A Short Lesson In Finance

Stocks are priced based on a gamble that future earnings will rise. The more likely that is to occur, the higher a stock price generally goes.

 

The actual price itself is an estimate of the value now of those future income flows.

 

OK, so with that said, explain how this new insurance "plan" from Max Baucus makes sense for the average American?:

In an important victory for the insurance industry, Senator Max Baucus's legislative proposal does not call for a government-run health plan that would directly compete with private insurers. Insurance stocks rose on that news Wednesday.

Although that exclusion had been expected, its confirmation Wednesday meant that the insurance companies "ducked a bullet," said Erik Gordon, a business professor and industry analyst at the University of Michigan.

The Baucus proposal is "a lower dose of poison than the other proposals," he said in an e-mail message. Other bills circulating in Congress call for a government-run public insurance option.

Ironically, this is the bill closest to the vision of one Barack Obama, President of these here Yoonited States, even without a public option.

 

Many have written, far more eloquently and knowledgably than I, reminding Obama and Congress about the need for a public option to compete with private plans, thus reining in healthcare costs, or at least mitigating their startling inflation.

 

So when a key Senator, one of the Group of Six bipartisan panel trying to write a bill that everyone can be happy with, presents this, without any Republican support whatsoever, one has to question the commitment of the Democratic party to truly reforming healthcare.

 

Not health insurance: healthcare. Yes, I have in the past advocated baby steps, and this bill is a small step towards the ultimate goal of universal coverage under a single payer plan, like every other intelligent, civilized nation on this planet has.

 

But there are baby steps and there are baby steps and this is less a step than a crawl. And all the evidence you need for this is the fact that the stock prices of insurance companies, the gauge of how much profit they will earn in the future, spiked higher on this announcement.

 

If Wall Street, which does many things badly but does price stocks on earnings with remarkable efficiency, buys into the notion that Baucus' bill is good for the insurance industry, already burning holes in its pockets with all the money it's earning, then how goddamned good can it be for you and me, huh?

If It Quacks Like A Bigot...

...you can call it a duck, but it's bigotry:

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd was among the first to assert that Congressman Joe Wilson's heckle revealed an underlying racism:

Surrounded by middle-aged white guys... Joe Wilson yelled 'You lie!' at a president who didn't. Fair or not, what I heard was an unspoken word in the air: You lie, boy!... But Wilson's shocking disrespect for the office of the president - no Democrat ever shouted 'liar' at W when he was hawking a fake case for war in Iraq - convinced me: Some people just can't believe a black man is president and will never accept it.

 Her belief racism was at play was echoed by Democrat Representative for Georgia, Henry Johnson, who told media: "I guess we'll probably have folks putting on white hoods and white uniforms again and riding through the countryside intimidating people. That's the logical conclusion if this kind of attitude is not rebuked."

 Now, I'm posting some of this tongue-in-cheek. I don't think the color of Obama's skin matters as much to Wilson and the other bigo-- I mean, Republicans as his policies and, more important, the position he holds. After all, Bill Clinton was about as white as they get, despite being called "America's First Black President", and look what these jackals did to him.

 

No, I think Obama is being clever as all get-out here. He's got his surrogates playing the race card for him, because he knows the one thing Republicans are terrified of right now is being portrayed as racists. After all, Obama won in a veritable landslide over the second whitest politician in America, John McCain, so to be racist at this point would be shown to be woefully out of touch.

 

What I think the Republicans are doing is playing dirty pool, a game they've excelled at since at least Lee Atwater helped Bush the Elder win the Presidency in 1988. Yes, there are clear insinuations in Wilson's outburst of disrespect, but my suspicion is that's more about a rookie President being put on the ropes by a "loyal" opposition (who really had the floor in August to try to derail national healthcare reform) and finally going that one last obvious step over the line.

 

But note what occured in August: the astroturf movement that saw town hall meetings across this nation interrupted by organized yahoos executing instructions from their puppet-masters like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, the paranoid inflation of numbers of people opposing Obama's policies, even mocking his decision to take a vacation "at a critical juncture in American history".

 

All of these pushed an envelope of paranoia and desperation that even a moment's reflection reveals. Wilson's "lie" chant merely sealed the deal for Americans who may or may not have put out that moment's reflection. It coalesced and concretized the perception that not only are the Republicans out of power and losing their grip on the electorate after spending twenty years demonizing liberalism and Democrats, but that the Republicans know theirs is a sinking ship and that it's not about helping people live better lives, it's about holding onto power to reward their cronies and conspirators in plutocracy.

 

That's not to say there is not an element of racism in this opposition. For one thing, it's easier to oppose someone whom you have dehumanized and pointing out differences dehumanizes people. "They" can do what "they" want because "they" are (insert trait here).

 

It makes it easier to portray yourself as a savior, saving "ordinary folks" from the clutches of "they," but it's also a lazy way out of honestly engaging in policy discussions.

 

By dehumanizing someone, you make their opinion and views irrelevant to the discussion. "They" are not as good as "we" are, so "we" don't have to take their arguments seriously.

 

But of course, you miss out on the many opportunities to test your views, to strengthen and bolster those views, and to improve policy for everyone.

 

Obama's playing this correctly: he's taken the high road (note the very high-minded section of his speech the other night pertaining to realistic solutions being considered), while allowing his surrogates to dip into the same mud his opponents have smeared.

 

The Republicans' real problem is, they don't have a responsible and prestigious enough spokesman who can meet Obama's tactic head-on. All their spokespeople are either wallowing in the same mud that Jimmy Carter and others are flinging back at the GOP or the spokespeople who could conceivably wrest this debate back to a temperate level have been isolated and quarantined as irrelevant by the GOP.

 

Like Michael Steele, who could easily have met Obama on his playing field but for some bizarre reason decided to genuflect to the nattering nabobs of negativism in his own party.

 

Or John McCain, who has had to fight a rear-guard action in his own party to protect his reputation from Sarah Palin and the other neaderthals.

 

Instead, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, two men who have absolutely nothing at stake in politics, who can shift positions on any issue at any time if their ratings appear to warrant it, have taken the helm of the Republican party.

 

This is much like allowing Bozo The Clown to run a bank. It's entertaining, but ultimately unprofitable.

One Can Hope

I, for one, hope the Obama administration is not taking lessons from Dick Cheney and the Bushies on how to keep us safe:

Federal and city counterterrorism agents raided homes in New York City early Monday after a man under surveillance for suspected ties to al-Qaeda met with people in Queens, federal officials said.

Rep. Peter T. King (N.Y.), the senior Republican on the Homeland Security Committee, said after receiving a briefing from federal authorities Monday afternoon that the suspect's visit this weekend triggered the raids.

"He was being watched, and concern grew as he met with a group of individuals in Queens over the weekend," King told ABC News on Monday in a report forwarded by his office. "The FBI went to court late last night for an emergency warrant to conduct the raids this morning."

OK, that's not too bad, right? I mean, the FBI is keeping mum about the nature of the investigation and that it's ongoing and all that, but...well, as my post last Tuesday suggests, the US government might have a bit of a hair trigger on inicidents like this.

 

Here's the bit that worries me, a little, that perhaps the Obama administration might be taking a tougher stance than it has to, in order to deflect right wing criticism:

Authorities said there were no arrests.

Bingo. You execute search warrants when you have probable cause to believe a crime has been or is about to be committed. Suspicion, paranoid delusion, or rumour should not ever be considered "probable cause", and yet the lack of arrests tells me that the FBI feels it might have gotten lucky, but didn't.

