that the right is convinced he has spent the last nine months installing an authoritarian communist regime rapidly stripping us of all we hold dear as a free people and the left is afraid he is bent on transferring national wealth and political power to the corporate elite. If the opinion that Obama has done nothing is bipartisan it is so only inside the Beltway and in the corporate media. With varying degrees of accuracy, voters on the right and left are afraid he's done too much.
Richardson's summation of the conventional rap against Obama could have appeared on Impractical Proposals: Obama hasn't exited Iraq, hasn't closed Guantánamo, is getting mired in Afghanistan, hasn't passed health-care reform, hasn't put people back to work. His obsession with bipartisanship is a sick joke.
"What a failure! What a splash of cold water in the face of all our bold hopes!"
(If it were really on IP, though, the bill of complaints would probably include references to the bailout, Timothy Geithner, too big too fail, executive compensation and bonuses, foxes managing chicken coops, the PATRIOT Act, renditions, habeas corpus, warrentless wiretaps, grotesquely large military appropriations, Pakistan, executive orders, signing statements, the media shield law ... but okay, fair enough).
Richardson thinks the conventional wisdom is wrong -- the word he actually uses is "insane." He asks that we "consider the record":
Similarly, if you believe that many of our political problems stem from the unconstitutional transfer of power from the legislature to the executive, even unarguably good outcomes, such as the changes to stem cell research and family planning policies, can be seen as doing further harm to democratic practice if they are secured by executive fiat.
And a "withdrawal" from Iraq that leaves "enduring" military bases, tens of thousands of military trainers and advisers, and an army of private contractors is no withdrawal at all.
Richardson continues with tips of the hat to "Sonia Sotomeyer, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the order to release the torture memos" -- what about the photos?, "...charter schools, his $288 billion tax cut, and the end of Bush's war on medical marijuana. Or the minor fact that he seems" -- I'm trying to stay out of Richardson's way here -- "to have — with Bush's help, it must be said — stopped the financial collapse, revived the credit markets, and nudged the economy toward 3.5 percent growth in the last quarter."
Richardson feels safe in predicting that President Obama is now a month or two from accomplishing "the awesome and seemingly impossible task of passing health-care reform." It remains to be seen, of course, whether the package that finally emerges from negotiations between the House and Senate is anything that can be described fairly as affordable and universal.
And, as they like to say in late-night commercials, that's not all. Richardson also awards Obama points for
"What's worse," Richardson says, "both sides are so angry and righteous that they can't even begin to give credit where it is due." I think he's right when he says that conservatives could be more appreciative about that $288 billion tax cut. And you would think the president would be getting a few more kudos from the right for McChrystal and Gates, to say nothing of AfPac and the drones. But to ask "how many liberals choose to be understanding about the practical difficulties of shutting down Guantánamo, achieving equal rights for gays, or tapping Al Qaeda's phones?" is to admit that the left has valid reasons to be unhappy with the Agent of Change. And to wonder "where, on either side, can you find a scrap of humility about the staggeringly complex challenge of Afghanistan and Pakistan? Or a scrap of gratitude at having escaped global financial doom?" is to beg more questions than Alex Trebek.
Our worries about how much Obama has accomplished in the year since we elected him are legitimate, especially considering the magnitude of the problems we face as a nation, and we are not only permitted to express our concerns but, as engaged citizens, we are obligated to express them.
** Richardson points out you "can find other versions of this perspective from Matt Lauer and David Gregory on NBC, from thousands of obnoxious bloggers, even from the hapless governor of New York."
had it a few weeks ago, Obama's two biggest accomplishments thus far are "Jack and Squat." Richardson argues that the prevailing sentiment that Obama hasn't accomplished anything may be the only example of real bipartisanship in America, ignoring that the right is convinced he has spent the last nine months installing an authoritarian communist regime rapidly stripping us of all we hold dear as a free people and the left is afraid he is bent on transferring national wealth and political power to the corporate elite. If the opinion that Obama has done nothing is bipartisan it is so only inside the Beltway and in the corporate media. With varying degrees of accuracy, voters on the right and left are afraid he's done too much.
Richardson's summation of the conventional rap against Obama could have appeared on Impractical Proposals: Obama hasn't exited Iraq, hasn't closed Guantánamo, is getting mired in Afghanistan, hasn't passed health-care reform, hasn't put people back to work. His obsession with bipartisanship is a sick joke.
"What a failure! What a splash of cold water in the face of all our bold hopes!"
(If it were really on IP, though, the bill of complaints would probably include references to the bailout, Timothy Geithner, too big too fail, executive compensation and bonuses, foxes managing chicken coops, the PATRIOT Act, renditions, habeas corpus, warrentless wiretaps, grotesquely large military appropriations, Pakistan, executive orders, signing statements, the media shield law ... but okay, fair enough).
Richardson thinks the conventional wisdom is wrong -- the word he actually uses is "insane." He asks that we "consider the record":
A week before he was sworn in, Obama jammed part two of the bank bailout down the throat of his own party — a $350 billion accomplishment.I'm not going to contest each of these assertions, except to say that they are a pretty mixed bag. If you think that the economic meltdown was about foreclosures and jobs not banks and Wall Street, then you may not see the bailouts as achievements, especially in the light of plus 10% unemployment and thousands of foreclosures and business failures. Even if you accept that the bailouts were necessary, you may be irked that the loot could have been handed over in brown paper bags, for all the strings that were attached.
Two days after he was sworn in, Obama banned the use of "harsh interrogation" and ordered the closing of Guantánamo.
A day later, Obama reversed George W. Bush's funding cutoff to overseas family planning organizations — saving millions of lives with the stroke of a pen.
Three days after that, Obama gave a green light to the California car-emissions standards that Bush had been blocking for six years — an important step on the road to cleaner air and a cooler planet.
Two weeks after that, Obama signed the stimulus bill — a $787 billion accomplishment.
Ten days after that, Obama formally announced America's withdrawal from Iraq.
A week later — we're in early March now — Obama erased Bush's decision to restrict federal funding for stem-cell research.
In April and June, Obama forced Chrysler and GM into bankruptcy.
In June, Obama reset the tone of our relations with the entire Arab world with a single speech...
Also in June, Obama unveiled the "Cash for Clunkers" program, a "socialist" giveaway that reanimated the corpse of our car industry — leading, for example, to the billion-dollar profit that Ford announced on Monday.
Similarly, if you believe that many of our political problems stem from the unconstitutional transfer of power from the legislature to the executive, even unarguably good outcomes, such as the changes to stem cell research and family planning policies, can be seen as doing further harm to democratic practice if they are secured by executive fiat.
And a "withdrawal" from Iraq that leaves "enduring" military bases, tens of thousands of military trainers and advisers, and an army of private contractors is no withdrawal at all.
Richardson continues with tips of the hat to "Sonia Sotomeyer, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the order to release the torture memos" -- what about the photos?, "...charter schools, his $288 billion tax cut, and the end of Bush's war on medical marijuana. Or the minor fact that he seems" -- I'm trying to stay out of Richardson's way here -- "to have — with Bush's help, it must be said — stopped the financial collapse, revived the credit markets, and nudged the economy toward 3.5 percent growth in the last quarter."
Richardson feels safe in predicting that President Obama is now a month or two from accomplishing "the awesome and seemingly impossible task of passing health-care reform." It remains to be seen, of course, whether the package that finally emerges from negotiations between the House and Senate is anything that can be described fairly as affordable and universal.
And, as they like to say in late-night commercials, that's not all. Richardson also awards Obama points for
Appointing a conservative Bush holdover like Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense.Richardson concludes by setting up a straw man -- the Vital Center -- and then kicking the stuffing out of it. You see, Obama is governing from the middle, so "[b]lame it on the Internet, on partisan politics, on the economic crash, on the legacy of war or Fox News or Michael Moore, but our vital center is getting stiff — and it is starting to stink." Somehow transferring trillions of dollars to the corporate class is a liberal project, or at least so he can seem to be bashing both sides equally Richardson pretends to think so, and expanding the empire is central to the conservative agenda, so both sides are just being churlish when they profess to be disappointed with the way policies that they find important are being addressed.
