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Health Care

Let's stop this health care nonsense
Wisconsin State Journal, December 15, 2006 - See complete article HERE.
It's just a matter of time before health care is taken over by the business sector - and not just by providing expensive insurance to pay outlandish medical costs that have been increasing at 15 percent annually.

That's what we have today, and businesses are mad as hell and are not going to take it any more.

Wisconsin's business leaders are well positioned to pool their resources and create their own managed-care facilities for employees, even buy their own hospitals if they want. They'll control the costs, because they control the money.

Health care for all: We need only the will
The Capital Times, November 16, 2006 - See complete article HERE.

The health care system is broken, and it will get worse before it gets better. We can fix the system overnight or we can make it a 10-year project, which the for-profit health care interests would like to drag it out to.

There are many areas that must and can be fixed, but simplicity is the key. Simple is less expensive and simple doesn't break. And the simplest system already exists; it's called Medicare-for-all. We don't need complicated insurance pools or anything else; we need to provide health care, and here's the best way:

How Doctors Are Yielding Their Profession To The CEOs
WisOpinion.com, October 24, 2006 - See complete article HERE.

Eleven facts about our health care crisis, why doctors should care, and what will save the profession

Strong opinions are offered on the health care crisis. On one side are those employed in health care and currently benefit from its high cost, and on the other side are the consumers and employers that bear these high costs. While they have different motives, let's look at some facts:

We Need Health Cost Containment Before Fixing the Payment Method
WisOpinion.com, October 17, 2006 - See complete article HERE.

Let's take a time out.

As the nation struggles with how to pay for health care costs that are spiraling upward at an annual rate of 17 percent, five times the rate of inflation, we are virtually ignoring the reasons behind the escalating costs in the first place. We are engrossed in payment methods rather than cost containment, all while the industry seeks innovative ways of taking home a bigger piece of the national pie.

Fix U.S. health care
USA Today - January 25, 2006 - See complete article HERE.

How many more jobs in the auto industry must we lose before we fix the health care system? Between General Motors and Ford, about 60,000 jobs are slated to be cut.

But guess what? In 2004, Ontario, not Michigan, was North America's leading car producer. GM's health care costs, for example, are about $6,500 per employee in the USA compared with only $800 in Canada. That's because Canada has a universal health care system, while we have a for-profit, free-market system that is perpetuated by tens of millions of dollars per year in campaign contributions. So jobs are heading north and to other countries whose companies do not have to add health care to their bottom line.

Canada's Model Would Work Here
Small Business Times, March 21, 2006 - See complete article HERE.

Employee health care is a major business expense that closes down some companies, causes others to outsource manufacturing and still others to relocate to Canada, where medical costs are just $800 per year per employee, compared with $6,500 in the United States. GM is doing it. So is Ford. There are more Big Three autos being made in Ontario today than in Detroit. More than 60,000 U.S. jobs have been lost in this industry alone.

America's Health Care System is Broke
Making the Case for a Universal Health Care Plan That Works
Small Business Times, September 16, 2006 - See complete article HERE.

Health care costs are rising at 10 to 15 percent per year, and employers are struggling for ways to pay these costs, which typically represent 15 percent of their labor costs. Many are shifting the costs to their employees by demanding high deductibles and co-pays, and in some cases contracting with HMOs who make their money more by denying care than providing it. But what else can companies do? They are competing with manufacturers in countries that have taxpayer-paid universal health care systems, and these competitors need not add health care to the costs of their products. Of course, our manufacturers can send their work abroad, but then American jobs are lost.

The Massachusetts Miracle
FightingBob.com, April 6, 2006 - See complete article HERE.

Of course health care is a mess, and for the same reason everything else is a mess: politics and greed. Health care is no longer a humanitarian service; it is a profit-making industry, and a very profitable one at that. Having just retired from after 35 years in the industry, I'd encourage you to break the crisis down to two questions.

1) Why is health care so costly in the first place?

2) What is the best and most humanitarian way to deliver it?