 

And if anything, this ought to have the fright-wing of the nation in turmoil. Wasn't it just a few months ago they were up in arms over a Bush DoJ document outlining the right wing hate groups in this country and how improved surveillance was essential in order to keep us safe from that form of domestic terror?

 

But of course, in that warped, counterintuitive Bizarro logic of the right-wing political landscape, where consistency is measured in nanoseconds while crowds are inflated beyond comprehension, this is a quieting moment, where it would be hard to criticize a President for being strong on terrorism, especially in light of Osama bin Laden's...remember him? Because Bush sure didn't!...recent taunting of Obama. 

 

But it worries me.  

 

Health Care, Not Insurance

This is precisely why we need a national health service, and not the mishmosh of tangled threads of bureaucracies and naysayers that the Republicans and other fascists want to use to keep us down:

No one disputes that the $2.3 trillion we devote to the health care industry is often spent unwisely, but the fact that the United States spends twice as much per person as most European countries on health care can be substantially explained, as a study released last month says, by our being fatter. Even the most efficient health care system that the administration could hope to devise would still confront a rising tide of chronic disease linked to diet.

[...]According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, three-quarters of health care spending now goes to treat “preventable chronic diseases.” Not all of these diseases are linked to diet — there’s smoking, for instance — but many, if not most, of them are.

We’re spending $147 billion to treat obesity, $116 billion to treat diabetes, and hundreds of billions more to treat cardiovascular disease and the many types of cancer that have been linked to the so-called Western diet. One recent study estimated that 30 percent of the increase in health care spending over the past 20 years could be attributed to the soaring rate of obesity, a condition that now accounts for nearly a tenth of all spending on health care.

In case you were wondering where the cost savings that would pay for this healthcare reform is coming from, those numbers speak loudly. Right there, just in obesity and diabetes, you have a $260 billion a year. A year.

Considering Obama's paltry proposal will only cost $1 trillion this decade, that savings alone, even if only half realized, means American healthcare would show a profit....IF WE ENACT ACTUAL HEALTHCARE!

Now, there are many who would say this is tantamount to dictating what Americans can and cannot eat.

Bullshit. How many Americans really listen to their doctors? Because if Americans were that easily persuaded off their bad habits, we wouldn't need healthcare reform. We wouldn't need to rein in rising healthcare costs.

You'd think the private insurance companies would have glommed onto this fact: if Americans eat healthier, that's more profit in their pockets.

But then you'd have to take into account America's "farm" lobby (really, it's better called "agribusiness" or for a more descriptive face "Big Food"), which is among the biggest contributors to heartland legislators, bigger in many cases than banks or credit card companies.

As an anecdotal example, just try talking to an Iowa caucus about cutting farm subsidies. There's a quick way to lose a primary cycle.

We don't need insurance reform. We need healthCARE reform, a system that encourages Americans, perhaps even thru tax incentives, to eat healthier, to lose weight, to stop smoking.

Indeed, many private insurers do this now, offering cash incentives: $400 per annum to visit a health club, discounts for being a non-smoker, discounts for attending weight-loss classes, and I'm sure there are a few that will actually rebate some of your premiums if in fact you do lose weight.

Imagine on your 1040 being offered the chance to take a few hundred bucks off your bill to the IRS by affirming, honestly, that you've quit smoking? Or can offer evidence that you went dutifully to the gym twice a week? Or you completed a marathon or a hundred mile bike ride?

We already use the tax code to reward good behavior, to construct social good, like the charitable or home mortgage interest deductions. What's wrong with using this device to cut a tax bill that everyone agrees is going to become more bloated as the tax code ratchets up from the ridiculously undertaxed position it has been for the past eight years?

Eight Years On

For once, the weather matches the mood of the city: somber, remorsefully raining. Not hard, yet, but a constant reminder of the color grey.

 

And rain helps keep things quiet and creates reflections everywhere. We have mirrors and glass, of course, which give accurate representations in reverse of the things in front of them, but rainwater allows for the pockmarks and scars of injuries long-healed to reveal themselves in distortion.

 

This September 11 has been harder than any previous since the first anniversary when grief was still so strong. We could rightly be angry at a President who failed us in the most critical moment of this nation's history: the first civilian casualties of a war undeclared since 1993, a tragic loss of life we can only begin to fathom this close to the moment. A terror attack on a scale unlike any before or thankfully since.

 

This year, we do not have that focus of anger. We do not have the lens of hatred of a failure of a President. We have no distraction. We have no one to blame any longer.

 

May we now heal. But that healing requires that we pause and remember that which injured us, that which challenged us, that which awoke us from the fantasy that large oceans could protect us from such horrors.

 

And that makes this anniversary so much harder. It's like having a broken leg and a hangnail. You may notice the hangnail more because your fingers are more sensitive, you are more aware of it, but once the hangnail is cut, the leg throbs worse than before.

 

In President Obama, we have someone who has rightly reconnected us to the Muslim world, to show a face that for eight long, grueling years, was hidden behind a cowboy mask of bravado and bullshit.

 

In President Obama, we have someone who has challenged us to dig a little deeper in ourselves and come up with that uniquely American spirit of service not to our country, altho that is part of it, but service to our neighbors.

 

For 150 years, this nation had no real formal structure in place to take care of the indigent, the needy, the sick. We relied on private foundations, churches, neighbors and family to see to those who needed help. And for 150 years, we saw that this system was deeply flawed, with actual starvation going on in rural America, elderly dropping dead in our streets, evicted for back-rent, sick and dying already for lack of healthcare, the poor without a safety net resorting to begging on the streets.

 

As recently as the nineteenth century, nearly 75 years after independence was declared in fact, poverty in the United States including a feudal system, with poor tenant farmers paying rent to work a lord's land.

 

Even today, even with government programs, about 15% of people are living in poverty, and about 12% need assistance securing food every day. That's more than 30 million people. Unsurprisingly, that's roughly the baseline of people who simply cannot afford medical insurance (another 20 million, mostly young, don't want to pick insurance up). If you can't afford food, you sure as hell aren't paying for insurance.

 

It's going to take more, and it's going to take private works, hand-in-hand with public works, to make this happen. And that's where we come in.

 

The National Day of Service, passed by Congress under Bush and signed into law by Obama, is today. September 11. And while the temptation is to mourn and grieve, a higher calling awaits us: to channel that anger and grief to help others. To remember that one of the hidden tragedies of September 11 was how little we truly care about our fellow man until tragedy strikes.

 

You don't have to go hand the homeless guy on the corner a twenty. You can do good by doing what's right for you to do, even if it seems insignificant in the greater scheme of things. Make the world a little better, a little easier, and it all gets paid forward.

 

For instance, let's say you like football. You can find opportunities (that website I referenced two paragraphs earlier has a searchable database) to coach impoverished children.

 

Doesn't sound like it will change the world, but if it keeps one kid motivated to finish school and go to college on a football scholarship, that's one more kid who stands a pretty good chance of not ending up in a soup kitchen, meaning that soup kitchen can feed someone else even more needy.

 

You can become a mentor if you have mad coding skillz. Or you can take your camera and record the good deeds done by others and give them desperately needed exposure.

