Respone to JSObservations on Health Care

This week's GTL post (link in title) on "Hillary Care" has provided for some fun debate on health care. It's original purpose, which I'll return to this weekend some time (I may owe Hillary an apology, or at least a temporary withdrawal of my more pointed criticisms), was to point out how electoral failure leads to political weakness. But it's become about health care itself.

So we'll look first at several assertions made about about how this current health care system works, and whether or not it should be abandoned.

This JSObservations post provides some unique insight into the health care debate, as it doesn't use the typical rightwing attacks of simply calling us "commies" for wanting to ensure what, in the Greatest Country in the World, should be a human right. Instead, it breaks down numbers and makes assertions that will, at first glance, alleviate the immediate concerns of those with health coverage at the time they read it.

First, let's address the comment that provoked all of this;

So many people base their opposition to the current healthcare system on the number of uninsured, which is commonly identified as 47 million. However, that number is a sham.

“If we believe the Kaiser Family Foundation, which is a frequent source for the mainstream media, Americans who do not qualify for current government programs and who make less than $50,000 a year total somewhere between 13.9 million and 8.2 million, no more than 5 percent of the population. Furthermore, according to the Congressional Budget Office, 45 percent of uninsured people will be uninsured for less than four months."

Is it really a good idea to junk a system that works pretty well for 95 percent of Americans?

The number that's "a sham" is shown in the post as 46.6 million. A far leap from 47 million, I know (somewhat saracastically), but when we get done looking at this, there won't be any of that "well, they're both fudgin' the numbers" stuff that Carville made fun of in War Room (just to be clear, I can't stand Clinton, but Carville is funny as hell). Here's the problem with arguing about 400K people; the report he cites for the math he uses later in the post says 46,995,000 people uninsured in 2006 (see Table 6, "Uninsured", "2006", "Total"), which is only a difference of 5,000 and has likely surpassed that number by now.

This is not the major contention of the post, nor the motivation for my rebuttal. It does, however, provide a lens through which to read the rest of the logic used to dismiss any health care reforms. That is also not the only reason given that the number is a "sham". Some interesting math, whereby the illegally invited (illegal immigrants to righties), and those who make over $50K a year are subtracted. Why, you ask?

Well, the illegally invited are not our problem. I'm not going to argue this point, as immigrant rights isn't the point of the post, although those who think it's a good idea to just leave them hanging should keep in mind that: 1) There's a big corporation somewhere making a bigger profit due to the unprotected nature of their labor; 2) Leaving 9.5 million people without any kind of health care, illegal, legal, not a citizen, whatever, spells major potential for a public health disaster, whether you're covered or not; 3) If these people go to hospitals anyways and never pay, you will pay for it, either through taxes or higher premiums, and the cost will be higher because out-of-pocket health care costs are much higher.

So, moving on to those other people who don't count. The uninsured who make over $50,000 a year, "ought to be able to afford it." He's absolutely right, that they ought to. But this is one of the greatest faults in conservative logic: "If you work hard, you'll succeed, so if you're successful, you've worked hard." Which obviously translates to "those in trouble didn't work hard enough." There's plenty of people with more measure of success than they've earned, and ALOT more people with less.

How much extra spending cash would you sacrifice your health or your childrens' health for?

The answer is, obviously, you can't afford my or my childrens' health. So why would you assume that people in the position of being uninsured, despite their income, have a price and are doing it willfully? Those who go through life thinking "I'll be fine and nothing's going to happen to me," or "I'm not gonna pay my share in," are not the norm, regardless of what Reagan told you. There's probably a good reason why they're risking bankrupting or debilitating illness while earning what "ought to be able" to pay for health coverage.

Maybe it's because that salary, that income, doesn't quite cut it any longer. 50 or 75K isn't what it used to be. According to the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, it takes an income of 175.8%-277.6% of the poverty level, depending on your family structure, to afford health coverage. I recall having seen a 200-300% of poverty level standard in one of the comments or the article, and am regretting not being a faster reader; I may be wrong about that. JS is honest, though, and will comment on the origin of that number (it mighta been Captain Morgan who whispered it, so my apologies if it was), but its in the UCLA paper, nonetheless. Those requiring child care are much higher. Is it out of the realm of possibility to assume that stuff just came up that ruined that budget structure and pushed health care out of their affordability column? Probably not.

