Don't forget to vote!
Democrats - Tuesday Nov 7
Republicans - Wednesday Nov 8
(Okay, just kidding. See Item 2)

Politicians are like diapers. They should both be changed frequently and for the same reason.

This is a periodic newsletter on election and health care reform. If you wish not to receive it please unsubscribe at the bottom and accept my apologies for the intrusion.
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In this issue:

1) Health Care

2) Election Guidelines

3) Editorial

4) From TooMuchOnline.org

5) Tidbits

6) Give me a Break!

7) Book recommendations

8) Contact Information

9) Removal instructions
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Health Care

How Doctors Are Yielding Their Profession To The CEOs (By Jack Lohman) 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:

"The Word of Those With Whom We Do Business:" The State of Ethics in Healthcare - By Fred Goldstein, for HealthLeaders News, Apr. 14, 2006. This is not a pretty sight.

Health-care crisis for business - Business leaders must push reform to rein in costs and protect coverage -- By Brian Klepper -- Last September the CEOs of several Fortune firms -- Costco, Verizon, Honeywell, Starbucks, Drugstore.com -- met in Washington to register alarm over unrelenting health-care cost growth. The meeting sent two important messages. First, if not restrained, health-care costs will trump every firm's profitability and competitiveness. No commitment to generous benefits can withstand them. Over the last five years health-care premiums -- where all health-care costs converge -- have risen 5.5 times as fast as general inflation, 4 times as fast as workers' earnings and 2.3 times as fast as business income growth. Second, rather than sending subordinates, the CEOs went to Washington themselves. This conveyed that the crisis now warrants the focus of our most influential business leaders and immediate attention on the national policy agenda. See the complete article HERE.

Democrats Critical of New Medicare Guide -- WASHINGTON, Oct. 29 — Congressional Democrats say a new government publication being sent to all Medicare beneficiaries inappropriately favors private insurance plans over the traditional government-run program. See the complete article HERE.

“You have your choice of a weekly pay check or health insurance. ”

October 25^th, 2006 - Now is the Time to Win a Single Payer National Healthcare System!

Finally, the time has come, and Healthcare-NOW has been front and center – refusing to accept the “general wisdom” that we just couldn’t do it --insisting for the past three years that we should not wait to build this movement until there was a positive government -- free of the private profiteers.

So, now the movement is growing by leaps and bounds. Through our rapid response network and the Citizen/Congressional Hearings, both major media and many Members of Congress have become convinced. Through your stalwart efforts, your constant advocacy and your creative organizing events, “single payer” has become the buzzword that people now understand. You’ve helped many sectors, particularly the labor movement (thanks to our Kentucky organizer, Kay Tillow) and the “barely insured middle class” to understand that we are all in jeopardy but that there is a solution.

Does this mean that we are almost there? Not hardly. Does it mean that the health industrial complex will just roll over and quit lobbying state and federal legislators to sign onto plans that will keep their profits growing? That’ll be the day!

The industry’s private profiteers are trying all kinds of schemes to keep themselves in control of our healthcare dollars and our healthcare system. But more and more thousands of people are “onto them”…becoming aware that we don’t need them. What we need is a “single payer” solution that we can afford and that will work for every person in this country. And by the way, our success on this issue will have a positive effect for people all over the world, particularly in poor countries who are struggling to get the profits out their healthcare systems.

What can you do? Get out the vote. Talk to everybody. Be sure that all the people who support us are elected or re-elected. Be sure they know we expect them to fight for us once they get into office. Then get ready to work harder than ever to organize the people, participate in organizing, push through the hearings, and foment the legislative debate that will get us where we need to be in 2008.

Healthcare-NOW organizers will be having a National Strategy Meeting the weekend after the election. At that time, we will be deciding together on the strategies we will pursue during the coming months. Send us your ideas. Send us some money! It is an opportunity for you to step up to the plate and play a strategic role. I don’t like to ask for money, but please, send us some money! We can’t do any of this without you! Just go to our website and put in your credit card number on the “Donate” button now. Or write a check. www.healthcare-now.org Then, call us up or send us an email to share your strategy ideas. We really want to hear from you.

