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Bimonthly on election and health care reform. Unsubscribe instructions at the bottom.

 

Wisconsin Clean Elections Coalition

Promoting fair elections for all parties and candidates

eNewsletter #46

June 21, 2007

 www.ThrowTheRascalsOut.org

Newsletter Archives

 

Tackling the budget would not have been necessary had they first tackled campaign finance reform.

.

In this issue:

1) Health Care 

2) Campaign Reform

3) Corporations

4) Politicians

5) Tidbits 

6) Give me a Break!

7) Book recommendations

8)  Contact Information

9)  Unsubscribe instructions
.

 

1

Health Care

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: An International Update on the Comparative Performance of American Health Care

Despite having the most costly health system in the world, the United States consistently underperforms on most dimensions of performance, relative to other countries. This report—an update to two earlier editions—includes data from surveys of patients, as well as information from primary care physicians about their medical practices and views of their countries' health systems. Compared with five other nations—Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, the United Kingdom—the U.S. health care system ranks last or next-to-last on five dimensions of a high performance health system: quality, access, efficiency, equity, and healthy lives. The U.S. is the only country in the study without universal health insurance coverage, partly accounting for its poor performance on access, equity, and health outcomes. The inclusion of physician survey data also shows the U.S. lagging in adoption of information technology and use of nurses to improve care coordination for the chronically ill.

See the complete article HERE

Mirror, Mirror ES1

How's this for simplicity? Nothing like just getting your care and having your doctor bill Medicare, but life was never meant to be a breeze. See HERE.

Does Universal Health Insurance Make Health Care Unaffordable? Lessons From Taiwan

This paper examines the performance of Taiwan’s National Health Insurance (NHI), a universal health insurance program, implemented in 1995, that covers comprehensive services. The authors address two key questions: Did the NHI cause Taiwanese health spending to escalate to an "unaffordable" level? What are the benefits of the NHI? They find that Taiwan’s single-payer NHI system enabled Taiwan to manage health spending inflation and that the resulting savings largely offset the incremental cost of covering the previously uninsured. Under the NHI, the Taiwanese have more equal access to health care, greater financial risk protection, and equity in health care financing. The NHI consistently receives a 70 percent public satisfaction rate.

See complete article HERE.
 

See the Official "Sicko" Trailer HERE
 

Mandatory Coverage Is Easier Said Than Done

IT’S a seemingly simple solution to a nationwide problem: if people do not have health insurance, just require that they buy it. The idea of making coverage compulsory to help reduce the number of uninsured Americans — currently 45 million — is gaining momentum. With a law passed last year, Massachusetts became the first state to mandate coverage. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California has supported the idea, proposing that his state do the same. In Illinois, mandatory health insurance has become part of a broader discussion of health reform.

See complete article HERE
 

Dr. Richard C. Dillihunt : In a just world, Medicare for all
Saturday, June 09, 2007 - Bangor Daily News

 A new political environment has rekindled interest in health care reform. Every presidential hopeful has a health care change agenda. The need for change is undeniable with 50 million Americans uninsured, countless underinsured, burgeoning insurance rates and outrageous drug prices.

Since the commencement of Medicare for those over 65 more than half a century ago, countless programs have been tried for those under 65, searching for a successful health care system within a free market environment. HMOs PPOs, HASs, co-pays, pay for performance and many varieties of private insurance have enjoyed little success. Thoughtful state schemes in Maine (Dirigo), California, Massachusetts, and several others have a common problem: lack of funds.

See complete article HERE

Private Health Care Funding - Canadian Myths and Realities

(Thanks to http://www.CanadianDoctorsForMedicare.ca/myths.html for this page)

Below is a list of articles which discuss experiences with private health care in several jurisdictions and identify the serious problems with this form of health care funding. These are accessible in PDF by clicking on the titles.

  1. The Health Care System Under French National Health Insurance: Lessons for Health Reform in the United States
  2. Insights From Health Care in Germany
  3. Parallel Private Health Insurance in Australia: A Cautionary Tale and Lessons for Canada
  4. Condition critical: Where two-tier hospitals are failing Australia
  5. What are the equity, efficiency, cost containment and choice implications of private health-care funding in western Europe?