One can play games with numbers at will, and since I've been dragged into it, I'll do some of that this weekend, too. You can make them say funny things, like the health care system "works for 95% of us" and you can make it come out with an infinite string of subsequent "6's", so the devil returns to provide the Commie solution himself. But no amount of "if a train leaves Milwaukee at 75 mph" fun will change that people are going to go bankrupt (though not as easily, thanks to the GOP and Bush) or die as a result of no coverage or insufficient coverage.

These people are not lazy. They do not expect a handout. They work hard, they love their children. They love their country. But the commitment of some to the market-over-man ethos has sentenced them to financial ruin (about 2 million a year, before the bankruptcy restrictions went into place) or death (18,000 a year).

It's time to let Milton Friedman's ideas go with his spirit, and start looking at this from a pragmatice point of view, and a more selfish (not free-for-all market) point of view. You pay more for someone to tell you to "go screw yourself, that's not covered," regardless of what your doctor says. You're paying for far more than what single-payer health insurance would cost, because you pay for CEO bonuses, corporate profits, administrative overhead, and the ridiculous inflation of unpaid charges to out-of-pocket patients tacked onto the insurance premiums and/or tax obligations of every American. More on all that later.

JS is more than welcome to post a rebuttal and email it to me, which I will post here, or just link it into the "Comments". I prefer a return to dialogue over "socialism" versus "capitalism" talking point disputes, as they're both inaccurate and polarizing. I do apologize for the "you again" and "Stop waisting our time" shots on GTL, as I like to use hard pokes until I know you're really ready to throw down. They make the process of responding to comments easier.

Until then, I'll focus on bashing Eli Pariser and his big league fumble of the "Betray Us" ad, a possible apology (don't hold your breath) to Hillary, and some Iraq war stuff.

That Goes Boom #6/Gomer Says “Surprise” #2: Thanks Move On

So the Senate held debate today about Move On. The revulsive Patraeus ad, which appeared in the NYT last week and has drawn increasingly vociferous opposition from the right, was a political folly that’s going to continue to be an issue.

Ed Schultz talked about it today, reiterating it as a reason to join Move On and send them money. He calls the debate over the ad “honky tonk” and a “waste of taxpayers’ money.” He’s absolutely right on those latter points, but wrong that it’s a good reason to send them money.

Whatever this is, be it “honky tonk”, a “waste”, an offense to the 1st Amendment, it was foreseeable. It doesn’t take a genius to see that offending a uniformed soldier, whatever his political purpose or persuasion, would not help our efforts to end the war.

The “they don’t support the troops” crap had been put to rest, but with Bush’s statement today, and the debate in the Senate, it has been resurrected by a politically irresponsible stunt. As I’ve said before, there’s a number of different ways they could have approached that ad, but chose the second worst option possible (the worst would have been to call him “babykiller” in grand yippie Tantrum Left fashion).

So thanks again, Move On, for not thinking things through.

CREW's New "Beyond De Lay" Report

In the spirit of policing our own, I'm not going to focus on the GOP's corruption. Also, I don't have that much room. Instead, let's address those Democrats who made CREW's Top 22 list, shall we? Each name has a link to the report summary for that person.

Rep. William "Ice Box" Jefferson (D-LA)
Used the National Guard to get to his home after Katrina so he could pick up some stuff. Then, he got busted with $90,000 in bribe money in his freezer. I know we have a judicial system based on innocence until proven guilty, but the only reason to keep this guy around is if you like to suffer. You don't ever put $90k in your freezer for a good reason.

Rep. John "Retriever" Murtha (D-PA)
This guy basically works for one of his old staffers. Paul Magliochetti now owns one of the most successful defense lobbying firms in DC. Why is he so successful? Maybe he has a friend on the Appropriations Committee Subcommittee on Defense.