Free corporations from health expenses
The Business Journal of Milwaukee - September 2, 2005 - See complete article HERE.
by Jack Lohman and Dr. Eugene Farley

It is by historical accident that U.S. businesses provide health care to their employees, and it has now placed them at a serious disadvantage when competing globally or against imports whose manufacturers do not have to add this extra 8 percent to 15 percent to the price of their products.

In other countries, health care is a taxpayer burden. It is here too, but we pay through many circuitous routes that have caused jobs to leave the country. We add these costs to our product prices, and it makes us uncompetitive with products that come from countries that already have taxpayer-paid medical systems. Corporations in Canada pay only an $800 annual per-employee tax. The result, as just one example: The Big Three auto companies now make more cars in Ontario than in Detroit, and Toyota just selected Canada over the United States for its new Rav4 manufacturing plant. Jobs are leaving our country because they are doing it right and we are doing it wrong!

Single-payer health care is better option
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, July 14, 2005 - See complete article HERE.

A recent column in the Journal Sentinel by George Ott ("Insurance pool idea unwise," July 1) argued against creating a Wisconsin pool for those who do not have health insurance. While I agree with his basic idea, that the pool would create a large tax burden on Wisconsin business and therefore should be opposed, there were problems with his position.

It's time to bypass employers and try a single-payer health care system
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, July 4, 2005 - See complete article HERE.

Let's let employers get out of the medical care business.

After spending 35 years in the health care industry, I never thought I'd be supporting more government involvement in medicine. But, clearly, our private system is broken.

Double-digit increases in health care costs are driving manufacturing jobs out of the country. That will continue if the system is not fixed.

 

Political System

Perks? We Have Bigger Fish To Fry
WisOpinion.com, December 8, 2006 - See complete article HERE.

Sen. Alberta Darling's concern about legislators' inappropriate sick leave costing taxpayers $3.2 million per year is understandable, but frankly, the state has incredibly bigger fiscal problems to worry about.

I'm less concerned about the $1 per taxpayer we pay for legislator perks than I am the $1300 per taxpayer our politicians give away every year to special interests that fund their political campaigns. That $4 billion steals funds from other critically needed services like universal health care and education. They should be ashamed.

The Lesser Of Two Evils? Hold Your Nose And Vote!
WisOpinion.com, November 3, 2006 - See complete article HERE.

Few would argue that state and federal politicians - on both sides of the isle - are not more beholden to campaign funders than to their voting constituents. When our 2000 state referendum passed with 90 percent public support for campaign reform, the legislature creatively constructed and governor McCallum signed a sham law shortly before the 2002 election. But it was laced with a poison pill purposely designed to kill it, and it worked exactly as planned. An audible sigh of relief was heard as the courts disqualified it after the election.

Even as a lifelong Republican, I know that my party is not going to fix our corrupt political system, but instead, promise to make it worse. It was the Republican assembly that blatantly killed our only chance for ethics reform this year, and it is my party that has not lifted a finger to reduce the heavy taxes resulting from government giveaways to corporate contributors.

We've Tried It And It Doesn't Work. Let's Buy Back Our Government
WisOpinion.com, September 13, 2006 - See complete article HERE.

Let me see if I have this right. Violent crime is on the rise nationwide.

As well, all reports confirm that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. The top fifth of Americans now receive over half of America's annual income and own 83 percent of the shares in the stock market. The divide between CEO and worker pay has widened to over 500-to-one. The average CEO salary is in the $10 million range, yet we can't get the federal minimum wage increased from $5.15 per hour. Congressmen have received seven salary increases and have given nine tax cuts to the wealthy since the minimum wage was last adjusted.

Putting the Capital 'D' Back Into Democracy
WisOpinion.com, August 28, 2006 - See complete article HERE.

So here we have it. Three gubernatorial candidates went through the legal channels and electoral obligations, filing papers and getting the requisite number of constituent signatures to demonstrate voter support.

Good for them. That's what I call Democracy with a capital "D."

