Guest Articles

Healthcare, Medicare, & the symptoms of a problem

2008-12-28T11:58:01Z

When The Medicare Part D prescription drug bill was formulated, it was
the big drug companies who essentially handed the Congress all of the
elements of the legislation. Who then, is the beneficiary of this little piece
of artwork? Certainly not us.

]]> This week a report that the federal budget now stands at 17% of our GNP, entitlements included. The report stated that 4.5% is social security, 4.5% is Medicare/Medicaid, and 4.5% is spent on Defense, the balance (not much runs everything else). The place to start is to rebuild the healthcare system. It is my belief that our health care system has morphed into a version of Wall Street, where the almighty dollar takes precedence over the actual health of Americans.
Healthcare premiums are killing our businesses and our budgets.

My wife recently had to go to the emergency room after a fall. We received bills from the Ambulance company, the laboratory, the x-ray outfit, the doctor who treated her...and finally a $3200 bill from a collection agency for the hospital. Who apparently lost our insurance info, never sent us a bill. When they realized it was over 90 days...went right to collection. I could
not figure out what the $3200 was for ...using their billing for an hour?

We got billed by all the people who did the work. It is simply put, another form of pillaging the people. President Elect Obama has made health care one of his priorities. Medicare and medicaid should be placed into a new health care system and placed under the Department of Health and Human services. I just don't see it as an effective stand alone agency.

If healthcare is to be legislated then lets get rid of part D and this time write it for the
people and not the drug companies. Use the buying power of the program to get deep discounts on prescription drugs. The people currently receiving Medicare/Medicaid can be placed under a new system where based on a sliding scale & reasonable premiums can be collected from those who are able to pay.

Another example of pillaging our government are all these little sweeteners that allow state governments to use Medicare to pay for resident placement and services for certain groups. It takes the burden off of the state. An example is the "Medicare based waiver" that pays for housing and staff to care for persons eligible to be placed in institutions, they have to be considered untreatable. As a result, you have a mini institution in a neighborhood near you
and you have no idea it is there ...but you are paying for it.

States need to step back up to the plate and stop relying on Federal funds to solve these problems. Get rid of the pork, I guess you would call it. States need to learn how to run
lean, mean government (so do the Feds), use cuts and not tax increases. A new health care system, needs to reign in separate billing by hospitals. Just like the grocery store you don't pay the butcher and the deli separate. You go to the register. So we have one bill, not 5 because they each have to pay for their Porsche that month.

Electronic records...as a veteran I can go to any Veterans facility in the country and my records are there. Create efficiencies in the system. As in the emrgency room...there appears to be 2 people treating patients and 40 people sitting at computers waiting to pounce on your insurance company. In many of our cities huge Medical facilities are taking over the skyline, gobbling
up block after block. It is a signature of the problem. If you analyzed the amount of space actually used to treat people. I would say is less than 25%. I would presume that most of the balance is for administration.

The cost of delivery is tied to the mortgages these facilities have. In the city of Portland Maine, which is nearby, the Medical facility is the most prominent landmark. It towers above and sprawls along the skyline. Gone are the shipbuilders, the fisherman, the foundries, the locomotive factory, the chandlers and all of the businesses that once marked a thriving vibrant city.

My great grandfather started a foundry in 1898. It went out of business in the 1980's. We could not compete with cheap foreign products. We had an efficient foundry. All our products were quality...not cheap. As we have gone over to a "service" economy health care has become
one of the largest economic sectors. The problem is ...it is not an industry...it is a symptom of our problem.

Apathy is no longer an option

2008-09-24T19:54:09Z

About this author: Rich, born in Denmark, is US Resident "Alien" since 1984 who has been living temporarily in Europe for the past 5 years. When he becomes eligible again, he will apply to be a US citizen.

My wife and I have been living outside the US for 5 years now. It has been interesting to view America from the outside. You don't realize it when you're living there, but the media that you're exposed to is very US-centric. It really is like being inside a bubble. Americans don't really get exposed much to how the rest of the world sees the US. America used to be the guiding light, the inspiration for other nations, the country where everyone wanted to emigrate to and start a new life. Well, that reputation has taken a hell of a beating over the last 8 years and especially the past 4-5 years -- mostly because of the Bush administration and the Republican party. The foreign policy. The war in Iraq. The environmental policy. The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. And Bush acting like a complete idiot everywhere he goes. That's to name just a few.

But you know what? You can't solely blame Bush and his cronies. And let me tell you, they aren't the only ones being targeted for criticism by the world outside the bubble. The comment we hear the most often over here is "How could you guys elect that idiot twice?" They have a point. We dropped the ball. We let the whole world down. And now we just look like a bunch of jerks with egg on our faces.