Healthcare-NOW is a movement of volunteers working very long hours. Already, we have coalitions in about 120 cities. Remember, “Movement Building” is the way we have always won people’s victories in this country. That’s why you as a volunteer organizer and all the people you talk to in your own community are so important. You are a part of a growing movement. Now is our time, perhaps the only time we will have in the near future! We are closer to a national healthcare system than we have been in 50 years. But it won’t come easily. You can play a strategic and historic role in winning the right to health care and defeating the healthcare profiteers. Do it NOW at the polls and NOW with your contributions and ideas. Don’t wait. Our combined efforts are essential. We probably won’t have this opportunity again for a very long time. Write us; call us; join us now. www.healthcare-now.org

Marilyn Clement, National Coordinator
Healthcare-NOW info@healthcare-now.org
339 Lafayette Street, New York, NY 10012
1-800-453-1305

Healthcare-NOW supports (as do I) the John Conyers Medicare-for-all bill, HR676. Ask your US congressman to sign on as a co-sponsor.

And don't miss Paying More but Getting Less by Tom Daschle

Healthy skepticism - MASSACHUSETTS is in the midst of yet another healthcare experiment. By July, all residents will be legally required to have health insurance -- a so-called "individual mandate." The bill's sponsors believe that the uninsured can buy their way out of their predicament. As doctors in an urban hospital, we are not optimistic about this proposal. We care for uninsured and underinsured patients who often lack the resources to eat well or find proper child care, much less to buy insurance. The individual mandate is another ill-fated Band-Aid. See complete article HERE.

Forcing people to invest in health care insurance, when that is the system consuming the 30% of administrative costs, is falling into the hands of the insurance industry. Why have "insurance" at all, when a Medicare-for-all system could be had for the same dollars expended today? Follow the money!

Special Election Guidelines - Nov 7th
with the help of the
League of Women Voters

Where to vote?

You'd think that finding your polling place would be something made easy, if for no other reason than to increase voter turnout. You'd be wrong. My experience was first to visit the State Elections Board web site, then following a link to the county court house, whom I called and was told to call my municipal clerk. Finally I found where to vote, which was different from where it was last year. Duh!

This is a disgrace in this day and age. Has the state election board ever thought of putting maps on its website? Or a searchable database? Or do they prefer low voter turnout?

For Washington County, click on Polling Locations and select your township.

For other counties find your phone numbers HERE.

Referenda Questions:

On Gay Marriage: Vote YES to oppose gay marriage or NO to support gay marriage.

It is only a matter of time before gay unions are accepted nationwide, so perhaps we should leave marriage to the churches and gay unions to the states. I'm sensitive to the argument that this is really an individual rights issue that should not be dictated by the churches. But I unequivocally oppose gay adoption because it involves a third and usually involuntary child, and I am not willing to experiment with the long term effects.

On the Death Penalty: Vote YES to support the death penalty or NO to oppose the death penalty.

I'm concerned about implementing the death penalty, though I'd be the first to pull the trigger on Jeffrey Dahmer. But I don't trust the timing of the DNA. What if a boyfriend has consensual sex with his girlfriend, but she is later killed by a jealous suitor? Who goes to the chair?

These are issues of conscience, and must be dealt with by the individual voter. I am a supporter of voter participation in these questions, but I know full well that they are only advisory and politicians will do as they damned well please regardless of voter input (see #4 below).

Polling place procedures in Wisconsin may look a little different this fall.

Many provisions of new state legislation designed to improve and protect the integrity of the election process went into effect on July 1. Wisconsin Act 451 was prepared by the bipartisan Joint Legislative Council’s Special Committee on Election Law Review and signed into law by Governor Doyle last spring.

Here are a few things to expect when you go to vote on November 7:

Who Will Be There:

· Election observers may be present. These are individuals and organization representatives who register ahead of time to monitor election proceedings. The chief inspector of the polling place may restrict the location of the observers, as long as they are able to see and hear all public aspects of the voting process. The chief inspector may remove any observer who is disruptive or who tries to influence voters.

· A poll greeter may be present. These election officials welcome voters and can answer any questions you may have.

Polling Places Activity:

· The new law requires that a map of the geographical area served by the polling place be posted in municipalities with more than one polling place.

· At 8:00 p.m. an election official will mark the end of the line of voters waiting. If you are at the poll before closing time, you should be allowed to vote.