 

 

Canadian Study: A systematic review of studies comparing health outcomes in Canada and the United States

See HERE

 

New Survey: Consumer-Directed Health Plan Growth Levels Off Among Employers

FRANKLIN LAKES, N.J., June 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Predictions that consumer-directed health plans (CDHPs) such as health savings accounts (HSAs) would continue their steep growth appear to be overstated according to a national survey of health plan sponsors covering between 1,000 and 15,000 lives. In fact, the survey shows that most employers and health plan sponsors of this size are not considering offering CDHPs as a benefit option in the next few years.

See complete article HERE.

High-Deductible Plans Cost More For Maternity Care - Study Compares Out-of-Pocket Expense

The first study of its kind has found that families typically pay much more out of pocket for maternity care under the new high-deductible health insurance plans paired with health savings accounts that have been heavily touted by President Bush and others.

See complete article HERE.
 

If there ever was any question about where your health care dollars are going, look at the shareholder values of Aetna, Wellpoint and United Health Group:

 

 

2

Campaign Reform

Businesses Out-spending Labor by Huge Margin in Campaigns
GOP receives most, but Democrats see increased business dollars
By Dennis A. Shook

June 07, 2007
Labor unions back Democrats and business bigwigs back Republicans. That has been an essential truth in state—even national—politics for decades.

But a recent Wisconsin Democracy Campaign (WDC) survey shows that even Democratic candidates must have some business backers, because business interests are spending $12 for every $1 spent by organized labor. 

See the complete article HERE.

This is not hard to believe. Businesses are in it for the buck, and if leadership changes their campaign contributions will change. This refutes the politician's claims that they get money from people that support their ideology, not that they do government favors for them. Hogwash!

1993: Remember Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH)? Read this from the 1993 Wisconsin Act 476

PROHIBITION. No person may place upon the label of a dairy product a statement indicating that the dairy product is not produced from herds being administered synthetic bovine growth hormone except as provided in sub. (3). (which exempts out-of-state products)

Whaaat??? We can't even have full disclosure about the food and milk we consume? Forget that BGH is banned in every European country because it is considered unsafe. Wisconsin Republicans voted not only to allow this unsafe product, but to also prohibit farmers from labeling their product "BGH Free."

Now that's really the kind of free market the Republicans can be proud of. And they say the campaign contributions from Monsanto didn't sway them?

Give me a break.

And guess what? It passed with a voice vote, a tactic they use when they don't want constituents to know how they voted!

What is it about money that conservatives don't understand?

Bob Dohnal, of the Wisconsin Conservative Digest rails against Gov. Doyle's proposed increase in gas taxes, and he is absolutely right... but for the wrong reason. Dohnal would have us believe that this tax, like all others, hurts Wisconsin's business climate. And while it certainly doesn't help, the more significant reason to oppose it is that it is regressive taxation that hurts lower income families disproportionately. But conservatives don't think that way.

This and all other corporate taxes are added to the product prices and the consumers reimburse the companies at the cash register. Thus we really should eliminate all corporate taxes -- at least for those whose CEOs pay Wisconsin taxes -- and increase the progressive tax rate on not just wages but on all other income as well. This will offset the lost corporate tax revenues and block the gamesmanship when CEOs take $1 per year in salary and millions more in nontaxable benefits. THAT will bring corporations and jobs to Wisconsin.

See the complete article HERE.

 

 

3

Corporations

Taming Corporations Gone Wild

Ralph Nader - June 08, 2007

Back in the 1930s, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt went on national radio and declared what the basic necessities were for the American people—a wage that can support a family, decent housing, the right to health care, a good education and future economic security.

Sound familiar today? It certainly would sound familiar to a majority of the American people. The struggle for livelihood, the struggles to escape poverty, calamitous health care bills, mounting debt, gouging rents and failing, crumbling schools continues year after year.

See complete article HERE

Nader: "The richest 1 percent of people in this country has financial wealth equal to the combined financial wealth of the bottom 95 percent."

This is a dangerous trend. Few of us will criticize the millionaire that made it on his own. But too many make it by ripping off either the public or their shareholders. Corporate greed is driven by CEO greed and the boards of directors that have sweetheart contracts. But worse than the CEO greed is the political greed that sustains this system of corruption.

Our politicians are immune, of course. They are assured a massive federal pension and a lifetime of medical care, so they could care less about the public getting screwed by the insurance industry (or the pharmaceutical industry, or oil industry or, hell, that list is too long to print....).

