Lee Iacocca argues that the larger our national debt, the weaker our country becomes and the stronger our enemies become. And all this because our politician's lust for private money to get re-elected. When will it stop? Political corruption has destroyed far too many countries; we must stop it before it destroys ours.
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In this issue:
1) Health Care
2) Campaign Reform
3) More on Health Care
4) Now it's the Dem's turn
5) Tidbits
6)
Give me a Break
7) Book recommendations
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Health Care |
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A Public Health Care Forum in Port Washington will provide information about the national single-payer healthcare proposal by U.S. Rep. John Conyers (HR646). Event Details What: Health Care Reform Discussion Lead by Jack Lohman When: Saturday, June 2, 10:00 a.m. to 12 noon Where: Port Washington Niederkorn Library 316 West Grand Avenue, Port Washington, WI Who: All members of the public, media, and elected officials are invited.
.... then come to this Public Health Care Forum sponsored by the Ozaukee Community Awareness Forum See complete press release HERE. NYT EDITORIAL Medicare Privatization Abuses Published: May 8, 2007 It seems that outrageously high government subsidies aren’t enough to satisfy the private plans that participate in Medicare. Some of these Medicare Advantage plans have been caught using hard-sell tactics to pressure elderly Americans into signing up for policies that may leave them worse off than they would be with traditional Medicare coverage. The unscrupulous sales pressure is one more argument for removing the subsidies that are the only crutch allowing many of these plans to survive. The abusive sales tactics are particularly egregious among the private fee-for-service plans. These plans receive the highest subsidies and do the least to earn them among the array of private offerings available for Medicare recipients. Yet these plans are the fastest-growing type of private Medicare coverage, thanks to subsidies that average 19 percent above the cost of traditional Medicare and to aggressive marketing. As Robert Pear reported in The Times yesterday, state officials are investigating a range of sales abuses. In Georgia, two insurance agents were arrested and accused of signing up unwilling consumers; one beneficiary said her signature was forged by a door-to-door salesman. In North Carolina, the insurance commissioner is investigating complaints that agents switched residents of an assisted-living facility from traditional Medicare into private plans without their permission. At least five other states are investigating complaints about sales tactics. Defenders of the private fee-for-service plans argue that they often provide better benefits or charge beneficiaries less than traditional Medicare does, a feat they are able to accomplish thanks to their huge subsidies. That is often true, but not always. As Mr. Pear reported, some beneficiaries have found that their doctors won’t accept patients enrolled in private fee-for-service plans. Others have been shocked to be hit with much higher co-payments than under traditional Medicare —as much as $100 a day for the first 20 days in a skilled nursing facility for which no co-payment would have been charged under traditional Medicare. Congress needs to demand rigorous policing of the Medicare Advantage program to ensure that such abuses do not continue. And it should eliminate these lavish subsidies, which are draining the Medicare trust fund and imposing unfair costs on beneficiaries in the traditional Medicare program.
Thanks to Dr. Don McCanne for these new Polls:
Dr. McCanne's Comment: If these poll numbers were cast at the ballot box, this would constitute a clear mandate from the American public. So why do we keep hearing that national health insurance is not politically feasible?
An F In Health CareThe New York-based Commonwealth Fund released a comprehensive cross-border study of health care systems in rich countries and, no surprise, ranks the U.S. as pretty much last. Except when it comes to cost, that is. We pay more overall and get less. What everyone who cares to look knows is that there are two health care systems in America—one for those with money and for those without. The report spelled it out plainly:
See complete TomPayne article HERE and the referenced Commonwealth study HERE.
Young, Ill and Uninsured - NYT - May 19, 2007
Fourteen-year-old Devante Johnson deserved better. He
was a sweet kid, an honor student and athlete who should be enjoying
music and sports and skylarking with his friends at school. Instead
he’s buried in Houston's Paradise North Cemetery. See complete story HERE.