The common retort to hearing about what the rest of the world thinks about us is: "Who cares what the rest of the world thinks?! This is America. This is an American election." This to me is such an ignorant, short-sighted response. One thing many Americans don't seem to understand is that the US is a PART OF THE WORLD. It is not secluded inside a bubble. Our actions have a GLOBAL effect.

That is why this election is SO important. We need to prove to the world that we're not a bunch of apathetic assholes squandering the whole idea behind democracy. We need to prove that we can take RESPONSIBILITY for how we live and how that affects the entire world. To bring the US back to its roots as an inspiration and as a good example, we need a president that is intelligent, articulate, open-minded, aware, and inspiring.

I can't vote because I'm not a citizen (yet), so I really want to encourage every eligible person to vote. By now, it is obvious how I would vote if I was able to, but of course, I am not going to be so crass as to try bullying you to vote the same way. I just really would like to ask that you vote, period. (Hopefully, most of you will vote for Obama, though!) My wife and I are moving back to the US on November 19th. A McCain/Palin win is almost enough to make me change my mind about coming back at all and I really want to come back, so please help!

A lot of people hold onto the belief/custom that one should not talk about politics with friends, family, or coworkers. That your political stance is a private matter. To a certain point, I can agree with that. BUT NOT IN THIS ELECTION. Please do everything you can to get out there and make your opinions known. Bother your friends and family. Take the risk!

A note to anyone who doesn't believe in voting: Apathy is not an option anymore. Did you know that there are statistically more Democrats in the US than Republicans? There are 72 million registered Democrats, 55 million Republicans, and 42 million Independents (though this data is from 2004, the numbers couldn't have changed enough to make a noticeable difference). If all 72 million voted, the win would be by a healthy margin. So please make plans to vote. Set aside the time now. Plan ahead. And please encourage everyone you know to do the same.

If you haven't registered, you need to get on the ball because the deadlines are right around the corner. You can find out what your state's deadline here:

http://www.rockthevote.com/voting-is-easy/important-dates/

And if you are overseas, your deadline is October 3rd. More info here:

https://www.overseasvotefoundation.org/overseas/home.htm

Identity Politics

2008-09-21T23:44:54Z

How does he do it? How does John McCain keep a straight face while accusing Barack Obama of planning a huge tax increase and of being at the core of a corrupt system run by lobbyists? (See McCain speech of Sept. 19.) A minute's glance at Obama's tax plan shows that he's planning a tax cut, and everyone knows Obama was a prime mover behind new restrictions on lobbyists passed by Congress last year. Meanwhile, McCain continues to base his campaign on advice from associates who have built their careers, fortunes, values and connections as lobbyists for major corporations.

Does NO ONE remember that McCain was one of "the Keating Five"?!! We have heard many details about McCain's behavior as a prisoner of war 35 years ago, but not a whisper about his behavior as a U. S. Senator when he was over 50 years old. He and four other Senators pressured the Federal Home Loan Bank Board to keep open the insolvent Lincoln Savings and Loan on behalf of McCain campaign contributor and personal friend Charles Keating (who also had business ties to Cindy McCain). Over 20,000 people, many of them retirees who had been persuaded to shift their money to uninsured accounts, lost all their savings. When asked if he believed his contributions had bought him influence with his representatives, Keating famously replied, "I want to say in the most forceful way I can: I certainly hope so." McCain agreed with the conclusion of the Senate Ethics Committee investigation, that he had shown "poor judgment."

Much more recently, McCain's first choice for economic advisor was former Senator Phil Gramm, a fierce fighter for deregulation, whose wife Wendy had a direct hand in facilitating the Enron disaster! At the end of her term as chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Wendy Gramm passed a rule change deregulating trading in derivatives by energy companies. A few weeks afterward, she joined Enron's Board of Directors, where for eight years she and other well-paid directors blithely approved every conflict-ridden scheme brought before them. For over 20 years, John McCain has breathed the air and the worldview of many people like Charles Keating and the Gramms.

So how can John McCain keep a straight face when accusing Barack Obama of being at the core of the corrupt system McCain was in bed with all the time Obama was in college and later driving the streets of Chicago, helping impoverished people develop their own leadership skills to take on city hall to improve their lives? Either McCain is out of touch with reality (scary), or he is deliberately using lies as a campaign tactic (scarier?).

