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What the crap are some Roman Catholic Bishops thinking when they decided this week to help legislate healthcare reform. When Archbishop Joseph Naumann and Bishop Robert Finn wrote a joint pastoral statement on the subject this week, they sounded more like some right-wing think tank than spiritual leaders. This is in spite of the Associated Press reporting the letter “was not meant to scuttle reform or help Republicans.” Naumann and Finn were not alone. Many other Catholic Bishops who agree seem to also be more worried about costs and out-year deficits than morality. Naumann and Finn write:
The writings of recent Popes have warned that the neglect of subsidiarity can lead to an excessive centralization of human services, which in turn leads to excessive costs, and loss of personal responsibility and quality of care.
If Bishops were concerned about abortion issues or end of life issues, I could understand why they would be obligated to give guidance on the morality of such sections of the legislation. I however, think they should rethink their political stance. Centralization may be producing better results than they might think.
Since the bishops are now policy wonks and have mentioned Medicare insolvency by 2019, I am confused by what is said later:
A hasty or unprincipled change could cause us, in fact, to lose some of the significant benefits that Americans now enjoy, while creating a future tax burden which is both unjust and unsustainable.
The key to Medicare solvency and our nation’s ability to reduce its debt is the reduction of exploding healthcare costs. They mention the exploding costs while seeming to advocate the status quo. They are also silent regarding healthcare profiteers and what I believe are immoral profits by insurance companies and pharmaceuticals. Protecting the status quo for profiteers is sadly what right-wingers do. These Bishops and their supporting peers seem to have caste their lot in with the right wingers. They latch on to a few items in a bill which has not even been voted out of committee in the Senate and try to scare us to death about healthcare reform. Unlike the right wing politicians however, they do this with the vestiges of the Roman Catholic Church.
The moral authority of the Roman Catholic Church can be a powerful catalyst for change. Archbishop Desmond Tutu helped bring down Apartheid and Pope John Paul the Second helped bring down the Soviet Union. This power however, brings with it, at a minimum, a social responsibility. Using the church’s clout to make political hay seems beneath the Bishops. Maybe they should keep in mind the Catholic Church has also been a part of other governments in history with less than stellar results.
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This week I attended a town hall meeting in Florence, Alabama hosted by my “Democratic” Congressman Doctor Parker Griffith (D? –AL). I think someone handed him the wrong talking points because for a minute I thought I might have stumbled into a town hall hosted by Representative Trent Franks (R-AZ). It was all there. He promised he would support no public plan. He went on to tell us tort reform and insurance across state lines would fix our healthcare ails. In a nutshell, he told us 85 percent of us were happy with our healthcare and it was a matter of tweaking the system. He said all this after beginning the conversation so beautifully. He began by telling us about a woman he had treated for cancer too late.
As he relayed the all too common story woman with a master’s degree who had lost her job and health insurance, I thought about the good a choice north Alabama had made by electing a doctor to Congress in the midst of a healthcare debate. He told us how she waited because of the lack of insurance as the lump to grew in her breast, I thought he would be tired of dealing with mountains of paperwork from insurance companies. I thought he would be tired of low Medicaid reimbursements and how the healthcare profiteers rob badly needed dollars from the system for obscene profits. I thought he would want to get rid of incompetent doctors who smear his profession. I thought there would be well planned attacks on problems of the uninsured, bad doctors, low Medicare reimbursement and healthcare profiteers.
Instead, we were told our healthcare system needed only to cover a few more Americans with an intellectual appeal only Rush Limbaugh could love. He told us it was Henry Waxman’s fault that we did not have a good house bill.
To be sure, many in the red-state right-wing crowd cheered. He was giving them what they wanted. Those in the crowd had heard weeks of lies and some were still mad about President Obama being elected. He told them exactly what they wanted to hear. It’s what it takes to win elections, right?
Maybe his election as a Democrat was a calculation. Since there was apparently little difference between he and his right wing challenger, maybe he decided the coattails of President Obama were just enough to push him over the edge.
President Obama is on the edge of historic healthcare reform and his biggest challenge may be those right-wing wannabes in his own party. I am beginning to understand how consensus is fleeting in Washington, especially when supposedly moderate “Blue Dogs” sound more like right wingers. I would have assumed a Blue Dog would have at least mentioned cost containment.
Griffith’s right wing stands weren’t limited to healthcare. He told us the first consideration in immigration reform would be to “shut down that border”. I am sure he didn’t mean the Canadian border. Oh, wait, maybe he wasn’t talking about immigration at all. Perhaps he referred to shutting the Canadian boarder to drug imports.