Rep. Allan "Quarter Bill" Mollohan (D-WV)
Between 1997 and 2006, this guys directed more than $250 million to companies in his district that he set up. I guess that makes it easy to win your disctrict, but doesn't this make clear why we have such enormous budgetary problems? Whenever a Republican bitches about how we don't have the money for this or that, what he means is "that guy took it!" This kind of scum is the reason China owns our ass!

Rep. David "Didn't See This Coming?" Scott (D-GA)
This guy started missing tax payments, at the state and local level, in 1998. He's only in his third term in congress. How did someone run against a guy whose company doesn't pay its taxes, and lose? Since then, he's stopped paying any taxes, and it makes the voters and media in his district look a little nearsighted.

None of these guys even comes close to DeLay in scumminess. But then again, they haven't been given the opportunity yet, either. If any one of these guys were given the authority over the time that DeLay had, I have no doubt that they'd all be just as bad. Murtha would probably be worse. We made electoral gains in 2006 because of the GOP's corruption, and it's our responsibility to address these ethics problems, both in the ethics committee and on the ground in the disctrict.

The Open Letter To Move On

September 14, 2007

Mr. Pariser,

This week, congressional Democrats were given a difficult challenge. Without the votes to override a Presidential veto, without even the votes to break a filibuster in the Senate, the Democrats in congress were challenged by their base to finally end the war in Iraq. It is an appropriate objective for them, given that they were elected to do just that, and I believe it is one that most of them want to achieve.

This specific opportunity was provided by this administration’s callously scheduling the report of General Patraeus over the 9/11 anniversary, and what we knew would be a factually weak argument for keeping American troops in Iraq through 2008. That the Iraqi government had taken a vacation, despite the pressure from American people to end our presence their, was proof that the surge had not worked and could not work towards its stated political objectives, regardless of any disputable improvement in the security conditions.

The task of countering the image presented by the report was simple. To undermine the political cover invariably given to military personnel, question why the administration would send a bureaucrat and a military officer to justify the policy of the Bush administration. To refute the argument that our pullout would lead to disaster, point out the “shining example” of new security cooperation in Anbar, which only came about after our withdrawal and subsequent diplomatic efforts in the province. The help provided by retiring Senators Hagel and Warner would raise the possibility that “moderate” Republicans could be brought over to help in ending, or at least limiting, our involvement in Iraq.

Only after carefully addressing the report could we try several options. Senator Webb’s proposal that we limit deployment time in relation to down time is well-suited to bringing a veto-proof majority to the aid of our military personnel, and while it isn’t ideal, it is a huge wrench in the administration’s war engine. The coming request for $50 billion to continue the war provides us an opportunity to give the President his money in a way that forces him to de-fund the operation or accept limits that move troops out of Iraq in clear stages, set diplomatic requirements on his lazy State Department appointees, and impose regional cooperation on this President.

But that’s not what we’re talking about this week, is it? That’s not what every news network is covering right now. It’s not what’s on the minds of “moderate” Republicans whose votes we need to accomplish anything in the Senate. What we’re talking about, what they’re covering, what’s on their minds, is how fast every Democratic candidate for office is going to have to run away from you and your organization.

The ad you took out in the NYT on Monday was a tactical disaster. Though the text of the advertisement was accurate and perfectly within the scope of our political objective, the tacky and childish wordplay “Betray Us” has set up every Democrat opposed to the war as a punching bag for the White House and other pro-war Republicans. It has given the GOP an opportunity to resurrect one of their favorites, that we “don’t support the troops”, all because you weren’t creative enough to come up with a better lead-in than rhyming. “General Ordered to Take the Hill” is better, as it allows you to focus on his representation of a political ideology, not the facts on the ground. It even lets you do a cartoon with him charging up the steps of congress. Alas, we’ll never know if that would’ve been effective, because now we have to spend this weekend preparing for shots from Giuliani and McCain, rather than focusing on ending the war.

