The WAWG Blog

Former Health Insurance Company Executive Admits Insurance Firms Very Much Behind Town Hall Disruptions – Health insurance companies deserve “a great deal of the blame” for the sometimes violent disruptions to town hall meetings on health care, says a former health insurance company executive turned whistleblower. Wendell Potter, a former executive with health insurer Cigna who now works as the senior fellow on health care at the Center for Media and Democracy, said that health insurance companies “are very much behind the town hall disruptions that you see and a lot of the deception that’s going on in terms of disinformation that many Americans, apparently, are believing.”

Securities and Exchange Commission statistics show that profits at the US’s ten largest health insurance companies skyrocketed more than 400 percent between 2000 and 2007, from $2.4 billion in 2000 to $12.7 billion in 2007. While they quadrupled their profits, the number of Americans without health insurance grew by 19 percent.

The average total take-home pay for the CEOs of those health insurance companies was $11.9 million each, per year, while the number of Americans without health insurance, for whom a burst appendix can mean bankruptcy, has gone through the roof.

Pete Olson Lies About What Democratic Leaders Said About Angry Mob Behavior – Today, I received an e-mail reply to my concerns about mob behavior at town hall meetings from Congressman Pete Olson (R-Clear Lake, TX), in which he states, “I do not believe that it helps the dialogue when leaders of the Democratic Party label participants as “un-American” for simply expressing their concerns to their elected leaders. Those kinds of comments are what I find to be absolutely reprehensible.”

However, the only statement that I can find fro the Democratic leadership on this issue is in a piece written by Steney Hoyer and Nancy Pelosi, which states, “Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American.” They are correct. All people should have a chance to be heard.

What I find “absolutely reprehensible,” as Pete Olson calls it, is misrepresenting the comments of our leaders, and thinking that we are dumb enough not to fact check what he says.

Feel free to contact Mr. Olson at tx22poima@mail.house.gov or here
or Phone: (281) 486-1095.

Dangerous (Non) Thinking – Have you seen some of the health care reform protesters wearing their t-shirts with the famous Thomas Jefferson quote:

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

There’s one of these T-shirts that’s especially notable: It was the one Timothy McVeigh was wearing when he was arrested for blowing up 168 people at the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City back in 1995.

Does this mean that anyone wearing one of these shirts, or expressing these sentiments, is a crazed militiaman eager and willing to blow up government workers and their children? No. But it does seem that some Republicans are palin’ around with domestic terrorists.

It’s so ironic. Their version of “patriotism” is so extreme that they actually hate not just their government but their fellow citizens — in essence, their country: because it has been “perverted” from its original purposes (as they see them).

Investor’s Business Daily Makes Stuff Up About Government Health Care – In an effort to discredit government health care, Investor’s Business Daily stated, “”The controlling of medical costs in countries such as Britain through rationing, and the health consequences thereof, are legendary. The stories of people dying on a waiting list or being denied altogether read like a horror script … People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the UK, where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.”

However, Professor Hawking has replied, “I wouldn’t be here today if it were not for the NHS. I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived.”

Health Insurance Company Provides Misleading TV Ads, But That’s About All – A health insurer whose TV commercials promised “peace of mind” for just $5 a day must stop running the national ads and pay a fine of $700,000 after New York officials accused it of leaving patients only with huge hospital bills.

The American Medical and Life Insurance Co., advertising through an intermediary called Cinergy, marketed health insurance as a lower cost option for the uninsured and underinsured. It was pitched as costing just $5 a day, or the cost of a hamburger or pack of cigarettes.

In one ad, the narrator said the insurance is available “regardless of any pre-existing conditions,” while the print on the screen stated “most pre-existing conditions accepted” and the fine print stated there is a six-month waiting period.

Acting Insurance Superintendent Kermitt J. Brooks said Wednesday that the cases uncovered in New York’s two-year investigation included a Rochester woman who had $419 a month charged to her credit card for the insurance, only to have the company cover just $1,164 of her $28,000 hospitalization. A 36-year-old New Yorker who had a stroke found his policy covered just $250, leaving him with a bill for $29,917.

Conservative Group Scaring Senior Citizens – A group called 60 Plus has been attempting to scare senior citizens with various lies about health care reform. A few years ago, AARP hired an investigator who looked into 60 Plus and found that it was being was used as a front by the pharmaceutical industry during the 2002-03 push for a Medicare drug benefit.

60 Plus also had long-standing ties to the Bush administration. According to a 2002 article in the American Prospect, “The smaller 60 Plus Association, which is handling the radio spots, is run by James Martin, a retired Marine whose postmilitary career includes stints at the National Conservative Political Action Committee and Americans Against Union Control of Government. He claims to have given President George W. Bush his first job out of college: working on a Florida Senate campaign.”
The 60 Plus website features a photo of Martin chatting with Karl Rove in 2003. During the Bush administration’s push for Social Security privatization in 2005, representatives of the group were invited to meet with Rove, along with those of the Business Roundtable and the Mortgage Bankers Association. A true rouge’s gallery.

Disobedient Child – Here’s what Republican Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann said about President Obama’s plan to expand AmeriCorps, a program that puts young adults to work making the world a better place by teaching disadvantaged kids and helping the poor:

[It’s] under the guise of quote, volunteerism, but it’s not volunteers at all,” she said on the Sue Jeffers radio show in April. “It’s paying people to do work on behalf of government. There are provisions for what I would call re-education camps for young people, where young people get trained in the philosophy the government puts forward and then they have to go work in these politically correct forums.

As a parent, I would have a very, very difficult time seeing my children do this.

Bachmann’s son, Harrison Bachmann, recently joined Teach for America (TFA), one of the programs under the AmeriCorps umbrella.

The last application deadline was in February, and successful candidates were notified within two months, according to Kerci Marcello Stroud, national communications director of TFA. So when Bachmann issued her screed, her son might have already been accepted, and certainly would have applied. Ouch.

As an AmeriCorps member, he won’t be allowed to participate in politics or disseminate partisan material.

Thank you, Harrison, for your service. Here’s hoping you inspire kids to dream, and get inspired in the process.

Bush Administration Had U.S. Attorney Fired For Not Influencing Election for Republican – The dismissal of New Mexico U.S. Attorney David C. Iglesias in December 2006 followed extensive communication among lawyers and political aides in the White House. The campaign to oust Iglesias intensified after state party officials and GOP members of the congressional delegation apparently concluded he was not pursuing the cases against Democrats in a way that would help then- Rep. Heather Wilson in a tight re-election race, according to interviews and Bush White House e-mails released Tuesday by congressional investigators.

It’s Easy to Steal Votes on a Computerized Voting Machine – Computer science students demonstrated that criminals could hack an electronic voting machine and steal votes using a malicious programming approach that had not been invented when the voting machine was designed. The team of scientists from University of California, San Diego, the University of Michigan, and Princeton University employed “return-oriented programming” to force a Sequoia AVC Advantage electronic voting machine to turn against itself and steal votes.