It would seem the Blue Dog’s have collectively decided to be a part of the no crowd. Instead of being the moderates they hold themselves out to be and legitimately trying to reduce healthcare costs, they have decided to stop any real reform. I hope they reconsider because the out-year deficits which they crow about so much could be greatly reduced if they decide to be part of the solution instead of the problematic no crowd.
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Talking heads all over the news shows today eulogized healthcare reform. Many were right-wing Republicans with crappy grins on their faces. A few were liberal Democrats who think the President should ram legislation through which includes a public option. They feel this should be done with the reconciliation process designed for votes on budgets. The reconciliation process would allow no debate or amendments and pass with fifty-one votes. Shy of the reconciliation option, liberal Democrats would rather have no legislation at all.
During the President’s vacation I think he should consider a process he talked about in his campaign.
September 8th, President Obama should publicly invite the Speaker of the House, House Minority Leader, House Majority Leader, House Minority Whip, a spokesman for the Blue Dog Coalition, Senate Majority Leader, Senate Minority Leader, Senate Majority Whip, Senate Minority Whip, Chairmen of the five committees who have heard testimony on healthcare legislation and the ranking members of those committees to the White House. He should call C-SPAN and tell them the entirety of the proceedings will be on air. He should instruct both parties to have, in hand, a real plan for fixing healthcare. The plan should include numbered priorities. The meetings should begin on the 10th.
Neither party should have trouble meeting the deadline of the 10th because, according to their interviews, they have all the answers. The President should play the honest broker and alternate from one party priority to the other. No stakeholders like the insurance companies, doctors or pharmaceuticals should be there. They have already spread enough money around to the attendees. The stakeholder voices have been heard loud and clear.
Clearly, this meeting will be manageable because only twenty people will be in attendance. If the President has other pressing business, he should be excused and Vice-President Biden may stand in his place. Otherwise, attendees will be excused only to eat and sleep. No staff will be allowed. Questions for staff and their responses will be read allowed and posted on the internet. No communication with lobbyist should be conducted in the halls during bathroom or lunch breaks and phone call logs should be published while the members are at their residence.
The Blue Dog Coalition will be there in a non-voting advisory capacity only. Each priority will be voted on. All ties will result in both parties returning with alternatives to the proposed legislation which created the tie.
C-SPAN should split screen the person speaking with their top twenty campaign donors. They should also give the topic of discussion along with the speaker’s name and state. Side negotiations should also be televised on one of the other C-SPAN networks. C-SPAN should also rerun the program in its entirety overnight.
No one should be dismissed until a concurrent bill is agreed on.
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Today, my six year-old daughter told a lie. It’s pretty easy to catch her in a lie at her age. The funny thing is how her mom and I give her an opportunity to tell the truth and faced with no TV, desert or not having friends over, she unexplainably sticks to her guns. She continues to tell the lie at her peril. It’s almost as if she believes her telling the same lie over and over will make it the truth. There are politicians in the health reform debate who also seem to have my daughter’s mentality. The problem with their lies is that so far these politicians have not gotten as much as a “time out.”
The problem with giving the former Lieutenant Governor of New York, Betsy McCaughey, the time out she deserves is there will be too many others in the time out chairs. It will be more like party.
A time out is supposed to be a time of quiet reflection on breaking the rules. A child’s life is so full of other things; a parent must slow the child down and make him or her think about the rules and why they are important. McCaughey needs a time out because she told a whopper on Senator Fred Thompson’s radio show on July, 16th. According to factcheck.org she said:
“the Congress would make it mandatory … that every five years, people in Medicare have a required counseling session that will tell them how to end their life sooner, how to decline nutrition, how to decline being hydrated, how to go into hospice care … all to do what’s in society’s best interest … and cut your life short.”
The bill said none of that hogwash. The bill was designed to only pay for end of life counseling if someone wanted it. The bill went on to explain what end of life counseling was. AARP was kind enough to call what McCaughey said a “misinterpretation.” At my house, we call it a lie. Moderates everywhere applaud discussion and debate but, this lady apparently subscribes to the “let them eat cake” brand of healthcare we have today. Moreover, she will obviously tell any lie to keep the status quo. It is hard to have a discussion with someone who we can not trust to tell the truth.
My theory of telling a lie enough times to make it truth is also in play in this discussion. Representative John Boehner (R-OH) and Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI) have also parroted many of the same lies McCaughey began in July. They tell us the legislation “encourages” doctors to force seniors to literally sign their lives away. Why didn’t they just tell the truth and say McCaughey’s assertions were inaccurate? Why perpetuate complete lie?
