eNewsletter

Wisconsin Clean Elections Coalition

Promoting fair elections for all parties and candidates

eNewsletter #53

August 29, 2007

Corrupt? I never would have believed it. See Jim Wrich's findings below.

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In this issue:

1) Health Care

2) Campaign Reform

3) Health care and the cities

4) Healthy Wisconsin debate

5) Tidbits

6) Give me a Break!

7) Book Recommendations

8) Contact Information

9) Unsubscribe Instructions

Health Care

Big Bucks Talk and Health Care Walks, part II

by Clyde Winter

“It never ceases to amaze me, the amount of energy that can go into a project just to avoid doing the right thing… But follow the money and you’ll find why the politicians don’t like it.” Jack Lohman, retired Wisconsin business owner and author.

The proven fact that single-payer comprehensive universal health care costs LESS than does our current method of administering and managing health care carries an important and unsettling implication. Those who oppose single-payer universal cannot claim they do so on the grounds that we can’t afford it. Politicians and media pundits who imply or state that are either inexcusably ignorant, or they are lying.

The unvarnished truth is that those who oppose single-payer universal are (for reasons of their own) willing to PAY MORE for a system that
1. Puts American business and workers at a competitive disadvantage,
2. Provides worsening health care outcomes for Americans,
3. Establishes a class-based health care system, rather than one based on medical treatment appropriate for the condition, and
4. Countenances so much unnecessary, untreated physical and emotional suffering and sorrow, and contributes to half of all personal bankruptcies.

See the complete article HERE

HEALTH CARE - Bold, coordinated approach needed

The slogan "Not for nibblers" describes a brand of snack crackers, and despite the concerns of the Aug. 12 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial, that sums up how we must attack our health care crisis ("A plan too far; a plan not even out of the gate").

We didn't get to this point overnight. The situation calls for a large, bold, coordinated fix, in this case the Healthy Wisconsin plan. Though the editorial implied this package plopped out of the blue, we have talked about what has been needed for years. Over the past few years, former state budget director David Riemer, former Rep. Curt Gielow and Rep. Jon Richards (D-Milwaukee) have laid the essential basis for the plan. They and those of us who support this approach cannot be blamed that the Republicans who are wrapped in an ideological girdle refuse to even talk about it.

In the current political climate, it is rare for any group of politicians to come out with anything this visionary and broad. We have seen piecemeal solutions, and we've seen the difficulty in politics to activate large-scale solutions running over the course of years. This is the way reform has to happen to be effective.

Once again, Wisconsin can regain its reputation as a laboratory of government.

Keith R. Schmitz
Shorewood

Source: HERE, Keith was responding the the editorial HERE

Keith is 100% correct. Incrementalism is absolutely the wrong way to fix the healthcare system, and doing it piecemeal lays out an opportunity for failure, or at least opposition claims of failure before the job is completed. If it's worth doing, it should be done the right way at the very start. Tweak it up or down later, but start with the closest to perfect that you can get.

A very telling email from my friend Jim Wrich, who runs a Madison-based Health Systems Performance Company that studied the numbers....

The math really does tell the story. The Lewin numbers on Colorado are very similar to ours on the Wisconsin Health Security Act (the original Miller-Benedict bill). Lewin estimates that Colorado with 467.000 uninsured would save $1.4 billion with a single payor plan and my analysis of the WHSA estimated that with 476,000 uninsured -- nearly the same number as Colorado -- it would save $1.2 billion.

The analysis estimates an additional expense of $3.2 billion to fund all the additional benefits and people covered against $4.4 billion in savings due to elimination of administrative waste, more effective delivery through a Primary care emphasis, cost savings through bulk purchasing of drugs.

The $1.2 billion in net projected savings included some expense items not included in the Lewin estimates: (1) Approximately $453 million to cover the unfunded liability that will be incurred for Service members returning from combat theatre in Iraq and Afghanistan; (2) $381 million to cover the pent-up demand of those who were without insurance coverage for a year or more; (3) $77 million to help insurance industry workers who would be displaced by the WHSA. In addition, it estimates the expense of eliminating co-pays and deductibles at $1,575 billion.