Appointing an establishment centrist like Leon Panetta at CIA [silencing in the process one of the strongest voices in the Democratic Party calling for CIA accountability for torture].
Appointing a hard-ass like Stanley McChrystal to head up our military forces in Afghanistan, despite McChrystal's dubious involvement in torture and the cover-up of Pat Tillman's death.
Increasing the number of drone attacks on Al Qaeda — more in the last year than all the Bush years combined.
Reinstating, with tweaks, Bush's military tribunal system for Guantánamo prisoners.
Fighting, in another unexpected defense of a controversial Bush policy, lawsuits against the "warrantless wiretapping" program — as recently as this weekend with a decision that a leading civil liberties group called "extremely disappointing."
Sending, way back in February, seventeen thousand more soldiers to Afghanistan. As Fareed Zakaira recently pointed out, this was just three thousand fewer soldiers than Bush sent to Iraq for his famous "surge."
"What's worse," Richardson says, "both sides are so angry and righteous that they can't even begin to give credit where it is due." I think he's right when he says that conservatives could be more appreciative about that $288 billion tax cut. And you would think the president would be getting a few more kudos from the right for McChrystal and Gates, to say nothing of AfPac and the drones. But to ask "how many liberals choose to be understanding about the practical difficulties of shutting down Guantánamo, achieving equal rights for gays, or tapping Al Qaeda's phones?" is to admit that the left has valid reasons to be unhappy with the Agent of Change. And to wonder "where, on either side, can you find a scrap of humility about the staggeringly complex challenge of Afghanistan and Pakistan? Or a scrap of gratitude at having escaped global financial doom?" is to beg more questions than Alex Trebek.
Our worries about how much Obama has accomplished in the year since we elected him are legitimate, especially considering the magnitude of the problems we face as a nation, and we are not only permitted to express our concerns but, as engaged citizens, we are obligated to express them.
** Richardson points out you "can find other versions of this perspective from Matt Lauer and David Gregory on NBC, from thousands of obnoxious bloggers, even from the hapless governor of New York."
Health Care Reform: California Nurses on the canning of the single-payer in the House (Press Release)
CNA/NNOC Statement on the Withdrawal of the House Single Payer Amendment (California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee)
"On the eve of what would have been the first national vote on single-payer legislation Rep. Anthony Weiner's single-payer/Medicare for all amendment was withdrawn Friday, November 6. The vote for Congressman Weiner's single-payer amendment would have allowed advocates to have their representatives on record as single-payer supporters. The announcement of the withdrawal of the amendment also followed an 11th hour decision by the House leadership to drop an amendment sponsored by Rep. Dennis Kucinich that had been in the bill since July to remove legal barriers for states that choose to enact single payer/Medicare for all state bills.
"The outcome on the Weiner and Kucinich amendments is the latest in year-long maneuvers by the Obama administration to take single payer off the table, to exclude single payer advocates from participation in the Congressional debate and White House healthcare forums, and to twist arms behind the scenes to block both the Kucinich and Weiner amendments.
"Regrettably, the administration and Congressional leadership efforts to silence the voices of advocates of the most comprehensive, most cost effective, most humane reform reinforced the extensive corporate lobbying of the insurance industry and its corporate allies. The private insurance industry alone has sent 3,000 lobbyists to Capitol Hill this year, spending $1.4 million dollars a day to shape reform that protects their profits and reinforces the broken, insurance-based healthcare system.
Only the remarkable, and persistent effort of our members and allies has kept the flame of the single payer/Medicare for all movement moving forward in Congress. And, we're not done.
"Our focus now turns to two remaining efforts for single-payer in this Congress. Sen. Bernie Sanders will introduce S 703 in coming weeks. In addition, Rep. Kucinich's amendment to allow states to more easily implement a single-payer system may be reinserted into the bill during the conference committee between the House and Senate.
"All of these efforts are crucial to building the movement for the best solution to our healthcare crisis - single-payer national healthcare.
"While the current bills will provide limited assistance for some, the inconvenient truth is they fall far short in effective controls on skyrocketing insurance, pharmaceutical and hospital costs, do little to stop insurance companies from denying needed medical care recommended by doctors, and provide little relief for Americans with employer-sponsored insurance worried about health security for themselves and their families.
"People are suffering – they die needlessly. The Democrats, who control the White House and Congress, bear the responsibility for changing that. Republicans cheerlead to deny care and humanity. The Democrats act as though they care and block the best solution. The heroes in this debate are the Medicare for all proponents who have stood by the American families.
"We will continue to press for guaranteed healthcare in Congress. Further, the outstanding state based campaigns for single payer bills in California, Pennsylvania, Maine, Illinois, and other states will continue.
"We concur with Healthcare-NOW, 'Let us not forget how far we have come. Either now or later, a single-payer national healthcare system must come to the table. We will keep building the movement to make that happen.'"
"On the eve of what would have been the first national vote on single-payer legislation Rep. Anthony Weiner's single-payer/Medicare for all amendment was withdrawn Friday, November 6. The vote for Congressman Weiner's single-payer amendment would have allowed advocates to have their representatives on record as single-payer supporters. The announcement of the withdrawal of the amendment also followed an 11th hour decision by the House leadership to drop an amendment sponsored by Rep. Dennis Kucinich that had been in the bill since July to remove legal barriers for states that choose to enact single payer/Medicare for all state bills.
"The outcome on the Weiner and Kucinich amendments is the latest in year-long maneuvers by the Obama administration to take single payer off the table, to exclude single payer advocates from participation in the Congressional debate and White House healthcare forums, and to twist arms behind the scenes to block both the Kucinich and Weiner amendments.
"Regrettably, the administration and Congressional leadership efforts to silence the voices of advocates of the most comprehensive, most cost effective, most humane reform reinforced the extensive corporate lobbying of the insurance industry and its corporate allies. The private insurance industry alone has sent 3,000 lobbyists to Capitol Hill this year, spending $1.4 million dollars a day to shape reform that protects their profits and reinforces the broken, insurance-based healthcare system.
Only the remarkable, and persistent effort of our members and allies has kept the flame of the single payer/Medicare for all movement moving forward in Congress. And, we're not done.
"Our focus now turns to two remaining efforts for single-payer in this Congress. Sen. Bernie Sanders will introduce S 703 in coming weeks. In addition, Rep. Kucinich's amendment to allow states to more easily implement a single-payer system may be reinserted into the bill during the conference committee between the House and Senate.
"All of these efforts are crucial to building the movement for the best solution to our healthcare crisis - single-payer national healthcare.
"While the current bills will provide limited assistance for some, the inconvenient truth is they fall far short in effective controls on skyrocketing insurance, pharmaceutical and hospital costs, do little to stop insurance companies from denying needed medical care recommended by doctors, and provide little relief for Americans with employer-sponsored insurance worried about health security for themselves and their families.
"People are suffering – they die needlessly. The Democrats, who control the White House and Congress, bear the responsibility for changing that. Republicans cheerlead to deny care and humanity. The Democrats act as though they care and block the best solution. The heroes in this debate are the Medicare for all proponents who have stood by the American families.
"We will continue to press for guaranteed healthcare in Congress. Further, the outstanding state based campaigns for single payer bills in California, Pennsylvania, Maine, Illinois, and other states will continue.
"We concur with Healthcare-NOW, 'Let us not forget how far we have come. Either now or later, a single-payer national healthcare system must come to the table. We will keep building the movement to make that happen.'"
Health Care Reform: House vote on Medicare For All cancelled
This has just been released by Healthcare-NOW!:
On the eve of what could have been the first vote on single-payer legislation in our nation's history, we have just learned that because of last minute developments, the vote and debate on Congressman Weiner's single-payer amendment will not happen.
Speaker Pelosi received a statement from Rep. Kucinich and Rep. Conyers, the co-authors of HR 676, that they do not think that this is the right time for a vote on national single-payer legislation. They made this statement despite the extensive mobilization in support of this vote across the country. In addition, Speaker Pelosi felt that offering a single-payer amendment would open the floodgates to amendments proposed to limit abortion funds, restrict immigrant access to healthcare, and other regressive legislation.