Regards,

Jim

Al Qaeda: noun, from Arabic, translation: The Base.

Al Qaeda is not a single organization but rather a network of militant groups with similar interests. Osama bin Laden, using what he learned from the CIA, founded The Base to organize, train and martial the many disparate militant groups into a single federation capable of world wide attacks against Western Interests. Without the organization provided by The Base each group was a small inefficient bunch of disgruntled uneducated angry fanatics.

According to the FBI, there were 24 acts of terrorism inside the United States between 2002 and 2005 all carried out by domestic homegrown fanatics. The most famous act of domestic terror was the bombing of the Federal building in Oklahoma City by Tim McVeigh in 1995.

In the first six months of 2009 there were eight violent acts by right wing nuts:

January 21 — Keith Luke goes on a killing spree in Boston. Police intercept him on his way to a local synagogue, where he told them he intended to “kill as many Jews as possible during bingo night.” He said that he was fighting the extinction of the white race.

February 10 — In Belfast, Maine, radioactive “dirty bomb” materials are found in home of James Cummings, an admirer of Adolf Hitler with a large collection of Nazi memorabilia and a filled-out application for the National Socialist Movement. Cummings had been killed by his wife after years of physical abuse.

February 26 — In Miramar Beach, FL, 60-year-old Dannie Baker walks into a townhouse where 14 Chilean students were gathered. He kills two and wounds five. Those who know Baker describe him as a man obsessed with the fear that immigrants are taking over the country.

April [4] — Recently discharged veteran Richard Popalowski shoots and kills three police officers following a standoff in Pittsburgh. He believed they had been sent by the Obama Administration to take away his guns.

[April 5 — Jiverly Voong, an American citizen, shot 13 people and fantasized about the assassination of the president. His two guns were licensed by NY state.]

April 28 — US Army Reservist Joshua Cartwright shoots and kills two sheriff’s deputies in Fort Walton Beach, FL. In the incident report his wife said her husband believed the U.S. Government was conspiring against him and was disturbed that Barack Obama had been elected President.

May 6 — Stephen P. Morgan of Middletown, CT kills former NYU classmate Johanna Justin-Jinich. A diary found in his belongings included an entry: “I think it’s ok to kill Jews”. Justin-Jinich was Jewish and the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor.

May 31 — Dr. George Tiller is shot to death in Wichita, KS. His killer, Scott Roeder, is found to have ties to several violent right-wing groups, including the Montana Freemen and the Sovereign Citizen movement.

June 10 — Anti-Semitic blogger James Wenneker von Brunn walks into the national Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC and opens fire, killing a security guard. Von Brunn had been prominent in Holocaust denier circles for several decades, and considered Holocaust museums to be a crime against white history.

More recently:

August 11 — William Kostric wears a gun to President Obama’s town hall meeting in Portsmouth, New Hampshire carrying a sign reading “It is time to water the tree of liberty” provided by RestoreTheRepublic.com, a libertarian website.

August 11 — Richard Terry Young was arrested and charged with carrying a loaded gun without a license (in his car) at the same Obama Town hall meeting.

The Secret Service reports that there are 30 death threats against President Obama every day, four times the number made against President Bush.

There are literally hundreds of small, poorly organized militia hate groups in the United States. They hate for a wide range of fears; abortion, religious fanaticism, fear of government, racism and a host of conspiracy theories. In addition to those organized groups there are thousands of frustrated individuals moved to violence by the echo chamber of right wing talk radio and TV.

My greatest fear? That a charismatic leader with a little training and sufficient funding will organize them all under The Base.

The “Death Panel” Already Exists! – When insurance companies deny coverage to critically ill patients because of what they deem “pre-existing conditions,” they sentence those people to misery and often death. And that has nothing to do with proposed health care reform. This travesty exists now.

When acutely and chronically ill people are unable to purchase medicine because of exorbitant prices, pharmaceutical death panels have spoken. And again, this has nothing to do with universal health care proposals.

When an infant is stillborn because of inadequate or nonexistent prenatal care, a cancer patient forgoes or is denied treatment because of costs, a family is forced to decide whose medical needs will be met — whose postponed, don’t tell me somewhere a death panel isn’t at work.

Please Sign This Pledge Supporting Health Care Reform and this one:

What’s All the Yelling Really About? – It has nothing to do with their perceived choices on health care. This is about the sinking feeling in their stomach that they are losing power in this country — losing control. That the reins of power are slipping out of their hands and they don’t know what to do about it, except yell, really loud.

The reality is that what they have been manipulated into arguing against is a public option that would give them more choices, not less in health insurance. But, they don’t care about the logic of the issue at hand. I’m not convinced they even care what the issue is. These are the same people that were yelling at the Palin rallies. They were screaming just as loud then, and it was different issues, or no issues at all. Just name calling and fear. Pure, unadulterated fear.

It’s a self-justifying anger. The angrier they get the more they feel the imperative to get angry. What is it? What’s really eating away at them? I don’t think it’s a conscious racial thing for them. It’s more a feeling of their way of life slipping away from them.

We’re America. We’re supposed to be better than this.

We’re supposed to resolve our differences peaceably and civilly. We’re supposed to listen to one another. We’re supposed to have the best democracy in the world. As it stands, we’re one burning tire away from Haiti. We have to dial this thing back down.

U.S. Vulnerable to Swine Flu Due to Lack of Universal Coverage – There is an excellent diary today which covers how the media isn’t covering health care reform, but is instead hunting it for sport. Generally, it’s hard to blame elite media figures–all of whom earn six and seven figure salaries–for not understanding that a $120 trip to the doctor can break a family’s budget. As the media continues to cover the new pandemic swine flu and raise alarm about its possible comeback in the Fall, they have completely failed to cover a crucially important fact: our lack of universal access to quality, affordable health care drastically hinders our nation’s efforts to control swine flu.

There are 46 million people in the U.S. without health care coverage. For most of these people, if they come down with swine flu, they won’t go to the doctor. They won’t be diagnosed. They won’t stay home from work. And they will put themselves, and people they are around, in danger by unknowingly spreading the disease.

Is it the End of the World?: Right-Wing Oilman Praises Harry Reid, Bill Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Energy Secretary Chu, Al Gore, and President Obama – T. Boone Pickens says, “Harry Reid has never shunned hard work. He may be Majority Leader of the United States Senate, but when he’s in Washington he’s among the first to arrive at the Capitol each morning and one of the last to leave at night. He doesn’t like to waste time — his or yours — which is why I agreed to attend his [National Clean Energy] summit.”

“…using clean energy to reduce America’s dependency on imported oil isn’t common ground. It’s common sense. That’s why President Clinton and I joined Senator Reid, Speaker Pelosi, Energy Secretary Chu, and former Vice President Al Gore in Washington at a second summit about the clean energy economy in February.”

“President Obama has been an adamant supporter of the green economy. Just last week, he awarded more than $2 billion in grants to help U.S. companies bolster large-scale manufacturing lines for ultra-modern batteries.”

