On Determining Impact, Or, How Stimulative Is Stimulus?

Written by: fake consultant on Nov 17, 2009 8:36 AM EST

Linked to groups: DFA Night School, Young Democrats of IL, Democracy for Illinois, Blog For America, Quad Cities Trained Activists

We strive to be, if anything, a participatory space around here, and I’ve had a question come to my inbox that is very much deserving of our attention.

To make a long story short, our questioner wants to know why, on the one hand, despite the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA, also known as the “stimulus”), unemployment in the construction industry continues to increase, and, on the other hand, why there is such a giant disparity, on a state-by-state basis, in the cost of saving a job?

They’re great questions, and, having done a bit of research, I think I have some cogent answers.

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The disorder of words. When the public option is not public at all.

Written by: T Nuspl on Nov 16, 2009 12:53 PM EST

Linked to groups: T-Town DFA, Blog For America, DFA Oklahoma

It's a grave mistake to think the present health care bill "will move very close to what single payer can provide."  Single-payer, the concise 30-page bill for health care reform, saves the taxpaying public $400 billion per year, by cutting out private insurers, and provides truly universal coverage for all Americans, regardless of ability to pay. Meanwhile, with the mammoth bill that has actually passed in the House, HR3962 for a very weak public option, you only have a fig leaf in the place of a public option. It's very unclear how the present bill reduces costs in any way, and it only extends coverage on the margins of society.   Although I hear Rep. Weiner (D-NY) claiming very forthrightly that this bill will reduce costs, overall, to the federal government at least, and won't add to the deficit, the CBO still has not waded through the 2,100 pages of the bill, to tell us whether it saves or costs money in the end. It's a strange form of accounting into the future: spend $1 trillion to save $190 billion over a decade.  But what is known is that the present bill ADDS $50 billion of consumer cost per year (some say as much as an addition $70 billion per year), coming directly out of the taxpayers pockets, by directly underwriting corporate profits with monthly insurance payments, and adding captive customers to the big insurers' base of subscribers. The present bill treats health insurance as if it were auto insurance, and everyone as if they're able to pony up. It comes nowhere near recognizing the right to health care (as opposed to the privilege of driving a car).  It's a HUGE favor to the health corporations.

If you are not covered by an employer, you can calculate what the House bill will cost you, here:
http://healthreform.kff.org/SubsidyCalculator.aspx

The monthly premium under HR 3962 will likely be more costly than existing health premiums paid to corporate health care providers. The bill wants to garner between 10.5% and 11.5% of your annual pay. Some sources say health care insurance could eat up between 15% and 19% of family annual income! And that's only the cost presuming you are willing to pay (i.e. buy crappy insurance from a company you know is bloated, unethical, and untrustworthy, providing a defective product). If you don't pay, there will be hefty fines (there's talk of thousands of dollars per year per person or per family). You will be penalized if you refuse to play with the big boys in the health insurance industry, friends of politicians in the House. That's what a "mandate" means: punishment for disobedience.

Here's another way of putting it: To whom would you rather be forking over your dollars?  The government or the big health corporations?  At present, the weak public option that passed in the House is going to be RUN BY the insurance companies (who will drive it into the ground, on purpose, so that it fails in the near future), and you will NOT get the choice to direct your health insurance dollars to a genuine government-run public option.  At minimum, when we speak of a "public option," this should mean a government-run program, similar to Medicaid (an existing and working single-payer system, with minimal overhead, and fixed rates for services, well liked by many who bill the government for private services delivered under its aegis). 

The present bill does nothing to provide competition for the private health insurance industry because it has no government-run option (unless you count the slight extension in Medicaid coverage for the very poor).  The bill caves into the lobbying pressure of that industry, which in turn is simply trying to parley its way out of meaningful reform, hoping the Democrats go away by the next election (in 2010 already).  The $1.4 million PER DAY spent by the lobby against health care reform, in D.C., this year, won out against any grassroots activism, this summer.  The goodwill Obama had created in favor of health care reform is being squandered, and we will be yet more unfree as a result, without being in any better health, physically or financially.