You ask: "What is wrong with us?" Nothing with us, really. The problem is that our legislators accepted $800,000 from the insurance industry with $600,000 going to Republicans. The Conference Committee considering Healthy Wisconsin accepted $272,000 with $242,000 going to Republicans. But not to be outdone, our Democratic Governor accepted $350,000 from the insurance industry and claims to live in the real world while the average citizen has to fight to get necessary care reimbursed. Total contributions from the entire health care industry, not just insurance companies, are much higher. In our state, we have the best government and the best state leadership money can buy.

The system is really corrupt.

Best,

Jim Wrich

I would add, the "us" Jim is talking about had best get off their duffs and replace all Republicans and most Democrats in the state legislature. They can't work for us while taking money from them.

And from another friend and strong healthcare advocate, David Riemer commented on a quote I sent him:

“Free enterprise is only defensible if it is good for society.” Peter Drucker

"Same could be said for government," David says.

"I've always hated the left's insistence that government is inherently good and markets are inherently bad...as much as I've hated the right's insistence that government is inherently wicked and markets are inherently wonderful.

"The truth is that good government is good, good markets are good, that you don't get good government unless you have good markets, and vice versa."

If you put Jim's and David's messages together, what we really have then is a good government being corrupted by bad capitalists through their campaign contributions, which then really makes it a bad government. I guess you can tell how good your government is by who owns them.

Healthy Wisconsin provokes healthy debate
(This is new and a complete synopsis of the HW plan)

By Jack E. Lohman

Our health care system is not in a very good state. Doctors have given way to MBAs and the MBAs are about to give way to corporate CEOs and shareholders. Unless we do something soon to reverse this course, we are headed toward corporate run medicine controlled by CEOs and shareholders who are more interested in profits than in patient care.

The State Senate's Healthy Wisconsin (HW) plan is not perfect and it may not be your first choice, but it is a great starting point that addresses the fundamental systemic changes that are needed. It eliminates the 31% of waste that is created by the health insurance bureaucracy and spends it instead on patient care. It goes to hospitals, doctors and nurses instead of the insurance industry. It expands first-class care to the currently under-insured and uninsured, and it does so with the same dollars we are spending today.

See the complete, printable synopsis HERE.

Medicare Says It Won’t Cover Hospital Errors

WASHINGTON, Aug. 18 — In a significant policy change, Bush administration officials say that Medicare will no longer pay the extra costs of treating preventable errors, injuries and infections that occur in hospitals, a move they say could save lives and millions of dollars.

Private insurers are considering similar changes, which they said could multiply the savings and benefits for patients.

Under the new rules, to be published next week, Medicare will not pay hospitals for the costs of treating certain “conditions that could reasonably have been prevented.”

See complete article HERE

This is a big issue, but it just means that they'll shift the cost of errors to other insurers and the uninsured. The key is to reduce the errors, which are in most cases infections and wrong drugs/injections.

Here's what one of our readers picked up from a program on NPR. Some of you in the medical field might either be able to illuminate some aspects of or make additions to this list. I'd be glad to get them.

Three caveats:

Infections
Injections
Neglection

Here are defensive measures:

-   Never leave a relative/loved one alone in the hospital. (I questioned someone about to stick a needle in my husband a few years ago when he was in for a heart procedure about why she wasn't wearing protective gloves. She put some on. Also, during my own brief hospitalization a few years ago I told a nurse's assistant to get clean gloves when she picked up gloves from the floor, which she had dropped and was about to put on. That was in the middle of the night and I just happened to be awake.)

-   Urge male doctors to wear bow ties instead of regular ties, which drag over bed covers and other things and pick up contaminants -- or at least to tuck their neckties into their shirt fronts or to wear scrub gowns over their street clothes.

-   Keep anti-bacterial gel at the patient's bedside and insist that everyone -- nurses, doctors, other hospital/medical personnel, visitors, etc. -- use it.

-   Write on the body part that's to be the object of surgery "operate here."

-   Don't schedule surgery (if not an emergency) for a Friday afternoon. (That's when a lot of emergencies come in.)