“Leaders such as Harry Reid have the answers and are willing to do the heavy lifting. Let’s support them 100 percent.”

Dear Conservative Free-Market Capitalism Muckety Mucks, –

Why haven’t you fixed the economy yet? Seriously—what gives?

I’m asking because conservatives in fancy suits keep telling me—okay, screaming at me—about how fundamentally sound their ideas are, and how the private sector, not the government, is our best and greatest hope for making the economy leap back to life like Mark Sanford’s libido when he lands at Ezeiza International Airport.

So what’s the holdup? We’ve been in a recession since December of 2007. Why aren’t things all better yet for ordinary Americans? You were so awesome at making the mess, but cleaning up the pile of poopies you left on the nation’s living room rug seems to be proving a bit more, um, problematic. Why?

You’ve got an army of giant, throbbing brains in your right-wing think tanks working day and night. The Heritage Foundation has never been wrong…just ask ’em! And the U.S. Chamber of Commerce never misses an opportunity to proclaim their infallibility in multimillion-dollar ad campaigns. So…why are we still in Sucksville? And why does the evil Big Government seem to be running circles around you?

And don’t try and hide behind the fact that there’s a Democrat in the White House. He’s been shoveling money into your coffers faster than Sarah Palin shoveling bullshit through Twitter. And he’s hardly put a regulatory straightjacket on you…more like a snug cardigan sweater.

I admit I’m not an economist. I don’t know a Laffer curve from a box of David Vitter sex diapers. No, I’m just a simple, average citizen who has listened to you jawbone for decades—amplified non-stop by Fox News, CNBC, the Wall Street Journal and right-wing radio—about how perfect your system of “unfettered everything” is. How greed is good and regulation is the devil’s work. And yet, you seem to be strangely ineffective at fixing it when it breaks. Could it be you’ve been bullshitting us all along? Are you nothing more than the financial equivalent of a bunch of two-year-olds randomly pushing buttons in the command center at NORAD? Or did you just lose your instruction manual? (Check under the couch!)
Fix the damn economy on Main Street already, you Ayn Rand-worshipping free-market capitalist wizards. Show us how it’s done. Be the heroes we’ve been holding out for. I’ll check back on your progress in 30 days. I expect Americans to be squatting over solid gold commodes by then. That’s how much I believe in you.

Sincerely,
Billy

P.S. Make sure you do it honestly, ethically and legally. That won’t be a problem, will it?
(And I’m sure I can trust you to do the same great job with fixing healthcare.)

Regards,

Jim

Newt Gingrich Makes Stuff Up About Health Care Reform That We Don’t Want Either – On ABC’s This Week, Newt Gingrich said, “Blah, blah, lie, Obama, blah, lie, health care, lie, lie, blah, blah.

To which Stephanopoulos responded: “But that’s not in the bill.”

Responding to Gingrich’s claims, Howard Dean said that “this is something Newt and I agree on. I don’t want somebody in between the doctor and the patient, I don’t want the possibility of losing health insurance, I don’t want people setting standards or denying care. That’s all what we have now under the private health insurance system. That’s what happens.”

Dean mentioned that he worked for years as a doctor, and “never once did I have a Medicare bureaucrat tell me what I couldn’t do for a patient, but all the time we have bureaucrats from the insurance companies calling up and saying we’re not going to cover this, we’re not going to pay for that, we’re denying coverage for that. The system we have now is broken. We need to fix it.”

You see, the things that Republicans don’t want in health care are the same things that Democrats don’t want. We actually agree on these things. It’s just that the Republicans are able to get their people in a rage about things that don’t exist because they don’t want to talk about what’s really bothering them.

McAllen, Texas, is the Most Expensive Town in the Most Expensive Country in the World for Health Care. Why? – It’s not easy to summarize an eight-page investigative article on America’s skyrocketing cost of health care. But, here goes.

Why does McAllen, Texas have twice the health care cost per capita as El Paso County, eight hundred miles up the border, which has essentially the same demographics? Quality is actually better in El Paso. Why is cost even lower but quality much higher in Rochester, Minnesota?

Rochester is the home of the Mayo Clinic. The core tenet of the Mayo Clinic is “The needs of the patient come first”—not the convenience of the doctors, not their revenues. The doctors and nurses, and even the janitors, sat in meetings almost weekly, working on ideas to make the service and the care better, not to get more money out of patients. Denis Cortese, the C.E.O. of Mayo, was asked how the Mayo Clinic made this possible.

“It’s not easy,” he said. But decades ago Mayo recognized that the first thing it needed to do was eliminate the financial barriers. It pooled all the money the doctors and the hospital system received and began paying everyone a salary, so that the doctors’ goal in patient care couldn’t be increasing their income. Mayo promoted leaders who focused first on what was best for patients, and then on how to make this financially possible.

But in McAllen, Texas, the core tenet is profit. Doctors own labs and hospitals and get additional money for sending patients for more tests and more surgeries. Some even demand annual payments as much as $5,000 per year to refer patients to a hospital. About fifteen years ago, it seems, something began to change in McAllen. A few leaders of local institutions took profit growth to be a legitimate ethic in the practice of medicine. Not all the doctors accepted this. But they failed to discourage those who did. So here, a medical community came to treat patients the way subprime-mortgage lenders treated home buyers: as profit centers.

Doctors Hospital of McAllen, Texas Makes Huge Political Contributions to Protect Its Profits After reading the previous article, are you surprised? – One of the largest sources of campaign contributions to Senate Democrats during this year’s health care debate is a physician-owned hospital in McAllen, Texas. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee collected nearly $500,000 at a reception here on March 30, mostly from physicians and others affiliated with Doctors Hospital at Renaissance, financial disclosure records show. Another event, in September 2007, brought in at least $800,000 for the committee’s House counterpart, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, according to disclosure reports. The hospital, which is in Edinburg, adjacent to McAllen, is working both sides of the aisle. Its political action committee, Border Health PAC, split $120,000 last year among House and Senate candidates, including Republicans.

Although Congressional negotiations over health care legislation are continuing, Doctors Hospital seems to be getting much of what it wants. Thus far, physician-owned hospitals have been insulated from some of the most onerous potential restrictions in the health care legislation moving through Congress.

Durbin Says He’s Open to a Bill That Does Not Include a Public Option – Dick Durbin, in the name of bipartisanship says he’d be willing to accept a health care bill that does not include a public option. Call Dick Durbin and let him know co-ops are unacceptable.

In Washington, DC-9 am to 6 pm – (202) 224-2152
In Chicago, 8:30 am to 5 pm – (312) 353-4952

You can flood his office with emails too.

What Can We Learn From Sarah Palin? – What do we need to learn from Sarah Palin’s crazy rantings about health care “death panels?” First, we need to really hear her. This is no longer a question of getting the facts straight. Granted, getting the facts straight about health care reform is necessary, and those who provided those facts performed an absolutely vital service. But we’ve moved beyond that point now. As Palin has said, the place we’re at now is about good and evil.