I have not yet figured out why my daughter tells a lie but, I think I know the motivation of the three public liars I have pointed out in this article. The intent is to create mayhem, cut off legitimate debate and finally, to kill reform. If you have watched TV news lately you might agree they have done a pretty good job.
Even though my daughter feeding the cat is not that big a deal, around here, a lie is a lie. In a family, we rely on telling the truth. In Washington, they call it something else like spin or misinterpretation. Around here, you get the TV taken away, no dessert or a time out. Maybe McCaughey and the others should have an old elementary school time out. Maybe some time to think about integrity and why we as a society reward truth tellers while dismissing liars will do her some good. Apparently, she knows we give all politicians a pass on lies so there wouldn’t be much to think about.
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When the Senator from South Carolina, Jim DeMint, told the group Conservatives for Patients Rights,
“If we’re able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him,”
most pundits and others passed the comment off as pure politics. I wish it were just politics. When I look at DeMint’s top twenty donors I begin to believe DeMint is using politics to take care of his campaign donors. If you look at his top twenty according to www.opensecrets.org you might begin to get another picture also.
The donor picture begins with the Club for Growth at 70 thousand. This is a right-wing bunch who believes in “freedom” among other things. DeMint and the Club for Growth using the word “freedom” is a little like yelling ice cream at a day care. I guess the implication is to disembowel the rest of us of our fondness for tyranny. The Scana Corporation, a utility, comes in second with 53 thousand. I don’t think we need to guess where he stands on climate change. Third on the list at 32 thousand is Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough, LLP. On their website they say:
Our attorneys guide healthcare providers, healthcare service companies, and investors through the sensitive hurdles and strict scrutiny of governmental and societal factors faced by the industry
I guess one way for healthcare profiteers to negotiate government’s strict scrutiny is to donate to a senator. Fourth on the list at 27 thousand is AT&T. I wonder how he voted on the keeping the phone companies from getting sued for wiretapping. Fifth on the list is Edens & Avant at 19 thousand. They own 130 shopping centers on the east coast. At sixth, eighth, ninth and twelfth were Cancer Centers of the Carolinas, US Oncology, Blue Cross/Blue Shield and United Health Group, respectively, for around 63 thousand dollars. Since they are second only to the right-wingers, I think I would be safe to say the healthcare industry helped DeMint get elected. I guess he feels like he owes them something. Maybe if he uses words like “freedom” to tell conservatives they can politically finish the President, he can motivate conservatives to kill health reform. Maybe if he delivers, he will have settled his debt.
To be sure, I may have been a little hard on Senator DeMint. Campaign finance is just too tempting. As a disclaimer, I must refer you to a previous article and tell you there are left wing DeMints too. All of them are in the pockets of those who would prefer to continue to profit from our literal misery. The forces aligned against healthcare reform are very good at the money game. They have one win under their belt and are pretty cocky. Since they only have to create enough doubt about a plan to maintain the status quo, I guess I would be pretty cocky too.
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Today a very good friend of mine invited me to Washington for a protest against healthcare reform among other things organized by Tea Party people. I told my friend I did not like runaway spending but, I felt something had to be done about healthcare. My friend is a very intelligent person who is always open to intelligent debate. Last week I would have told him the cost cutting in healthcare reform would decidedly reduce government expenditures in the long run.
I no longer have the luxury of the cost cutting debating point in light of last week’s Congressional Budget Office Report.
Today President Obama blamed the lack of Senate healthcare reform legislation on politics by people like Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC). I doubt DeMint’s motivation is primarily politics and there will be more on that in another article. I however, believe President Obama needs a little soul searching and possibly a new game plan on healthcare reform. So far, the President has put House Committee Chairmen in charge of writing healthcare legislation. The Chairmen include Henry Waxman (D-CA), Charles Rangel (D-NY) and George Miller (D-CA). Waxman has received more than 66 thousand and his committee has received more than 1.3 million dollars in campaign contributions from insurance and health interest groups. Rangel comes in at 70 thousand and his committee at 1.8 millon. The list is similar for both the Senate and House Committees who are drafting the legislation. Republicans seem to have the edge but, democrats too have received boatloads of cash from groups who would really like healthcare reform to go away.
That’s why the President needs to go away and rethink his approach to this issue he says he cares so much about. Instead of allowing legislators who have monetary motives to craft healthcare reform legislation which does not reform, he should do it himself. He should publicly propose amendments which may actually shift some of the obscene profits of the healthcare industry to covering all Americans. He should use his bully pulpit and notorious arm twister, Rahm Emanuel, to shame the legislative industry stooges into actually reducing potentially catastrophic spiraling healthcare costs.
