Healthcare Boiled Over Debate

Anyone with a heartbeat has something to say on healthcare for all Americans or they damn sure as hell should have an opinion. From business owners that have seen the gross profiteering from their health care insurance providers to the employees of those same businesses that have seen their own cost rise but services cut. The only people winning are the mega structures built to provide a new home to the next generation of Robber Barons. And yet an industry that claims that they can police themselves is recording record profits while the rest of America is losing its shirt? Does that make any sense to you?

Teddy Roosevelt was a Republican bastard to industry and that is a political and historical fact. He saw a wrong, it was un-American for the times and he sure as hell fixed it. He carried his big stick and broke up the Robber Barons for a reason, they were killing the American economy. When any industry Robber Baron thinks that they are so powerful that the laws and the liberty of all Americans is no longer of their concern because they believe to have omnipotent power, then it is up to a strong President and Federal Government to protect the American people from them.

Capitalism in America is a funny business, sometimes it serves the many but often it serves the few. There is nothing wrong with any company making a profit to survive. If I were a CEO then that would be my objective one hundred and ten percent. We are talking health care though, not gas, not steel, not oil and things that could be commodity driven. Just health care is being discussed here and frankly I have to agree with Teddy Roosevelt that it is time to take out the federal government big stick and knock the sons of bitches down a notch. As the system stands now, you would have to work for your employer and forsake all of your wages twenty years from now just to see your doctor for the sniffles. Pay your soul to the company store for anything worse than that.

Reality is simple, do the math yourself. The more people without health care means that the cost to you will rise further and higher than it has in the past. People will look back kindly when co-pays only increased twenty percent per year. Health Care CEO’s will take hundred million dollar plus bonuses and wonder how they will increase their pay the next year?

Meanwhile, ten of millions of our fellow Americans will go without regular care, never see a doctor till the cost of care goes into the millions and the sun will shine the next day regardless of political opinion one way or the other. Just make sure you wear your sunglasses as you pass the conglomerate skyscraper HMO built to make sure you get your health care bill emailed, faxed, debited from your checking account, or sent to your cell phone before you even get home from your doctor.

The health care industry is broken. It isn’t the nurses and doctors that give the care fault. It’s the white shirts in a huge glass building hundreds or thousands of miles away from the table that you sit on where they ask you to roll up your sleeve or stick out your tongue. It’s not even the emergency room hospitals fault either. Most hospitals according to some reports have to waive the bills and eat the cost of caring for people without health insurance. Where do you think that cost gets passed on to? That two dollar treatment such as Aspirin or other medication of equal cost ends up costing $250 on an insurance form from the ER.

It is time for a Teddy Roosevelt big stick. Hell yes! President Obama needs to speak softly and carry a big stick when it comes to healthcare reform. Is that not one of the biggest reasons we voted to elect President Obama and a Democrat controlled Congress? I believe we have the votes to get it done so what is the problem? Just get the job done and lets move on to the next issue!

Papamoka

The tightrope

Alex says: So the stimulus bill has got through, smaller than what was needed but still the largest spending measure since World War II. Geithner’s bank bill is on its way, bringing to well over $2 trillion the total spending and investment by the US government since the crisis began a few short months ago. And we should see more spending on the public sector – education, health care, insurance – and environment in the next months, both to fulfil Obama’s ambitious agenda and as a method of further job creation by the back door.

The first casualty of this conflict was bipartisanship: a mythical phenomenon that has never really existed in Washington except as a political tactic (See my post from last September). Given the majority power that the Democrats now have across two of the three branches of government, it would have been inconceivable that they concede the substance of their political goals to make an unnecessary alliance with people who advocate policies they don’t believe in. To Democrat leaders it would have been a betrayal both of their principles and their supporters ... so it didn’t happen.

That said, this is a debate that’s doomed to an early death. No-one will be giving two hoots about bipartisanship within a few months. As the social consequences of unemployment continue to multiply, social polarisation based on public fury will take over, and bipartisanship will seem like a quaint concept from a bygone era. Prime Minister Brown gained early credit in his response to the banking crisis, and his bold and decisive action helped him reconstruct support that had almost completely evaporated in the preceding year, but a few months have passed and that is a thing of the past now. Now a significant majority of Britons believe that the government has spent too much time worrying about banks and not enough time worrying about jobs. The anger is palpable, building, and threatens in the medium term to split the Labour party: my only amazement is that no leaders have yet emerged to articulate and organise it. But with a million more people likely to lose their jobs this year, it won’t be long before that happens.