 

This isn't hard. This is easy. This isn't a thousand points of light, but millions of beacons lighting the landscape and bringing those in the dark of poverty and hunger and homelessness into our family. It's a welcome to those who struggled to get here and struggle here, and yes, maybe a few who got here under the radar benefit but so what? Those people die too, and would you rather bury the body or help them get back home, or better, get a real legitimate life here to contribute to society unquestioningly?

 

We don't have to be such an angry nation. We don't have to give into the venom of the right and the far left. We here in the mushy marshmallow middle can change the world, and fuggedabout those jerks who stand athwart history crying "STOP!"

 

We'll pave them into the field of daisies we'll plant.

And It's....OUTTA HERE!

The stakes could not have been higher.

 

On a political scale from one to ten, one being a ribbon cutting at a needed bridge, ten being the absolute linchpin moment of an administration (think "Katrina"), last night's speech on healthcare was an eleven. While it wasn't bottom of the ninth, two out, bases loaded, it was certainly bottom of the seventh one out, men on second and third. Critical, but not irretrievable.

 

President Obama parked one in the seats. Granted, it was from a friendly pitcher but it impressed the audience nonetheless and probably wrested the momentum for healthcare reform back from the opposition.

 

It didn't hurt that one member of the opposing team balked, and gave him a chance to show the Republicans for what they have been for twenty years: obstructionist corporatists interested only in servicing their wealthy capitalist masters at the expense of the citizenry. Americans will put up with a lot of rowdy behavior in lots of places, even some that formerly had been places of quiet and respect, but to diss a President on national TV like you were heckling a stand-up comedian, no matter how abject the apology, is going to harm the cause faster than if you took a shot at him.

 

It's precisely why the GOP leadership backed off from Wilson's comments faster than a sorority co-ed from a serial killer.

 

Likely, Obama instigated the bad blood that Wilson (and others) felt, perhaps to trigger precisely that reaction of irrationality. Just moments earlier, Obama called out Sarah Palin and other harsh critics by calling them liars with regards to "death panels."

 

A digression: I've noticed that suddenly, right wing blogs have been following stories out of the UK about life and death decisions made by the National Health Service with respect to triage of mortally ill people. Interesting those stories have started to pop up in the press in England, dontcha think?

 

But I digress...

 

Here's what I think insurance companies are afraid of: once employers, particularly smaller, struggling employers who do not have the resources to wage a bidding war for their insurance pool, realize that the public option is not only cheaper but takes the entire insurance problem out of their laps, they will abandon private insurance in droves.

 

This is a good thing. It will force private insurers to stop taking 14 or 15% of your insurance premiums and spend it on themselves, their houses and their country clubs. It will immediately lower rates, and it will ultimately plow more money back where it should be: patient care.

 

The only real weapon the Republicans have is scare tactics, a strategy that had some traction over the summer, as Blue Dog Democrats across the nation started getting antsy about reform.

 

Well, here's a free piece of advice to any Blue Dogs reading this: your constituency NEEDS a public option. Likely, they are made up of fairly conservative working class folks, who respect an honest appeal to their sensibilities and their values.

 

Rather than be scared by talk of "death panels," remind them that when little Johnny down the block was crippled by illness because his parents had no insurance, or when Uncle Elmer died because the insurance company calculated it would cost too much to keep him on life support, those death panels were nowhere to be seen. And yet people died and were tragically crippled.

 

Which they would not have been, had they had an option for real healthcare.

Obama spoke to some of thess concerns in his speech last night:

One man from Illinois lost his coverage in the middle of chemotherapy because his insurer found that he hadn't reported gallstones that he didn't even know about. They delayed his treatment, and he died because of it. Another woman from Texas was about to get a double mastectomy when her insurance company canceled her policy because she forgot to declare a case of acne. By the time she had her insurance reinstated, her breast cancer more than doubled in size. That is heart-breaking, it is wrong, and no one should be treated that way in the United States of America.

The speech outlined a comprehensive plan that, while not ideal for the American public, is a damned sight better than the mishmash of private plans out there now, and would force insurance companies to hew to some form of accountability.

 

Who knows? It may ultimately be the kind of healthcare that countries with purely public plans, like Canada or England, would move to when their own citizenry begins to age and healthcare costs begin an inevitable march upwards in those nations, and we can claim the mantle of leadership once again in an area of social progress!

 

 

Baby, You're A Rich Man

It's 09.09.09, and that means one thing will dominate the news cycle: The Beatles.

 

EMI is re-releasing the entire Beatles catalogue in two versions: as recorded (meaning the earliest albums are in monoaural) and one digitally remastered in stereo. Nearly every fawning review has mentioned the beauty of the new recordings.

 

In addition, The Beatles: Rock Band videogame is being released. Again, the reviews are almost saccharine. 

 

Now, I love The Beatles. When Sir Paul was at Citifield in July, I sat second row. I mourn every December 8 and November 29, despite the proximity of the dates. And Ringo is Ringo.

 

I have all the albums on vinyl and all the original releases of the CDs.

 

So please don't take the tone of this column as being curmudgeonly, altho I am certainly known for that. This is not about hating The Beatles.

 

This is about hating the money-making machine around them and the dilution of the artistry that is The Beatles.

 

According to the press releases and reviews, the intent of the dual-release was to capture a whole new market of fans for Beatles music: Millenials who might not have known Beatles' music. The idea is, play the game, buy the catalogue.

 

The catalogue has been remastered and from all accounts, the sound has been sharpened and honed to a finer edge.

 

And there's my beef.

 

Those original "records" were played by kids on "turntables" that were barely moving at 45 rpm (the speed of a single for you youngsters out there), with "needles"...yes, they touched the "record"...usually weighed down with a nickle (or a few pence for my Brit readers). Or we'd listen on an "AM radio" in monoaural with all kinds of static and cross-signal interference, and would lose the station in a car passing under a bridge.

 

My point being, the way we heard these records was not in soaped-up distinct digital form, but in sloppy ugly tinny crappy boxes and cans.

 

And we went nuts! I remember standing in front of a mirror for hours, mimicking Paul and John's playing style, and George's solos, trying to get John's singing posture...a turtle on his hind legs is the closest short description...or Paul's goofy smile and whipping of his head and hair just right.

 

I knew the lyrics to every Beatle song from With The Beatles to Revolver within a week of getting my hands on the album. After that, I was so blown away by the artistry of Sgt. Pepper's or Magical Mystery Tour or The White Album that it took a little longer.

 

All on crappy Denon turntables and Tandy cassette players and Westinghouse radios!

 

To release these albums completely remastered without that part of the experience, actually trying to hear the music, work out the chords, follow the baseline, is to deprive the listener of the thrill of discovery. Yes, maybe that squeak of the piano seat at the end of A Day In The Life now blasts thru the earbuds at full volume with so much detail you hear the farts of McCartney, but that treat on the vinyl was buried in the track that signaled the record player to pick up the needle! What a joy it was to find!

 

And I don't need to hear Paul's fingers slide down the neck of his Hohner to appreciate the baseline in Taxman.

 

This event, this stunt, speaks to me more of milking a cash cow, like the Anthology release of twelve or so years ago, than of bringing this music to a whole new audience. Which, by the way, was represented very nicely at the concert in July. At least the Anthology had the charm of bringing us two new Beatles songs, albeit in a really creepy fashion.

 

But this, this is pure piracy on the part of EMI.

 

So I guess I have to go buy it. But not Rock Band. I don't have room for a four piece band...