Let us remember that the potential vote on Congressman Weiner's single-payer amendment resulted from holding fast to our principles of universal, comprehensive healthcare with no financial barriers. These efforts have brought truth and clarity to a national debate on healthcare reform that has been polluted by the corporate influence over Congress. While the private insurance industry has sent 3,000 lobbyists to Capitol Hill this year, spending 1.4 million dollars a day to shape reform that protects their profits, our calls, faxes, and demonstrations have created the momentum to bring legislation based on HR 676 to the floor of the House and Senate.
The vote for Congressman Weiner's single-payer amendment would have allowed advocates to have their representatives on record as single-payer supporters.
But this legislative battle is not yet over. Our focus can now turn to two remaining efforts for single-payer in this Congress. Sen. Bernie Sanders will introduce S 703 in coming weeks, and we understand that he is considering editing it to be more like HR 676. We will have the opportunity again to see the first ever vote on single-payer in this Congress. In addition, Rep. Kucinich's amendment to allow states to more easily implement a single-payer system may be reinserted into the bill during the conference committee between the House and Senate.
All of these efforts are crucial to building the movement for the only solution to our healthcare crisis - single-payer national healthcare.
If this Congress passes inadequate legislation, there will no doubt be emboldened state movements in the coming years. We welcome them. But let us not forget the movement to push our federal legislators to meet the demands of the people, not roll that responsibility onto the states.
Healthcare-NOW! and the Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care remains committed to a national, single-payer solution to the healthcare crisis.
Comprehensive, quality healthcare is a right that should be extended to every U.S. resident.
At this important time, let us not forget how far we have come. Either now or later, a single-payer national healthcare system must come to the table. We will keep building the movement to make that happen.
For healthcare justice, Healthcare-NOW!
Physicians for a National Health Program
Progressive Democrats of America
Public Citizen
Healthcare for All Texas
Western PA Coalition for Single Payer
Alliance for Democracy
Action: Donate to Healthcare-NOW!
On the eve of what could have been the first vote on single-payer legislation in our nation's history, we have just learned that because of last minute developments, the vote and debate on Congressman Weiner's single-payer amendment will not happen.
Speaker Pelosi received a statement from Rep. Kucinich and Rep. Conyers, the co-authors of HR 676, that they do not think that this is the right time for a vote on national single-payer legislation. They made this statement despite the extensive mobilization in support of this vote across the country. In addition, Speaker Pelosi felt that offering a single-payer amendment would open the floodgates to amendments proposed to limit abortion funds, restrict immigrant access to healthcare, and other regressive legislation.
Let us remember that the potential vote on Congressman Weiner's single-payer amendment resulted from holding fast to our principles of universal, comprehensive healthcare with no financial barriers. These efforts have brought truth and clarity to a national debate on healthcare reform that has been polluted by the corporate influence over Congress. While the private insurance industry has sent 3,000 lobbyists to Capitol Hill this year, spending 1.4 million dollars a day to shape reform that protects their profits, our calls, faxes, and demonstrations have created the momentum to bring legislation based on HR 676 to the floor of the House and Senate.
The vote for Congressman Weiner's single-payer amendment would have allowed advocates to have their representatives on record as single-payer supporters.
But this legislative battle is not yet over. Our focus can now turn to two remaining efforts for single-payer in this Congress. Sen. Bernie Sanders will introduce S 703 in coming weeks, and we understand that he is considering editing it to be more like HR 676. We will have the opportunity again to see the first ever vote on single-payer in this Congress. In addition, Rep. Kucinich's amendment to allow states to more easily implement a single-payer system may be reinserted into the bill during the conference committee between the House and Senate.
All of these efforts are crucial to building the movement for the only solution to our healthcare crisis - single-payer national healthcare.
If this Congress passes inadequate legislation, there will no doubt be emboldened state movements in the coming years. We welcome them. But let us not forget the movement to push our federal legislators to meet the demands of the people, not roll that responsibility onto the states.
Healthcare-NOW! and the Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care remains committed to a national, single-payer solution to the healthcare crisis.
Comprehensive, quality healthcare is a right that should be extended to every U.S. resident.
At this important time, let us not forget how far we have come. Either now or later, a single-payer national healthcare system must come to the table. We will keep building the movement to make that happen.
For healthcare justice, Healthcare-NOW!
Physicians for a National Health Program
Progressive Democrats of America
Public Citizen
Healthcare for All Texas
Western PA Coalition for Single Payer
Alliance for Democracy
Action: Donate to Healthcare-NOW!
Clip File: Broader Measure of U.S. Unemployment Stands at 17.5%
"For all the pain caused by the Great Recession, the job market still was not in as bad shape as it had been during the depths of the early 1980s recession — until now.
"With the release of the jobs report on Friday, the broadest measure of unemployment and underemployment tracked by the Labor Department has reached its highest level in decades. If statistics went back so far, the measure would almost certainly be at its highest level since the Great Depression.
"In all, more than one out of every six workers — 17.5 percent — were unemployed or underemployed in October. The previous recorded high was 17.1 percent, in December 1982."
The rest of the story: Broader Measure of U.S. Unemployment Stands at 17.5% by David Leonhardt (New York Times 2009-11-6)
"With the release of the jobs report on Friday, the broadest measure of unemployment and underemployment tracked by the Labor Department has reached its highest level in decades. If statistics went back so far, the measure would almost certainly be at its highest level since the Great Depression.
"In all, more than one out of every six workers — 17.5 percent — were unemployed or underemployed in October. The previous recorded high was 17.1 percent, in December 1982."
The rest of the story: Broader Measure of U.S. Unemployment Stands at 17.5% by David Leonhardt (New York Times 2009-11-6)
Clip File: Obama administration expanding military involvement in Latin America
Do we really need to occupy Columbia?
Under a 10-year deal, U.S. military forces will be deployed to seven military bases in Columbia and will have access to Columbia's major international civilian airports, and U.S. personnel and -- and, if Iraq and and Afghanistan experience is any indication, in a recipe for disaster: defense contractors will enjoy diplomatic immunity. Whether the justification is the furthering of our failed War on Drugs or to intervene in the civil war between Columbia's right-wing government and left-wing rebel groups, is the expansion of American military reach what Americans had in mind when they voted for change in 2008?
The rest of the story: New row over Colombia-US accord (BBC News 2009-12-05)
See, also: US-Colombia base deal 'this week' (BBC News 2009-10-27)
Under a 10-year deal, U.S. military forces will be deployed to seven military bases in Columbia and will have access to Columbia's major international civilian airports, and U.S. personnel and -- and, if Iraq and and Afghanistan experience is any indication, in a recipe for disaster: defense contractors will enjoy diplomatic immunity. Whether the justification is the furthering of our failed War on Drugs or to intervene in the civil war between Columbia's right-wing government and left-wing rebel groups, is the expansion of American military reach what Americans had in mind when they voted for change in 2008?
The rest of the story: New row over Colombia-US accord (BBC News 2009-12-05)
See, also: US-Colombia base deal 'this week' (BBC News 2009-10-27)
quote unquote: JFK on action
"Things do not happen.
Things are made to happen."
-- Pres. John F. Kennedy
Clip File: Spokane Considers Community Bill of Rights
"Of all the candidates, bills, and proposals on ballots around the country yesterday, one of the most exciting is a proposition that didn’t pass.
"In Spokane, Washington, despite intense opposition from business interests, a coalition of residents succeeded in bringing an innovative 'Community Bill of Rights' to the ballot. Proposition 4 would have amended the city’s Home Rule Charter (akin to a local constitution) to recognize nine basic rights, ranging from the right of the environment to exist and flourish to the rights of residents to have a locally based economy and to determine the future of their neighborhoods."
The rest of the story: Spokane Considers Community Bill of Rights by Mari Margil (Yes! Magazine 2009-11-04)
See, also: Communities Take Power - The Citizens of Barnstead, New Hampshire, Used Local Law to Keep Corporate Giants Out of Their Water by Doug Pibel (Yes! Magazine 2007-07-29)
"In Spokane, Washington, despite intense opposition from business interests, a coalition of residents succeeded in bringing an innovative 'Community Bill of Rights' to the ballot. Proposition 4 would have amended the city’s Home Rule Charter (akin to a local constitution) to recognize nine basic rights, ranging from the right of the environment to exist and flourish to the rights of residents to have a locally based economy and to determine the future of their neighborhoods."