Obama’s battle with polarisation will be much more dangerous than the debates over bipartisanship precisely because it is based in social reality not the idealistic hopes we might have for a more civilized world of political debate. One phenomenon is about compromise in D.C. to get bills passed; the other is about a fragmenting society. If the jobless numbers grow at the rate most of us expect them to this year, if the ranks of long-term unemployed rise as dramatically as it appears they will, and if people continue to lose their houses, the anger at the ruling elites – which has so far only produced some fairly pointless public flagellation of bankers at congressional hearings – will boil into something much more than that, and Obama will be sitting right on top of it. I don’t think many of the politicians in Washington yet have any idea what this tiger of public anger will do when it gets its claws into them.

On the one hand, Obama believes that the path to recovery lies through ambitious yet fundamentally conservative policies: renewing faith in the banking sector, raising consumer confidence, and creating jobs for Americans (which, given the modern economic system, will entail big aid to big corporations, not just money to the little man). But in the context of a rising tide of populist anger, this runs the risk of seeing him associated too closely with these forces of privilege himself. That’s what’s happened in the UK, where the Labour party is now seen as little more than a stooge of the banking industry: an unfair accusation, arguably.

This was the tightrope FDR delicately had to walk in the 1930s: first wooing the big industrialists and allowing them to consolidate to keep prices up; then, in the mid-1930s moving dramatically leftwards to respond to the challenge from populist leaders like Charles Coughlin, Huey Long, and Frances Townsend; then, moving back to the fiscal centre (disastrously) with the spending cuts early in his second term; and finally reconstructing his political support by pronouncing the death of 'Dr. New Deal' and birth of ‘Dr. Win-the-war’.

That’s how you win four elections: and that will be the real test of Obama’s political skill.

Alex Goodall
Papamoka’s European Contributor
From A Swift Blow to the Head

American Depression Starts!

How do you put it in simple terms to tell the people that your government as you know it has sold America out for personal gain? How do you tell someone that loves John McCain that he sold you out too? How do you instill the common sense it takes to see the coruption of the last eight years played into the downfall of America's economy?

Don’t hold your breath to hear this news on the networks. The facts of the current financial crisis in the American banking world were told to the leaders of Congress and they were speechless. When was the last time you heard of a politician that had no words. All of the policies of the last eight years has crippled America financially and that responsibility rest at the feet of George W. Bush. And it rests at the feet of people like John McCain that wanted less regulation of our financial markets not just this past week but for decades in the Senate.

This is not good news my friends. This is the end of the never ending growth in America simply because there were no rules to make more money for the sake of making more money that was instilled by Republican policy over the last eight years. Those that made this situation possible have already taken the rewards of the fatted calf and can ride this depression out. Millionaires have that safety buffer to do so, do you?

Over at the New York Times they have this to say on a speechless Congress on hearing the news of our actual state of the union…

Congressional Leaders Stunned by Warnings

By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
Published: September 19, 2008

WASHINGTON — It was a room full of people who rarely hold their tongues. But as the Fed chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, laid out the potentially devastating ramifications of the financial crisis before congressional leaders on Thursday night, there was a stunned silence at first.

Mr. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. had made an urgent and unusual evening visit to Capitol Hill, and they were gathered around a conference table in the offices of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

“When you listened to him describe it you gulped," said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York.

As Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut and chairman of the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, put it Friday morning on the ABC program “Good Morning America,” the congressional leaders were told “that we’re literally maybe days away from a complete meltdown of our financial system, with all the implications here at home and globally.”

Mr. Schumer added, “History was sort of hanging over it, like this was a moment.”
When Mr. Schumer described the meeting as “somber,” Mr. Dodd cut in. “Somber doesn’t begin to justify the words,” he said. “We have never heard language like this.”
“What you heard last evening,” he added, “is one of those rare moments, certainly rare in my experience here, is Democrats and Republicans deciding we need to work together quickly.”

Although Mr. Schumer, Mr. Dodd and other participants declined to repeat precisely what they were told by Mr. Bernanke and Mr. Paulson, they said the two men described the financial system as effectively bound in a knot that was being pulled tighter and tighter by the day.

“You have the credit lines in America, which are the lifeblood of the economy, frozen.” Mr. Schumer said. “That hasn’t happened before. It’s a brave new world. You are in uncharted territory, but the one thing you do know is you can’t leave them frozen or the economy will just head south at a rapid rate.”

As he spoke, Mr. Schumer swooped his hand, to make the gesture of a plummeting bird. “You know we’d be lucky ...” he said as his voice trailed off. “Well, I’ll leave it at that.” - New York Times

In one day this election for President has changed from continuing the policies of Hoover or electing a new deal leader in Roosevelt. I think you all know who is following Hoover and who is following the footsteps of FDR.