Let's call a spade a spade. Let's recognize that the American people is getting virtually nothing of what it wants in this bill; meanwhile, the U.S. corporatocracy is getting a lot of what it wants, albeit with a slap on the wrists for being such bad corporate citizens for so many decades.  They are being rewarded and allowed to steal from your pocket book, yet again, with this Pelosi bill. And without any cost controls.

If you're going to demonstrate for health reform, I'd suggest at least getting clear about what the "public" means in defining a "public option."  To be "public" it should, at minimum, be an independent government-run option, wholly separate from private insurers, that competes with private insurers to provide better cost efficiency, as it would be a non-profit (cutting out the 20% or 30% overhead that most private insurers are burdened with).  We want a non-profit federal option to buy into, something like Medicaid.  At this point, we're being given instead a junk bill that forces us to buy crappy insurance products from unethical providers in private industry, who look at patients as commodities, more or less expendable for the sake of their bottom line.  This is not the reform we wanted.  This is betrayal.

And it's hard to smile about it.

On the failure to get a vote on HR 676, the bill that would create an amended and expanded Medicare for All, I take the point about not being a purist in politics (or being hopelessly loyal to a party, or political leader, when they fail you, which is another kind of dead end).  Although HR 676 is co-sponsored by veteran health care consumer advocates like Kucinich and Conyers, I would have been very happy to see an up-or-down vote on the Weiner Amendment that defined a version of single-payer, or Medicare for All, that could reform our system sensibly, albeit without touching the privately-run hospital system that we have now, leaving aside the issue of dealing with its gross inefficiencies for another day.  I understand Weiner's amendment wasn't sufficiently pure to get the support of Kucinich and/or Conyers, and I believe that they made a mistake, in not making common cause with Weiner, before the amendment was pulled.

Maybe by the next Congress, if we work hard to get progressives elected, we could get the single-payer system we deserve; however, Pelosi has to go.  The present bill that Pelosi has managed to get passed is a woeful substitute for the public option.  She is not working for UNIVERSAL health coverage. The measure’s public option, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), will only attract 6 million out of the 45 million uninsured Americans (which I now estimate at 53 million Americans, due to the increased unemployment in this country, and the inability of an additional 17,000 Americans each day to pay health insurance premiums.) We expected better from the Democrats, many of us having lobbied all summer long, as private citizens or as grassroots organizations, in favor of a robust public option or, preferably, single-payer.  There will need to be future attempts at reforming the corrupt, bloated, inequitable health care system in this country.

We can start by electing better Democrats. Rather than DINOs.

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On Paying For Immoral Things, Or, Is Stupak On To Something?

Written by: fake consultant on Nov 10, 2009 8:47 AM EST

Linked to groups: Young Democrats of IL, Blog For America, DFA Night School, Quad Cities Trained Activists, Democracy for Illinois

There has been a great wailing and gnashing of teeth over the past day or so as those who follow the healthcare debate react to the Stupak/Some Creepy Republican Guy Amendment.

The Amendment, which is apparently intended to respond to conservative Democrats’ concerns that too many women were voting for the Party in recent elections, was attached to the House’s version of healthcare reform legislation that was voted out of the House this weekend.

The goal is to limit women’s access to reproductive medicine services, particularly abortions; this based on the concept that citizens of good conscience shouldn’t have their tax dollars used to fund activities they find morally repugnant.

At first blush, I was on the mild end of the wailing and gnashing spectrum myself...but having taken a day to mull the thing over, I’m starting to think that maybe we should take a look at the thinking behind this...and I’m also starting to think that, properly applied, Stupak’s logic deserves a more important place in our own vision of how a progressive government might work.

It’s Political Judo Day today, Gentle Reader, and by the time we’re done here it’s entirely possible that you’ll see Stupak’s logic in a whole new light.