We must meet people in their place of fear instead of insisting that they meet us in our comfort zone — the place of reason. What we need to learn from Palin is that the fight over health care reform is indeed a moral battle. No longer an issue of statistics and parliamentary maneuvers, it’s moved to a different level.

So how does we prevail in such a battle? First, we must see things as they really are, not as how we wish them to be. We must understand that we will face an implacable and destructive Republican opposition for the rest of Obama’s presidency. Second, we need to take on board the insights of Eric Kleefeld and Larry Sabato in this post. As Sabato states in the article, “…something about the negativity motive that seems to result in action. People are willing to spend some time and some effort to oppose something. But rarely are they willing to put out the same effort to support something.” As a result, Democrats are losing the intensity battle with Republicans. Health care reform, and much more, hangs in the balance.

Third, in order to close the intensity gap we need to re-discover the moral fervor that imbued the Obama campaign during the Democratic primaries. Then, we successfully equated voting for him to transforming America into a better, finer place. With an assured moral authority, Obama addressed voters’ fears and conflicts over race, meeting them in their place of discomfort. Rather than continuing to appeal on the basis of reasonableness and logic, we need to have a frank, heartfelt discussion with Americans about their fears over health care reform — over things like rationing, affordability, and loss of control. We can empathize with people’s fears on a gut level and lead them to a better place. And we need to be clear about the malign intentions of those who are trying to thwart reform.

In the end, for better or for worse, whether we like it or not, we are joined in a battle against the forces of anger, hate and grievance. A choice not to engage them on a moral level is an abdication. They will not go away, and they will stalk us the rest of Obama’s presidency unless we face them now.

(The original article was addressed to President Obama. I took the liberty of changing it to address ourselves.)

Don’t Talk To Me About Death Panels – Don’t talk to me about death panels, Sarah Palin. You, who so carelessly bolstered a lie about healthcare reform to score a cheap political point.

You have no idea what it’s like to be called into a sterile conference room with a hospital administrator you’ve never met before and be told that your mother’s insurance policy will only pay for 30 days in ICU. You can’t imagine what it’s like to be advised that you need to “make some decisions,” like whether your mother should be released “HTD” which is hospital parlance for “home to die,” or if you want to pay out of pocket to keep her in the ICU another week. And when you ask how much that would cost you are given a number so impossibly large that you realize there really are no decisions to make. The decision has been made for you. “Living will” or no, it doesn’t matter. The bank account and the insurance policy have trumped any legal document.

If this isn’t a “death panel” I don’t know what is.

So don’t talk to me about “death panels” you heartless, cruel, greedy SOBs, who are only too happy to keep the profits rolling in to the big insurance companies while you spout your mealy-mouthed bumper sticker slogans about the evils of socialism. You don’t even know what socialism is. You don’t know what government healthcare is. You have no … clue about anything except that you lost the last election and you’re pissed off.

Bush Had a Cash For Clunkers Program, Too – Here is the Cash for Clunkers program that was in place during the Bush Administration. The bonus depreciation provisions put in place after 9/11 provided a 50% immediate tax deduction for the purchase of Large SUV’s. So when my boss purchased a $100,000 Range Rover he wrote off $50,000 on his taxes. Assuming a 35% federal tax bracket – this resulted in an immediate tax refund of $17,500 on the purchase of the Range Rover (even though the down payment may have been $10,000). $17,500 cash for the purchase of a 12 mpg Range Rover.

OMG. That looks suspiciously like a tax break to the wealthiest Americans to encourage them to slurp more gas to profit the world’s wealthiest corporations–ExxonMobil, for instance.

I guess you’d call that “cash for wealthy energy sucking, polluting, global warming inducing Republicans.” Now those are some real clunkers.

Regards,

Jim

When you purchase auto, home, or flood insurance, you are covered as long as you pay your premiums. If you suffer a catastrophic loss, you’re coverage will save you from bankruptcy. James Kwak put it this way in his recent article at The Baseline Scenario:

The point of insurance is to protect you against unlikely but damaging events. You are generally happy to pay premiums in all the years that nothing goes wrong (your house doesn’t burn down), because in exchange your insurer promises to be there in the one year that things do go wrong (your house does burn down). That’s why, when shopping for insurance, you are supposed to look for a company that is financially sound – so they will be there when you need them.

However, when it comes to protecting your health care from critical conditions, only a few of us have this kind of insurance. For the rest of us, our health care is provided through our employer or the employer of our spouse. As long as we are employed, we are protected from bankruptcy due to the high health care costs unique to America.

But what happens to this employer coverage if any of the following happens?

• The employer drops its health plan. (Employer based health plans have fallen every year since 2000, from 64.2% to 59.3%.)
• You lose your job. (Unemployment is 9.5 percent and is expected to go higher.)
• You quit your job to take care of an elderly relative. (More baby boomers are providing care for their parents.)
• You get divorced from the spouse with the health coverage. (Maybe you are in need of serious health care, but your spouse can’t handle it?)

Mr. Kwak continues:

For all of these reasons, you can’t count on your health insurer being there when you need it. That’s not insurance; that’s employer-subsidized health care for the duration of your employment.

Once you lose your employer-based coverage, for whatever reason, you’re in the individual market, where, you may be surprised to find, you have no right to affordable health insurance. An insurer can refuse to insure you or can charge you a premium you can’t afford because of your medical history. That’s the way a free market works: an insurer would be crazy to charge you less than the expected cost of your medical care (unless they can make it up on their healthy customers, which they can’t in the individual market).

Mr. Kwak summarizes employer based health care coverage this way, “as long as your health insurance depends on your job, your health is only insured insofar as your job is insured – and your job isn’t insured.”

In other words, we don’t have health insurance that most of us can afford. If fact, the only Americans that do have health insurance are the rich or those on medicare. Medicare recipients are “in the one group in our society that enjoys true health insurance – insurance that you cannot lose, that is paid for by taxes, and that is effectively guaranteed by the government.”

Mr. Kwak then continues:

The basic solution is very simple. In Paul Krugman’s words: “regulation of insurers, so that they can’t cherry-pick only the healthy, and subsidies, so that all Americans can afford insurance.” I know that there are lots of details that consume people who know health care better than I do, and I know those details are important. But as an individual who is worried about his or her own health insurance (and that is the point of this post), that’s what you want. You want to know that if you lose your job, you won’t be shut out because you’re too sick, … and you won’t be shut out because you’re too poor.

Republicans Cause Increase in Manufacturing (of Lies, That Is) – I am as happy as anyone at signs of an economic recovery. But I confess to having mixed feelings about the resurgence of the wing-nut industry. They are following the business plan of those earlier entrepreneurs selling the idea that Obama had killed his grandma. Consider the scare-biz Internet scribe who penned the memorable line: “Obama flies to Hawaii to visit his grandmother and just a few days later she winds up dead. Coincidence?’’