· Unlike previous years, some municipalities may count absentee ballots at a central location rather than at the polling places.

· If you do not know where your polling place is, you will need to contact your municipal clerk. A statewide listing of clerks is available through the state elections board, online at http://elections.state.wi.us/index.asp or by calling 608-266-8005.

Registration and Voting Procedures:

· If you are voting for the first time in Wisconsin or have registered by mail, you may need to show identification and/or proof of residence at the poll. Contact your municipal clerk to check your registration status and/or see a listing of approved documents.

· Ex-felons regain their right to vote when they are no longer required to report to a probation or parole officer.

· Election officials will have a list of deceased voters in the district, as well as felons ineligible to vote. A person whose name appears on either list has the right to cast a challenged ballot, and the case will be reviewed following the election.

· After the election the list of those who registered to vote on election day will be checked for individuals who gave a faulty address or who appear to have voted more than once.

· If you have any questions about how to register or how to vote, please contact the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin at 608-256-0827 or lwvwisconsin@lwvwi.org

Electronic Voting

I do hope our state leaders are not stupid enough (I know, that's an oxymoron) to fall for the Diebold touch-screen voting machine sales pitch. Having programmed computers for 20 years, let me assure you that I could rig a computer to visibly display your vote, write your vote to a printer for a paper record, and then add your vote to the candidate's column of MY choosing. I could also be discriminate and only do it only when my candidate is losing, and only when needed to swing the election.

If you want to find out why state politicians are excited about electronic voting, FOLLOW THE MONEY!

Editorial

The lesser of two evils? Hold your nose and vote!

By Jack E. Lohman

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 80% 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.

Why should voters care? Because Wisconsin is the third highest taxed state in the nation, and it should surprise no one that virtually all of the state’s $4 billion in yearly corporate welfare goes to those who make campaign contributions. That’s $1300 per taxpayer per year, when just $5 per taxpayer is all we’d need to publicly fund our elections.

Interestingly, in Arizona’s Clean Election system the taxpayers don’t even fund the $5 election costs; criminals do. Some would cynically say that’s also the case in Wisconsin, but Arizona adds a surcharge to traffic and criminal fines, so if you don’t want to contribute to the electoral process, don’t break the law!

Wisconsin also has the highest health care costs of all Midwestern states, thanks to the $1.4 million in campaign contributions from that industry. Though we pay about 50% more in health care costs than we should, even our non-healthcare business leaders are doing nothing to fix the system. Thus businesses and jobs are leaving the state, all while we’ve transformed health care from a social service into a for-profit market commodity.

Both lower taxes and improved health care solutions are constantly being blocked by our corporately controlled legislature, and it is time for a major leadership change.

Voters from the center – right and left – must send the message that they are now in charge; that they are not going to take it any more, and are expelling the politicians that have been milking the system. That means that virtually all Republicans and most Democrats must go, your politicians included.

I am not a Governor Doyle fan, and I view with disgust the corruption surrounding his casino and other campaign contributions from special interests in the state. But a look at Mark Green’s state and federal voting record tells me it could get a lot worse, and he’s not from the same conservative Republican Party I grew up with. I’ll be voting for the lesser of two evils because there is at least a chance of reform if Doyle is re-elected and virtually none if Green prevails.

Our unethical political system has hit rock bottom, and the only way up is with a new team. But get this message loud and clear: if the Democrats assume power and fail to fix our corrupt political system in the next legislative session, there will be as big an effort for regime change in 2008. Legislators will lose their jobs, guaranteed.

It is time for voters to demonstrate that rhetoric no longer counts. When the government is poorly managed, we will take control. We have that power, and we have that obligation.

-- Lohman is a retired business owner from Colgate and founder of www.ThrowTheRascalsOut.org. He can be reached at jelohman@gmail.com.

From www.TooMuchOnline.org

A Modern Medical Miracle: William McGuire's Fortune

You won’t find anything terribly original in the corporate career of William McGuire, the CEO kicked into retirement last week by insurance mega giant UnitedHealth.

McGuire didn't do much to break new ground over 14 years as the company’s top exec. He simply followed the standard contemporary American CEO playbook. He merged, he purged, he gouged, and he cheated his way to personal fortune.