-   Get infection-rate data from the hospital (they might resist providing it or even say they don't have that info, but they do -- you can also check other places like the American Hospital Association and patient advocacy groups).

-   Get the hospital's mortality rate for the procedure you/your relative needs or is going to have. Check their rate with that of other hospitals.

-   Do advance footwork re: a hospital by visiting a hospital ER in the middle of an afternoon. How long are the lines? How crowded is the waiting area? Ask some how long they've been waiting.

I liked what Dr. Daniel Bensimhon of Greensboro, N.C. said in the NYT: "..... I would happily endorse the proposed Medicare policy change, if we as taxpayers could hold our government and military to the same standards and refuse to pay for any of their “preventable” mistakes."

New Rules May Limit Health Care Program Aiding Children

The Bush administration, continuing its fight to stop states from expanding the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program, has adopted new standards that would make it much more difficult for New York, California and others to extend coverage to children in middle-income families.

Administration officials outlined the new standards in a letter sent to state health officials on Friday evening, in the middle of a monthlong Congressional recess. In interviews, they said the changes were intended to return the Children’s Health Insurance Program to its original focus on low-income children and to make sure the program did not become a substitute for private health coverage.

See complete story HERE.

Let me see, Bush is a "compassionate" conservative, right? So, is this just another ploy to ensure the corporate stranglehold on raking in profit for health care?

Adults without coverage have worse health outcomes. The Institute of Medicine reviewed 130 studies published in the past 20 years and found that uninsured patients consistently have worse health outcomes. For example, compared to patients with private insurance coverage:

Uninsured patients with breast cancer have 30 to 50% higher mortality rates;
Uninsured patients with colon cancer have 50 to 60% higher mortality rates; and
Uninsured accident victims have a 37% higher mortality rate.

Other studies have found that uninsured patients with chronic conditions are almost twice as likely to visit an emergency department or be hospitalized as insured patients.

Source: HERE

Healthy Wisconsin adds 16% in benefits

"The plan's benefits are 16 percent more generous than private health insurance coverage, said Gerald Frye, president of The Benefit Services Group, Inc. of Pewaukee."

See the complete article HERE

It adds limited vision, dental for children, mental parity, and pharmaceuticals, and it does it all for $1.2 billion less than we are spending today, even with expanding coverage to 100% of the public. But here's Leah Vukmir again, and two doctors who like the status quo, opposing it. Clearly with different motives.

Campaign Reform - A must-read!

Public Pays for Elections – One Way or the Other

By Mike McCabe

Unless you ask the right question, you’ll never get an answer that’s worth a damn.

Failure to use such common sense is on prominent display in the debate over the pros and cons of publicly financed elections. We’re always asked whether the public should pay for election campaigns.

Wrong question.

The only relevant question is how the public should pay. Because we always will pay one way or the other. There’s no way for us to skip out on the bill.

We can either pay for election campaigns directly – as citizens in places like Arizona and Maine and Portland, Oregon do – or we will pay for them indirectly, as we do here in Wisconsin every time we all have to pick up the tab for another favor our elected officials do for their biggest campaign donors.

The direct way has a price tag attached. Depending on the kind of system you put in place, the cost for publicly financing state elections in Wisconsin ranges from about $4 million a year on the low side to $10 million to $12 million annually on the high side. There are about 3.9 million taxpayers in Wisconsin. So we’re talking about somewhere between $1 and roughly $3 per taxpayer per year.

Yes, the direct way costs millions, but it’s a bargain compared to the indirect way. If you tally up the value of all the special interest tax breaks, pork barrel spending projects and sweetheart no-bid contracts for state work that Wisconsin politicians have been doling out to their most generous campaign contributors, as Democracy Campaign researchers have done, you come up with a list totaling more than $5 billion a year. That’s more than $1,300 for every state taxpayer each year. And that’s just state government. The same thing is happening out in Washington, D.C. to our federal government, only on a grander scale.

So we have a choice to make. We can collectively pay millions to have voter-owned elections, or we can keep paying billions for the donor-owned elections we have now. The problem is we never consciously think of that as our choice, because we’ve fallen for a false choice – namely that we can somehow get off scot-free and not pay a dime toward electing our government officials.