I’m shocked, I’m pissed off, and I know that it was not the Democrat Party that sold America down the drain for the sake of making more and more money from the bottom of the food chain in the American economy. Getting past all of the blame we as a people need to move forward, change the way America deals with the markets, change the way we do not care what our political leaders are doing to our nation. Now is the time for change and now is the time for fresh blood in the Congress and in the White House. America and it’s people deserve to be saved just as much as the big banks and Wall Street firms that the Trillion Dollar bailout is going to fund.

Pick a candidate, McCain that follows the policies of Bush that caused this disaster or Obama that is offering a new path out of the disaster? It’s your choice but make sure you vote your wallet if you have not already sold off all of your investments because inflation is about to skyrocket here in America.

Un Freaking believable! Hat tip to Memeorandum for this post!

Papamoka

Selective "Free Markets": Time To Reconsider

BY MICHAEL LINN JONES

This doesn't make an immediate connection to the presidential campaign, and yet is has more to do with it than one could imagine.

I am very leery of those who expound upon the virtues of the "free market," as if such is a panacea, a cure-all to economic questions. Particularly the selective aspect of its proponents.

Consider this: in the 1970's, Chrysler was in trouble, big trouble. Despite objections from many Congress voted to loan Chrysler $2 billion. The labor unions made concessions, Lee Iacocca came along, and within years Chrysler was back on its feet. It is arguable that it worked to a certain degree.

Now go back to the 1930's. The economic mess that existed at that time had one unusual characteristic: DEflation. Most of us alive today have never lived it and therefore would find it difficult to think of falling prices as a bad thing.

But they were. Farmers in Iowa could not get enough for their corn to justify the cost of shipping it to market. Long before bio-fuels became a household word many people were using corn for heat.

Along came Franklin Roosevelt and his New Deal. No one had all the answers; it was more a quest to end the Depression and government had a role in doing so. It was true "thinking outside the box" in that for the first time farmers were going to be paid NOT to produce. Hog farmers could not understand how their crops and animal products could give a greater return by lowering the supply.

It was inflationary, but that was a price to be paid in an effort to preserve American capitalism. Within the context of the 1930's it made sense to tax some people in order to pay other people not to produce. There was a human cost too; in the South many sharecroppers were made homeless since the land owners did better by not having anyone produce anything. These people, black and white, became part of the great internal migration of that time.

Up until the last year or so no one would have thought much about this process' impact on their lives. But.....we're over 70 years away from the Depression. The continuance of these farm subsidies is akin to building Civil War cannons for the modern Army. In the 1930's over 25% of Americans lived on farms. Now it's something under 2%. Most agricultural activity is through huge agri-business combines.

It is absurd for people like Sam Donaldson or Ted Turner to be receiving payments from the U.S. government for NOT doing anything with their land. Particularly at a time when Americans (and everyone else on the planet) are paying a lot more for food because of the emergence of ethanol as the answer to all of our energy problems. Which it is not, of course.

While not an economist, I question what the government is doing, and also question the wisdom of continuing to have government manipulation of agricultural products. With the high inflationary nature of ANYTHING to do with corn or grain, why are people being taxed to give money to people who own land but don't grow anything on it?

Why is the government STILL carrying out an inflationary program in an inflationary time? I know there's votes in them there milk buckets and corn cribs, but it seems absurd to apply an early 20th century solution to a 21st century situation that is the reverse of the program's original intent.

There's not much glamor in this subject. But there's a lot of money. It's brought home to me every time I see the latest price increase in food, always because of the high cost of corn products, wheat products, etc.

The "free market" is supposed to make thing more abundant when prices increase. It is never going to happen if we are spending money to do the opposite.

Next thing you know, the fire department will use kerosene to put out housefires. They'll only be following the example set by the geniuses.
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Cross-posted at Michaellinnjones.com

PELOSI & REID FOLLOWING A PATH TO IRRELEVANCY

By Michael Linn Jones

Ever heard of Al Smith? He was once governor of New York, and the first Roman Catholic in a major party to run for the presidency. This was in 1928, and he was nominated by Franklin Roosevelt. That year Roosevelt won election as governor of New York himself.

Smith lost the election to Herbert Hoover. Some might say the nation lost the election, too, considering what followed. In 1932 Smith was one of Roosevelt's rivals for the Democratic nomination for the presidency. In the years that followed Smith was a strong opponent of Roosevelt's New Deal. For all of his progressive attitudes of that time, Smith was a firm believer in government action needing the close cooperation of business.

