For an HTML version of this please go to www.ThrowTheRascalsOut.org/eNewsletter33.htm

 

Wisconsin Clean Elections Coalition

Promoting fair elections for all parties and candidates

eNewsletter #33

February 10, 2007

 www.ThrowTheRascalsOut.org

Newsletter Archives 

In this issue:

1) Health Care 

2) Federal Single-Payer option on the table

3) Where is Sensenbrenner when you need him?

4) More on health care

5) Tidbits 

6) Give me a Break!

7) Book recommendations

8)  Contact Information

9)  Removal instructions
.

 

1

Health Care

Interesting. Now that Bush has given all of his tax breaks to wealthy campaign contributors, his new budget proposal is now reconciling the taxpayer losses with a $12 billion cut in Medicare and Medicaid. That's my kinda guy!!!

1/8/2007

Universal Health Care Is Most Business Friendly

By Jack E. Lohman

With the vast majority of the public -- and even the "non-healthcare" business leaders -- supporting universal health care, why are our politicians not on board?

It makes every bit of financial sense for businesses to get out of providing health care and to turn it over to the most successful ever public-private venture: Medicare. As a Medicare patient I have the same coverage and physician choice I had before retiring. It's just managed by a single payer: WPS in Madison.

Don't think for a moment that single-payer is just another liberal giveaway; it is the most fiscally conservative way possible of financing health care for Wisconsin citizens, and Sen. Mark Miller and Rep. Chuck Benedict have a Medicare-like proposal on the table for consideration that deserves top consideration.

Medicare-for-all would do wonders for businesses by reducing labor costs by 15 percent; reducing worker compensation costs by 50 percent; and cutting their and everybody else's auto insurance rates in half. With these reduced costs they could add jobs in Wisconsin rather than sending them to other countries. Health care would no longer be a labor union negotiation and job changes would not involve gaps in insurance, preexisting disease exclusions or delays, or COBRA costs.

New jobs would mean new tax revenues, increased property values, and less unemployment, welfare and associated costs. New businesses will move to Wisconsin and old businesses will keep their doors open. And when businesses no longer have to add their health costs to the price of their product, we will see lower prices at the cash register and greater competitiveness against foreign products that aren't burdened with health care costs.

Who wouldn't like these single-payer benefits?

For one, the insurance companies that are currently reaping 20-30 percent of health care dollars won't like it a bit, and neither will the politicians who receive campaign contributions from health care interests. Nor will the board members that sit on both health care and non-health care corporate boards, though business associations that serve both factions owe it to the latter to sit this issue out. The conflicts of interest that stand in the way of good public policy abound.

If corporations are not willing to provide employee health care at least equivalent to Medicare, they should get out of the way and let the government do it. We don't want their inadequately funded solutions or a mish-mash of prohibitively expensive half-way measures. Or health savings accounts that are time bombs waiting to explode in credit card debt and bankruptcies.

Nor do we want an incremental approach that will not cover all citizens and is sure to fail. The public wants it done right and wants it done now.

Think about it. For the same amount of money we are paying to cover 85 percent of the public now, we could cover 100 percent under a single-payer plan like Canada's -- but without the wait times. Over 80 percent of Canadians prefer their system to ours. Their life expectancy is two years longer and infant mortality 35 percent less than ours -- mostly because everybody is insured under a single-payer plan.

Canada spends 10 percent of its gross domestic product on health care while we spend 15 percent of GDP and get less for it. They cover 100 percent of their people and we cover 85 percent and that is shrinking. Their administrative costs are 10 percent compared to our 20-30 percent. They have no wait times for urgent procedures, and those for elective care could be eliminated with a simple increase in funding by 10 percent -- to 11 percent of GDP. While their problem is funding, ours is systemic.

Businesses would fund our transition 100 percent but could phase out over a five-year period. But the sad truth is that ours is not a financial problem, it is political. Or should I say the only financial issue is the $1.4 million in cash that flows from the for-profit health care interests to our state politicians. Anything they can do to delay a fix or make it overly complicated and expensive is well worth their investment in politicians.

With new faces in the state Legislature we stand a reasonable chance of positive movement. And if we don't see it in solid health care and election reform, the voter's option in 2008 is a repeat of 2006: more firing of conflicted state legislators. We now know how that game is won.