That false choice has been put before us very deliberately and very skillfully by the very people who are profiting at our expense from the current corrupt system. They make sure we are asked a false question – whether the public should pay for elections, not how the public should pay – based on the utter fantasy that there’s somehow a way for the public to pay no price. Then they slap every pejorative label they can think of on the idea of the public playing any role in financing election campaigns. They call it socialized campaigning and welfare for politicians. They ask us why on earth we would want our tax dollars used to help some politician sling mud. Notice they are gladly footing the bill for the smear campaigns, because then they own those politicians and are getting a handsome return on their purchase.

You have to hand it to them. They manipulate public opinion with breathtaking skill. Then they financially rape you and me, paying politicians to tax us to benefit them. And as they do it, they count on us getting even more fed up with government and even more cynical about politics. They count on us throwing up our hands and saying we don’t want anything to do with any of them. They count on us to retreat to our private lives, and leave the governing to them.

Too many of us have done what they expect us to do. And we are paying a stiff price for that.

So go ahead and say you don’t want your tax money used for their election campaigns. But they’re using it anyway, way more than you ever knew. And they’ll keep right on doing it until enough of us wise up and stop listening to their propaganda, start asking the right questions and then demanding answers that serve the public interest.

--Mike McCabe is executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, a nonpartisan watchdog group that tracks the money in state politics, fights government corruption and works for campaign finance reform and other pro-democracy reforms. The group’s web site is www.wisdc.org.

Source: See HERE

Nothing else about campaign reform really needs to be said after this.

Election 2008 — Campaign Contributions, Lobbying, and the U.S. Health Sector

Robert Steinbrook, M.D., New England Journal of Medicine

A side from the war in Iraq, health care has been the most important issue for the U.S. public in the early phase of the 2008 presidential campaign, ranking higher than both immigration and the economy.1,2 Indeed, a majority of the U.S. population thinks that the federal government “should guarantee health insurance for all Americans,” particularly children.2 Americans would be willing to pay higher taxes to make changes possible, although, like politicians, they disagree about whether participation in a national health care plan should be required and whether the government or private insurers would do a better job of providing coverage.

See the complete article HERE or the (preferred) printable PDF HERE

Gee, campaign dollars affecting political decisions? Of course he's right, and I appreciate the national review. Also remember WDC state report HERE and my article at the Nieman Watchdog HERE

From www.maplight.org

CCAGW Calls Earmark Reform Changes a Fiscal Fiasco

As members of Congress left for their August recess, the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) charged Senate and House conferees on ethics and lobbying legislation with undermining earmark reform, following secret negotiations arranged by the Democratic congressional leadership that bypassed the normal legislative process. The compromise ethics and lobbying bill, which passed both the House and Senate before the recess, guts the earmark reform provisions adopted earlier by the Senate as legislation and the House as internal rules. Among its shortcomings, the compromise bill eliminates a provision in the original Senate legislation that would have blocked consideration of any bill in conference unless all earmarks were disclosed in advance and requires Congress to create a publicly searchable database of earmarks only “if practicable.” The compromise bill makes a mockery of the Democratic leadership’s pledge to be “the most ethical Congress in history.” “The taxpayers’ worst fears have been realized. Prototypical of Washington backroom deals, House and Senate Democrats have conjured up a deal that benefits only the powerful appropriators and the special interests that game the system at the expense of average Americans,” said CCAGW president Tom Schatz. Read more about the changes to earmark reform legislation.

Health care and the cities

Cities would save under Healthy Wisconsin

That Healthy Wisconsin is good for the public may be its biggest political challenge

Health care has become a major bargaining point between cities and their workers, and it need not continue. The Healthy Wisconsin proposal by the Democratic state senate would not only save the city of Eau Claire substantial dollars on its healthcare spending, it would also lower property taxes and it would limit bargaining issues to whether or not the city (or a company) picked up healthcare co-pays for workers. That would not have to change under the new system.

All other healthcare would be funded at the state level -- for less dollars -- and the pubic and Wisconsin businesses would be the winners.