The rest of the story: Spokane Considers Community Bill of Rights by Mari Margil (Yes! Magazine 2009-11-04)
See, also: Communities Take Power - The Citizens of Barnstead, New Hampshire, Used Local Law to Keep Corporate Giants Out of Their Water by Doug Pibel (Yes! Magazine 2007-07-29)
Clip File: The filibuster is unproductive and anti-democratic
"The filibuster has become a cancer growing inside the world's greatest deliberative body."
The rest of the story: What Ails the Senate? by Christopher Hayes (The Nation 2009-11-04)
The rest of the story: What Ails the Senate? by Christopher Hayes (The Nation 2009-11-04)
Elections; Democrats pick up seat in House
Keep that in mind when you listen to the bloviations about Democratic losses and a resurgent GOP.
Only two elections yesterday were to federal office, and the Democrats won both. In California, Lt. Gov. John Garamendi easily took a House seat in a safe Democratic district (Garamendi's victory was less newsworthy in California than the ridiculous announcement by Carly Fiorina that she has decided she should be the state's senator).
Meanwhile, in New York's traditionally Republican 23rd Congressional District, the Democratic candidate, Bill Owens, bested Conservative Party candidate Douglas Hoffman after the Republican Party candidate, a moderate, endorsed Owens and pulled out of the race. Despite a flood of volunteers, donations, and endorsements by national conservatives from Sarah Palin and the Club for Growth to Tim Pawlenty and the Government Is Not Good PAC, conservative businessman Hoffman couldn't win in a district parts of which had voted Republican since the Civil War.
In so far as anything can be predicted from these mid-mid-term votes, there isn't much good news for anybody. The fact that Michael Bloomberg, who is generally well regarded in New York, could expend $100 millon -- he outspent his Democratic opponent by more than 10-1 -- to barely win reelection should give pause to candidates like Carly Fiorina or California GOP gubernatorial wannabe Meg Whitman who think they will be able to buy their way into office with much smaller fortunes. Corzine's loss in New Jersey suggests that anti-tax rhetoric still has the power to defeat common sense, making the likelihood that we will fix any of our long term health care, education, unemployment and infrastructure difficulties problematic. And even if he jumped in late, his people have to be a little concerned that Obama may have very short coattails.
They may not care -- for them, political purity may trump political power -- but the fact that the extreme right can't win in a district like the 23rd doesn't bode well for their chances in more centrist areas of the country. They also may not care, but the Blue Dogs and the DLC should be worried that the Rainbow coalition that carried Virginia for Obama decided to stay home when the party nominated a status-quo conservative. Moderate Republicans, meanwhile, might as well pack it in. The only hope for traditional Republican pols like the 23rd's Dede Scozzafava is to switch parties now so they'll be ready to run as Democrats in 2010.
For sanity sake, we have Jon Stewart to keep the media in perspective:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Indecision 2009 - Reindecision 2008 And Beyond | ||||
| ||||
The Economy: How Goldman Secretly Bet On The U.S. Housing Crash
McClatchy is reporting that in "2006 and 2007, Goldman Sachs Group peddled more than $40 billion in securities backed by at least 200,000 risky home mortgages, but never told the buyers it was secretly betting that a sharp drop in U.S. housing prices would send the value of those securities plummeting."
Laurence Kotlikoff, a Boston University economics professor that McClatchy says has proposed a massive overhaul of the nation's banks, argues that the "Securities and Exchange Commission should be very interested in any financial company that secretly decides a financial product is a loser and then goes out and actively markets that product or very similar products to unsuspecting customers without disclosing its true opinion.
"This is fraud and should be prosecuted."
You think?
The rest of the story: How Goldman Secretly Bet On The U.S. Housing Crash by Greg Gordon (McClatchy Newspapers 2009-11-01)
Goldman's sales and its clandestine wagers, completed at the brink of the housing market meltdown, enabled the nation's premier investment bank to pass most of its potential losses to others before a flood of mortgage defaults staggered the U.S. and global economies.Pension funds, insurance companies, labor unions and foreign financial institutions that bought those dicey mortgage securities are facing large losses. It appears that Goldman's failure to disclose that it made secret, exotic bets on an imminent housing crash may have violated securities laws.
Only later did investors discover that what Goldman had promoted as triple-A rated investments were closer to junk.
Laurence Kotlikoff, a Boston University economics professor that McClatchy says has proposed a massive overhaul of the nation's banks, argues that the "Securities and Exchange Commission should be very interested in any financial company that secretly decides a financial product is a loser and then goes out and actively markets that product or very similar products to unsuspecting customers without disclosing its true opinion.
"This is fraud and should be prosecuted."
You think?
The rest of the story: How Goldman Secretly Bet On The U.S. Housing Crash by Greg Gordon (McClatchy Newspapers 2009-11-01)
Clip File: Lieberman
On Tuesday, Sen. Joe Lieberman announced that he will join a Republican filibuster against health care reform if it includes a public option provision. The Democrats would get more respect if they had the courage and integrity to dump the self-righteous hypocritical fraud.
Lieberman Twists the Knife by Robert Scheer (truthout 2009-10-30)
Top 15 Lieberman Betrayals: Joe's Worst Double-Crosses by Rachel Weiner (Huffington Post 2009-10-27)
Lieberman vs Sanders (Single Payer Action 2009-10-29)
Lieberman Marching Further Right in 2010: Former Dem Veep Candidate Plans to Campaign for GOP by Jonathan Karl (ABC News 2009-10-30)
Jon Stewart Takes On Media, Lieberman Over Public Option (The Daily Show/Comedy Central 2009-10-28)
Backpfeifengesicht = Lieberman by Norman Lear (Huffington Post 2009-10-30)
Backpfeifengesicht. Really. Look it up.
Lieberman Twists the Knife by Robert Scheer (truthout 2009-10-30)
Top 15 Lieberman Betrayals: Joe's Worst Double-Crosses by Rachel Weiner (Huffington Post 2009-10-27)
Lieberman vs Sanders (Single Payer Action 2009-10-29)
Lieberman Marching Further Right in 2010: Former Dem Veep Candidate Plans to Campaign for GOP by Jonathan Karl (ABC News 2009-10-30)Jon Stewart Takes On Media, Lieberman Over Public Option (The Daily Show/Comedy Central 2009-10-28)
Backpfeifengesicht = Lieberman by Norman Lear (Huffington Post 2009-10-30)
Backpfeifengesicht. Really. Look it up.
Health Care Reform: Lack of Insurance May Have Figured In Nearly 17,000 Childhood Deaths, Study Shows
Under the various proposals being considered by Congress, health care coverage is likely to be universal or nearly so. But will it be affordable? Unless the new system is single-payer, or at least includes a robust public option -- consumer option, as Speaker Pelosi is calling it now, it will not save money and the number of deaths will continue to be needlessly high.
This press release from the John Hopkins Children's Center (2009-10-29) provides background on the problem:
Lack of health insurance might have led or contributed to nearly 17,000 deaths among hospitalized children in the United States in the span of less than two decades, according to research led by the Johns Hopkins Children's Center.
According to the Johns Hopkins researchers, the study, published Oct. 29 in the Journal of Public Health, is one of the largest ever to look at the impact of insurance on the number of preventable deaths and the potential for saved lives among sick children in the United States.
Using more than 23 million hospital records from 37 states between 1988 and 2005, the Johns Hopkins investigators compared the risk of death in children with insurance and in those without. Other factors being equal, researchers found that uninsured children in the study were 60 percent more likely to die in the hospital than those with insurance. When comparing death rates by underlying disease, the uninsured appeared to have increased risk of dying independent regardless of their medical condition, the study found. The findings only capture deaths during hospitalization and do not reflect deaths after discharge from the hospital, nor do they count children who died without ever being hospitalized, the researchers say, which means the real death toll of non-insurance could be even higher.