Knee Jerks

Well, it turns out that, in addition to jeopardizing our fighting men and women by playing loose and fast with torture rules, Dick Cheney put innocent American civilians at risk as well.

 

As part of the recent trial of three would-be bombers held in England (convicted on all counts, no thanks to Dick Cheney), it was revealed that the Bush administration, at the direction of Dick Cheney's need to glorify his ego, nearly let the bombers off the hook:

Dick Cheney, the former US Vice President, nearly destroyed Britain's efforts to bring the airline bomb plotters to justice, police and intelligence experts said today.

By ordering the early arrest of Rashid Rauf, the bombers' link man in Pakistan, Washington forced British police to detain the suspects in the UK before all the evidence had been gathered, it was claimed.

Yesterday three British Muslims - Abdulla Ahmed Ali, Tanvir Hussain and Assad Sarwar - were finally convicted of plotting to blow up seven transatlantic airliners in mid-air in a co-ordinated attack intended to surpass the horror of 9/11. But the plotters were arrested before they had bought the airline tickets that would have been the ultimate proof of their intentions. Police fear that several key figures of the plot have remained free.

Andy Hayman, who was the Metropolitan Police's Assistant Commissioner Specialist Operations at the time of the plot, said he believed that the White House had grown jittery as the British updated them of the mounting evidence of a plot targeted at American cities.

Brave Sir Rob-- I mean, Dick Cheney! Not wanting to see American cities attacked once more on his watch, he decided to arrest one of the linchpins of the attacks, thus blowing the cover of an in-depth undercover investigation.

 

The anti-terror chief of Scotland Yard all but calls Cheney a coward in an op-ed piece in today's London Times:

Fearful for the safety of American lives, the US authorities had been getting edgy, seeking reassurance that this was not going to slip through our hands. We moved from having congenial conversations to eyeball-to-eyeball confrontations.

We thought we had managed to persuade them to hold back so we could develop new opportunities and get more evidence to present to the courts. But I was never convinced that they were content with that position. In the end, I strongly suspect that they lost their nerve and had a hand in triggering the arrest in Pakistan.

(emphasis added) As it was, it took two trials and one acquittal as well as one plotter receiving a reduced conviction and a "controlled release" (meaning he's under British surveillance constantly) before anyone was convicted of actually trying to bring down a plane headed for either Chicago, Toronto, New York, Washington, San Francisco, or Montreal.

 

Seven transatlantic airliners were targeted, according to Hayman. That calculates to something on the order of 3,500 people or more, exceeding the death toll on September 11, as well as the 7/7 bombings in London's Underground and buses.

 

You may remember the original alert...I sure do...because this was the plot that forced us starting in August 2006 to carry less than 3 oz of any liquid on board a plane, in a one-quart sealed bag.

 

Al Qaeda seems determined to use our airlines as weapons in their jihad. Of course, neither Cheney nor Bush will admit their fear created a dangerous situation.

 

But we will, and we will remember.

 

Nobody Asked Me, But...

1) Tip of the hat to Ben And Jerry.

 

2) There's some reason to consider living in Madison, WI.

 

3) The new terror weapon: ass bombs.

 

4) Own a piece of rock history, for only $300,000. When the housing market firms up, I'm betting you could double your money.

 

5) In real news, things are heating up in Afghanistan. Again. Of course, maybe calling in an airstrike on a fuel tanker is a bad idea...

 

6) And unemployment is creeping up towards ten percent, as corporations try to boost profits on the backs of working families.

 

7) Needless to say, the Republicans blame Obama.

 

8) In truth, they should look to their own warped philosophies.

 

9) Could you ever have imagined a speech by a President about staying in school creating an uproar amongst the low-normals????

 

10) And, some bad news about global climate change. Right. Let's get our kids to quit school early so they can destroy our planet further thru ignorance.

 

11) I have to end this on a happy, or at least funny, note: this brings a whole new level of meaning to "three-legged races".

 

 

The Drumbeat For A Public Option

If not for single payer healthcare:

The truth is that government, for all its flaws, manages to do some things right, so that today few people doubt the wisdom of public police or firefighters. And the government has a particularly good record in medical care.

[...]

A study by the Rand Corporation concluded that compared with a national sample, Americans treated in veterans hospitals "received consistently better care across the board, including screening, diagnosis, treatment and follow-up." The difference was particularly large in preventive medicine: veterans were nearly 50 percent more likely to receive recommended care than Americans as a whole.

"If other health care providers followed the V.A.'s lead, it would be a major step toward improving the quality of care across the U.S. health care system," Rand reported.

That's the Rand Corporation, folks. Not SEIU. Not ACORN. Not the DNC. The Rand Corporation, an objective, non-profit think tank. Formed by the US DoD, I might add.

 

Government is designed to do the Big Things: national highway system, defense, interstate commerce, natural resource protection, coastal protection, creating a national energy policy, installing the national electric grid, dams, coordinated air traffic control.

 

Healthcare should not only be among those, it should be at the top of the list. And while, at this point, any healthcare reform, even if it's just reforming the insurance we pay for privately, is welcome, there is absolutely no reason, none whatsoever, that single payer coverage should not be the law of the land.

 

Period. Forget the "public option," it should be a "private option" if you don't want to be on the National Health Service.

 

I urge President Obama in his speech tonight to raise the issue and to defend and deflate the inevitable ignorant attacks from the fear-mongerers of the right, funded largely by insurers and the AMA, nipping this dissent in the bud. He should produce and present a cogent and organized outline of a public health plan that would help us prevent disease rather than treat it, provide for mental health treatment (the average mortality rate of people diagnosed with mental health issues is 25 years shorter than those undiagnosed), and give Americans the promise of the Declaration of Independence: "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness".

A Lesson In Populism

Or why people are idiots:

California's wildfires are not only burning trees – they're burning state cash, and setting off a cascade of other problems in the state. Already, as the fires appeared to have spread in the past 24 hours, they have delayed a ballot count in two special elections.

Let's focus on the "cash" aspect. California has had major budget woes this year already, mostly due to the facts with respect to the overall poor economy, as well as the plummet in property values.

 

But...

 

If California had been allowed under state law to have its taxes, particularly its property taxes, indexed over the past twenty to thirty years, this crisis would have been far more manageable.

 

You might recall, if you are of a certain age, an asshole named Howard Jarvis. Jarvis is the asshat credited with "Proposition 13," a particularly moronic piece of "citizen activism" that forced California to freeze its property tax rates at 1% (One. Percent.) of the assessed value of the property. This created an immediate average property tax cut of 57% statewide, and a blooming deficit in couty and municipal coffers for eternity, ad nauseum.

 

This is why, for instance, Los Angeles among many other cities and towns, is under constant threat of default, dragging California as a whole down that path a few times already.

 

In a juxtaposition of irony, Californians have been hurt by Prop 13 in a booming housing market as it creates a disincentive to sell (the property taxed is indexed to the resale value, not the assessed value), while also creating a desperate housing market in an era of "buy as many homes as you want".

 

Hmmmm...

 

And now, those same homes that have been coddled by Prop 13 are burning up faster than you can turn around to look, as Prop 13 tended to benefit more those older, more established areas close into downtown urban areas, like Los Angeles.

 

Of course, most of the people who approved Prop 13 don't live anywhere near the fire zone, so what do they care, right?

 

Well, see, the trouble with that logic is, the cash drain that's going to cause this enormous budget gap won't only affect LA. It will affect infrastructure repair. It will affect flood prevention and rescue (another of California's season: mud). It will affect hospitals and firefighters and police forces.