But that's where democracy ended in our state's gubernatorial race. Those controlling the debates and polls have decided that the third-party candidate, Nelson Eisman, doesn't deserve to be in the race because he hasn't "polled" as high as the other two, Jim Doyle and Mark Green from the Duopoly Party.

Let's take back our democracy
Small Business Times, August 18, 2006 - See complete article HERE.

Our political system seems to be working just as designed. Or redesigned, I should say, by modern-day politicians. But why do business leaders accept the current double standard. Honest corporate leaders demand a management team void of personal conflicts of interest, and one that is funded by its product sales and its shareholders. That's understandable.

Conservatives Should Think About Being More Conservative
WisOpinion.com, August 18, 2006 - See complete article HERE.

In the recent post of Corey Davison's review of the nation's fiscal problems, I agree with 100 percent of his concerns. However, it was what was not said that bothered me the most.

Davison, of the conservative Concord Coalition, is absolutely correct when he nails the problem to expenditures rising faster than revenues. Most of us recognize that yearly deficits accumulate to long-term debt, and increases in revenues (taxes) or cuts in services (like Medicare and Social Security) are the solutions most often suggested by conservative think tanks.

Public Funding Of Campaigns Is Only Road To Clean Government
The Capital Times, August 1, 2006 - See complete article HERE.

Our political system seems to be working just as designed. Or redesigned, I should say, by modern-day politicians.

But why do business leaders accept the current double standard? Honest corporate leaders demand a management team void of personal conflicts of interest, and one that is funded by its product sales and its shareholders. That's understandable.

Future Generations Deserve a Democracy; Not a Plutocracy
WisOpinion.com, July 31, 2006 - See complete article HERE.

Our political system seems to be working just as designed. Or redesigned, I should say, by modern-day politicians.

But why do business leaders accept the current double standard? Honest corporate leaders demand a management team void of personal conflicts of interest, and one that is funded by its product sales and its shareholders. That's understandable.

Reform Not on the Table; Politicians Must be Tossed
WisOpinion.com, July 18, 2006 - See complete article HERE.

Reform? Of course not. According to the FBI only 1,060 federal, state and local public officials were convicted in 2004 and 2005, and today the FBI task force has only a little more than 2000 active cases going. What with Wisconsin having only a half dozen of our once-finest politicians in various stages of conviction, sentencing or serving time in jail, those who are still free seem content to wait until things get worse before they fix the system.

On Corporate Taxes, Let's Think Outside of the Box
WisOpinion.com, July 18, 2006 - See complete article HERE.

In a recent Milwaukee Journal article, "Rethinking our corporate tax climate," John Torinus touches on important issues that our state politicians must start thinking about, and corporate taxes are just one of them. The truth is, globalization has changed the playing field and we must reset to zero on many key business issues.

Let's look at one extreme: How about cutting corporate taxes to zero? I favor that approach because the public is paying all corporate taxes anyway when we buy product at the cash register. It's built into the product prices, like consumption taxes would be, and are thus now regressive. Let's eliminate the middlemen -- the high-cost accounting firms that finagle the corporate tax breaks -- and have the public pay all taxes up front. We can be even smarter than that by giving the Zero Tax to only those companies whose CEO-to-worker salary ratio is less than 100-to-1; then let the boards of directors decide which is more important to the company. That will attract new business to the state and keep old businesses here, and greatly simplify tax preparation for all except those who can afford their own accountant.

Proposes presidential line-item veto: It won't 'fix' anything in our corrupt system
Wisconsin State Journal, July 15, 1006

So now US Rep. Paul Ryan has introduced HR 4890, a bill to allow the president to line item veto.

They say that things will have to get much worse before they get better, and the line item veto will clearly make things much worse. If that passes the campaign bribes that went to congressmen to get the pork inserted in the first place, then must generate an equal amount for the president so the pork is not vetoed when signed. Unless, of course, you are already a political briber of the right persuasion.

No, the real answer is to get the private money entirely out of the political system, and that can only be done with full public funding of campaigns. For $10 per taxpayer per year we could fully fund the federal elections and eliminate the bribery that fuels the annual $300 billion of congressional giveaways. That’s over $3000 per taxpayer per year, so a $10 investment is a bargain at 100 times the price.