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On Projecting R-71's Outcome, Or, We Visit A Political Party

Written by: fake consultant on Nov 5, 2009 9:36 PM EST

Linked to groups: Young Democrats of IL, Quad Cities Trained Activists, DFA Night School, Blog For America, Democracy for Illinois

Over the past few days we have been talking about Washington State’s Referendum 71, which was voted on this week. If passed, the Referendum will codify in law certain protections for same-sex couples.

In the first story of our three-part series we discussed Washington’s unusual vote-by-mail system; in the second we examined the pre-election polling.

Today we talk about what happened Election Night at the R-71 event and where the vote count stands today...and where it might end up when we’re all done.

We have lots of geeky electoral analysis ahead—and as a special bonus, we have video of the event, including an exclusive interview with Charlene Strong, the woman who became one of the icons of the pro-71 campaign.

It’s a lot to cover, so we better get right to it.

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Open Letter to the Speaker of the House re: Inadequacies of the present health care bill

Written by: T Nuspl on Nov 3, 2009 12:54 PM EST

Linked to groups: DFA Oklahoma, Blog For America, T-Town DFA

to:

Office of the Speaker
H-232, US Capitol
Washington, DC 20515
(202) 225-0100
http://speaker.house.gov/contact/

I write to you as a member of Oklahomans for Health Care Reform, a grassroots organization with a local chapter in Tulsa formed over the summer.

I am astounded with the corporate giveaways in the House bill that you announced this week, and the corporate governance you are willing to countenance over Americans' health care, when the private health insurance companies have proven to be thoroughly untrustworthy, and therefore completely unworthy as partners in any health care reform. BigHealth has used a plethora of dirty tricks to ruin people's health: denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing coverage, higher premiums for women, dropping coverage when people get sick, etc. In California alone, Aetna has denied 6 million people access to health care, on whimsical grounds.

Rather, the public option is what is needed, and by that, the consensus is a robust plan, such as a single-payer government-run insurance plan.

I respectfully request that you :
1) allow a vote on Rep. Anthony Weiner's (D-N.Y.) single-payer amendment to the health care bill; and
2) reinstate the Kucinich Amendment, which protects the right of states to pursue single-payer health care initiatives, to help hold down costs against behemoth corporations with virtual monopolies over health care insurance.

If Congress and/or the Federal government is unable or unwilling to enact single-payer, not-for-profit health care on behalf of all Americans, in order to achieve UNIVERSAL coverage, then the 50 states should be free to pursue such coverage for their respective citizens.

I see no chance that the present bill will succeed in pressuring the insurance companies to keep premiums low, or provide better coverage.

Your stated preference is for single-payer, as is President Obama's. Please make sure that single-payer appears in the bill and that the amendment in favor of HR 676 is given a historic up-or-down vote.

Democrats are watching what you do.

Best regards,

from Tulsa

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On Closing The Deal, Or, Referendum 71 Polling Analyzed

Written by: fake consultant on Nov 3, 2009 10:31 AM EST

Linked to groups: DFA Night School, Young Democrats of IL, Blog For America, Quad Cities Trained Activists, Democracy for Illinois

It is now Election Day around the US, and one ballot question that is attracting national attention is Washington State’s Referendum 71.

Voting “yes” on the Referendum would codify in law various protections for same-sex domestic partners, and it is similar to a measure that the citizens of Maine are also voting on today.

We have polling data that is fairly fresh, so let’s take this last chance to look at where we might be, and what you should be looking for over the next few days as you attempt to judge how this one is going.

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On A New System (Sort Of), Or, Referendum 71 And Mail-In Voting

Written by: fake consultant on Oct 27, 2009 1:07 AM EDT

Linked to groups: Young Democrats of IL, Quad Cities Trained Activists, Democracy for Illinois, Blog For America, DFA Night School

We are now about two weeks away from the November election in Washington State, and one item on the ballot that has national attention is Referendum 71, the so-called “everything but marriage” proposal that would give same-sex couples more rights and protections than they have today.

There has been a lot of conversation about whether it will or won’t pass—and a lot of conversation about whether it should pass.

I hope it does, and if you live here I encourage you to vote “yes” November 3rd.