NYT - May 10, 2007 Curing the System
By ATUL GAWANDE See complete article HERE. NYTimes: May 21, 2007 Fear of Eating
By PAUL KRUGMAN See complete article HERE. Now the Wall Street Journal is supporting single-payer?
Government-Funded Care
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Campaign Reform - The Dem's Turn |
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URS Corp., a San Francisco planning and engineering firm partially owned by California Sen. Dianne Feinstein's husband, landed an Army contract Monday worth up to $600 million. The award to help with troop mobilization, weapons systems training and anti-terrorism efforts is the latest in a string of plum defense jobs snared by URS. In February, the firm won an army engineering and logistics contract that could bring in $3.1 billion during the next eight years.
The husband of Senator Dianne
Feinstein chair the committee that helped him
get billions in government contracts. She had a
conflict of interest.
Response from
the Democrats:
www.MAPLight.org
has launched its
U.S. Congress site. With a new feel and expanded
functionality, journalists and the public can now rapidly follow
the money and voting trail for over 100 subject areas,
legislators, special interest groups, and bills for the 109th
Congress and the current 110th Congress.
MAPLight.org for Congress
combines all campaign contributions to U.S. legislators with
legislators’ votes on every bill, using official records from
the
Library of Congress web site and the nonpartisan
Center for Responsive Politics. The resulting database of
bills, voting records, and campaign contributions powers the
search engine at MAPLight.org and enables people to see the
links between dollars spent and votes cast in Washington D.C. Users and reporters can now find
quick answers to previously difficult questions like these:
Two new sources
for information on your congressman at
www.CongressPedia.org
(Includes money and voting
records)
And this from
www.OnTheIssues.org
(if you can tolerate an
occasional ad)
No matter what your issue, follow the money to your state
politician. You won't like what you see. If politicians can
get through the state corruption cycle, they're ready for
the big time. Congress.
But they are selling taxpayer assets all the way, and our
democracy along with it. Our kids will pay a heavy price if
we don't stop it today. In my view it simply doesn't matter
how a politician votes, if he or she is corrupt they must
immediately be fired. Maybe even jailed. But at the very
least, the public must vote out those who are not cleaning
up the system.
What is the most
unconscionable is their current support of the wasteful (but
generous) insurance bureaucracy that, inadvertently, is
killing uninsured people every day.
And it's frightful
that so many people shrug off this issue, but who in 20
years will wonder how things got even worse. A nation deeply
in debt, a trashed economy, even more jobs outsourced, and a
political system even more corrupt than today's. But yet
they continue being oblivious to the political corruption
that will cause it. Even some of the most intelligent and
caring, just don't get it. |
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More on Health Care |
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Who needs terrorists when we have politicians? By Jack E. Lohman How many more uninsured Wisconsinites must die before our politicians get out of the pockets of the insurance industry and fix our health care crisis? Sorry to be so blunt, but that is exactly what is happening today. Over $1.4 million per year in campaign contributions flows from the health care and insurance industries that want to keep the status quo. Inefficiency breeds profits, and they want the profits to continue. Hundreds of thousands in campaign dollars come from the banking and credit card industries that benefit from health savings accounts -- that incidentally are great for wealthy investors but terrible for patients and families in need of care. Worse, HSAs will ultimately help drive up health care costs as they keep patients away from care until it is more expensive to treat or becomes untreatable. Be careful of what you wish for. A million more in campaign dollars from the bankruptcy attorneys that also like things just as they are, with over half of all bankruptcies involving exorbitant health care debt. And all of this because campaign contributors are willing to share their profits with the politicians that make it all happen, and the Pols that are willing to oblige. What a wonderful world. Will it ever end? Not just the deadly health care crisis, but also the political corruption that sustains it. When are politicians going to say enough is enough, and do what is right for the public? A single-payer health care system would be a windfall for businesses, the state's economy and our citizens. Perhaps the insurance companies will have to make their profits elsewhere, as will the bankruptcy attorneys, bankers and credit card companies. But with a stronger Wisconsin economy there will be plenty of opportunity for that. We now have three health care proposals, all designed to satisfy a certain constituency. But