 

And more important, it will cut into the state's water reserves, already down to between three and six months supply. A three year long drought will do that.

 

Now, if there's an earthquake up near San Francisco, up in the Central Valley, and the levees break, allowing sea water into the water supplies for both Frisco and LA, it's ballgame over, and there will be a mass exodus from California, south to San Diego.

 

And where will your property tax freeze help there, smartypants?

 

Of course, no one could have forseen fire and drought in a desert, could they?

The Third Musketeer: Pathos

Poor Joe Klein over at Time Magazine:

Twice in the past month, my private communications have been splashed about the internet. That such a thing would happen is unfortunate, and dishonorable, but sadly inevitable, I suppose. I ignored the first case, in which a rather pathetic woman acolyte of Greenwald's published a hyperbolic account of a conversation I had with her at a beach picnic on Cape Cod. Now, Greenwald himself has published private emails of mine that were part of a conversation taking place on a list-serve. In one of those emails, I say that Greenwald "cares not a whit for America's national security."

A few points before I go on:

 

1) Joe, as any long term denizen of the Internet...not the World Wide Web, but the thing that Al Gore helped Tim Berners Lee turn into that pretty little colorful Flash animated monstrosity that is the WWW, the Internet, Usenet and Listservs...any long time user of the Net will tell you that ListServs are not "private communications".

 

If you are dumb enough to post something on a listserv, then you deserve to have your shit called.

 

2) As anyone with an ounce of sense knows, a conversation with an "acolyte" is going to get reported back. And if you did not know she was an "acolyte," then maybe you should have stopped staring at her tits and started engaging your other head.

 

But I digress...

 

I can't speak for Greenwald or his position on the US military. Frankly, most of his columns bore the shit out of me, but he's a popular blogger on the left and likely enhances his prose to appeal to part of his base. My suspicion is he is not as anti-military as you want to make him out to be in your notes.

 

All writers write what they think their audiences want to read, particularly if they are being paid for presumably attracting a readership (thus negating any need I have to write what I think my audience wants to read...I do this for love). It's no different for Greenwald.

 

Or for you, Joe. I don't know the authority structure at Time, but I would imagine there is someone with one of those clickers that keeps tabs on how many eyeballs your columns attract to determine if Time is getting enough bang for its buck.

 

Some of us on the left think your focus is here, and not on reporting and analysis. This is sad, in my opinion. You seem like you could be a fairly bright guy who once worked hard to tell a story. Now it seems more often than not, you're rewriting someone's press release.

 

Left, right, center. It doesn't really matter. Sometimes, like in this column, you don't seem to want to think things through all that carefully and see if there's a different conclusion you could reach.

 

In this column I linked to, you posted the following note you sent to the listserv:

Therefore, I have seen no evidence that he [Greenwald] cares one whit about the national security of the United States. It is not hyperbole, it is a fact.

It's hard to prove a negative, but it seems to me that Google is your friend. One verified, pro-soldier stance is hadly "no evidence." And based on Googling "Greenwald military," it seems as though you don't want to look at his nuance. He's not attacking the military as keeping close tabs on the legality of their actions, particularly with respect to human rights not just of terror suspects but of American citizens (in particular, possible posse comitatus violations proposed by Dick Cheney).

 

I'd hardly call that attacking the military. Attacking an unecessary war (Iraq) is not attacking the military. Attacking Pentagon abuses is not attacking the military. Attacking power hungry politicians, the ones you chat up at cocktail parties in Georgetown, is not attacking the military. Talking about wanting to freeze military spending when the US outspends the entire world combined is not attacking the military.

 

It's taking a rational stand athwart history, pleading for sanity.

 

 

Don't Let The Door Hit You On The Way Out, Dick!

Well, well, well...I can't imagine why he'd be up in arms over this, can you?

Former Vice President Dick Cheney lashed out at President Obama and the attorney general on Sunday, saying the Justice Department's recent decision to investigate whether CIA operatives broke the law in their interrogation of terrorism suspects was politically motivated and dangerous to U.S. national security.

"I just think it's an outrageous political act that will do great damage long-term to our capacity to be able to have people take on difficult jobs, make difficult decisions, without having to worry about what the next administration is going to say," Cheney said in an interview that aired on " Fox News Sunday."

The formal interview, conducted last week at Cheney's Wyoming ranch, was his first since Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. announced last Monday that he was conducting a preliminary review into the actions of certain CIA interrogators who might have gone beyond the techniques approved by the Bush administration's Justice Department.

Of course, an effective administration investigates its own wrong-doing, as how Janet Reno did under Bill Clinton, so Cheney has a point to make: any investigation should have rightly been carried out under the Bush DoJ.

Which seemed to have issues with indicting a ham sandwich, to stretch the famous analogy.

Or Congress could have, as it did in the early 70s for President Nixon's crimes, the 80s for Iran-Contra, and the 90s for the Lewinski affair.

I don't know about you, but my instinct tells me CIA agents violating international treaties probably ranks higher on the crime scale than a blow job.

But I digress...

It is true that, in none of the above scenarios was the investigation of a previous administration left as the dirty work for the next group of bureaucrats.

But then no administration, in conjunction with a Congress best described as "whorish to the self-interests of the administration," had ever had such an abysmal record of dictatorial, almost tyrannical, abuses of authority as the Bush administration, which includes ignoring the fact it might have been breaking the law.

It was, in short, a perfect storm of corruption and scandal, with a "look the other way" mentality that was at once abhorrent and antithetical to the good and welfare of the nation.

In shorter, it was the blind leading the deaf leading the dumb.

The dumb being us.

There are higher issues at stake here than whether some rogue CIA agents violated even the very liberal torture policies of an autocrat. There are issues that go to the very heart of what we stand for as a nation: do we allow torture so blatantly (because no one believes the US is always right and always innocent) or do we shove it back in that dark corner where we occasionally get upset at the things done in the name of freedom?

For that, and that reason alone, Dick Cheney should shut the fuck up.

Nobody Asked Me, But...

1) I'm tempted to fly down to DC to observe this.

2) Idiotic Idea #3,457,986 that Bill Gates has come up with since he stopped blatantly ripping Steve Jobs off. It would work IF you expanded the area covered by a factor of at least ten. If Gates can't get that climate is NOT weather, how can we expect the average American to get it?

3) Of course, Gates might just want to stick to his knitting. By the way, take a close look at the laptop in that picture...

4) More signs that things are turning around slowly.

5) BREAKING NEWS...MUST CREDIT SLB....NO METS INJURED IN YESTERDAY'S GAME!

6) Shop at Trader Joe's

7) I thought the border fence was supposed to stop Mexicans from getting rich off the labors of hard-working Americans?

8) PROTIP: If the alcohol isn't going in your mouth, ur doin it rong!

9) I had the opportunity to buy this house about twenty years ago, and passed on it. With furnishings, I'm almost as tall as it is wide.

10) I'm guessing Mt Vernon, WA is not a happenin' town...

Lifting Clouds

The Fall is usually a time of bleaker economic news than the rest of the year. Not so much this year:

Aug. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Fewer Americans filed claims for jobless benefits last week, another sign the economy is pulling out of the worst recession since the 1930s.

Applications fell by 10,000 to 570,000, a higher level than forecast, in the week ended Aug. 22 from a revised 580,000 the week before, Labor Department data showed today in Washington. The total number of people collecting unemployment insurance fell to the lowest level since April.