"If you are a child without insurance, if you're seriously ill and end up in the hospital, you are 60 percent more likely to die than the sick child in the next room who has insurance," says lead investigator Fizan Abdullah, M.D., Ph.D., a pediatric surgeon at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center.
The researchers caution that the study looked at hospital records after the fact of death so they cannot directly establish cause and effect between health insurance and risk of dying. However because of the volume of records analyzed and because of the researchers' ability to identify and eliminate most factors that typically cloud such research, the analysis shows a powerful link between health insurance and risk of dying, they say.
"Can we say with absolute certainty that 17,000 children would have been saved if they had health insurance? Of course not," says co-investigator David Chang, Ph.D. M.P.H. M.B.A. "The point here is that a substantial number of children may be saved by health coverage."
"From a scientific perspective, we are confident in our finding that thousands of children likely did die because they lacked insurance or because of factors directly related to lack of insurance," he adds.
Given that more than 7 million American children in the United States remain uninsured amidst this nation's struggle with health-care reform, researchers say policymakers and, indeed, society as a whole should pay heed to their findings.would
"Thousands of children die needlessly each year because we lack a health system that provides them health insurance. This should not be," says co-investigator Peter Pronovost, M.D., Ph.D., director of Critical Care Medicine at Johns Hopkins and medical director of the Center for Innovations in Quality Patient Care. "In a country as wealthy as ours, the need to provide health insurance to the millions of children who lack it is a moral, not an economic issue," he adds.
In the study, 104,520 patients died (0.47 percent) out of 22.2 million insured hospitalized children, compared to 9, 468 (0.75 percent) who died among the 1.2 million uninsured ones. To find out what portion of these deaths would have been prevented by health insurance, researchers performed a statistical simulation by projecting the expected number of deaths for insured patients based on the severity of their medical conditions among other factors, and then applied this expected number of deaths to the uninsured group.
In the uninsured group, there were 3,535 more deaths than expected, not explained by disease severity or other factors. Going a step further and applying the excess number of deaths to the total number of pediatric hospitalizations in the United States (117 million) for the study period, the researchers found an excess of 16,787 deaths among the nearly six million uninsured children who ended up in the hospital during that time.
Other findings from the study:
More uninsured children were seen in hospitals in the Northeast and Midwest than in the South and West. However, hospitals from the Northeast had lower mortality rates than hospitals from the South, Midwest and West. Insured children on average incurred higher hospital charges than uninsured children, most likely explained by the fact that uninsured children tend to present to the hospital at more advanced stages of their disease, which in turn gives doctors less chance for intervention and treatment, especially in terminal cases, investigators say. Uninsured patients were more likely to seek treatment though the Emergency Room, rather than through a referral by a doctor, likely markers of more advanced disease stage and/or delays in seeking medical attention. Insurance status did not affect how long a child spent overall in the hospital.
The research was funded by the Robert Garrett Fund for the Treatment of Children.
Co-investigators in the study include Yiyi Zhang, M.H.S.; Thomas Lardaro, B.S.; Marissa Black; Paul Colombani, M.D.; Kristin Chrouser, M.D. M.P.H.
This press release from the John Hopkins Children's Center (2009-10-29) provides background on the problem:
Lack of health insurance might have led or contributed to nearly 17,000 deaths among hospitalized children in the United States in the span of less than two decades, according to research led by the Johns Hopkins Children's Center.
According to the Johns Hopkins researchers, the study, published Oct. 29 in the Journal of Public Health, is one of the largest ever to look at the impact of insurance on the number of preventable deaths and the potential for saved lives among sick children in the United States.
Using more than 23 million hospital records from 37 states between 1988 and 2005, the Johns Hopkins investigators compared the risk of death in children with insurance and in those without. Other factors being equal, researchers found that uninsured children in the study were 60 percent more likely to die in the hospital than those with insurance. When comparing death rates by underlying disease, the uninsured appeared to have increased risk of dying independent regardless of their medical condition, the study found. The findings only capture deaths during hospitalization and do not reflect deaths after discharge from the hospital, nor do they count children who died without ever being hospitalized, the researchers say, which means the real death toll of non-insurance could be even higher.
"If you are a child without insurance, if you're seriously ill and end up in the hospital, you are 60 percent more likely to die than the sick child in the next room who has insurance," says lead investigator Fizan Abdullah, M.D., Ph.D., a pediatric surgeon at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center.
The researchers caution that the study looked at hospital records after the fact of death so they cannot directly establish cause and effect between health insurance and risk of dying. However because of the volume of records analyzed and because of the researchers' ability to identify and eliminate most factors that typically cloud such research, the analysis shows a powerful link between health insurance and risk of dying, they say.
"Can we say with absolute certainty that 17,000 children would have been saved if they had health insurance? Of course not," says co-investigator David Chang, Ph.D. M.P.H. M.B.A. "The point here is that a substantial number of children may be saved by health coverage."
"From a scientific perspective, we are confident in our finding that thousands of children likely did die because they lacked insurance or because of factors directly related to lack of insurance," he adds.
Given that more than 7 million American children in the United States remain uninsured amidst this nation's struggle with health-care reform, researchers say policymakers and, indeed, society as a whole should pay heed to their findings.would
"Thousands of children die needlessly each year because we lack a health system that provides them health insurance. This should not be," says co-investigator Peter Pronovost, M.D., Ph.D., director of Critical Care Medicine at Johns Hopkins and medical director of the Center for Innovations in Quality Patient Care. "In a country as wealthy as ours, the need to provide health insurance to the millions of children who lack it is a moral, not an economic issue," he adds.
In the study, 104,520 patients died (0.47 percent) out of 22.2 million insured hospitalized children, compared to 9, 468 (0.75 percent) who died among the 1.2 million uninsured ones. To find out what portion of these deaths would have been prevented by health insurance, researchers performed a statistical simulation by projecting the expected number of deaths for insured patients based on the severity of their medical conditions among other factors, and then applied this expected number of deaths to the uninsured group.
In the uninsured group, there were 3,535 more deaths than expected, not explained by disease severity or other factors. Going a step further and applying the excess number of deaths to the total number of pediatric hospitalizations in the United States (117 million) for the study period, the researchers found an excess of 16,787 deaths among the nearly six million uninsured children who ended up in the hospital during that time.
Other findings from the study:
More uninsured children were seen in hospitals in the Northeast and Midwest than in the South and West. However, hospitals from the Northeast had lower mortality rates than hospitals from the South, Midwest and West. Insured children on average incurred higher hospital charges than uninsured children, most likely explained by the fact that uninsured children tend to present to the hospital at more advanced stages of their disease, which in turn gives doctors less chance for intervention and treatment, especially in terminal cases, investigators say. Uninsured patients were more likely to seek treatment though the Emergency Room, rather than through a referral by a doctor, likely markers of more advanced disease stage and/or delays in seeking medical attention. Insurance status did not affect how long a child spent overall in the hospital.
The research was funded by the Robert Garrett Fund for the Treatment of Children.
Co-investigators in the study include Yiyi Zhang, M.H.S.; Thomas Lardaro, B.S.; Marissa Black; Paul Colombani, M.D.; Kristin Chrouser, M.D. M.P.H.
Change Watch: Obama signs bill that will hide torture pictures
The Homeland Security appropriations bill President Obama signed into law last week includes a provision authorizing the Defense Department to continue to conceal photos documenting the torture and abuse of prisoners in U.S. military custody, according to reporting in The Washington Independent.
New York Rep. Louise Slaughter defends the Freedom of Information Act during the debate over releasing photographs of American personel abusing detainees.
The provision was the inspiration of Sen. Joe Lieberman (it almost goes without saying) specifically to thwart the ACLU suit. Although a federal appeals court last year ordered the government to produce the unclassified photos, ruling that the Freedom of Information Act can’t be trumped by citing unspecified dangers to unspecified potential targets of the anger that the information may produce, the government refused to release the pictures and appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court. The bill signed Wednesday was supported by nearly all Democrats, despite including the language weakening the FOIA and attempting to get around both lower court rulings and any similar future judgment by the high court.