We need new politicians.

Lying Down with Hyenas

Alec Dubro is senior editor of TomPaine.com.

Ralph Nader opened the Taming The Corporation conference with a somewhat gloomy and rueful assessment. He and his people had held a similar conference 35 years ago, and nothing much has changed in the interim.

Much of the rest of the conference outlined, in more or less convincing detail, what most people in the U.S. already know: Corporations run the place. In fact, only 40 percent of Americans think corporations make a positive contribution to the public good. And as for public trust, as the McKinsey Quarterly told The New York Times, large global corporations are at “the bottom of the list — beneath nongovernmental organizations, small regional companies, the United Nations, labor unions and the media.”

And, as the conferees pointed out, the corporations earned this distrust. According to:

  • James Brock, professor of economics at University of Miami Ohio, the antitrust law is a story of taxidermy. In short, it’s dead.

  • Kathryn Mulvey of Corporate Accountability International, corporations are succeeding in their drive to make water a commodity rather than a public right.

  • Andrew Kimbrell of the International Center for Technology Assessment and Center for Food Safety, by marketing genetically modified seeds that withstand certain chemicals, Monsanto has been able sell 120 million more tons of herbicides around the world.

  • Ralph Nader, corporations have 38,000 full-time lobbyists in Washington who effectively control the government.

See the complete article HERE

 

 

4

Politicians

Obviously Sensenbrenner has no relatives with physical disabilities that could, just perhaps, be helped by stem cell research.

From www.congress.org

 

Recent House Votes

 

Ethics Committee Investigations - Vote Passed (387-10, 15 Present, 20 Not Voting)

The House adopted this resolution directing the Ethics committee to begin an investigation within 30 days of a lawmaker's indictment.

Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. voted YES......send e-mail or see bio

Afghanistan Freedom and Security Support Act - Vote Passed (406-10, 16 Not Voting)

This $6.4 billion Afghanistan aid bill would cut off funds to local Afghani governments with ties to criminals, drug dealers or terrorists.

Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. voted YES......send e-mail or see bio

Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act - Vote Passed (247-176, 10 Not Voting)

The House voted to expand federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.

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

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders has but one problem; he makes sense in a congress that doesn't understand what making sense is.

Go to YouTube. And no, don't expect this from Sensenbrenner......

 

Tommy Inc. - Thompson answers the call of private sector — over and over — even as he runs for president

By CARY SPIVAK
cspivak@journalsentinel.com

Any way you cut it, Tommy Thompson is one rich guy.

When he took office as Wisconsin governor in 1987, Thompson brought with him a portfolio consisting of fewer than 20 investments, none worth more than $50,000 - some less than $5,000 - plus some farmland and his Elroy law firm.

See complete article HERE.

This guy is totally out of his league.

Dems' Timidity May Cost Them Dearly In 2008 -- The Democrats are ceding the moral high ground by not doing what the voters elected them to do: end the war, stop the corruption, fix the electoral system, save the Constitution. But it's not too late for major changes that will help solve many of this country's problems.

See complete article HERE

Democrats, Stop Coddling The Children! STOP BEING SO DAMN FREAKING WEAK!!

Democrats in Congress, this message is for YOU!  There's a reason Republicans call Democrats weak.  IT'S BECAUSE YOU FREAKING ARE!!
 

When Democrats took the majorities of the Senate and the House in November of 2006, your promise to America, YOUR priority (although NOT why you were elected), was to make Washington a more civil place.  You pledged to take the high road and not do to the Republicans what the Republicans did to you.  Your goal was to show America just how freaking nice you were, and to change the tone in Washington from bellicose to genteel.  What you failed to realize is that America doesn't need you to be nice.  America needs you to be strong.  You've succeeded at being nice.  But not at being strong. 

See complete article HERE

 

 

 

5

Tidbits

Outlook from the business sections....

Statewide survey finds business outlook rosy - Respondents say they plan to hire but can't always find workers ... See HERE

So, these companies are opening plants in Mexico to find qualified workers? Give me a break.