The cheating — on stock options — has now come back to bite McGuire. On his way to pocketing over $520 million in compensation from 1992 through 2005, charges a law firm report commissioned by UnitedHealth last spring and released a week ago Sunday, McGuire had his options repeatedly “backdated.”

Three different times McGuire picked up massive option grants from the UnitedHealth board that gave the CEO the right to buy company shares at what turned out to be the stock’s lowest price of the year. Nice coincidence.

Another time, McGuire had the UnitedHealth board “suspend” 750,000 of his options after the company’s share price slumped. The board then replaced the suspended options with new options, all much more potentially profitable. Months later, the board “reactivated” the suspended options. Bottom line: an extra $250 million for McGuire.

McGuire, of course, didn’t spend all his time as CEO conspiring to supersize his personal net worth. He did devote time to actually running the company. That work, in large part, revolved around plotting a series of mergers that turned UnitedHealth into the 800-pound gorilla of America’s medical marketplace.

One in six Americans, the Washington Post noted last week, now pay insurance premiums to UnitedHealth. These one in six Americans aren’t benefiting particularly much from the “economies of scale” that mergers in the health insurance industry were supposed to create.

Back in 1987, as New America Foundation health policy director Len Nichols noted last week at a forum on the at-risk American middle class, premiums for a typical family health insurance policy ate up 8 percent of the income for a typical American family. That same policy today chomps away 19 percent of typical family income.

Health insurer mergers, on the other hand, have worked wonders for companies like UnitedHealth. During McGuire’s CEO tenure, for instance, the UnitedHealth share price soared over fifty-fold.

For this fine performance, McGuire will continue to be rewarded, despite the backdating scandal. On December 1, the day he formally steps down as CEO, McGuire will walk away with retirement payouts, options, and assorted other benefits worth a potential $1.1 billion.

We have more on William McGuire.

Tidbits

Please give me your feedback: This newsletter is being printed with 10-pt type as opposed to the 12-pt previously used. Please send me one of the following blank emails:

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So now Google is giving dollars to Sensenbrenner? Check HERE. Google has taken a high-profile role in seeking to put "network neutrality" rules into law. Three of the five lawmakers taken pro-Net neutrality positions in efforts to pass telecommunications legislation before Congress. They are Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., and James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Wilson is currently in a tight battle for re-election against state attorney general Patricia Madrid (D).

I agree with Google, but I wish they didn't have to buy my congressman.

The System's Broken - If you pay close attention to the news and then go out and talk to ordinary people, it’s hard not to come away with the feeling that the system of politics and government in the U.S. is broken. [This reporter] spent the past week talking to residents in Chicago, southern Michigan and Indiana. No one was happy about the direction the country has taken, but not even the most faithful voters were confident that their ballot would make any substantial difference. See complete article HERE.

Good links From Taxpayers for Common Sense

TCS in the News
Newspaper, watchdog group stand by earmarking allegations against Taylor (Asheville Citizen-Times, North Carolina)
Where they stand: Cantwell vs. McGavick on the issues (Seattle Times)
Rogers' role in tourism contract draws scrutiny (Louisville Courier-Journal)
Weldon's Ties to Serbian Businessman Part of Probe (Washington Post)
Rep. Charles Taylor focus of Wall St. Journal article (Tryon Daily Bulletin,North Carolina)
Taylor faces challenge in 4th district (Hattiesburg American, Mississippi)
Mounting image woes for Congress (Rocky Mountain News, Colorado)
Pork or Public Service? (Virginia Connection Newspapers)
Disaster center records lacking (Mobile Register, Alabama)
Robert D. Novak: Key Republicans remain addicted to pork barrel gluttony
Seat in Congress Helps Mr. Taylor Help His Business (Wall Street Journal)
Defense contractors weigh Majority Leader Murtha (The Hill)
Candidates hope to keep federal cash flowing (Scranton Times-Tribune)
COTTON BAILOUT: Allies in the fight (Atlanta Journal Constitution)
Bridge to Nowhere (New York Times Magazine)
Pork Before Defense (New York Post)
A Frist by Any Other Name (Nashville Scene)

Give me a Break!

Watch these Dancers and their quick-change antics.

Okay, you figure THIS ONE out.

And Profiles in Courage #3 from Working Assets.