But now, Fearmongers Inc. has ratcheted up from accusing Obama of killing his grandma to accusing him of trying to kill your grandma. Panic is their most important product. May we please declare the scare biz bankrupt?

Facts and Integrity Don’t Matter When Political Power and Money Can be Gained – The recent attacks by Republican leaders and their ideological fellow-travelers on the effort to reform the health-care system have been so misleading, so disingenuous, [so driven by fear,] that they could only spring from a cynical effort to gain partisan political advantage. By poisoning the political well, they’ve given up any pretense of being the loyal opposition. They’ve become political terrorists, willing to say or do anything to prevent the country from reaching a consensus on one of its most serious domestic problems [profit above life].

Why Do Some Americans Fall For These Obvious Lies? – America is a great country, but some Americans are not very smart. They do the dirty work handed them by the people who don’t care about regular Americans (including themselves). At a recent town-hall meeting in South Carolina, a man stood up and told his Congressman to “keep your government hands off my Medicare,” which is kind of like driving cross country to protest highways. Nearly half of Americans don’t know that states have two senators and more than half can’t name their congressman. And among Republican governors, only 30% got their wife’s name right on the first try.

We can be talked [scared] into anything, like wars, and we can be talked [scared] out of anything, like health care. We should forget town halls, and replace them with study halls. There’s a lot of anger directed towards Washington, but you know who concerned citizens should be most angry at? Their fellow (uneducated) citizens. “Inside the beltway” thinking may be wrong, but at least it’s thinking, which is more than you can say for what’s going on outside the beltway.

Yes, I want decisions made by an elite group of people who know what they’re talking about. Which is the way our founding fathers wanted it. James Madison wrote that “pure democracy” doesn’t work because “there is nothing to check… an obnoxious individual.” Then, in the margins, he doodled a picture of Joe the Plumber.

Republicans Disconnected From Facts – It is scientific fact that the continents were once a connected land mass. Only 16% of Democrats and 23% of Independents disagree with that. But 47% of Republicans disagree with this scientific fact. They’re anti-fact, anti-science, anti-healthcare, anti-labor, anti-civil liberty, anti-anything for the common good. [They are all about their values.]

The Health Insurance Racket: Getting Rich by Denying Americans Care – United Healthcare CEO Stephen Hemsley owns $744,232,068 in unexercised stock options. CIGNA’s Edward Hanway spends his holidays in a $13 million beach house in New Jersey. Meanwhile, regular Americans are routinely denied coverage for the care they need when they need it most.

Welcome to the American health insurance industry [- competition for profit not patients]. Instead of helping policyholders attain the health security they need for their families, big insurance companies get rich by denying coverage to patients. Now they’re sending lobbyists to Washington, DC to twist the arms of lawmakers to oppose reform of the status quo. Why? Because the status quo pays.

Rowdy Wing-Nuts Don’t Represent Most Americans Who Want Health Care Reform – In a new poll released August 5, 2009, 74% of Americans said that the health care proposals which Obama supports would help them or other families in this country. The same poll says that 77% of Americans believe it is necessary to make major structural changes in the nation’s health care system in order to make sure that all Americans have health insurance.

Yesterday, I Under-Stated the Positive Effect of the Cash for Clunkers Program – Yesterday, I stated that Cash for Clunkers yielded six times in benefits what it cost. Well, it turns out that the $3 billion federal government investment is now expected to yield a 0.5% increase in GDP. So what does that mean? Well, current GDP is 14.149 Trillion dollars as of 2nd quarter. A 0.5% increase would mean a $70.75 billion increase in GDP and on a $3 billion federal investment, that is a multiplier effect of 23.6!

And more than the cleaner air that I mentioned yesterday, there is the reduced gas consumption, which reduces the need for foreign oil, which improves our national security. Also, less CO2, thus slowing global warming. These new vehicles are safer also. The winners here are clearly the American people. But, the Republicans are still criticizing the program, despite the facts.

Glenn Beck Fantasizes About Poisoning Nancy Pelosi – On his Fox News TV show, Glenn Beck staged a scene in which he gave a glass of wine to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and then Beck demanded, “Drink it. Drink it. Drink it.” He then said, “I wanted to thank you for having me over here in wine country… By the way, I put poison in your… No. I look forward to all the policy discussions we’re supposed to have. You know, on health care, energy reform, and the economy.

Glenn Beck Says the President is a Racist and Poses a Threat to America; Take Action – You can use some of the letter in the comment field of the color of change website form, or send a letter:

To: Chief Marketing Officer
company Name and address (see below)
Recently, Glenn Beck went on a different Fox show – Fox & Friends and called President Obama a racist. Not only did he call the President a racist, but he also said that President Obama “has a deep-seated hatred for white people.”

On August 4, Glenn Beck did his weekly appearance on The O’Reilly Factor, where he said that President Obama poses a threat to America. A few days later, he talked about putting poison in Nancy Pelosi’s wine.

Glenn Beck has the license to say whatever he pleases, no matter how outrageous or how unfounded, until he crosses the boundary. This is why you cannot shout “fire” in a crowded movie theater – there needs to be consideration for other people and norms in our society. Mr. Beck’s accusations, are nothing more than hate speech akin to yelling fire in a theater. They were made to turn up the hate on an administration he does not agree with. We are all free (and encouraged) to disagree with the policies of the opposing sides, what is not acceptable are hate and lies for the sake of hate, lies and ratings. What is also not acceptable is outright or even tacit endorsement of such incendiary speech.

I find it both offensive and irresponsible that you find it necessary to attract customers using Beck’s program as the messenger.
Sincerley,

Your Name

Here are some of his advertisers:

FreeCreditReport
Attn: Customer Care
PO Box 19729
Irvine, CA 92623-9729
877-481-6826

Nutrisystem
300 Welsh Road
Building 1, Suite 100
Horsham, PA 19044
1-800-585-5483

Orbitz Worldwide, Inc.
500 W. Madison
Chicago, Illinois 60661
U.S.A.

TD Ameritrade
1005 N. Ameritrade Place
Bellevue, NE 68005

GEICO
One GEICO Plaza
Washington, DC 20076

Others:
Scooter Store, Rosland Capital, UPS, Men’s Wearhouse, UPS, Ditech, Wall Street Journal, ADT, Pharamcia, Apple, Sprint, Lowe;s, Susan G. Komen Foundation(!), Mitsubishi, Procter & Gamble, Avis, Verizon, Exxon Mobil, Zyrtec, Doubletree, Steinmart, Purina Beggin Strips, Bose, Tylenol, Applebees, Target, Amway, Subaru, 1-800-Flowers, DirecTV, Joseph A. Bank, Michael J. Fox Foundation, Red Lobster

Fearful White Guy talks with other Fearful White Guy

Regards,

Jim

We Will All Pay Dearly if Health Care Reform is Not Enacted – Every American has a direct stake in health care reform. Every citizen faced with soaring health care bills, every one of the 14,000 who lose their health insurance each day, every one of the millions frozen in jobs for fear of losing health insurance, every family that faces bankruptcy because someone got sick, every one denied coverage or cut off of coverage because he or she fell sick, every parent losing sleep over a child entering the workforce without insurance, every senior gouged by unconscionable prescription drug prices , every worker who simply can’t afford adequate coverage for her or his family. If the insurance industry and the Republican right manage once more to frustrate reform, all of us will pay part of the price.