State economy growth lags national rate - Wisconsin's economy grew at 1.8% last year, well below the 3.4% increase nationally, according to the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis. read more »

 Wisconsin drops to 8th highest taxed state - There's good news and bad news for Badger State taxpayers today, courtesy of analysts at Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance in Madison. read more »

CEO survey shows declining optimism - The Vistage CEO Confidence Index dropped to 90.5 in the second quarter from 95.4 in the prior quarter and 97.8 a year ago, reflecting a slowdown in the U.S. economy. The index is a compilation of responses from 2,118 CEOs of small- to mid-sized companies across the country. Although CEO confidence in the U.S. economy dropped in the quarter, the majority of firms expect the pace of economic growth to remain largely unchanged in the year ahead. The most important factor for CEOs in 2007 is recruiting and retaining talent. As companies across the board step up hiring, competition for skilled workers has increased. One-third of the firms cite staffing as their top concern, far outstripping other issues, including cash flow, the economy, growth and health care costs. See HERE.

Legislature to vote on possible tax cut

MADISON - State Rep. Robin Vos, a member of the Legislature's budget committee, said he could seek a vote as early as today on a plan to cut state income taxes by $177.8 million during the next two years.

The plan, praised by an aide to the top Assembly Republican leader, drew opposition from Senate Democrats who pointed out a practical problem - adopting the cut without other action would leave the state's main account some $210 million in the hole under the budget committee's two-year spending plan for the state.

See complete article HERE.

Hey, here's a proposal. Let's stop spending taxpayer money and then we won't need tax increases and decreases will be doable! Let's simply eliminate the private money that funds the elections, and eliminate the payments of taxpayer assets to the contributors. We'd save $4 billion per year, or $1300 per taxpayer, all for a $5 investment in public financing of campaigns. Seems logical to most people, but falls on deaf politician ears.

 

 

6

Give me a Break!

Expensive Cat Toy
 

 

A true story.....

About a month ago there was a woman standing by the mall entrance passing out flyers to all the women going in.  The woman had written the flyer herself to tell about an experience she had, so that she might warn other women.  The previous day, this woman had finished shopping, went out to her car and discovered that she had a flat.
  
She got the jack out of the trunk and began to change the flat. A nice man dressed in a business suit and carrying a briefcase walked up to her and said, "I noticed you're changing a flat tire. Would you like me to take care of it for you?"

The woman was grateful for his offer and accepted his help.

They chatted amiably while the man changed the flat, and then put the flat tire and the jack in the trunk, shut it and dusted his hands off.

The woman thanked him profusely, and as she was about to get in her car, the man told her that he left his car around on the other side of the mall, and asked if she would mind giving him a lift to his car. She was a little surprised and she asked him why his car was on other side.

He explained that he had seen an old friend in the mall that he hadn't seen for some time and they had a bite to eat, visited for a while, and he got turned around in the mall and left through the wrong exit, and now he was running late.  The woman hated to tell him "no" because he had just rescued her from having to change her flat tire all by herself, but she felt uneasy. (Trust that gut feeling!)

Then she remembered seeing the man put his briefcase in her trunk before shutting it and before he asked her for a ride to his car.

She told him that she'd be happy to drive him around to his car,  But she just remembered one last thing she needed to buy. (Smart woman!!)

She said she would only be a few minutes; he could sit down in her car and wait for her; she would be as quick as she could be.

She hurried into the mall, and told a security guard what had happened, the guard came out to her car with her, but the man had left.  They opened the trunk, took out his locked briefcase and took it down to the police station.

The police opened it (ostensibly to look for ID so they could return it to the man).  What they found was rope, duct tape, and knives. When the police checked her "flat" tire, there was nothing wrong with it; the air had simply been let out.  It was obvious what the man's intention was, and obvious that he had carefully thought it out in advance.  The woman was blessed to have escaped harm. 

How much worse it would have been if she had children with her and had them wait in the car while the man fixed the tire, or if she had a baby strapped into a car seat?  Or if she'd gone against her judgment and given him a lift?

Send this to any woman you know that may need to be reminded that the world we live in has a lot of crazies in it.  Better to be safe than sorry.
 

This is an awesome demonstration of French technology. We are clearly better off having them with us than against us. See HERE.

 

 

7

Book Recommendations

See other reviews on Amazon.com

None today....
 

 

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)

Wisconsin State Assembly pages: http://www.legis.state.wi.us/leginfo/contact/legislatorslist.aspx?house=assembly

Wisconsin State Senator pages: http://www.legis.state.wi.us/leginfo/contact/legislatorslist.aspx?house=senate

 

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.