The Silent Treatment

A man and his wife were having some problems at home and were giving each other the silent treatment.

Suddenly, the man realized that the next day, he would need his wife to wake him at 5:00 AM for an early morning business flight. Not wanting to be the first to break the silence (and LOSE), he wrote on a piece of paper, "Please wake me at 5:00 AM." He left it where he knew she would find it.

The next morning, the man woke up, only to discover it was 9:00 AM and he had missed his flight. Furious, he was about to go and see why his wife hadn't wakened him, when he noticed a piece of paper by the bed.

The paper said, "It is 5:00 AM. Wake up."

Men are not equipped for these kinds of contests.

Why not to mess with kids

A little Girl was talking to her Teacher about Whales.

The Teacher said it was physically impossible for a whale to swallow a Human
because even though it was a very large mammal, its throat was very small.

The little girl stated that Jonah was swallowed by a whale.

Irritated, the Teacher reiterated that a whale could not swallow a human; it was
physically impossible.

The little girl said, "When I get to Heaven I will ask Jonah".

The teacher asked, "What if Jonah went to Hell?"

The little girl replied, "Then you ask him."

370HSSV-0773H

After numerous rounds of "We don't know if Osama is still alive", Osama
himself decided to send George Bush a letter in his own handwriting to let
him know he was still in the game.

Bush opened the letter and it appeared to contain a single line of coded
message:

370HSSV-0773H

Bush was baffled, so he e-mailed it to John Kerry. Kerry and his aides
had no clue either, so they sent it to the FBI.

No one could solve it at the FBI so it went to the CIA, then to the NSA.
With no clue as to its meaning, the FBI finally asked Britain's MI-6 for
help. Within a minute MI-6 cabled back with this reply:

"Tell the FBI that Bush is holding the message upside down."

Book Recommendations

See other reviews on Amazon.com

War on the Middle Class: How the Government, Big Business, and Special Interest Groups Are Waging War on the American Dream and How to Fight Back (Hardcover)
by Lou Dobbs

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Though a self-confessed "lifelong Republican and a strong believer in free enterprise," Dobbs's opinions have evolved away from mainline GOP and corporate dogma. Charging that the Clinton and Bush administrations have waged "class warfare" on the American middle class, he criticizes their free trade policies, which have eliminated manufacturing jobs in the U.S., either outright or by outsourcing them. He's scornful of a GOP that panders to its fundamentalist religious base with bills that focus on abortion, gay marriage and the Pledge of Allegiance while the huge federal deficits ("an estate tax on the middle class and their children") spiral out of control. He rails against the K Street lobbyists, like Jack Abramoff, and their friends in Congress; chastises the credit card and banking industries for engineering the new bankruptcy law to their own profits; and criticizes the press for its sloppy "he says, she says" journalism. But Dobbs risks slipping from populist to demagogue in his jeremiad against the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in this country and his support for the vigilante Minuteman Project. Agree with him or not, Dobbs remains a refreshingly bold thinker who refuses to be intellectually pigeonholed. (Oct. 9)

Also being a lifelong Republican and a strong believer in free enterprise, I totally agree with him. I'm only to chapter 3, and I'm very impressed. Unlike his other book, Dobbs has linked the problem to the moneyed interests.

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Contact information

Lohman is a retired business owner in Colgate WI and volunteers’ time on the issues of Election reform and Universal health care -

Contact: Jack E. Lohman
jelohman@gmail.com or jelohman@charter.net
Phone 414-477-8686 (cell)
www.ThrowTheRascalsOut.org
www.WiCleanElections.org

www.wi-cfr.org (old but still useful data)

www.MoneyedPoliticians.com (my book: Politicians - Owned and Operated by Corporate America)

www.SmokeFreeDining.net (A searchable restaurant database)

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Disclosure: I am a center-right Republican that voted for Bush twice (though at this point I wish I could have a do-over). But the Republicans look worse here because they are in power and the party blocking reform. Next year it may be the Democrats taking center stage. Were I to have a political choice it would be for a strong third-party reform candidate in all seats. I do not like our very costly and ineffective duopoly. Jack Lohman

See Lohman's complete disclosure HERE.

Wisconsin Clean Elections Coalition

Where to vote?

Referenda Questions:

The lesser of two evils? Hold your nose and vote!