But note the key word "funded." The state only collects the taxes and passes them to hospitals, clinics and health care networks, all of whom remain as private competitors. The system is government funded but remains privately operated, just like other state public-private services.

This should be a no brainer, but it is complicated by the age old problem of winners and losers. And in this case the loser is the insurance industry, which is why the Republicans are so upset. They receive much of their campaign contributions from insurers, thus are pushing for the industry's health savings accounts instead.

Health savings accounts are great investment tools for the young and healthy and the wealthy, but they are terrible healthcare policies for families. But if the Republicans insist on HSAs, they should also mandate that all legislators take them too, instead of their gold-plated taxpayer-funded health care package. Now let's see where their loyalty is.

Under Healthy Wisconsin, the 31% of administrative waste that's consumed by the massive insurance bureaucracy is eliminated, and that includes the unnecessary administrative and billing personnel at insurers, hospitals and clinics, plus the insurer's costs for marketing, broker sales commissions, actuarial costs, gatekeepers, high executive salaries and ever-increasing shareholder profits. Even their high costs of lobbying and campaign contributions are passed to the patient (and in most cases to employers, who have been taking their jobs offshore to avoid the costs).

We won't eliminate it all, because some of it is useful. But we will eliminate the needless make-work portions and use the savings to expand first-class coverage to everybody, including the uninsured and unemployed, all for the same dollars we are spending today. The displaced workers can be retrained in other needed areas -- like filling the shortage of nursing and medical technician jobs -- but the insurance CEOs can find their own work in other markets.

Yes, there is a 10.5% tax on wages but that will replace the 15% most companies and cities will save in insurance premiums. And there's a 4% tax on employee's wages that will be more than offset by the added coverage of limited dental, vision, mental parity and prescription drugs. But here the state can negotiate for better prices to bring drug costs down.

Of course the insurance industry doesn't like these "savings" because it comes out of their hide. And while insurance is a good and profitable industry, it has no place in our healthcare system, draining dollars that instead should be spent on patient care.

However, Healthy Wisconsin is not perfect and it needs tweaking. We need a small business tax break to help transition those businesses that have not been able to provide health care in the past, and we need a cap on dual-income family wages. But those are the things Republicans are good at and they can amend the bill before it becomes law. That is, if they can first break their link with the health savings account industry.

-- Lohman is a retired business owner from Colgate and is a founding member of www.BusinessCoalition.net. He authored "Politicians - Owned and Operated by Corporate America" and can be reached at jelohman@gmail.com.

Source HERE

Here's some good healthcare resources.....

www.pnhp.org

www.healthcare-now.org

www.ProtestHealthcare.org

www.calnurses.org

A must-hear Healthy Wisconsin debate

WisBusiness.com: 'Healthy Wisconsin' plan debated at MMAC event

Business leaders were largely skeptical of the “Healthy Wisconsin” care plan at today’s MMAC Blueprint Briefing in Milwaukee, which featured a panel debate over the controversial health care plan.

As it stands, “Healthy Wisconsin” aims to provide health care coverage to state residents and employees, including coverage for mental health and substance abuse treatment. Proponents of the plan say it will be funded by assessments on employers, employees, the self-employed, and individuals without an earned income who meet specific residency and employment requirements.

Stepping up to the plate for the Democrat-sponsored plan were State Rep. Jon Richards (D-Milwaukee), and former State Budget Director David Riemer, who maintained that the plan would remain on par with the state’s high-quality health care system.

See the complete article HERE

--Listen to audio of the debate:

*Richards and Riemer on why "Healthy Wisconsin" works: http://www.wispolitics.com/1006/DW_C0074.wav

*Vukmir on why "Healthy Wisconsin" will not work: http://www.wispolitics.com/1006/Vukmir.wav

*Rauser on why "Healthy Wisconsin" will not work: http://www.wispolitics.com/1006/Rauser.wav

*Question & answer session following the debate: http://www.wispolitics.com/1006/Q_and_A.wav

What a pathetic presentation by State Rep. Leah Vukmir, a former nurse who once cared for sick people. Her case was well stated, but it was total garbage that is exactly the line of the insurance industry that owns our Republicans. Vukmir does her own plan, though; it is an insurance policy payment account that individuals can contribute to through multiple employers, and it can only be used to buy "insurance!" Wow, she just found yet another way way to keep the insurance industry in the loop! That way the folks who have two part time jobs -- one at McDonalds and another stocking shelves at Pick n Save -- can invest in their personal responsibility!
She should be ashamed!
Why her allegiance to the insurance industry solution? Follow the Vukmir money trail HERE, though most of the insurance industry money goes into her party coffers. If she is not replaced next November, her constituents aren't following her money or Madison's corruption.