If I had an employee giving away company assets while taking bribes on the side, I’d have him jailed. We Americans are not very smart. When politicians do this we just re-elect them.

Stacking the Deck
WisOpinion.com, July 6, 2006 - See complete article HERE.

We all know that you can get poll numbers to say virtually anything you want them to say, as was recently demonstrated in the poll by the conservative Wisconsin Policy Research Institute.

If that was the intent, the public deserves better than a disingenuous effort to tilt the playing field toward a right wing political system that relies on corporate cash, special interest funds and outright corruption to keep its politicians in office. WPRI should go stand in the corner.

Ethics reform dance embarrasses Kaufert
Appleton Post Crescent, June 24, 2006 - See complete article HERE.

Give me a break. So now state Rep. Dean Kaufert, in his June 15 guest column, is invoking the Kerry Defense: First he supported the Senate Ethics Bill (SB1) before he voted against it? He should be ashamed of his role in this travesty, not writing an editorial covering up the truth of it.

Clean Up the Political System
Small Business Times, June 9, 2006 - See complete article HERE.

Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) has some good ideas on how to reduce gas prices, and he has some good ideas for resolving the immigration crisis.

But Jim repeatedly refuses to accept the political catalyst fueling his opponents. If we didn't have a moneyed political system that virtually demanded bad government policies and spending in return for campaign cash, we wouldn't have these and other problems to begin with.

Sensenbrenner Should First Work to Clean Up the Political System
WisOpinion.com, May 30, 2006 - See complete article HERE.

In his May 24th column, U.S. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner has some good ideas on how to reduce gas prices, and he has some good ideas with regard to resolving the immigration crisis. But Jim repeatedly refuses to accept the political catalyst fueling his opponents.

If we didn't have a moneyed political system that virtually demanded bad government policies and spending in return for campaign cash, we wouldn't have these and other problems to begin with.

It's about politics, money
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, April 10, 2006

Mr. President, tear down this wall. No, not the one in Berlin; that one is already gone. I'm talking about the 14-foot fence that's being built between the United States and Mexico. I'm not against the fence, mind you. We must stop illegal immigrants from entering the U.S., and the fence will help. But this whole immigration issue is a political farce.

The president and our politicians have been paid well - in campaign contributions from corporations seeking to depress U.S. wages - to turn their heads as Mexicans crossed the border. And the same politicians are now up in arms because their hands-off policy has created a problem.

The real travesty is that were it not for our moneyed political system, illegal immigration would never have grown to its current proportion. But now that the problem is being discussed, I'd feel a lot better if I knew that campaign cash was not still controlling it.

Full public funding of campaigns would eliminate these conflicts. If politicians are to be beholden to their funders, I'd rather those funders be the taxpayers. For less than $10 per taxpayer per year, we could have a government owned by the people instead of the special interests.

Democrats Would Clean Up if They'd Clean Up the System
WisOpinion.com, December 5, 2005 - See complete article HERE.

So what's a voter to do? The Republicans are bad, but the Democrats haven't been any better not even when in power.

Gov. Doyle isn't willing to address the real issues of concern. Sounds to me like walking papers.

First and foremost, the voters want honest government, and with that alone we'd see many of our issues automatically fix themselves. Get private money out of our public electoral system, period! We want the special interests out and the taxpayers in, and the only way to achieve that is to install full public financing of campaigns, the same as they have in Arizona and Maine. Once their voters connected the dots, they overwhelmingly voted to pay $5 each for their electoral process. And it's working beautifully, much to the chagrin of the moneyed lobbyists.

Why they lost
FightingBob.com, December 21,2004 - See complete article HERE.

I am a lifelong Republican who has voted for George W. Bush for president twice. (I saw little difference between him and Kerry on most of the important issues, but favored Bush on matters of national security.) Nonetheless, I would like to see a strong competitive party -- one with guts -- hold the GOP in check.