-- Lohman is a retired business owner from Colgate, author of "Politicians - Owned and Operated by Corporate America" and founder of http://www.ThrowTheRascalsOut.org. He can be reached at jelohman@gmail.com.

Source: http://wisopinion.com/index.iml?mdl=article.mdl&article=6227

 

2

Federal Single-Payer option on the table

(but only Tammy Baldwin and Gwen Moore are co-sponsors as yet)

 1/25/07

H.R. 676 has been reintroduced:  Single payer, quality, national healthcare!

This is your chance to help make history!  What you do right now will make a huge difference? How can we really get to a quality national healthcare system now, this time around?   

Step One:  We have a great bill, H.R. 676, that covers our medical needs without continuing to support insurance companies.  Improved and enhanced Medicare for All that will save about one third of every dollar we have been spending.

Step Two: We already have 45 Co-sponsors.  Three are not yet listed in the official list below.

Step Three:  We need YOU -- every one of you – yes YOU – to be in touch with your Congress Member today –by the end of January to be sure that he or she signs onto this bill, H.R. 676, and understands that you are committed to seeing it passed.  Visit your Congress Member when he/she comes home; take a delegation with you; call your Member at work 1-866-338-1015 on our toll free number.  Do it now.  And send them letters from our website www.healthcare-now.org.  under “Campaign Tools” and “Write Congress”  Or take a big batch of postcards and hand deliver them to his/her office. 

 Don’t wait for someone else to do this.  You don’t want to miss out on this chance to make history.

FREE CONYERS VIDEO

If you send an email to Healthcare-NOW ( info@healthcare-now.org)  letting us know that your Congress member is on board, we’ll send you a free 7 minute DVD of John Conyers talking about how we can win.  Just let us know.  1-800-453-1305.

Now the next part gets tricky.  But it is really easier.  If your Congress Member is already listed here, then you only have to call to remind him/her that you are supporting the bill and you need him/her to be sure it gets passed.  It is also important to write to Congressman Charles Rangel, and call on him to hold hearings on H.R. 676 during April or as soon as possible.  His fax is 202-225-0816.  His phone is 202-225-4365.  He has already signed onto the bill, so be sure to thank him. 

Tell them all that we are sick and tired of waiting for healthcare in this country.

We want it NOW.

WAY MORE SPONSORS Our bill already has a lot more co-sponsors than any other healthcare bill in the House.  The pundits and the nay-sayers are still saying it is not possible, just too hard – but they haven’t taken into account the broad and growing movement for a national single payer healthcare plan that says “Yes, we can win this. We can do it together.” 

Here’s a really important point. Since the Congress has passed the Pay/Go measure mandating  no deficit spending, our bill, H.R. 676, is the only one that can pass muster because it pays for itself.   Pay as we go.  Single payer is the only way.

By the way, if you want to read the bill, H.R. 676, just go to Thomas.gov, click in Conyers name and scroll down to 676:   

OUR NEW CO-SPONSORS LIST:


Rep Abercrombie, Neil [HI-1] - 1/24/2007
Rep Baldwin, Tammy [WI-2] - 1/24/2007
Rep Carson, Julia [IN-7] - 1/24/2007
Rep Christensen, Donna M. [VI] - 1/24/2007
Rep Clay, Wm. Lacy [MO-1] - 1/24/2007
Rep Cummings, Elijah E. [MD-7] - 1/24/2007
Rep Davis, Danny K. [IL-7] - 1/24/2007
Rep Ellison, Keith [MN-5] - 1/24/2007
Rep Engel, Eliot L. [NY-17] - 1/24/2007
Rep Farr, Sam [CA-17] - 1/24/2007
Rep Fattah, Chaka [PA-2] - 1/24/2007
Rep Filner, Bob [CA-51] - 1/24/2007
Rep Green, Al [TX-9] - 1/24/2007
Rep Grijalva, Raul M. [AZ-7] - 1/24/2007
Rep Gutierrez, Luis V. [IL-4] - 1/24/2007
Rep Hinchey, Maurice D. [NY-22] - 1/24/2007
Rep Honda, Michael M. [CA-15] - 1/24/2007
Rep Jackson, Jesse L., Jr. [IL-2] - 1/24/2007
Rep Jackson-Lee, Sheila [TX-18] - 1/24/2007
Rep Johnson, Eddie Bernice [TX-30] - 1/24/2007
Rep Kilpatrick, Carolyn C. [MI-13] - 1/24/2007
Rep Kucinich, Dennis J. [OH-10] - 1/24/2007
Rep Lee, Barbara [CA-9] - 1/24/2007
Rep Lewis, John [GA-5] - 1/24/2007
Rep Loebsack, David [IA-2] - 1/24/2007
Rep McDermott, Jim [WA-7] - 1/24/2007
Rep McGovern, James P. [MA-3] - 1/24/2007
Rep McNulty, Michael R. [NY-21] - 1/24/2007
Rep Meehan, Martin T. [MA-5] - 1/24/2007
Rep Miller, George [CA-7] - 1/24/2007
Rep Moore, Gwen [WI-4] - 1/24/2007
Rep Pastor, Ed [AZ-4] - 1/24/2007
Rep Payne, Donald M. [NJ-10] - 1/24/2007
Rep Rangel, Charles B. [NY-15] - 1/24/2007
Rep Roybal-Allard, Lucille [CA-34] - 1/24/2007
Rep Scott, Robert C. [VA-3] - 1/24/2007
Rep Towns, Edolphus [NY-10] - 1/24/2007
Rep Watson, Diane E. [CA-33] - 1/24/2007
Rep Weiner, Anthony D. [NY-9] - 1/24/2007
Rep Wexler, Robert [FL-19] - 1/24/2007
Rep Woolsey, Lynn C. [CA-6] - 1/24/2007
Rep Wynn, Albert Russell [MD-4] - 1/24/2007

I would be remiss not to say thank you again to all of you who have worked so hard over the past three years to get to this point.  We will have hearings, and we will get this passed. 

Call us up if you want more information, and go to our website www.healthcare-now.org  for more guidance on what else you can do – holding hearings, getting ready for Martin Luther King Healthcare Month, (APRIL) taking an action every 6th and 7th of each month…1-800-453-1305.

If you are not yet a member, please join us now.  www.healthcare-now.org.

This is a happy day,

Marilyn Clement

National Coordinator, Healthcare-NOW

 

 

3

Where is Sensenbrenner when you need him?

Most certainly he is nowhere in sight on health care reform. As a congressman he enjoys the best health care system in the world; essentially a Medicare-for-all system with no limits. Why doesn't he support that also for his constituents? Follow the money! He owns several million dollars worth of health care stock, the very companies whose profit would suffer under an efficient system. He has a clear conflict of interest, and also votes to kill bills that would eliminate these conflicts.

Here's a look at some of his most recent votes:

College Student Relief Act - Vote Passed (356-71, 8 Not Voting)

This House bill is intended to make college education more affordable by gradually reducing the interest rate on need-based student loans issued after July 2007 from 6.8 percent to 3.4 percent.

Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. voted NO......send e-mail or see bio

Creating Long-Term Energy Alternatives for the Nation Act - Vote Passed (264-163, 8 Not Voting)

This House bill is intended to encourage development of alternate sources of energy.

Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. voted NO......send e-mail or see bio

Implementing the 9/11Commission Recommendations Act - Vote Passed (299-128, 8 Not Voting)

This House bill is intended to implement the remaining 9/11 Commission homeland security recommendations.

Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. voted NO......send e-mail or see bio

Fair Minimum Wage Act - Vote Passed (315-116, 4 Not Voting)

This House bill would raise the minimum wage from $5.15 per hour to $7.25 over the next two years.

Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. voted NO......send e-mail or see bio

Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act - Vote Passed (253-174, 8 Not Voting)

This House bill would expand federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.

Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. voted NO......send e-mail or see bio

Medicare Prescription Drug Price Negotiation Act - Vote Passed (255-170, 10 Not Voting)

This House bill would require the government to negotiate Medicare prescription drug prices with pharmaceutical companies.

Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. voted NO......send e-mail or see bio

Don't forget this guy's "several million dollars worth" of drug company stock! Can't have that fall apart, don'cha know? Count them: Merck, Abbot Labs, Pfizer, IMS Health, Medco Health, and Altria (sorry, that's Philip Morris, on the other side of the health spectrum. A true investor covers his bases!)