The American Civil Liberties Union had specifically sought those photos, and sued to get them, among other documents relating to detainee abuse, in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. The exemption signed, however, is much broader than simply the photos sought in the lawsuit. It would apply to any other photos taken between Sept. 11, 2001 and Jan.22, 2009 that the Secretary of Defense has certified would, if released, endanger U.S. citizens, servicemen, or employees overseas.President Obama had agreed to release the photos, but changed his mind after consulting with DOD secretary Robert Gates and others at the Pentagon, who warned the photos would endanger U.S. servicemen in Iraq and Afghanistan by making the Afghan resistance fighters mad at us.
New York Rep. Louise Slaughter defends the Freedom of Information Act during the debate over releasing photographs of American personel abusing detainees.
The provision was the inspiration of Sen. Joe Lieberman (it almost goes without saying) specifically to thwart the ACLU suit. Although a federal appeals court last year ordered the government to produce the unclassified photos, ruling that the Freedom of Information Act can’t be trumped by citing unspecified dangers to unspecified potential targets of the anger that the information may produce, the government refused to release the pictures and appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court. The bill signed Wednesday was supported by nearly all Democrats, despite including the language weakening the FOIA and attempting to get around both lower court rulings and any similar future judgment by the high court.
Leadership: Obama has a "West Wing" moment
President Obama flew to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to witness the return of remains of 18 U.S. personnel killed in Afghanistan, "the first president to do this since 9/11." In addition to signaling that he is prepared to assume the full burdens of his office in ways his predecessor was not, it also suggests that, whatever he concludes about ending or expanding the AfPak war, his deliberations will be more than a session of "Risk 2010."
Labor: US Steelworkers to Experiment with Factory Ownership
"...job creation, but with a new twist. Since government efforts were being stifled by the greed of financial speculators and private capital was more interested in cheap labor abroad, unions will take matters into their own hands, find willing partners, and create jobs themselves, but in sustainable businesses owned by the workers."
The rest of the story: 'One Worker, One Vote:' US Steelworkers to Experiment with Factory Ownership, Mondragon Style by Carl Davidson (SolidarityEconomy 2009-10-27)
The rest of the story: 'One Worker, One Vote:' US Steelworkers to Experiment with Factory Ownership, Mondragon Style by Carl Davidson (SolidarityEconomy 2009-10-27)
The Media: Amy Goodman
by Bill Moyers (truthout 2009-10-27)
This is Bill Moyers's introduction to Amy Goodman's latest book, "Breaking the Sound Barrier," published by Haymarket Books.
You can learn more of the truth about Washington and the world from one week of Amy Goodman's "Democracy Now!" than from a month of Sunday morning talk shows.
Make that a year of Sunday morning talk shows.
That's because Amy, as you will discover on every page of her new book, "Breaking the Sound Barrier", knows the critical question for journalists is how close they are to the truth, not how close they are to power. Like I. F. Stone, she values the facts on the ground; unlike the Sunday beltway anchors, she refuses to take the official version of reality as the definition of news, or to engage in Washington's "wink-wink" game, by which both parties to an interview tacitly understand that the questions and answers will be framed to appear adversarial when in fact their purpose is to avoid revealing how power really works. Quick: recall the last time you heard a celebrity journalist on any of the Sunday talk shows grill a politician on what campaign contributors get for their generosity. Try again: name any of those elite interrogators who skewered any politician for saying that "single-payer" wasn't on the table in the debate over health care reform because "there's no support for it." OK, one last chance: recall how often you have heard any of the network stars insist that Newt Gingrich reveal just who is funding his base as the omnipresent expert on everything.
See?
Now read "Breaking the Sound Barrier" for a reality check. And tune in to "Democracy Now!" to hear and see the difference an independent journalist can make in providing citizens what they need to know to make democracy work.
It takes the nerves, stamina and willpower of an Olympic triathlete to do what Amy Goodman does. That's just who she is, this quiet-spoken tornado of muckraking journalism: Edward R. Murrow with a twist of Emma Goldman, a Washington Post reporter once noted - willing to take on the powers that be to get at truth and justice, then spreading the word of those two indispensable gospels to the republic and the world beyond. Amy Goodman goes where angels fear to tread. Beaten by Indonesian troops while she and a colleague - also beaten - were covering East Timor's fight for independence. Hiking dangerous African deltas to get to the bottom of Chevron Oil's collusion with the Nigerian military. Or closer to home, in New Orleans or Appalachia or facing down the police when her colleagues were arrested in Minneapolis during the 2008 Republican National Convention (they threw her in the slammer, too).
Through her reporting, we hear from people who scarcely exist in news covered by the corporate-owned press. We learn about issues of war and peace and social wrong. She is impervious to government subterfuge or spin. "Goodman is the journalist as uninvited guest," that Washington Post reporter wrote. "You might think of the impolitic question; she asks it." And once it's been asked, she refuses to take "no comment" for an answer. She returns to a story time and again, continually digging, refusing to let her audience or investigative target forget how important it is to nail down just who's responsible and what needs to be done.
On top of everything else, she finds time to take her message out to a broad public with speeches and books and a weekly newspaper column, from which her collection of essays, "Breaking the Sound Barrier," has been selected. I'd be envious if it didn't appear unseemly. Let's just say I'm in awe. Read this collection and revel in the truth-telling. Be outraged by what you learn from it and renew your oath as a citizen. "We stand with journalists around the world who deeply believe that the mission of a journalist is to go where the silence is," Amy Goodman said in December 2008 when she accepted the Right Livelihood Award for personal courage and transformation. "The responsibility of a journalist is to give a voice to those who have been forgotten, forsaken, beaten down by the powerful." And, at a time when the future of journalism is in question, this ringing rationale for our embattled but essential craft: "It's the best reason I know for us to carry our pens, our microphones, and our cameras, both into our own communities and out to the wider world."
Right on.
"As an organization, truthout works to broaden and diversify the political discussion by introducing independent voices and focusing on undercovered issues and unconventional thinking."
This is Bill Moyers's introduction to Amy Goodman's latest book, "Breaking the Sound Barrier," published by Haymarket Books.
You can learn more of the truth about Washington and the world from one week of Amy Goodman's "Democracy Now!" than from a month of Sunday morning talk shows.
Make that a year of Sunday morning talk shows.
That's because Amy, as you will discover on every page of her new book, "Breaking the Sound Barrier", knows the critical question for journalists is how close they are to the truth, not how close they are to power. Like I. F. Stone, she values the facts on the ground; unlike the Sunday beltway anchors, she refuses to take the official version of reality as the definition of news, or to engage in Washington's "wink-wink" game, by which both parties to an interview tacitly understand that the questions and answers will be framed to appear adversarial when in fact their purpose is to avoid revealing how power really works. Quick: recall the last time you heard a celebrity journalist on any of the Sunday talk shows grill a politician on what campaign contributors get for their generosity. Try again: name any of those elite interrogators who skewered any politician for saying that "single-payer" wasn't on the table in the debate over health care reform because "there's no support for it." OK, one last chance: recall how often you have heard any of the network stars insist that Newt Gingrich reveal just who is funding his base as the omnipresent expert on everything.
See?
Now read "Breaking the Sound Barrier" for a reality check. And tune in to "Democracy Now!" to hear and see the difference an independent journalist can make in providing citizens what they need to know to make democracy work.
It takes the nerves, stamina and willpower of an Olympic triathlete to do what Amy Goodman does. That's just who she is, this quiet-spoken tornado of muckraking journalism: Edward R. Murrow with a twist of Emma Goldman, a Washington Post reporter once noted - willing to take on the powers that be to get at truth and justice, then spreading the word of those two indispensable gospels to the republic and the world beyond. Amy Goodman goes where angels fear to tread. Beaten by Indonesian troops while she and a colleague - also beaten - were covering East Timor's fight for independence. Hiking dangerous African deltas to get to the bottom of Chevron Oil's collusion with the Nigerian military. Or closer to home, in New Orleans or Appalachia or facing down the police when her colleagues were arrested in Minneapolis during the 2008 Republican National Convention (they threw her in the slammer, too).