Companies’ staff cuts are easing as government stimulus measures help stabilize the housing and manufacturing industries. At the same time, a rebound in hiring will take longer to occur, restraining the consumer spending that accounts for about 70 percent of the economy.

[...]A separate report from the Commerce Department showed the U.S. economy contracted less than forecast in the second quarter as a jump in government spending and smaller cutbacks by consumers helped mitigate a record plunge in inventories.

I won't bore you with an analysis of that last paragraph. Suffice it to say that companies are running leaner operations than they had been, and the economy is starting to drift back towards growth.

The wildly successful Cash For Clunkers program, ended Monday but launched July 24, wasn't even a factor in the 2nd quarter, which means that the 3rd quarter will probably show a further slowing in the rate of recession, if not a turnaround.

New homes sales rose ten percent in July, which is an amazing leap when you factor in the thought that mortgage lending was nearly non-existent until the second TARP bailout enacted under President Obama. Still, sales are off 13.4% from July 2008. July 2009 was the fourth straight month to show a gain in new home sales.

That's not to say housing is out of the woods yet. Lending to builders is still tighter than a maiden aunt's ass which means new home construction, a vital component of the American economy, is moribund. What you're seeing is the sale of previously built homes that sat empty.

Still, things could be much worse and the economy could be in a lot worse shape than it is. Right now, things are still teetering on the precipice like a Keystone Kops clown car. We could still tumble.

But at least I have faith that this driver is not going to put the car back into gear and drive us off the cliff like the last President nearly did!

The Lion Sleeps Tonight

What can be said about Ted Kennedy that you haven't read a million other places today?

The life of the last remaining true progressive authority (there are others more liberal, to be sure, like Russ Feingold or Bernie Sanders) can be summed up in one way I doubt you've read anyplace else.

For all his flaws and faults, he became the lightning rod for right wing hatred.

You don't see Rush Limbaugh making fun of Feingold. You don't see anyone making fun of Bernie Sanders. In his death, even, the right wing extremists are making fun of Ted Kennedy.

You know what that tells me? It tells me that he had them terrified.

Ted Kennedy not only represented a link to a time when liberal legislation was effected, heck, even admired (civil rights, Social Security and Medicare, clean air and water), he ultimately came to embody those core principles of liberal philosophy.

Our lives are better for Ted Kennedy's existence. Here was a wealthy man who understood that rising tides may lift all boats, but that we need not wait for a rising tide to fix those boats that are leaky and in need of repair.

Conservative muttonheads knew this, which is why they toiled so hard to keep mocking his weight or his affairs or his one moment of avoidable tragedy.

Granted, there are some mistakes you never stop paying for, and the tragic death of Mary Jo should be one of those, but that those knucklebrains couldn't find fault with his legislative savvy or his programs and policies speaks volumes about their fear of Kennedy.

Indeed, one might make the case that life's plan included having Kennedy demeaned and belittled, as it would make him a more effective legislator, able to be scrutinized for himself, and not his stances. The distraction became the illusion became the reality.

When JFK said in 1961 "Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans," I wonder if he knew the last surviving torchbearer would be his younger brother, Ted?

I raise my voice and join the chorus of those who have asked that the healthcare reform that Ted Kennedy fought so hard to enact in his lifetime be passed immediately, that President Obama call a special session of Congress, and insist that a public option be included, and that the "Senator Edward M. Kennedy Healthcare Reform Bill of 2009" be passed by unanimous voice vote, in tribute to this man, this great man, this lion of the left.

The torch has been dropped, my friends. Who among us will agree to pick it up, for Ted's sake?

Days Of Swine And Roses

It could get ugly this fall:

Up to half of the population of the U.S. could come down with the swine flu and 90,000 could die this season, according to a dire report from the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

[...]"It's a plausible scenario that we need to be prepared for," said Marty Cetron, the Center for Disease Control's director of the Division of Global Migration and Quarantine.

The report says that under a worst-case scenario, between 60 and 120 million Americans could get sick with the swine flu and another 30 million could contract the virus but not show symptoms. Between 30,000 and 90,000 could die -- more than twice the annual average of deaths associated with the seasonal flu. Those deaths generally occur in people older than 65.

It should be noted that swine flu eruptions continue throughout the northern hemisphere, despite the onset of summer weather, which usually mitigates flu outbreaks.

So we're looking at a highly contagious, highly infectious disease that shows signs of only strengthening as people are forced into closer contact behind closed doors.

Not fun.

Keep in mind that a far larger percentage than normal of those getting ill with this flu will be younger, healthy adolescents and young adults. It's not clear if the same hiccup in the affected age will trend in the death statistics. One presumes that a healthy adult will be in a far better position to fight off a bug than the elderly, very young, or infirm.

But...

The 1918 flu pandemic saw an unusual spike in young adults precisely because of the nature of that virus (more avian than swine) and possibly because it was similar to another flu outbreak 30 years earlier.

With swine flu and avian flu currently exposed to one another in the southern hemisphere, it would be prudent to follow this story a bit more closely than current surveys indicate it has been.

It could be ugly. It might not be. My guess is it will be uglier than the CDC and HHS are making it out to be, particularly once the vaccine runs low.

Vacation, Have To Get Away

It astounds me the hoopla raised over a simple week away from the White House:

Senior White House officials have not ruled out the possibility of a town hall -- which, in Obama world, might qualify as a fun vacation activity.

That's probably not First Lady Michelle Obama's notion of the ideal vacation. For months, aides have been planning as normal a summer getaway as possible, whittling down the possible sites until they found a secluded spot on a tony island, where stars and presidents have long been able to expect privacy.

It is, in my opinion, not coincidental that the networks scheduled all these Republicans (including Joe LiebeRman) to speak this weekend, just as the video of Obama stepping off a plane in the Vineyard hit the wires.

After all, we all recall what happened the first summer that Bush took six weeks off to vacation:
But I digress...

The concern trolling on the part of the Republicans (including Joe LiebeRman) has been touching but unnecessary. After all, when Bush was running up half trillion dollar deficits during our last recession...you recall? The one that lasted nearly his entire first term?...no one seemed to mind. Indeed, Veep Cheney pointed out that deficits don't matter.

So long as you're running a war of aggression on a people half a world away that did nothing to harm you.

Once you actually try to help people, well, Katie bar the door!

Even a Nobel Prize-winning economist seems to think the Republicans (including Joe LiebeRman) are talking out their asses.

Others have pointed out that, just because the US government runs a postal service, private businesses are still highly competitive and highly profitable, and that is a good analogy. After all, the US government is mandated by Congress to provide affordable mail delivery to each and every address in the United States. Neither UPS nor Fedex could possibly achieve that and make a profit. They can make a profit on niches that the USPS can't really focus its resources on.

It's called limiting a bureaucracy.

But I put a different case: unions.

Some would make the claim that the government getting into the health insurance business would put private insurance out of work.

Bullshit.

There are union workplaces, and non-union, and if anything, the non-union places seem to be more competitive once the trouble of swallowing the fall-out from union-based benefits is worked through.

After all, if a union shop gets a vacation concession, other companies will start to lose workers to those union shops that have greater goodies, until they too offer more competitive employment benefits.

Then things straighten up and fly right and non-union shops can still gouge their workers in other areas.

What unions provide is a single large entity that can negotiate with large corporations, thus balancing an equation that is woefully tilted against an individual worker.