Adopting the Rules of the House, Title 4 - Vote Passed (280-152, 3 Not Voting)

During consideration of the resolution setting House rules for the 110th Congress, the chamber approved this section that is intended to reform the earmark process and to reduce deficit spending.

Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. voted NO......send e-mail or see bio

 Sign up at http://www.congress.org/congressorg/megavote/ to get the voting record of your congressman emailed on a weekly basis.

 

4

More on Health Care

 

New: Health Insurance Company Protection Act!

By Jack E. Lohman

Of all of our health care needs, government protection of insurance company mega-profits is not a needed reform. But that apparently won't stop President Bush, who has proposed an annual $7500 single and $15,000 family tax credit for citizens who are either unemployed or whose employer has dumped their health insurance. This would enable them to purchase directly to help insurance companies stay in the loop and retain their profits. Bush also made his usual plug for health savings accounts, for which Wall Street, the credit card industry and bankruptcy attorneys will forever be in his debt.

Tax credits are not the answer. We should be providing health care directly to the patient, not through employers or third-party insurance companies that drain resources.

Follow the money. These are taxpayer assets being given to the insurance industry for non healthcare services -- when instead, the insurance industry shouldn't be getting a penny of our health care dollars. They consume 20% of health care dollars yet provide absolutely zero health care benefits to the patient.

That's a shameful waste. We need administration; not insurance companies. We should totally eliminate the unnecessary costs that are consumed by marketing, salesman commissions, underwriting costs, huge executive salaries, and high corporate profits. None of these would exist under a single-payer system like Canada's. With a strong political will we could mimic Canada's system and extend health care to 100% of the public, and we'd spend the same amount of dollars we are spending today to cover only 85% of the people. To boot, we can do it without Canada's wait times! The money saved would be spent on more doctors and more nurses to serve more patients.

The state must implement a universal health care system, and the proposal by Sen. Mark Miller and Rep. Chuck Benedict provides the mechanism to bring health care to all residents by July 1, 2008. The logical approach would be to contract with an administrative service, like Medicare does with WPS in Madison, and today’s insurance companies would be candidates to serve the state in that capacity. But whenever waste is trimmed people are displaced, and some of those people can be used in administering the new program and others retrained for more critical jobs like nursing, medical technologists, and even by moving some into higher paying programming positions that will be needed to convert our massive paper-based medical records system to an electronic patient database to track practice variations and success rates.

There are other health care proposals, but none are as extensive and none are as simple. With added complexity comes costly administration, the very thing we must eliminate if we are to afford the system. With single-payer, the patient receives services and the administrator writes the check. It's that simple. We'd incorporate BadgerCare and Medicaid patients, and we'd cut worker compensation and auto insurance rates in half because the medical portions of those are handled by the universal system. And we'd not be hampered by federal laws that prohibit negotiating for lower drug prices, so our single-risk pool would enable us to maximize the economies of scale.

The Miller-Benedict proposal is not just the best system for the public, it is also the most business friendly proposal on the table. It will attract more companies and more jobs to the state than the others, and fewer businesses and jobs will be lost. Initially it would be funded by a payroll tax and the transfer of funds from the other systems it replaces.

What's not to like about that?

Our current problem is not funding, it is political. Some politicians claim that the government can't do anything right and they will fight to privatize the system. I'd probably buy that argument were it not for the fact that government-run entities cannot give campaign contributions and private corporations and their executives can. And they do, because the last thing in the world they want to see is our health care system made more efficient.

But it is time for politicians to put politics aside and do what's right for the state.


-- Lohman is a retired business owner from Colgate, author of "Politicians - Owned and Operated by Corporate America" and founder of http://www.ThrowTheRascalsOut.org. He can be reached at jelohman@gmail.com.

 

 

 

5

Tidbits

I expected to take the holidays off and give you guys a breather. I didn't expect to lose the display on my main computer, a PC laptop. Instead of spending $1700 to replace the screen, I saved the hard drive data and bought an Apple MacBook Pro. The jury is still out on that decision. I sure miss the PrintScreen button.

The Mac clearly has a better operating system (Unix) than the PC, in that it doesn't fiddle with a registry every time you load software and go through the boot process.