Through her reporting, we hear from people who scarcely exist in news covered by the corporate-owned press. We learn about issues of war and peace and social wrong. She is impervious to government subterfuge or spin. "Goodman is the journalist as uninvited guest," that Washington Post reporter wrote. "You might think of the impolitic question; she asks it." And once it's been asked, she refuses to take "no comment" for an answer. She returns to a story time and again, continually digging, refusing to let her audience or investigative target forget how important it is to nail down just who's responsible and what needs to be done.
On top of everything else, she finds time to take her message out to a broad public with speeches and books and a weekly newspaper column, from which her collection of essays, "Breaking the Sound Barrier," has been selected. I'd be envious if it didn't appear unseemly. Let's just say I'm in awe. Read this collection and revel in the truth-telling. Be outraged by what you learn from it and renew your oath as a citizen. "We stand with journalists around the world who deeply believe that the mission of a journalist is to go where the silence is," Amy Goodman said in December 2008 when she accepted the Right Livelihood Award for personal courage and transformation. "The responsibility of a journalist is to give a voice to those who have been forgotten, forsaken, beaten down by the powerful." And, at a time when the future of journalism is in question, this ringing rationale for our embattled but essential craft: "It's the best reason I know for us to carry our pens, our microphones, and our cameras, both into our own communities and out to the wider world."
Right on.
"As an organization, truthout works to broaden and diversify the political discussion by introducing independent voices and focusing on undercovered issues and unconventional thinking."
Clip File: Is Afghanistan Obama's Vietnam?
"It was always a bad year to get out of Vietnam." -- Daniel Ellsberg
Here's Newsweek speculating at the beginning of this president's term. The analogy between the two adventures, the authors say, isn't exact. But in the months since this analysis was written, it has become only clearer that the U.S. has neither a coherent plan nor a convincing rationale for opposing the Taliban and that there are no good choices for moving forward.
Other links:
"....If counterinsurgency, according to current doctrine, is all about securing the population, if securing the population implies not simply keeping them safe but providing people with good governance and economic development and education and so on, what then is the requirement of a global counterinsurgency campaign?...Are we called upon to secure the population of the entire globe? Given the success we've had thus far in securing the population in Iraq and in Afghanistan, does this idea make any sense whatsoever?" -- Interview with Col. Andrew Bacevich, Ret. (Frontline 2009-09-21)
Obama's Choice - Failed War President or the Prince of Peace? by Nick Turse (TomDispatch 2009-10-22): "While the armed forces can do many things, the one thing that has generally escaped them is that ultimate endpoint: lasting victory." (see, also: The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives by Nick Turse, an expose of the pervasive impact of the military-industrial-entertainment complex on the, uh, homeland)
Another indication of the moral bankruptcy of American policy: "The US military in Afghanistan is to be allowed to pay Taliban fighters who renounce violence against the government in Kabul," although it could be argued that those willing to be bribed will probably feel more comfortable in the company of the corrupt Karzai narcogarchy, anyway. -- U.S. to pay Taliban to switch sides (BBC News 2009-10-28)
More troops? Seriously: Troops In Afghanistan Outnumber Taliban 12-1 by Slobodan Lekic (Huffington Post 2009-10-27)
And, finally, a rare act of principle by a U.S. government functionary: U.S. official resigns over Afghan war: Foreign Service officer and former Marine captain says he no longer knows why his nation is fighting by Karen DeYoung (Washington Post 2009-10-27)
Here's Newsweek speculating at the beginning of this president's term. The analogy between the two adventures, the authors say, isn't exact. But in the months since this analysis was written, it has become only clearer that the U.S. has neither a coherent plan nor a convincing rationale for opposing the Taliban and that there are no good choices for moving forward.
About a year ago, Charlie Rose, the nighttime talk-show host, was interviewing Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, the military adviser at the White House coordinating efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq. "We have never been beaten tactically in a fire fight in Afghanistan," Lute said. To even casual students of the Vietnam War, his statement has an eerie echo. One of the iconic exchanges of Vietnam came, some years after the war, between Col. Harry Summers, a military historian, and a counterpart in the North Vietnamese Army. As Summers recalled it, he said, "You never defeated us in the field." To which the NVA officer replied: "That may be true. It is also irrelevant."The rest of the story: Obama's Vietnam by John Barry and Evan Thomas (Newsweek 2009-01-31).
Vietnam analogies can be tiresome. To critics, especially those on the left, all American interventions after Vietnam have been potential "quagmires." But sometimes clichés come true, and, especially lately, it seems that the war in Afghanistan is shaping up in all-too-familiar ways. The parallels are disturbing: the president, eager to show his toughness, vows to do what it takes to "win." The nation that we are supposedly rescuing is no nation at all but rather a deeply divided, semi-failed state with an incompetent, corrupt government held to be illegitimate by a large portion of its population. The enemy is well accustomed to resisting foreign invaders and can escape into convenient refuges across the border. There are constraints on America striking those sanctuaries. Meanwhile, neighboring countries may see a chance to bog America down in a costly war. Last, there is no easy way out.
Other links:
"....If counterinsurgency, according to current doctrine, is all about securing the population, if securing the population implies not simply keeping them safe but providing people with good governance and economic development and education and so on, what then is the requirement of a global counterinsurgency campaign?...Are we called upon to secure the population of the entire globe? Given the success we've had thus far in securing the population in Iraq and in Afghanistan, does this idea make any sense whatsoever?" -- Interview with Col. Andrew Bacevich, Ret. (Frontline 2009-09-21)
Obama's Choice - Failed War President or the Prince of Peace? by Nick Turse (TomDispatch 2009-10-22): "While the armed forces can do many things, the one thing that has generally escaped them is that ultimate endpoint: lasting victory." (see, also: The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives by Nick Turse, an expose of the pervasive impact of the military-industrial-entertainment complex on the, uh, homeland)
Another indication of the moral bankruptcy of American policy: "The US military in Afghanistan is to be allowed to pay Taliban fighters who renounce violence against the government in Kabul," although it could be argued that those willing to be bribed will probably feel more comfortable in the company of the corrupt Karzai narcogarchy, anyway. -- U.S. to pay Taliban to switch sides (BBC News 2009-10-28)
More troops? Seriously: Troops In Afghanistan Outnumber Taliban 12-1 by Slobodan Lekic (Huffington Post 2009-10-27)
And, finally, a rare act of principle by a U.S. government functionary: U.S. official resigns over Afghan war: Foreign Service officer and former Marine captain says he no longer knows why his nation is fighting by Karen DeYoung (Washington Post 2009-10-27)
quote unquote: W.E.B. Dubois on action
"Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow,not some more convenient season.
It is today that our best work can be done
and not some future day or future year.
It is today that we fit ourselves
for the greater usefulness of tomorrow."
-- W.E.B. Dubois
Health Insurance: Long-term care
The Next Big Health Care Reform Fight
What finally kills people -- financially, physically, psychologically, metaphorically -- is trying to figure out how to pay for long-term medical expenses. According to the government, one year of care in a nursing home, based on the 2008 national average, costs over $68,000 for a semi-private room. A year of home care, assuming the need for
periodic personal help from a home health aide (the average is about three times a week), costs almost $18,000 a year. While conservatives have been preoccupied with saving Americans from having socialized medicine foisted on them by Commissar Obama, it hasn't completely escaped their attention that an even more nefarious insurance program -- a plan to create public insurance for long-term care that would have the government interceding to prevent citizens in long-term care from being driven bankrupt or crazy by medical bills -- has been sneaking through Congress.
(Okay, I'll do it: $68,000/yr. comes to a little less than $5,700/mo. $75/day adds up to roughly $2,250/mo. Rounding off generously on both ends, you still end up with a gap of $3,000/mo or $36,000/yr. Considering that the annual median household income is around $50,000 -- and much lower for many seniors and anyone unable to work because they're in need of long-term care, under the best of circumstances the program isn't going to head off a lot bankruptcies).