only one is aimed toward all citizens and away from the insurance bureaucracy that is consuming 31% of health care dollars without ever spending a penny on direct health care. Sometimes you have to spend money to make money, and that's exactly what Sen. Mark Miller and Rep. Chuck Benedict do with the Health Security Act (SB51/AB94). A small additional payroll tax for employers eliminates the 10-15% they currently spend on healthcare benefits, and a small additional payroll tax for employees eliminates costs of co-pays, deductibles, dental, vision, and scores of other expenses. This should be called the Improved Medicare-for-all system, because it's modeled after Medicare, the only part of our health care system that does function efficiently. Yes, Medicare currently costs more per capita, because it covers almost exclusively seniors and end-of-lifers. But fold in the younger, healthier population and the average becomes lower than our current system. U.S. Rep. John Conyers' proposed HR676 at the federal level does the same. If you are hung up over the government's involvement, get over it. There are some things best left to the government to fund. Fire and police protection, building public roads, and funding health care are just a few. Political campaigns are another, but that's a story for a different day. Or maybe not. If you pay taxes you experience on a daily basis the costs of privately funded campaigns. Outrageous health care is just one of them. Where are the non-healthcare business leaders on this? Many with their heads in the sand. They are trying to reduce costs in this so-called "free market" system, all while turning their heads when their fellow healthcare businesses pick their pocket. Their business associations that claim both as members, are siding with the insurers and actually selling their insurance to members. Where's Business Ethics 101 when you really need it? -- Lohman is a retired business owner from Colgate and operates for www.ThrowTheRascalsOut.org. He authored "Politicians - Owned and Operated by Corporate America" and can be reached at jelohman@gmail.com How about that. No wonder WMC won't support single-payer. They sell insurance! If WMC members are not told the truth about the cost savings of single-payer health care, how are they going to make the right decision? How many other Chambers of Commerce and business coalitions sell insurance? Oh, call it anti-government ideology if you wish. But it doesn't make business sense to watch your country's economy trashed, or your own company's competitiveness go down the drain. Perhaps that's why over 60% of small businesses favor a single-payer plan.
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Now it's the Dem's turn |
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This week will tell whether House Democrats recognize the voter disgust with Washington that helped them win the majority -- and whether they are willing to change their behavior in response. As part of their pledge to end the GOP "culture of corruption," Democrats promised to loosen the cozy relationship between lobbyists and lawmakers. A good, if imperfect, package of reforms to do that is set to come to the House floor this week. But passage is far from assured. Democratic leaders, notably Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), caucus chairman Rahm Emanuel (Ill.) and Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), head of the Democrats' campaign committee, are behind the bill. But many rank-and-file members refuse to accept that voters want, and that they need to deliver, a significant change from Washington business as usual. These legislators need to know that they will be held accountable for their votes -- not just on the reform package itself but on the procedural rule to allow it to be brought up for debate. A vote against the rule is a vote against lobbying reform. The most controversial part of the package is also the most essential. It would require that lobbyists reveal the amounts they help raise for lawmakers, not just disclose the campaign checks they write directly. The provision wouldn't bar "bundling"; it would simply shine some light for the public on what lawmakers and lobbyists already know, namely, how much the former are indebted to the latter. Fierce behind-the-scenes resistance to this plan is the best available proof of how badly it is needed. The price of getting the bundling provision even this far was abandoning efforts to lengthen from one to two years the cooling-off period during which former lawmakers and staff members must refrain from lobbying former colleagues. That's unfortunate but worth the price. There are other regrettable omissions, too, including a requirement to disclose supposed grass-roots efforts by paid lobbying groups and a bar on lobbyists throwing lavish parties at political conventions to "honor" lawmakers. But the measure would provide more frequent (quarterly), accessible (via the Internet) and detailed disclosure, including of lobbyists' contributions to lawmakers' charities. Throw in the requirement to spotlight lobbyists who bundle, and this would be a major improvement on the cozy status quo.