Reducing the cost of healthcare, believe me, is the key to winning the argument with well-informed and well-meaning moderates and independents. These citizens legitimately want to know why adding another trillion dollars to our deficit is a good idea. The only answer to the question is saving money later.
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I know it will surprise you but, Democrats want credit for healthcare reform. While I give you a few minutes to collect yourself I will drop another bomb. They feel any reform which does not contain a Public Medicare style plan will not give the Democratic Party proper credit. Additionally, they would like to make the left wingers happy by providing a Medicare style plan which could be converted into Single Payer, although it will never be.
While you are digesting all of the new information, I would like to suggest what might work better. Give the Republicans their health insurance cooperatives.
If the Democrats are really interested in making our healthcare system better, should they care what the plan is called? In general, I would say a plan, let’s call it the I’m Tired of Getting Screwed by the Healthcare Establishment Cooperative (or ITGSHEC for short) should have four functions:
1. To reduce healthcare costs
2. To stop rationing for profit
3. To change the healthcare fee structure so it rewards health instead of sickness
4. To allow citizens economic independence from the current healthcare system
If the entity could perform the above functions, who cares what it is called. Democrats should take the power given to them in the last election and actually fix the broken system. The electorate is pretty smart. We can figure out who is really on our side. We can go to the websites and find out which politician is in the pocket of the Healthcare establishment. If you check your favorite Democrat on the linked site, you might find the Democrats are not always on the best side of the healthcare debate. Perhaps the Medicare style public plan is a way to get real reform killed.
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Yup, many Republicans feel a handout to the insurance industry will fix our problems. These are the same companies whose profits have grown by 43 percent over the last five years. This plan is funny because Republicans usually feel more tax money is not the answer. Right wing Republicans don’t even want to offer a government option. They justify this denial by saying the insurance companies will go out of business if they have to compete with a non-profit government sponsored version. They tell us semantics are important and insurance cooperatives would not doom our current system. Most of the co-ops I have seen are non profit too. Semantics don’t seem that important unless they plan to water down any bargaining power a co-op would have thereby killing any cost reduction.
While they kill any hope of cost reduction, they don’t tell us the insurance companies will get the mother of all windfalls when healthy young people are forced to buy insurance from them. This is because covering the 47 million uninsured will begin with forcing these rainmakers to buy insurance. Republicans will do this while they give government premium subsidies for people who might actually get sick. Instead of spreading the risk, which insurance was designed to do, healthy people will only add to health care insurance company profits while sick people are covered by the government. Somehow, as usual, the Republican Party has been taken over by the right-wingers. They want so bad to have a plan which seems to be a free market approach, they are willing to provide enough government intervention to make someone unfairly rich. They seem to want to continue to redistribute as much wealth as possible to the insurance companies.
The other unintended consequence of insurance co-ops will be cross state regulation. Since Republicans want people to organize across state lines in cooperatives they have cut out the existing system of state insurance regulators. You can bet Democratic control of the House, a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and control of the White House will not let that happen. Regulation is coming and it will be the kind of big brother federal regulation from Washington which conservatives say they hate. Again, Republicans gone around the mountain to placate the right-wing fringe of the party. Republicans will get us more government for their trouble.
LEFTY LEANINGS NEXT
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This article will be reminiscent of an AA meeting. If you read the previous article and admit we have a problem with healthcare, then you might be looking for solutions or a way to make amends. It seems like solutions are organizing neatly into two camps. The engineer in me always makes me cynical when people try to fix complex problems with easy solutions. I however, think a discussion on this point in the healthcare debate deserves some scrutiny. It deserves scrutiny because the arguments seem sort of like the last debate. Labels are being affixed, slippery slopes are being greased and politicians can’t wait to tell us what lurks in the minds of their opponents.
If one listens closely, one might think the debate was more about party than actually fixing healthcare.
Some even feel the very existence of our political party system may be at stake. So says the Cato Institute’s Michael F. Cannon. He tells us blocking President Obama’s healthcare plan is the “key to the GOP’s survival.” As important as I believe reform is, Cannon might be a little melodramatic even for me.
The stakes however, are obviously pretty high.
The Huffington Post tells us health insurance companies spent over 35 million in the first quarter of 2009 which is already 10 more than last year. They must feel the extra insurance, pardon the pun, is necessary to get friendly legislation. Left wingers are ready to derail the Obama Presidency over single payer. Many hold opinions similar to the left wing blog CounterPunch.