Move On is tainted by this, likely for the remainder of the 2008 election cycle. So, I’m requesting that you do not make contributions to Democratic candidates or committees. Take the money you raise and push a message that will help Democratic candidates. But don’t tie any of our campaigns up in the cloth of “Not supporting our troops” that you’ve re-woven for us. It’s been a long political fight to get to where those of us against the war are not automatically “commie coward soldier-haters”. We need to end this war, and that takes precedent over your antics and position as a political force. Stay out of 2008 so we can focus on what’s important.

Sincerely,

The War Mule

Warmule Cartoon

The Political Value of Baseball

I am a life-long Cubs fan. Having not grown up in Chicago, I was kept in line through the Summers of my childhood by the Cubs' many losses on WGN. And after each game, because they played day games, I had time to go out into my back yard, and replay the game myself. Except this time, the Cubs would win.

Each year that the Cubs make a run at the playoffs, we see famous Cubs' fans become more and more visible, as the cameras take the time to search the crowd for fans that might find a simple trip to the ballpark as too much of a hassle, during a losing season. Some are always there. Bill Murray, John Cusack, and Vince Vaughn are varyingly common fixtures at Wrigley Field, and very good actors. Another Cubs fan, whose work I'm not so fond of, is George Will.

George Will is the Pulitzer-winning conservative columnist who can now be seen on ABC's This Week each Sunday. He frequently quotes Milton Friedman, whose economic idealogy has been the basis for conservative undermining of government. He's a regular addition at Cato's functions, a libertarian institution that advocates "free-for-all" markets. This is Will's politics.

Ken Burns' famous Baseball series on PBS contains input from many people who are not ball players, owners, etc. Some are just important, recognizable people, whose lives can be traced by baseball. One of those people is George Will, professional conservative.

But in the Baseball documentary, Will is not doing his job, discussing politics. He's just a baseball fan. He's talking about something he cares about. When he does, when he's forced by his love for the game to reconsider his ideology, his views are very different:

"55, 56 (now 75) million people pay to get into ballparks every year. Not one of them buys a ticket to see an owner. I happen to be a semi-Marxist in this field, I believe in the labor theory of value. The players are the labor, they create the economic value. They ought to get the lion's share of the rewards."

Politics is, you see, simply Will's job. Baseball is his passion. When one advocates for Friedman's economic ideologies, he advocates for market manipulation, advantaged to the strong and wealthy. That would mean that as far as his business is concerned, he should want his favorite team's pitcher, one strike from throwing a perfect game, to be given an advantage. The market's "benefit of the doubt" given to the stronger on that day. Not so for baseball.

In a salute to umpire Bruce Froemming this last August, he laudes Froemming's integrity... Integrity that cost Milt Pappas a perfect game in 1972. In what Will love's he is for umpiring, which would translate to regulation in the political world.

I would never advocate for George Will as President of the United States. I don't believe that governing, or our systems of doing so, are his true love. But I would like to ask him, this one time in probably the least flattering tone one could have imagined, to please buy the Cubs? It is the team he loves, in the game he loves, and he would nourish it to make it successful. Because that is what you do when you love something.

Perhaps a round through baseball, for those conservatives who love it (not Bush, keep him away), could change the way they think, as well. Teamwork, personal sacrifice, fair play, trades agreed upon by both parties, and the most important measure of your trip to the field being that you return home, are good values. It's time that conservatives learn them, and if they already know them, carry them over to other parts of their lives.

Open Letter to Move On

Move On's antics to kick off what was an important week towards ending the US involvement in Iraq have allowed distraction to settle into the political discourse over the war. As a result, I have written an Open Letter to Eli Pariser, Executive Director at Move On, asking them to stay out of 2008 so they don't serve as a weight around the neck of every Democrat running for office and opposed to the war. You can read it at GTL or Banzai Elvis. I will cross-post it here Saturday night.