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Tidbits |
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Can We End the
American Empire Before It Ends Us?
In politics, as in medicine, a cure based on a false diagnosis is almost always worthless, often worsening the condition that is supposed to be healed. The United States, today, suffers from a plethora of public ills. Most of them can be traced to the militarism and imperialism that have led to the near-collapse of our Constitutional system of checks and balances. Unfortunately, none of the remedies proposed so far by American politicians or analysts addresses the root causes of the problem. See complete story HERE and comment at the bottom:
Leave it to the Concord Coalition to whitewash Bush's proposal for health care reform. This right-wing think tank is funded by right-wing corporate nuts, so I am not surprised about the Bush support. Though page one actually lauds the Democrats' budget constraints, a historical first, they then spend two pages on health care. They obvious support "delay" so their supporters can continue to make profits. Let's look.
In essence Bush wants to eliminate
the tax write-off corporations take in providing health
benefits. The result will be to drive more corporations to
abandon health benefits and force more employees into HSAs they
can't afford.
"According to the CBO, the reform would
generate large budget savings, reduce the number of
uninsured, and, over the long run, could help moderate the
growth in health-care costs." "This subsidy is not only costly to the
federal budget. Health-care experts agree that the tax
exclusion for employer-paid health benefits is one of the
main reasons Americans spend so much on health care." "The tax exclusion adds to the deficit and
drives up health-care costs. But this doesn’t exhaust the
list of its ill effects. The exclusion is also a steeply
regressive subsidy, since its value increases along with the
marginal tax rate. Perversely, it offers the greatest
incentive for additional insurance coverage to those workers
who are in high tax brackets and are already likely to be
the best insured—while offering the least to workers in
lower tax brackets who are likely to be the least well
insured." "What’s worse, it gives no help to the tens
of millions of mostly low-wage workers whose employers do
not offer health insurance at all." "The reform, moreover, would not only reduce
“induced” demand for health care and cause many employers to
switch to lower-priced, more cost-effective plans. It would
also encourage providers and insurers to compete to deliver
quality care at a price lower than the standard deduction,
thus applying an additional brake to cost growth." This is all such BS. The president
and Concord Coalition are part of the "anything but
single-payer" crowd. The only thing I agree with them on
is that employer-financed health care is regressive, as
they just add those costs to the price of their product and
consumers reimburse them at the cash register. Employers
should be out of it 100% and the tax system should pick
up these costs, just as we pay for fire and police
protection. Yes our taxes will progressively increase,
but they'll be more than offset by the 31% savings in bureaucratic
waste. And I am tired of hearing that "we
spend too much." We are charged too much
and we have a group of politicians willing to let the
system slide. See the complete whitewash
HERE.
The Bush administration today threatened
to a veto a House defense spending bill over
a 3.5 percent pay raise for U.S. soldiers
and a $40/month increase in benefits for
military widows, among other provisions. The
legislation passed the House today 397-27. ThinkProgress noted last night that the
White House
opposed the pay raise for troops: See complete story
HERE See comments
HERE. Yeah. I say let them eat dirt. What
the hell, do they want all of Bush's tax cut
back?
www.toomuchonline.org Stat of the Week Robert Ulrich, the CEO at superstore
retailer Target, will walk off with $45.4 million in severance
"if he's fired for reasons other than being seriously disloyal
or dishonest," the
St. Paul Pioneer Press
reports. He'll also collect $133.7 million in deferred
compensation. |
6
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Give me a Break! |
A South American scientist from Argentina , after a lengthy study, has discovered that people with insufficient brain activity read their E-mail with their hand on the mouse.
Don't bother taking it off now, it's too late........
And watch this crazy rabbit.
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Book Recommendations |
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Your Critically Ill Child: Life and Death
Choices Parents Must Face (Paperback)
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Excellent , April 28, 2007
interesting to read a doctor's perspective, April 28,
2007
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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
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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/were) 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.