Government ideally should be the firewall between individuals and corporations, but sadly that has been co-opted by the SCOTUS, which has ruled that corporations have the same rights as individuals, plus a few more. Among those rights is the right to free speech, and by extension, to donate to political campaigns.

The concentration of cash in a corporation's coffers makes this a slam-dunk: they will buy candidates that individuals could not possibly afford.

Except thru unions, of course.

The analogy coalesces when one realizes that any health care reform must include a governmental component whereby doctors, hospitals, and yes, insurance companies must deal with some entity with the resources that a government can bring to bear in an industry.

Just like a union can legitimately be the only organ an individual can use to address the inequities of the working world.

This is the sole legitimate function of government: to protect its citizenry.

Amen.

Quick Admin Note

I know, it's been awfully quiet here on the ranch.

Mea culpa. I left for vacation in such a rush that I forgot to ask Katrina to come in and feed the cat (THUMBPER adds, "Dass riet! Ah had ta et howseplans awl wik!").

And I forgot to set up a bunch of posts to tide you guys over.

I'll figure some way to make it all up to you folks, even you, Stoopid!. Sorry about that.

A Day In The Life

A Day in the Life of Joe Middle-Class Republican"

Joe gets up at 6:00am to prepare his morning coffee. He fills his pot full of good clean drinking water because some liberal fought for minimum water quality standards. He takes his daily medication with his first swallow of coffee. His medications are safe to take because some liberal fought to insure their safety and work as advertised.

All but $10.00 of his medications are paid for by his employers medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance, now Joe gets it too. He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs this day. Joe’s bacon is safe to eat because some liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.

Joe takes his morning shower reaching for his shampoo; His bottle is properly labeled with every ingredient and the amount of its contents because some liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained. Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some tree hugging liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air. He walks to the subway station for his government subsidized ride to work; it saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees. You see, some liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.

Joe begins his work day; he has a good job with excellent pay, medicals benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe’s employer pays these standards because Joe’s employer doesn’t want his employees to call the union. If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed he’ll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some liberal didn’t think he should loose his home because of his temporary misfortune.

Its noon time, Joe needs to make a Bank Deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe’s deposit is federally insured by the FDIC because some liberal wanted to protect Joe’s money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the depression.

Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae underwritten Mortgage and his below market federal student loan because some stupid liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his life-time.

Joe is home from work, he plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive to dads; his car is among the safest in the world because some liberal fought for car safety standards. He arrives at his boyhood home. He was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers Home Administration because bankers didn’t want to make rural loans. The house didn’t have electric until some big government liberal stuck his nose where it didn’t belong and demanded rural electrification. (Those rural Republican’s would still be sitting in the dark)

He is happy to see his dad who is now retired. His dad lives on Social Security and his union pension because some liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn’t have to. After his visit with dad he gets back in his car for the ride home.

He turns on a radio talk show, the host’s keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. (He doesn’t tell Joe that his beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day) Joe agrees, "We don’t need those big government liberals ruining our lives; after all, I’m a self made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have".

And that is the truest thing I've read all damn year.

Thank a fucking Liberal. Every damn day.

Nobody Asked Me, But...

1) RIP, Les Paul. The finest guitar I've ever laid hands on was a 1959 Les Paul that my buddy saved for years to buy. Astounding instrument, astounding man. Go read his obit.

 

2) Senator Webb is in Burma to plead for Aung San Suu Kyi. Clever move on Obama's part. Webb could end up with a Noble Peace Prize for this.

 

3) I am glad this situation was resolved with little outcry. This man deserves no clemency.

 

4) It's getting so in California that they should have two seasons: winter and fire. Glad I didn't move out there when I had the chance!

 

5) Thanks for pointing that out, Captain Obvious!

 

6) But we brought them FREEEDOM!

 

7) Sometimes Apple pisses even me off with their delays.

 

8) I think Brad Pitt underestimates his chances. He has two things going for him: Angelina's tits and...wait, THREE things going for him...

 

9) Remember that moran at the Specter town hall meeting who kept running his mouth about socialism? The little prick's on a government disability!

 

10) PROTIP: You've worked really hard to win the coveted award of Green Company of the Year from Forbes Magazine, so don't screw it up by killing birds en masse!

 

 

Evolution Inaction

If you are concerned about the current debate over healthcare reform, you should be:

Frankly, what is surfacing is a survival of the fittest mentality. One demographic, being pitted against another, risks any true reform of the system and compromises the pursuit of good health for all.

One group in particular, unconvinced that change will not be destabilizing, has been the senior citizen population. Whether cautiously reluctant or downright suspect, seniors, many of whom are satisfied with Medicare, do not want to be scapegoated in the process to redress health-care grievances. At the crux, is the perceived threat that health care will be rationed for the elderly at the expense of insuring younger, healthier Americans. Seniors are not "on the chopping block," but propaganda and rhetoric would have you believe their interests will be disposed of readily.

What is true, however, is that there is already rationing in the America health care system. Insurance companies are able to differentiate which treatments are covered versus those deemed unnecessary. We, in the public, find this mediation palatable, but we question whether the government will interfere arbitrarily in our medical affairs.

Dr. Pernell goes on to point out what I pointed out yesterday: Healthcare reform can ONLY drive down the cost of healthcare, freeing more money for more treatment.

 

But her trope of "survival of the fittest" is intriguing and got me to thinking: what if the living room gibbons that have infested the Congressional town hall meetings win? What will happen to healthcare reform in this country?

 

It won't, frankly. We'll get the same lip service crap that President Bush offered up with Medicare prescription "reform" which turned out to be a boon for insurers and a muddle, ugly mess for consumers. And it will be decades again until someone straps on some cojones and decides to take the plunge into reforming a disastrous health insurance scam that private insurers have foisted on this nation.

 

We spend more, far more, per person on healthcare than any other nation on the planet, yet we rank in the 30s in life expectancy, have higher cancer and heart disease death rates than any country with "socialized" medicine, and have an infant mortality rate higher than many Third World nations (including Cuba)

 

So much for the "right-to-life," huh?

 

One bright spot in the whole town hall astroturfing is that we see now citizens who are on a government-provided healthcare plan are so satisfied with it that they will fight tooth and nail to keep it intact.

 

"I got mines, Joe, and I ain't giving it up!" A clever President and Congress would use this as an opening.

 

Getting AARP on board would be a big first step. They have reluctantly and half-heartedly endorsed some of the proposals bandied about. Even if they took the next logical step and just made a push to get people to realize this is not going to cut their Medicare, that would be a big help. People look at AARP and have respect for it as an organization devoted to the needs of the aging. I myself am a member, primarily because of that image.

 

We liberals have to begin to make the case that the Obama administration has been unable to: healthcare reform will save and prolong lives, and not force the elderly into euthanasia.

 

 

Morons Amaze Me

Ask people their opinions on tax cuts, and many of them will give you the free market rant that letting me spend my money will help the economy.

 

Ask people their opinions with respect to healthcare reforms, and many of these same people suddenly forget about market dynamics:

Since his days on the campaign trail, Obama has promised the public that those who like their health insurance plans won't have to give them up, but he's stopped short of saying at what cost.

"I think that's the fear," said Diana Owen, an associate professor of political science and the director of American studies at Georgetown University. "Even though they are going to keep the plan, the plan is going to be at a much greater cost. And he's not been able to really allay that fear."