But that said, you may not be aware that Washington has an electoral system in transition, and that as a result of the transition Washington has some idiosyncrasies that will make forecasting the results a bit tougher, and determining the results a bit slower.

We’ll talk about that today, and by the time we’re done you should have an appreciation of the odd way in which things can work out—and that, absent a landslide, we aren’t likely to know the results on Election Day.

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On Being A Government DJ, Or, “Torture? You Call That Torture?”

Written by: fake consultant on Oct 25, 2009 3:00 AM EDT

Linked to groups: Quad Cities Trained Activists, DFA Night School, Young Democrats of IL, Blog For America, Democracy for Illinois

It's become more or less common knowledge that US forces have been using music as an operational tool for some time now, and I've begun seeing lists of the songs that are being used either to inflict pain, to demoralize, or to just generally disorient various people in various sorts of situations.

There are others, wiser than I, who will opine as to the questions of efficacy and the moral issues surrounding these kinds of operations; I will opine, instead, as to the quality of the songs used.

Frankly, had anyone asked, I could have put the torturers onto much better musical choices, just by selecting from my own "My Music" folder--which left me thinking: "hey, it's the weekend...why not do exactly that?"

Got any psychological warfare missions planned for the weekend? Expecting to have to direct amplified sound at an angry mob in a defensive maneuver Saturday night? Planning a Halloween haunted house that goes a bit...fuurther?

Come along with me then, soldier, and I'll provide you a playlist that should do the trick in almost any foreseeable emergency.

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On Using Mr. Bullhorn, Or, DC Health Summit Thursday: Come Say Hi...Loudly

Written by: fake consultant on Oct 21, 2009 7:16 AM EDT

Linked to groups: DFA Night School, Quad Cities Trained Activists, Democracy for Illinois, Blog For America, Young Democrats of IL

It was a long hot August for those who would like to see health care reform, as rabid “Town Hall” protesters proffered visions of public options that would lead to death panels and socialism and government tax collectors with special alien mind control powers that would use sex education and child indoctrination and black helicopters as the means for gay people to impose their dangerous agenda on the innocent, God-fearing citizens of someplace in Mississippi that I’m not likely to ever visit. Part of the reason that opposition was so rabid was because health care interests were spending millions upon millions of dollars doing...well, doing whatever the opposite of giving a distemper shot to the angry mob might be, anyway.

So wouldn’t it be great if all the CEOs of all those health care interests were to gather at one time and place so you could, shall we say, gently express your own thoughts regarding the issues of reform and public options?

By an amazing coincidence, that’s exactly what’s going to happen Thursday in Washington, DC, as the Patient Centered Primary Care Cooperative (PCPCC) holds its Annual Summit. Follow along, and I’ll tell you everything you need to know.

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On Same-Sex Inheritance, Or, "'Til Death Do We Part" Comes To Boyzone

Written by: fake consultant on Oct 13, 2009 11:55 PM EDT

Linked to groups: Democracy for Illinois, Young Democrats of IL, Blog For America, Quad Cities Trained Activists, DFA Night School

There was a time, in the 1990s, when “boy bands” walked tall in the musical world. New stars with names like “BoyzIIMen” and “Backstreet Boys” and “*NSYNC” were everywhere to be seen, and positioned prominently within this firmament of stars was an Irish band, “Boyzone”.

One of the five members of Boyzone’s most famous lineup, Stephen Gately, died over the weekend in Mallorca, aged 33, much to the dismay of the group’s fans and friends.

Because Gately came out at the height of his career, and at considerable risk to his (and the group’s) “brand” prospects, the LBGT community is experiencing considerable dismay over the loss as well.

Today’s story, however, isn’t about any of that.

Instead, we’ll consider what’s likely to happen to Gately’s estate.

The point of the exercise? With this being one of the most prominent deaths of a gay celebrity to occur since civil commitment came to pass, and with Mr. Gately being legally committed to husband Andrew Cowles at the time of his death, it seems like a good time to examine how the law responds to these situations in the UK—and how it could work in the United States.

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