Vukmir:

Health Professionals $27,015.00

Health Services/Institutions $13,625.00

Insurance $3,110.00

If Vukmir and her colleagues were not taking insurance industry money, perhaps I could more readily accept her criticisms. But a look at Jim Wrich's findings above tells us whose pockets she is in.

Note: You may have to download these .wav files, and I'd rename them with "temp" as the beginning letters so you can delete them after use. Windows Media Player is a good playback program, but others will work too.

Wispolitics.com missed the mark on Healthy Wisconsin survey

A recent survey by Wispolitics.com asked 400 Wisconsin residents about their support for Healthy Wisconsin and received far less public support than other surveys have found and logic would dictate.

Two issues are critical in accessing these results. First, the question put to the 400 came nowhere near providing all of the information needed for a respondent to properly evaluate the benefits of the program and give an educated answer, and secondly, if truly random it must have asked many people who were uninformed on the bill's effect on both the public and the state's businesses.

See the complete article and link to survey HERE

Tidbits

See the new www.PolitiFact.com web site HERE, much like www.factcheck.org

There's something very nasty about all of these sub-prime mortgage foreclosures. Yes, borrowers must be more responsible and shouldn't buy things they can't afford, but what about the bankers financing them? They mortgage a house to someone who can't afford it, and when the homeowner defaults they foreclose and sell the house to someone else and the process starts all over again with a new victim. Don't the banks have a public obligation to stop people before they hurt themselves and their family? Or is all of this needed so they can continue building new banks on every corner, thus putting all the carpenters to work?

Would this be happening if commercial banks were not the sixth highest campaign contributing industry? If they were not so free with their political money, would we not see stiff regulations controlling who they were lending to and sensible rules governing foreclosures? Or at least the outlawing of variable rates that rise after a buyer is locked in?

Should instead the politicians be saying to the bankers "tough, guys, you made some stupid loans, now eat 50% of the losses?" Should there not be a mandated moratorium on foreclosures, rather than laws protecting the bankers? Or instead is there going to be another industry bailout?

These are obviously questions the banking industry would not like asked. Nor the politicians taking their money.

According to OpenSecrets.org, banks gave $25,881,345 in 2006, 61% to Republicans.

From www.TooMuchOnline.org

In June, the Environmental Working Group crunched data from “previously unpublished USDA subsidy records” to generate a first-ever comprehensive look at federal farm subsidy beneficiaries. Nearly half of the $34.8 billion in federal crop subsidy checks that went out from 2003 through 2005, this new research found, went to just 5 percent of subsidy check-cashers.

The top 1 percent of beneficiaries, the data reveal, averaged $377,484 each in subsidy checks over this three-year period. The bottom 80 percent of the farm operations that qualified for subsidies, by contrast, averaged just $4,508.

Earlier this month, the Nebraska-based Center for Rural Affairs added an even more troubling twist to this rural inequality story. The Center compared, over three-year stretches, the federal tax dollars going to the 20 largest crop subsidy beneficiaries in each of 13 rural states with the federal economic development aid going to the 20 most struggling rural counties in those same states.

Overall, this new research found, the 260 most favored beneficiaries of federal crop subsidies in the 13 states surveyed are receiving more federal aid dollars than the nearly 3 million people who live in the states' 260 most hard-pressed rural counties.

Residents in these distressed counties have averaged, over the latest three years with data available, $53 each in federal development aid. The top 260 crop subsidy beneficiaries have averaged, in their most recent three years of federal subsidies, just over $1 million each.