The rest of the story: Proposed long-term insurance program raises questions by Lori Montgomery (Washington Post 2009-10-27)
What finally kills people -- financially, physically, psychologically, metaphorically -- is trying to figure out how to pay for long-term medical expenses. According to the government, one year of care in a nursing home, based on the 2008 national average, costs over $68,000 for a semi-private room. A year of home care, assuming the need for
periodic personal help from a home health aide (the average is about three times a week), costs almost $18,000 a year. While conservatives have been preoccupied with saving Americans from having socialized medicine foisted on them by Commissar Obama, it hasn't completely escaped their attention that an even more nefarious insurance program -- a plan to create public insurance for long-term care that would have the government interceding to prevent citizens in long-term care from being driven bankrupt or crazy by medical bills -- has been sneaking through Congress.The proposal is known as the CLASS Act, short for Community Living Services and Support. The idea has been around for years, and the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) pushed to have the measure included in the health-care overhaul package that passed the Senate health committee in July. A similar measure was also adopted by voice vote in one of the three House committees handling health care.This diabolical, morale-destroying scheme would be, get this, "available to anyone, including those who are already disabled." Similarly to Comrade Reid's public option plan for the states, people would be strong-armed into the program automatically, unless, of course, they themselves chose to opt out, and would pay a premium in exchange for insurance against "the cost of home care, adult day programs, assisted living or nursing homes after they had been enrolled for at least five years. Premiums and benefit levels would be set by federal health officials," you know, bureaucrats, "but advocates predict that the program would provide beneficiaries with a minimal sum, around $75 a day" (you do the math).
(Okay, I'll do it: $68,000/yr. comes to a little less than $5,700/mo. $75/day adds up to roughly $2,250/mo. Rounding off generously on both ends, you still end up with a gap of $3,000/mo or $36,000/yr. Considering that the annual median household income is around $50,000 -- and much lower for many seniors and anyone unable to work because they're in need of long-term care, under the best of circumstances the program isn't going to head off a lot bankruptcies).
The proposal has gained momentum in recent days as Democrats in both the House and Senate cast about for cash to help finance a final health package. Because the program would begin taking in premiums immediately but would not start paying benefits until 2016, congressional budget analysts have forecast that it would generate a nearly $60 billion surplus over the next 10 years, cash that would help the larger measure's balance on paper.Predictably, the usual antis -- "including the Congressional Budget Office and the American Academy of Actuaries," a group I know I rely on for political judgments, especially around Halloween -- have popped up with dire warnings about spiraling costs. Descending into self-parody, Sen. Kent Conrad called the CLASS Act "a Ponzi scheme of the first order, the kind of thing that Bernie Madoff would have been proud of," and he vowed to block its inclusion in the Senate bill. As befits a member of the people's house, Rep. Earl Pomeroy, also a Blue Dog Dem, admitted there is a problem that needs addressing, but warned the solution would require some tough decision-making, of which he avowed he is capable, "not some provision cooked up by advocacy groups at the last hour" (see, "idea has been around for years," above).
"It is not a Ponzi scheme," said Larry Minnix, president of the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging, which represents nonprofit providers and is one of more than 200 consumer and other groups supporting the legislation. "It is a consumer-funded insurance pool that provides people a cash benefit to help with simple chores of daily living so they can remain independent."Oh, sure. Who're you going to believe, some non-profit consumer activist Little Goody Two-Shoes or a seasoned, tough decision-making legislative adept beefed-up like Popeye on the carloads research spinach trucked in to Washington every day by the insurance industry out of the goodness of their hard little hearts?
The rest of the story: Proposed long-term insurance program raises questions by Lori Montgomery (Washington Post 2009-10-27)
Clip File: The Empire Strikes Out
Welcome to 2025 - American Preeminence Is Disappearing Fifteen Years Early
"...So, welcome to the world of 2025. It doesn't look like the world of our recent past, when the United States stood head and shoulders above all other nations in stature, and it doesn't comport well with Washington's fantasies of global power since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. But it is reality.
"For many Americans, the loss of that preeminence may be a source of discomfort, or even despair. On the other hand, don't forget the advantages to being an ordinary country like any other country: Nobody expects Canada, or France, or Italy to send another 40,000 troops to Afghanistan, on top of the 68,000 already there and the 120,000 still in Iraq. Nor does anyone expect those countries to spend $925 billion in taxpayer money to do so -- the current estimated cost of both wars, according to the National Priorities Project.
"The question remains: How much longer will Washington feel that Americans can afford to subsidize a global role that includes garrisoning much of the planet and fighting distant wars in the name of global security, when the American economy is losing so much ground to its competitors? This is the dilemma President Obama and his advisers must confront in the altered world of 2025."
The rest of the story: Welcome to 2025 - American Preeminence Is Disappearing Fifteen Years Early by Michael T. Klare (TomDispatch 2009-10-27)
"...So, welcome to the world of 2025. It doesn't look like the world of our recent past, when the United States stood head and shoulders above all other nations in stature, and it doesn't comport well with Washington's fantasies of global power since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. But it is reality.
"For many Americans, the loss of that preeminence may be a source of discomfort, or even despair. On the other hand, don't forget the advantages to being an ordinary country like any other country: Nobody expects Canada, or France, or Italy to send another 40,000 troops to Afghanistan, on top of the 68,000 already there and the 120,000 still in Iraq. Nor does anyone expect those countries to spend $925 billion in taxpayer money to do so -- the current estimated cost of both wars, according to the National Priorities Project.
"The question remains: How much longer will Washington feel that Americans can afford to subsidize a global role that includes garrisoning much of the planet and fighting distant wars in the name of global security, when the American economy is losing so much ground to its competitors? This is the dilemma President Obama and his advisers must confront in the altered world of 2025."
The rest of the story: Welcome to 2025 - American Preeminence Is Disappearing Fifteen Years Early by Michael T. Klare (TomDispatch 2009-10-27)
Clip File: too big to fail = too big to survive
Whether it's using the antitrust laws or enacting a new Glass-Steagall Act, the Wall Street giants should be split up -- and soon.
And now there are five - five Wall Street behemoths, bigger than they were before the Great Meltdown, paying fatter salaries and bonuses to retain their so-called 'talent,' and raking in huge profits. The biggest difference between now and last October is these biggies didn't know then that they were too big to fail and the government would bail them out if they got into trouble.The rest of the story: Too Big to Fail: Why the Big Banks Should Be Broken Up, but Why the White House and Congress Don't Want to by Robert Reich (Robert Reich's Blog 2009-10-25)
Now they do. -- Robert Reich
Clip File: The inevitability of an American single-payer health system
"Amidst the ideological back and forth that is the health care reform debate of 2009, recent studies reveal a growing reality that each of us can easily understand, no matter what our ideological point of view.
"It will not be long until the private health insurance model will no longer work – for anybody.
"It’s got nothing to do with public options or single payer advocates just as it will have nothing to do with those prepared to defend America from socialism at all costs.
"The simple fact is that single-payer, government controlled health care is inevitable because the trajectory of the private health insurance system reveals that it is doomed to fail – and sooner than we might realize."
The rest of the story: The inevitability of an American single-payer health system by Rick Ungar (True/Slant 2009-10-20)
"It will not be long until the private health insurance model will no longer work – for anybody.
"It’s got nothing to do with public options or single payer advocates just as it will have nothing to do with those prepared to defend America from socialism at all costs.
"The simple fact is that single-payer, government controlled health care is inevitable because the trajectory of the private health insurance system reveals that it is doomed to fail – and sooner than we might realize."
The rest of the story: The inevitability of an American single-payer health system by Rick Ungar (True/Slant 2009-10-20)
Change Watch: Leaderless -- Senate Pushes For Public Option Without Obama's Support
"Who knew that when it came down to crunch time, Harry Reid would be the one who stepped up to the plate and Barack Obama would shy away from the fight?"
The rest of the story: Leaderless -- Senate Pushes For Public Option Without Obama's Support by Sam Stein and Ryan Grim (Huffington Post 2009-10-24)
Action: Let Harry Reid know you support his effort to include a public option.
The rest of the story: Leaderless -- Senate Pushes For Public Option Without Obama's Support by Sam Stein and Ryan Grim (Huffington Post 2009-10-24)
Action: Let Harry Reid know you support his effort to include a public option.
Health Care: Public option endgame
I'm down with flu, but I wanted to make sure you saw this updating of the status of the public option:Take action: Contact your representatives in Congress to let them know you want a robust alternative to private health care insurance.
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