Also available for it is a program called Parallels that lets you run Windows in half of the computer and Mac software in the other half, even simultaneously and on the same screen. That, too, is in its infancy and not totally there yet, but it shows great promise. Another program called Boot Camp allows you to switch between the Mac and PC mode on startup, which is how I expect I'll run it. I am not convinced on the much-touted Mac video and audio software superiority, but I may eventually get there. So many third-party packages are available for the PC that it currently stands out as the most flexible to me. But the MacBook Pro will ultimately allow both software capabilities if you can live with the keyboard idiosyncrasies. 

Okay, so I fell for it. I upgraded to Vista.

Do I recommend it? Not if what you have is doing everything you want. My upgrade required a new duo-core computer, though if you are not doing video editing with the new Microsoft MovieMaker software and don't require a heftier graphics card and motherboard you might get by quite well with your current computer.

Mainly a new computer allowed me to start fresh and eliminate a lot of the old junk I never use, but I could have done that with a new hard drive and reinstalling XP. You can be sure that the Vista operating system offers changes. Improvements not always, but certainly changes. The new Office 2007 is the same way. I have yet to find the Save button in Word 2007, but thank God for Control-S. It still works. Sometimes there are changes for change sake, though I am sure I will find new features that are useful as time goes on.

One stupid thing, when you are copying files from one point to another, you have a small dialog box with severely truncated from/to file names and file paths when the dialog box could have simply been made larger and displayed the entire path and name. Hell, they could have used the full screen if they had needed to, but no, that's the way its always been done and that's the way we do it today. Duh!

 I'm sure I'll have more to report later.

 

 

6

Give me a Break!

The Power of YouTube. An article in an October issue of Marketing Vox shows that though Dove's 2006 Super Bowl spot resulted in almost 500 million impressions before and after the big game, one commercial seeded – at no cost - on YouTube generated more than 1.5 million views and generated a spike in traffic on the company's Campaign for Real Beauty site. View it HERE.

IDENTITY THIEVES - Actual Video From Sheriff's Dept. -- Take the time to watch this 3 minute video. Identity thieves are at it again, this time targeting people at gas stations.  Many of us never leave the side of our car when pumping gas but that has apparently not improved our safety, especially for women who carry purses. The footage of the actual crime being committed is shocking in how easy it is to pull off.  http://www.sheriff.org/videos/psa_cartheft.html

I never thought I'd see this day... the Wisconsin Restaurant Association finally supports a smoke free restaurant law (but providing taverns have to follow suit). http://thewheelerreport.com/releases/Feb07/feb7/0207restsmoking.pdf
 
Perhaps they should have listened years ago! The restaurant industry would have increased its overall revenues by 2-3% just by attracting non-smokers out of their homes. Perhaps now I'll be able to close up SmokeFreeDining.net  No need for it anymore!

 

7

Book Recommendations

See other reviews on Amazon.com

100 Ways America Is Screwing Up the World (Paperback)
by John Tirman (ISBN-10: 0061133019)

100 Ways America Is Screwing Up the WorldFrom an Amazon reviewer: The author sweeps across a very broad panorama of forces that cause America to damage both itself and others. Many of the topics covered are not (readily) found elsewhere, such as the limitations of NY Times and Washington Post reporting, the making of pre-adolescent girls into sex objects, and the highly questionable mushrooming of graduate schools. The book's format leads to succinct, understandable writing that repeatedly hits nails on the head and takes dead aim at the sick dysfunctionality wrought by George Bush and company. It also covers America's ideals, which are alive and well, even if eclipsed or in instances sabotaged by the destructive forces previously cited -- and are worth working to regain. Overall, well, and nicely, done.
 

It was an interesting read though I did not agree with all of his insights. But I like discussion and this offers it. JL

 

 

8
Contact information

Lohman is a retired business owner that 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.MoneyedPoliticians.com (my book: Politicians - Owned and Operated by Corporate America)


www.SmokeFreeDining.net (A searchable restaurant database)

 

9
 Removal Instructions

To leave the list, send a blank email to jelohman@gmail.com with “Remove eNewsletter” in the subject line

To subscribe, send a blank email to jelohman@gmail.com with “Subscribe eNewsletter” in the subject line

The system is automatic and you must send from the email address you want added or removed.

If either fails please notify me directly at jelohman@gmail.com. Thanks.

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.