The themes coming up at town hall meetings across the country are broadly the same as doubts expressed during the campaign. Critics are voicing fears about socialism and the dismantling of the government they are used to. And those who have sufficient health care coverage worry they'll have to foot the bill for reform, echoing concerns heard during the presidential campaign that Obama would "spread the wealth around."

Utter rubbish, as even a moment's thought will evidence.

 

Right now, healthcare costs, particularly health insurance premiums, are rocketing skyward with no ceiling in sight. There are plenty of reasons for this (not least of which is too many doctors are underpaid by HMOs and are forced to identify profit centers in treating patients and requiring extraneous tests) and that could be the subject of a book.

 

Among the myriad reasons are two key elements to lowering costs: insuring a larger pool of healthier patients, and free market competition.

 

The larger pool of uninsured but healthy people can be found in twenty- and even thirty-somethings who delay picking up health insurance because they have not worked through that they are not immortal yet. By including them in the overall pool of insured, this will lower the relative risk an insurer takes in issuing policies to a particular person: that insurer is not inclined to make rapacious profits off the backs of middle-class families. In addition, many of the young who will be insuring under reform will already have banked a fair amount of equity in their policies that will generate income to offset the higher costs they will incur later.

 

Government insisting on mandatory participation in health insurance will do that.

 

Number two, free market competition.

 

Why is it that Wal-Mart's presence in a given market actually drives prices down?

 

Simple. Because it can order in such large volumes, this forces manufacturers to cut prices to a bare minimum profit. Since the law requires that, if I offer price X to Wal-Mart, I have to offer price X to you, this dynamic naturally brings down the price of the product.

 

Now let's look at government healthcare. Medicare has already provided a small obstacle to willy-nilly price inflation on the part of medical companies, big pharma and insurers, because it can negotiate on behalf of the millions of its insured, with the guarantee of government's backing on any deals made.

 

But it's not been enough. A larger pool of healthier individuals is needed and necessary in order to truly harness the increases of the future. Government plans provide that pool with mandatory insurance, much of which will go to those healthy people not currently insured.

 

Thus creating a single entity with the power to negotiate price declines, just like Wal-Mart does.

Town Bawls

Never underestimate the power of the volume of the thunderingly stupid.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is switching his message on his overhaul of the nation's health care system, readying a fresh pitch designed for those who already have insurance.

The White House is retooling its message amid polling that shows Americans — especially those who already have coverage — skeptical of the Democratic proposals to expand coverage to millions. Instead, Obama will use a potentially boisterous town hall-style meeting in New Hampshire to highlight how his proposals would affect workers whose employers provide their health insurance.

The shift also is a potential blueprint for lawmakers' August recess. Critics of the president's plan have grabbed headlines by disrupting town hall meetings, and the White House expects that Tuesday's event may be bumpy.

Frankly, I do not, but here's a highlight of the difference between the Bush empire and the Barack Obama republic: the seats were largely chosen by lottery, not party loyalty. Events are not staged and that means there will be people who play along and people who will be antagonistic.

 

Barack Obama can handle both, of course.

 

The larger reason I do not believe there will be major disruptions to the President's meeting is it would detract from the message of those who oppose healthcare. They frame it as preventing socialism. We frame it as a necessary feature of any democratic society.

 

The arguments for and against healthcare reform could not be starker, and the President and Congress have taken on a large task here and a big opponent: Big Medicine.

 

The most effective argument in Obama's arsenal right now is the clear message that there will be no forced switches of insurance plans, that there are no "death panels" (an odious and disgusting trope trotted out by the bloodthirsty fascists of the Palin Party), rebutted beautifully at that link provided by Southern Beale, and that this will actually save the US taxpayer money in the longer run.

 

It's an investment in our future.

 

The death panels meme, while offensive and outrageous and the type of tactic Joseph Goebbels would be proud of, seem to have taken on some resonance if you believe the mass media coverage of previous town halls held by Congresscritters. That theme shows up everywhere and it's clear that Congresscritters were not briefed in advance.

 

Had it been me talking, I would have said the following: "That is the single most absurd statement that I have ever heard in my entire life, and your teachers from kindergarten on up ought to cringe to think that you could so badly misunderstand the English language. The 'panels' of which you speak provide end-of-life counseling to help elderly patients and their families cope with the inevitable. Would you deny your grandmother a priest to talk with as she faces meeting her Maker?"

 

Which would shut him up and the rest of the pieholes who tried to throw that at me later.

 

And then, for good measure, I would add this, quoted from the Southern Beale link:

You have no idea what it's like to be called into a sterile conference room with a hospital administrator you've never met before and be told that your mother's insurance policy will only pay for 30 days in ICU. You can't imagine what it's like to be advised that you need to "make some decisions," like whether your mother should be released "HTD" which is hospital parlance for "home to die," or if you want to pay out of pocket to keep her in the ICU another week. And when you ask how much that would cost you are given a number so impossibly large that you realize there really are no decisions to make. The decision has been made for you. "Living will" or no, it doesn't matter. The bank account and the insurance policy have trumped any legal document.

 

If this isn't a "death panel" I don't know what is.

Insurance companies exist to make money off your death. Period. And that's the theme that Barack Obama needs to throw back at the unruly unwashed masses of the hateful and deceitful charlatans.

 

And this is exactly why, barring a madman on the waters, I believe the right wing astroturf organzations have worked tirelessly to ensure today's town hall does not become a madhouse. Barack Obama is a gifted debater and very good at confronting without being impolite. To give him a forum to be stern, to be Presidential, will create a blowback thus negating the very arguments the right wing wants to make.

 

The spectacle of such an unruly mob harassing the President over an issue nearly every American (80% or so) agrees need to be fixed when he's making an honest effort to do so will create an awful lot of sympathy and could create support for a plan that people on the right and left believe is flawed.

There will be debate, to be sure, but to disrespect the President of the United States will be seen as a signal that mob rule is imminent, and as with the student unrest in the 60s, will not be taken lightly. A polarization of this country at this time would be the wrong thing to do, and it would send a signal to the moderates of the nation that the right wing can be ignored.

 

So, while I do not think it will happen, I am praying for it.

The Trouble With Viruses...

...is they don't take summer vacations.

As the first influenza pandemic in 41 years has spread during the Southern Hemisphere's winter over the past few months, the United States and other northern countries have been racing to prepare for a second wave of swine flu virus.

At the same time, international health authorities have become increasingly alarmed about the new virus's arrival in the poorest, least-prepared parts of the world.

They travel a lot, to be sure, but they never take vacations!

 

That last bit is the scariest part of this latest warning. The poor, even in this country, have terrible access to medical care, and of course, that leaves the poor as a perfect incubator for this virus as well as any mutations that might occur. This will make the virus that much harder to eradicate or at least contain.

 

Already, strains of the virus are showing up that are resistant to Tamiflu, one of two recognized flu fighters on the market. Too, isolation and quarantine in poor populations is harder, as people have to work merely to survive and will work until they drop dead.

 

Certainly, northern hemisphere governments have had plenty of warning and opportunity to set up for this winter's return and those preparations may turn out to have been overkill, although I doubt it. The virulence of this particular bug seems to be undoubted and we've already seen some extreme measures were needed last winter to contain it as best as we could.

 

One bright spot in all this nervous-making anxiety is this flu might be the final key in unlocking true healthcare reform, albeit at a tragic and hefty price.