We desperately need to step up to deal with the fundamental changes that can no longer be avoided. This isn’t a spectator sport. The abusive tactics of the right are designed to keep the good hearted away, to create fear in the undecided, to cow timorous legislators. We can’t allow that to happen. It is time to go all in.

Republican Fear Mongering About Cost of Universal Care Misses the Point – The health care debate has been hijacked by fears about cost and how we will pay for universal coverage. Will it cost $1.6 trillion or $900 billion over 10 years? This is beside the point. Every other industrialized nation spends far less (about half) and creates much better health for its citizens. We are next to Cuba in life expectancy, yet they spend $184 per capita annually on health care and we spend over $8,000.

The focus in health reform is on doing what we already do better, not doing the right thing. We are looking for ways to pay less for what we are already doing, not pay less as a result of improving the “product” of health care – the health of the individual, and communities.

Medical services that we hold as sacred such as medications, procedures and surgery, often don’t work, or don’t work as well as we thought to treat the diseases that account for the majority of sickness and costs today, namely heart disease, diabetes, obesity, prostate and breast cancer (and many other chronic diseases including digestive disorders, mood disorders and autoimmune diseases).

Yet we reimburse for these services because of lobbyists and clinical practice guidelines established through industry influence or custom, not science. We pay for what we do even if it is not proven effective, which leads to higher costs and no improved health outcomes, as long it is a medication or a procedure.

Pay for what works. Pay for health. Pay for quality, not volume. Then costs will come down.

Republican Senator Ignores Facts in His Statement About Ted Kennedy’s Care – Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), said that in countries with government-run health care, Sen. Ted Kennedy “would not get the care he gets here because of his age.” But, the disturbing truth is that this country now lags well behind other advanced nations in delivering timely and effective care. Among developed countries, the United States has the 10th highest death rate among cancer patients, higher than Spain and Sweden.

But the larger problem Grassley ignores is cost. For Kennedy, access to health care is not an issue. Among most Americans, however, staggering health costs prevent more than half of U.S. patients from gaining access to medical care. Last year, 38 percent of U.S. patients did not receive recommended treatment compared to 11 percent in Canada and 6 percent in the U.K. And even among Americans with insurance, 43 percent of adults with chronic conditions nevertheless had access problems because of cost.

Combating the Lies: Health Reform Fact Check – Strong health care legislation with a public plan option passed two House committees and the Senate’s health committee. And polling continues to show wide support for the main provisions in those bills. Yet the drumbeat for inaction continues to pound, with conservatives vowing to “break Obama,” and the media headlining every hiccup and ignoring every success.

There is only one way to break the Washington culture of inertia and pass legislation this year. SPEAK UP. Even Senators and Congresspeople who want to be with us, are begging to hear from constituents. And the opponents of change can’t be allowed to stand in the way of health reform.

Myth/Fact Sheets below:

1. Media Matters Action Network Health Reform Fact Check
2. House Ed and Labor Health Reform Fact Check
3. House Ways and Means, “Myth vs. Fact on Health Care Reform”
4. The Great Geno, “Debunking the Myths, Lies, and Slander of the Health Care Bill”
5. teSadly, No on mortality rates for different diseases and factors in the US versus Canadaxt
6. Myth Vs. Fact On Republican Leader’s Op-Ed On Health Insurance Reform Legislation
7. Get more FACTS about America’s Affordable Health Choices Act Here
8. House Education and Labor Committee, “Health Care Checkup: Wall Street Journal Health Care Editorial Wrong on the Facts”
9. Think Progress, “Igor Volsky Debunks Lou Dobbs’ Myths about Health Reform”
10. A line-by-line refutation of a nasty and misleading right-wing chain email going around

Democratic Congressman’s Life Threatened Over Health Care Bill – Rep. Brad Miller (D-NC) offices have received threatening phone calls, including at least one direct threat against his life. “We have received a threatening phone call in the D.C. office, there have been calls to the Raleigh office,” said Miller communications director LuAnn Canipe. “The call to the D.C. office was, ‘Miller could lose his life over this,'” said Canipe.

More Conservative Bullying – As lobbyist-run groups encourage conservative activists to “rattle” members of Congress at local town hall events, Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA), the president of the freshman Democratic class has revealed that “at least one freshman Democrat” has already been “physically assaulted at a local event.” Connolly warned that conservative groups had taken things to a “dangerous level”:

“When you look at the fervor of some of these people who are all being whipped up by the right-wing talking heads on Fox, to me, you’re crossing a line,’ Connolly said. ‘They’re inciting people to riot with just total distortions of facts. They think we’re going to euthanize Grandma and the government is going to take over.” Nancy Pelosi is the next target by the Malkinites and that could get really ugly.

Frank Kratovil was hung in effigy. Chris Dodd was told to go kill himself. Gerry Connolly says that one Freshman was assaulted, and Brad Miller got death threats.

Compassionate Conservative Says Maybe the Two Freed Reporters Should Have Just Stayed Imprisoned in North Korea – Everyone but Fox analysts pretty much celebrated yesterday’s release of the two American women held hostage in North Korea, thanks to Bill Clinton’s diplomatic efforts. Dick Morris, on Fox and Friends this morning with Gretchen Carlson, during which he called Clinton’s successful negotations “ridiculous”:

Carlson: How are we supposed to get the girls home, though, Dick? And I only have 30 seconds. How are we supposed to get them home?
Morris: I don’t know. I don’t know. Maybe they don’t come home. Maybe they go to North Korea and live with the consequences of their decision to go there.

These people are really beyond redemption, aren’t they?

Republicans Bash Program Whose Positive Effect on the Economy is Six Times What it Costs – Republicans have been criticizing the Cash for Clunkers program all over radio, TV and in speeches. But many economists agree that the popular Cash for Clunkers program is likely to provide a significant lift to more than just the battered auto industry. Joseph Carson, chief economist at AllianceBernstein. “It’s having an intended, if not larger, impact than people expected.” Carson said the $1 billion in government money spent on Cash for Clunkers program has unlocked private spending.

And according to some estimates, the total of $3 billion spent on Cash for Clunkers could result in an $18 billion boost to the overall economy. “In terms of bang for the buck, this is up there pretty high up there,” said John Irons, research and policy director for the Economic Policy Institute. David Wyss, chief economist for Standard & Poor’s, estimates that the program could add about a half of a percentage point to gross domestic product, the broadest measure of the nation’s economic activity, over the next two quarters. While that sounds small, Wyss said it’s a significant impact for a program of such relatively modest cost to taxpayers. Oh, it’s resulting in cleaner air, also.