Perhaps McCain figures if he claims the opposite of anything Obama says, uninformed voters will logically conclude that one of them is lying. And who will they think is lying? The young Harvard-schooled lawyer with an unfamiliar name? Or the experienced, grandfatherly war veteran--who also happens to be comfortingly White?

McCain has thrown away his politics of "character" and opted for a politics of identity. Will this strategy work? You get to decide.

John McCain in the Land of Oz

2008-09-16T15:36:05Z

The cyclone of Republican campaign spin is carrying the house of political discourse to the Land of Oz, a land richly entertaining because it is nothing at all like our humdrum Kansas reality.

The original straight-talking McCain told people the environmental damage of offshore drilling wouldn't be worth the amount of oil extracted.

But he learned people won't make you Wizard if you don't promise easy answers. So now he lets them yell, "Drill, baby, drill!" even though he knows that any offshore drilling started today would not reduce gas prices until AFTER a baby born today finishes college--and then only by a nickel or so.

As L. Frank Baum's Wizard of Oz complained, "How can I help being a humbug . . . when all these people make me do things that everybody knows can't be done?" John McCain is a good man--but a bad wizard.

McCain the man knows Governor Sarah Palin never returned the money for the "Bridge to Nowhere" and that she only stopped building it because it might hurt Alaska's ability to get future federal appropriations. McCain the Wizard repeats just enough of the story to create the false illusion that Palin has rejected earmarks in the past.

McCain the man knows Barack Obama voted for age-appropriate sex education to help protect children from sexual predators. McCain the Wizard knows running an ad accusing Obama of promoting "comprehensive sex education" for kindergarteners will scare some people into voting against Obama.

McCain the man knows that Obama had nothing to do with the chain emails and internet postings about Palin that FactCheck.org assesses as "false" and "misleading." McCain the Wizard knows that if he places FactCheck.org's words on top of Obama's photo in an ad, many people will wrongly blame Obama for the rumors.

McCain the man knows that Obama's tax plan cuts taxes overall almost as much as McCain's plan. He knows Obama's plan cuts taxes eight times as much as his own plan for Americans making less than $38,000 (40% of us) and three times as much for the middle 20%. He knows that only those who earn more than $200,000 a year will pay more taxes under Obama's plan. McCain the Wizard can't spin this, so he just denies it and claims the opposite, trusting that people will not search out the facts.

McCain the man knows Obama was not even thinking of Sarah Palin when Obama called McCain's proposals "putting lipstick on a pig." McCain the Wizard demands an apology, even as ABC Nightline airs video of McCain calling Hillary Clinton's healthcare plan "putting lipstick on a pig." Did McCain intend to call Clinton a pig? Did he apologize? PAY NO ATTENTION TO THAT MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN!

McCain does not have to create all the illusions himself. The Emerald City in Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is beautiful and unique mostly because everyone entering the city must lock green eyeglasses onto their heads. Most conservatives and liberals today eagerly lock on their red or blue eyeglasses.

If you wear the red eyeglasses:
You are unable to perceive any of the detailed proposals behind the mantras of "Hope," "Change," and "Yes, we can!"--but the red eyeglasses also block even the desire for specific definition of the slogans "Country First" and "Service."

Obama's ability to thoughtfully assess our nation's problems and craft a motivating speech is trivial; Palin's punchy delivery of a speech written by others before she was selected shows leadership.

Obama's pastor cursing the U. S. for its racism is unforgiveable; Palin's pastor saying the U. S. will not escape God's punishment is understandable.

Obama's not wearing a flag pin all the time proves his lack of true patriotism; Sarah Palin's speaking to the convention of the Alaskan Independence Party (whose primary goal is to lobby for a vote on secession from the U. S.) of which her husband was a seven-year member shows her open-mindedness.

McCain's original refusal to fall in line with right-wing orthodoxy on issues like permanent tax cuts for the rich, torture, immigration reform and offshore drilling is deeply disturbing, but when he concedes to pressure and GIVES UP these independent positions, you hail him as "OUR (tamed) maverick."

If you wear the red eyeglasses, Cindy McCain is a generous crusader for the good, but Teresa Heinz Kerry is an elitist heiress. If you wear blue eyeglasses, reverse that.

Voters will have to decide if they are going to demand impossible things of their leaders, if they enjoy being told diverting and comforting election-time stories, or if they want to come home to Kansas. In Baum's book, Dorothy decides she "was glad she had not gone up in a balloon;" it would have been a mistake to leave the ground with an untrustworthy guide. Dorothy learned to use her own power to solve her problems. If we want to be free and powerful, we will unlock our red and our blue eyeglasses, pull back the curtain, and see what's really there.

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2008-08-15T09:14:07Z

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