FDR was born rich. Al Smith was a classic rags-to-riches story. One of the problems with rags-to-riches is that many forget all about the rags as soon as they see the riches. Al Smith was far from being a bad man; in fact, a good one really but not in step with the realities facing the nation at that time. As President of the Empire State Building, Smith found himself in the circle of the wealthy. And, according to historian William Manchester, he liked it. (THE GLORY & THE DREAM, VOL.1)

Brevity requires an injustice to the memory of Governor Smith, but certain aspects of his career remind me of the current Democratic leadership in the House and Senate. It can be very difficult to articulate some thoughts; to put them into words that capture both the meaning and emotion. Here is my best shot:

The election results of 2006 was a message of sorts. A lot of people were fed up. Yes, Iraq was a big topic but not the only one. Voters weren't exactly on the war path yet were also beyond patience. After six years of a presidency that was somewhat short of competence and honesty, along with a Republican Congress that was more cooperative than Hitler's Reichstag, people wanted a strong gulp of Jack Daniels.

What they've gotten is near-beer. The highly-touted Democratic victory in 2006 is a Roman Candle that is sputtering. And with very few sparks. House Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Leader Harry Reid have a big problem. The majority of the people who allowed them to gain the positions they now hold are not represented. That is, the voters.

No, there will be no talk of impeachment; no talk of de-funding the Iraq War (which is the ONLY recourse of Congress, really) nor anything else that might rock the boat. For that boat floats upon the invisible sea of campaign cash. In order for their nets to continue to haul in a harvest, that boat must be stable. The rules of life in America (which they write) must remain essentially the same.

When something needs to be done, there is something worse than doing nothing. And that is to APPEAR to be doing something when in fact doing little more than nothing. And THAT is the story of the Lilliputian Legistature in 2007. The boat remains steady, the nets keep hauling in the silent harvest, and a holding pattern is established that awaits the self-destruction of the Republicans.

In times past, there were convergence points; economic and social forces removed the status quo from the stage. It usually is unpleasant but somehow inevitable. In Europe, 1848 was such a time, not to mention the French Revolution.

Here, there is the Civil War, the Great Depression, and 1968. That particular year is relevant because that is when the Democratic Party started to dissolve from being a voice of millions to a thousand voices of narrow-minded interest groups. The glue that held the party together was diluted on purpose.

The years the Democrats spent out of power were not so much because of the effectiveness of the Republicans (which was considerable nonetheless) so much as their own slide to irrelevancy. What mattered to the party didn't matter to the people. Or vice versa.

Despite all the political science and election specialists, there are forces that build, much like along a geological fault line. They can be ignored (and usually are) for a very long time. But sooner or later those in power discover that their usual remedies no longer work. When the balance is lost no one knows what will happen.

But like Al Smith, Pelosi and Reid and all those they truly represent (and they are NOT "little people") have climbed to the heights and find they like it there. The rarified air of power not only corrupts, but blinds.

In the end, misused power has no power at all. It just creates a vacuum that will be filled by radical change. That does not always equate with wisdom or good.

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Cross posted at Michael Linn Jones.com & The Van Der Galien Gazette

An Indecisive American People

In America today there is a strong and growing movement of people that once thought their voices did not count when it came to the policies of our government. There is some truth to the message that if you do not vote then you do not count but it is not the entire truth. Being an American does not mean that you have to vote, it simply helps the process of putting like minds in the offices you vote for.

Even if you do not vote, your government is still your government as a citizen. Your voice is still very important. Your life and your opinions matter. You are in fact a very important person in the ongoing experiment that is the United States of America. There is only one downfall to our form of government and that is when people believe that our government is not about them. That is the beginning of the end to our democratically elected servants to our republic. Or dare I say the beginning of an elitist government and society led by the needs of the few at the cost of the many.

As Richard Nixon tore down the respect of the political office of the Presidency, so has George W. Bush. Past lessons have been forgotten and the future of being respected as an American President will be up to future office holders to defend. Deciding what laws apply to the President alone when signing laws into effect is wrong and elitist at best. No American is above the law and never should be. We are a land of laws and rules that apply to all. Without them, we have anarchy and that is not a part of the American experiment.

In my mind, the office of President is not just about the power that comes with it. Being the President is about all of the people and sometimes it is about what the people want that is not to your personal liking. Yet it is the people that own the office and not the individual sitting behind the desk. If that was not the case then the descendants of George Washington would be a living and ruling Monarchy today. Am I wrong?

Get off the damn cell phone, computer, email or whatever seems more important and write or email your Representative in Congress on issues you care about. Tell them how you feel about any given issue. Be heard and wash, rinse and repeat.

Not doing that, then yes, special interest will walk away with our nation of laws that only apply to you. They get a waiver and walk away clean as a new born baby.

As an American you need to decide what you want from your leaders and more importantly what you do not want.

Papamoka