Regards,

Jim

The Return of the Brooks Brothers Brigade Terrorists – Remember when the manual 2000 Bush-Gore recount in Miami-Dade County was shut down shortly after screaming, shoving, fist-waving, intimidating protestors arrived at Miami’s recount center? It turned out that these protesters were Republican Party members flown in from other states, at Republican Party expense. Democracy was hijacked by a hooligan mob.

Well, the Republicans have not forgotten it worked then, so they are trotting out their terrorist tactics again. Conservatives for Patients’ Rights, the operation that’s running a national campaign against a public health care option, is now publicly admitting to helping gin up the sometimes-rowdy outbursts targeting House Dems at town hall meetings around the country. CPR is the group headed by controversial former hospitals exec Rick Scott that’s spending millions on ads attacking reform in all sorts of lurid ways, a campaign that’s being handled by the same P.R. mavens behind the Swift Boat Vets. Scott, who was ousted as a health-care exec amid a 1990s fraud probe, took credit for the town hall showings.

Similarly,America’s Health Insurance Plans, or AHIP, the insurance industry group, has stationed employees in 30 states to track local town hall events.

“The more you dig the more you learn that this is a carefully orchestrated effort by special interest lobbyists and the Republican Party, who are using fringe elements on the right to protect insurance company profits and defeat health care reform,” said House Dem leadership aide Doug Thornell.

Lloyd Doggett, one of the targets of the far right “artists,” released this statement:

This mob, sent by the local Republican and Libertarian parties, did not come just to be heard, but to deny others the right to be heard. And this appears to be part of a coordinated, nationwide effort. What could be more appropriate for the “party of no” than having its stalwarts drowning out the voices of their neighbors by screaming “just say no!” Their fanatical insistence on repealing Social Security and Medicare is not just about halting health care reform but rolling back 75 years of progress.

The Republicans are also terrorizing our senior citizens by telling them lies about how they will be killed by health care and even put in concentration camps. They are terrorizing small business owners with a wide array of falsehoods.

All of this is an expensive, coordinated effort, paid for by the rich to make sure the rich get richer. If they have to worry about helping sick people, they might have to put off buying that next Lexus by a week or two. Hey, Cigna’s CEO only gets an annual salary of over $12 million and golden parachute retirement package of over $70 million.

CNN Refusing To Run Health Care Ad Critical Of Insurance Industry – CNN is refusing to run an ad nationally criticizing the insurance industry. CNN’s reason: The ad “unnecessarily” singles out a top insurance industry executive by name for criticism.

That very well may be CNN’s policy. But AUC maintains that the mention of Cigna’s CEO was necessary to dramatize the enormous stake the insurance industry has in the health care wars. What’s more, AUC argues, the industry is made up of companies that are run by individuals deciding how to spend huge money to impact the health care debate — so why are they off limits?

“The bottom line question is: Would CNN run ads from Cigna that are positive about the company?” Funk asks. “If yes, why would they turn down an ad critical of the company for their role in trying to kill health insurance reform?”

By contrast, the ad will air nationally on MSNBC.

CNN Analyst Joins Anti-Healthcare Front Group – Longtime CNN political analyst Bill Schneider has joined, Third Way, one of the most notorious corporate front groups in Washington, most recently working to destroy health care reform:

Third Way was launched in early 2005 to produce policy papers and messaging tactics for congressional Democrats, with a focus on Blue Dog senators. It was then, as it is now, drenched in corporate money and tangled in ties to big business. These ties stretch from the board of trustees, thick with hedge-funders and investment bankers, to its lone senior fellow for health policy, David Kendall, a former Blue Cross Blue Shield consultant.

The Horrifying Hidden Story Behind Drug Company Profits – Factories across the poor world are desperate to start producing their own cheaper Tamiflu to protect their populations — but they are being sternly told not to. Why? So rich drug companies can protect their patents — and profits.

The drug companies who owned the patent for AIDS drugs went to court to stop the post-Apartheid government of South Africa producing generic copies of it — which are just as effective — for $100 a year to save their dying citizens. They wanted them to pay the full $10,000 a year to buy the branded version — or nothing. In the poor world, the patenting system every day puts medicines beyond the reach of sick people.

Regards,

Jim

Health Care Town Halls Being Sabotaged by Well-Funded and Instructed Corporate Hooligans – Corporate lobbyists are organizing far right hooligan tactics to disrupt civic meetings about health care reform. This is the organized use of intimidation. This is orchestrated outrage. There is a script for this stuff that was written before these events happened and that appears to be instructions to people to shut down these efforts at civic discourse. The web site Think Progress obtained a leaked memo from a group that calls itself Right Principles. The three page memo details how protesters should behave at town hall events.

Under the heading “Inside the Hall” it says:

You need to rock-the-boat early in the Rep’s presentation, Watch for an opportunity to yell out and challenge the Rep’s statements early. If he blames Bush for something or offers other excuses — call him on it, yell back and have someone else tallow-up with a shout-out. The goal is to rattle him.

When the formal Q&A session begins get all your hands up and keep them up…. The balance of the group should applaud when the question is asked, further putting the Rep on the defensive.

Who’s giving these rent-a-mob instructions like this? Well that memo was written by a man named Bob MacGuffie. Bob McGuffie is associated with an organization called Freedom Works. Freedom Works is a Washington DC lobbying firm, run by former Republican Majority leader Dick Armey. This is well paid lobbyists doing this as a strategy to keep their corporate CEOs rich by depriving Americans of the health care they need.

Please take action now by calling on your members of Congress to reject these tactics.

More Organized Hooligans – Freedomworks isn’t some “organic grassroots” outfit. It’s run by former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey — corporate lobbyist, global warming denier and ladies’ man. As Paul Krugman noted, their money comes from the Koch, Scaife, Bradley, Olin nexus, as well as other reliable funders of right wing infrastructure including Exxon Mobil.

Republican States Have the Worst Health Care – A 2007 Commonwealth Fund report, “Aiming Higher: Results from a State Scorecard on Health System Performance,” examined states’ performance across 32 indicators of health care access, quality, outcomes and hospital use. Topping the list in the chart above were Hawaii, Iowa, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine. Bringing up the rear were the Bush bastions of Kentucky, Louisiana, Nevada, Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi and Oklahoma. The 10 worst performing states were all solidly Republican in 2004. (8 voted for McCain in 2008.)

For example, 30% of adults and 20% of children in Texas lacked health insurance, compared to 11% in Minnesota and 5% in Vermont, respectively. Premature death rates from preventable conditions were almost double (141.7 per 100,000 people) in Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi compared to the top performing states (74.1 per 100,000). Adults over 50 receiving preventative care topped 50% in Minnesota compared to only 33% in Idaho. Childhood immunizations reached 94% in Massachusetts, compared to just 75% in the bottom five states. As the report details, federal and state policies such as insurance requirements and Medicaid incentives clearly impact health care outcomes.