The time to win single-payer has never been better. We are going to keep fighting like hell to destroy the corporate killers, not create a faux option that allows them to live another day.
So what is all the fuss about? Why are liberals ready to disown a President who many feel brought the party back from the wilderness? Why is the health care industry spending so much money on politicians they have already bought and paid for?
Well, there are two facts driving the debate. The first fact is Americans have begun to understand double digit increases in healthcare insurance premiums is unsustainable. The second fact is the healthcare industry makes a hell of a lot of money. There are plenty of other side issues like 50% of bankruptcies being healthcare related and healthcare being one of the few job creators in a rotten economy. Add all issues surrounding healthcare reform together and the war is on.
Someone once said, in war, truth is the first casualty. The war over healthcare reform is no different. The arguments, which have a “Tarzan good, Jane bad” feel, seem dumber than the usual left-right shouting match. On the left, lawmakers are so bent on a single payer system which would resemble Medicare for all citizens they forget as much as 85 percent of us are pretty happy with our healthcare. The same percent however, is worried about the rising cost of their healthcare premium. On the right, free market worshiping politicians are preparing to give an insurance industry an obscene new kind of corporate welfare.
THE TWO SIDES NEXT
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I was about to write about the 47 million who don’t have healthcare insurance. I could have written about the 20 million who might be underinsured. Any good discussion about healthcare would also have to include the 43 percent increase in profits for healthcare insurance companies in the last five years. Since our economy is in the crapper, I guess I should also say over 50 percent of bankruptcies are due, in some part, to crippling healthcare costs. There are so many statistics that should be discussed. If you however, have read my articles before, you know how I feel about statistics.
So I think I will discuss what you know to be true. This will be a kind of what do ya know article.
I will start by betting your health insurance premium went up this year. So, did it go up like the cost of a bag of grapes or more like a gallon of gas? For most Americans, it was more like gas. Did it go up last year like gas too? Well, you probably won’t be surprised to learn it has gone up (adjusted for inflation) since 1995. Ironically, that was only a few years after the health insurance companies took Hillary to the political woodshed for her effort in health reform. In other words, you or your employer has paid more every year as a percent than other items like groceries and rent have gone up. What might surprise you is the percent increase has also gone up. So, it went up the first year a couple of percent. The second year it went up four percent and so on. You already know this however, because you have seen your check stub.
You have probably looked at that check stub and done a little math too. You have multiplied the percentage increase and calculated the increase over a few years. You probably called someone in the room and showed them your calculations. The next question you probably asked was, “what will we have to give up to keep our health insurance?” I’ll bet that same question has been asked in millions of households.
I bet you or someone you know has lost all their life’s savings trying to pay their healthcare bills. They weren’t deadbeats. You saw them go through life in much the same way you do. They would get up, go to work, carry the kids to soccer practice and do what is expected of them. They could have been you. One day, they got sick. They couldn’t work. They lost their health insurance. They found themselves in a position where they had to lose everything to get Medicaid. You know this person. You could be this person.
I bet you know someone who has been to a funeral lately. I bet the one in the box could have been saved by some life saving treatment which their doctor recommended. The insurance company stood between them and their doctor and told both of them the treatment was not necessary or not proven. Sounds like rationing to me. It’s hard for me to justify that kind of denial of treatment when the insurance company makes a 22 percent profit. Sounds like pure and simple greed to me.
Finally, I bet you or someone you know has made an economic decision based on health insurance. Free market worshiping capitalists should hate this trend. You know, it’s and old story, a person who has a great idea to start a business or would like to go back to school to be a rocket scientist and can’t because they would lose their health insurance. Ok, maybe you haven’t considered going back to school to be an aerospace engineer but, you get the point. Concepts of supply and demand are gored on the alter of a broken health insurance system. Our economy and yours suffers.
Why do we continue to suffer? Do we like seeing healthcare pirates rape and plunder our economy and personal well-being? Do we like paying the most in the world for our healthcare coverage? Do we like playing by the rules and being screwed by the system for our trouble? When we have these thoughts we must be some kind of left-wing weirdo, right? After all, right-wing, free market worshiping politicians parrot the healthcare industry’s stance which tells us 85 percent of Americans are happy with our healthcare.
Of course we are happy! We are happy until the moment we look at our check stub. That is what those groups don’t tell us. Along with the 85 percent who are happy, there are about 85 percent who worry the current healthcare insurance premium is unsustainable. If you think about it, you know the emperor has no clothes and some skillfully worded poll question can’t change the truth.