Two professors plan bipartisan bid for Sensenbrenner's seat

MILWAUKEE - Two Concordia University professors are planning an unusual bipartisan campaign to unseat U.S. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner.

Political scientist Jeff Walz, 40, plans to run against the longtime Republican congressman as a Democrat. Historian James Burkee, 39, will run as a Republican.

The two plan to campaign together and combine their promotional efforts.

It's about time we had an option to Sensenbrenner. It's time for him to go. Now you can pick your Republican or Democrat replacement.

See the complete article HERE

This is refreshing. Anyone is better than Sensenbrenner and his conflicts of interest.

Part-time politicians: Many state lawmakers have other jobs

State Rep. Mike Sheridan faces some busy days as a member of the Wisconsin Legislature and head of one of the most well known union chapters in Janesville.

"There's some days where I might start out in Janesville in the morning, I go to Madison for a couple meetings, and then I'm back in Janesville for the afternoon," he said.

But Sheridan, D-Janesville, makes his schedule work because he thinks it's important to honor the commitments he made to the United Auto Workers and to the Wisconsin Assembly, he said.

See complete article HERE

Come on, this is more than just having a second job. It is a conflict of interest when voting on legislation that affects your outside employer. Would we accept a legislator who worked part time at WMC? Of course we wouldn't, and Sheridan and the other half of the legislature should give up their part time jobs. Increase their salaries, if you will, but demand only one paycheck and loyalty to the public.

Lawmakers seek [unpaid] time off work for families of deployed soldiers

See the complete story HERE

And guess who opposes unpaid leave for helping your child prepare for shipping out to Iraq: Our friends at WMC.

Give me a Break!

Twenty Dollars

On their wedding night, the young bride approached her new husband and asked for $20.00 for their first lovemaking encounter. In his highly aroused state, her husband readily agreed.

This scenario was repeated each time they made love, for more than 30 years, with him thinking that it was a cute way for her to afford new clothes and other incidentals that she needed.

Arriving home around noon one day, she was surprised to find her husband in a very drunken state. During the next few minutes, he explained that his employer was going through a process of corporate downsizing, and he had been let go. It was unlikely that, at the age of 59, he'd be able to find another position that paid anywhere near what he'd been earning, and therefore, they were financially ruined.

Calmly, his wife handed him a bank book which showed more than thirty years of steady deposits and interest totaling nearly $1 million. Then she showed him certificates of deposits issued by the bank which were worth over $2 million, and informed him that they were one of the largest depositors in the bank.

She explained that for the more than three decades she had "charged" him for sex, these holdings had multiplied and these were the results of her savings and investments.

Faced with evidence of cash and investments worth over $3 million, her husband was so astounded he could barely speak, but finally he found his voice and blurted out, "If I'd had any idea what you were doing, I would have given you all my business!"

That's when she shot him.

You know, sometimes, men just don't know when to keep their mouths shut!

See Waterpark Fun (PG, so don't go there if you are sensitive!)

TIMES WHEN YOU DON'T HYPHENATE YOUR LAST NAME

Book Recommendations

See other reviews on Amazon.com

Bleeding the Patient: The Consequences of Corporate Healthcare (Paperback)
by David U. Himmelstein (Author), Steffie Woodhandler (Author), Ida Hellander (Author)

Book Description
An update on the 1994 expose that reveals the most Americans would prefer a national health program like Canada's that not only costs less than ours but insures everyone. Why in a democracy, isn't this an option? Where is the choice? There is none when a multibillion dollar insurance industry spreads lies and promotes managed competition, keeping information from the public and spreading lies about the Canadian system.

Meticulous, measured, mandatory reading, April 26, 2004

Reviewer: A reader

This book is a must-read, particularly for those who are concerned with the rising cost of public health care in the U.S. We pay more and get less for our expenditures than any other industrialized nation. Our emergency rooms are overloaded, our citizenry is more vulnerable to bioterror, and our national purse is being emptied by insurance conglomerates -it's time we did something about this. geocities.com/singlepayerweb

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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.BusinessCoalition.net

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

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Disclosure: I am a center-right Republican that (regrettably) voted for Bush twice. 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.