Death, Dishonesty and the GOP – In an effort to defeat universal health care, conservatives are engaging in a campaign of lies that will ultimately cause more families to suffer needlessly at a most painful time. It’s easy to play on people’s fear of death. It’s even easier when you’re willing to lie outright, as conservatives are doing in the health care debate. Republicans want to ensure that “Granny” suffers needlessly in death, and that her family — in the midst of their pain — deal with the confusion of not knowing what kind of care “Granny” does or doesn’t want, and what kind of measures she does and doesn’t want taken.

Only a party that believes the Terri Schiavo spectacle was a boon to their cause could engage in a campaign to virtually ensure that many, many more such cases will happen
That’s because the measure they’re exploiting to defeat health care reform is really intended to facilitate more people getting advance directives. An advance directive is simply a document that serves to state what medical treatments you want or don’t want, and what measure you do or do not want taken if you are unable to make medical decisions for yourself. In other words it speaks for you when you cannot speak for yourself.

Health care reform advocates don’t want to “Kill Granny.” Neither do conservatives. I’ll even give them the benefit of the doubt that they don’t want your family battling it out over Granny’s hospital bed, or in court for years and years, as Granny lies there, no longer able to say what she wants. But that’s the ultimate outcome of their dishonest campaign.

Will Obamacare Make the U.S. More Like Europe? – The right knows that they are supposed to hate Obamacare; the only problem is that they keep forgetting why. According to a study that they have been widely touting it promises to both increase coverage and reduce costs. Presumably these are not the reasons they oppose President Obama’s plan.
One of the other reasons that the right has pushed is that President Obama’s plan will be a serious impediment to the growth of small business and make the U.S. more like Europe. Let’s look at that. 7.2 percent of the workers in this country own their own business. France has a self-employment rate of 9.0 percent, Germany 12.0 percent, and Italy 26.4 percent.

Okay, maybe self-employment doesn’t tell us much about the role of small business. How about the share of small firms (fewer than 20 employees) in manufacturing employment? Well, our 11.1 percent share again beats out Luxembourg, and also Ireland, but it trails all the other countries for which the OECD has data.

Maybe 20 employees is not the right cutoff for a definition of small businesses in manufacturing. How about 500? By that measure, the U.S. comes in dead last.

Will President Obama’s health care plan promote small business and make us more like Europe? It very well might. And maybe that will be good for small business.

The idea that Europe’s welfare state has strangled small businesses is not true. The politicians and pundits should be corrected when they spew such nonsense.

Regards,

Jim

Republican Party Cites Huge Cost of Lying About Health Care Reform – A top Republican Party official said today that President Obama’s health care plan would be ruinous to the U.S. economy because of the ballooning cost of negative advertising required to lie about it.

“The Obama health care plan will cost billions upon billions to lie about,” said GOP chairman Michael Steele. “The question is, shouldn’t we be spending this money to lie about something else, like his judicial appointees?”

Mr. Steele said that the costs associated with negative advertising about health care – scary music, sarcastic announcers, and stock footage of long lines in waiting rooms – were all on the rise.
“If this health care plan is not killed soon, we are going to have to find cheaper ways to spread distortions about it,” Steele warned.
Elsewhere, the White House is considering a new plan to shift Guantanamo prisoners to Neverland Ranch.

Texas, California, and Florida Offer Some of the Most Expensive Health Care in the U.S. Without Providing Measurable Benefits – The following is from Mehmet Oz, M.D.,Vice-Chair and Professor of Surgery at Columbia University.

We need to eliminate the 20% of services offered that are wasteful or harmful. For example, if you live in Texas, California, and Florida, your states offer some of the most expensive health care in the U.S. without providing measurable benefits. Their health care offers limited value primarily because some in the medical community lost their way. Many in my field have lost the art of listening – spending time with their patients so that they can address the true issues rather than offer quick-fix patches on the immediate problem at hand. Tests and complicated (not to mention, expensive) procedures are ordered all the time, but without a full and comprehensive understanding of a patients’ needs. After all, it’s more cost-effective – and better medicine – if we can make meaningful diet recommendations to patients rather than put them on diabetes medication for the rest of their lives. If we want true reform amongst our own ranks, we must move from a state of reactive use of technology and testing into a more proactive state of dialogue.

Progressives Should Embrace Progress; Build on Success – America voted for change last November, change away from winner-take-all politics toward a government that works to solve pressing problems.

Although most people may not know it, the most important element in the whole package has already been passed into law. The key element of long term cost containment — evidence-based medical records keeping — already received full funding in the American Recovery and Investment Act; yes, that Stimulus bill. In a few years, medical experts will be armed with a wealth of new data about what procedures and practices really work and are most cost effective in keeping people healthy.
Don’t let the negativism take over. Build on the positives.

More than a be-all-and-end-all health care bill, what progressives really need right now is progress. Any bill that improves health care for a substantial number of Americans would be a clear signal that politicians can do something right and government can make things better. The more Americans that believe this, the greater the opportunities in the future to do what needs to be done.

Talk Radio Campaign Frightening Seniors – What the lies are isn’t important. What’s important is the question, Why should we side with those who are lying to our senior citizens? Isn’t that about as low as you can get? A spokesperson for the AARP says the effort to “intentionally distort” the proposal “is just plain cruel to anyone who is forced to make one of these difficult decisions at the end of life.”

And they’re not even new lies. The attacks on talk radio began when Betsy McCaughey, who helped defeat President Bill Clinton’s health-care overhaul 16 years ago, told former senator Fred D.

Thompson (R-Tenn.) that mandatory counseling sessions with Medicare beneficiaries would “tell them how to end their life sooner” and would teach the elderly how to “decline nutrition . . . and cut your life short.” McCaughey was exposed and her articles against health care reform were recanted by the publisher in 2006, but it was too late. Don’t let it happen again.

Free-Market Conservatives Are Just Wrong – Free-market conservative ideologues seem to believe that society works better when a few people get paid a lot, while the rest of us have very little, and advocate policies that bring that about. They have been the dominant force in our country’s policymaking for many years, and we can see in front of our faces that the result is that a few people are getting paid more and more and the rest of us less and less. (Bailed-out Citigroup is paying one person a $100 million bonus, 738 others bonuses of $1 million or more, and Merril Lynch paid 696 people bonuses of $1 million or more.) They have put in place policies that stick the taxpayers with the costs and the wealthy few with the benefits.

They try to apply their wrong ideas to oppose a decent minimum wage for many, but tax breaks for the wealthy, oppose health care for the many, and hands-off for insurance companies.

They have destroyed lives, torn apart communities, created massive debt, created a very few massively rich people at the expense of the rest of us … oh, and ruined the economy. It is time for us to realize that these free-market conservatives are just wrong. They get paid to say that stuff, but it is just wrong. They made a short-term profit and now we all suffer a long-term loss.

They will do it with health care if you let them.

Glenn Beck Fan With XM-15 Assault Rifle, Shotgun, and 500 Rounds of Ammunition Caught Snooping Aound Air Force Base – This one hasn’t killed anyone, yet, that we know of.

Regards,

Jim