AP Takes California Electoral Fight to a Very "Cat's in the Cradle" Place

As this Media Matters article points out, the GOP's support for a ballot measure to completely gut the California Electoral Delegation was written about, with no mention of their fathering of the measure. This should make the Presidential Election Reform Act feel very abandoned, as his estranged father gives a nod of proud support from across the room, but no hug.

Dead or Alive... When We Get Around To It

On the sixth anniversary of 9/11, how ashamed we must all feel that the perpetrators roam free? How insincere any condolence must feel to the family members of those lost, that we allowed our sense of obligation to them be diverted for a war of choice, that itself goes on? How weak must our resolve appear, to the eyes of the world, in that one mass murderer can carry out an act like this and be free to gloat about it for six subsequent anniversaries? How hard must it be, for the victims looking down on us, to see us put so much blood and treasure into “Daddy’s Unflushed Doody”, while their killer sits in relative comfort behind an imaginary line that we haven’t the courage or resources to cross?

Osama bin Laden is free, and apparently has access to a Rite Aid or Walgreen’s to get his Just for Men dye. Meanwhile, George W Bush is suffering the early consequences of his own atrocities. When scores are finally tallied up, it’s my estimation W will be on his way to historical irrelevance, if he’s lucky, while bin Laden will be quietly killed by troops sent in by a Democrat. But he’ll outlast Bush as a political force in the US, which should fill the GOP with shame as they seek to defend the war that diverts our attention from resolving that issue.

This president kills people, that’s always been his thing. As governor, he laughed at executed criminals whose appeals piqued his lowbrow sense of humor. He killed then, kills now, and will continue to kill until he leaves office. The abnormality is when he doesn’t kill someone. So it is with some confusion that we wonder at OBL’s ability to taunt us, six years later, while this president seeks to shorten the appeals process for those sentenced to death, but makes no effort to get him. There will be no clemency for bin Laden, no pleas for compassion or lenience, no political consequence for quenching his blood thirst. You get to kill him, and no one will be bothered by it. This one is free George, so why do you refuse to do it?

He refuses because bin Laden serves a purpose for him. As long as he’s out there, he’s a threat, and we will fearfully give tacit permission for his bloody misadventures throughout the Muslim world. Only after he’s catalyzed every neo-con objective in the oil-producing world, will bin Laden become a target of the Bush administration, and that won’t happen in this term.
The fact of the matter is if we want bin Laden caught or killed, people are going to have to do it themselves. The best way to get OBL’s head on a pike would be to up the ante on him to $250 million. Then, crawl up the ass of whoever comes to collect, being that they’ve probably had the opportunity all along and done nothing. After all, they’ll have to pay for denying us the honor of giving bin Laden his “due process”.

To Medea Benjamin and the Tantrum Left

As their apparent Happy Birthday present to Medea Benjamin, MoveOn sent notice of its intentions to join her and Code Pink in the crevasse of political irrelevance. Yesterday’s “Betray Us” ad (really, word play on Patraeus’ name is the hijinks MoveOn members paid for?) in the NYT saddled congressional Democrats with the added obligation of disowning another group on the left, while trying to manage a committee hearing that was already tilted by the administration and the media (CNN did a bangup job, putting the General’s buddy David Gergen front and center all day long). All of this was punctuated by the constant whaling of protestors from the back of the room, whose presence makes it appear that Dems can’t keep order in government. So Happy Birthday, Susie. I hope it was worth it.

Your support of the increasingly pro-war candidate in 2004, John Kerry, makes your cries for peace seem hypocritical. When it was expedient, you vociferously opposed the only candidate calling for impeachment and pulling the troops out (Nader), and supported one who called for more troops and assured victory in Iraq. Yet now, you and your cohorts throw hissy fits at hearings and meetings with congressional leaders because they won’t do what you wouldn’t do in ’04; impeach and end the war. The July assault you waged on the credibility of John Conyers, whose vocal opposition to the war and every other position of the Bush administration was the only light at the end of the six-year tunnel we were in, demonstrates your sense of entitlement and lack of political awareness. Believe me, when the votes for impeachment are there, when they are even an outside possibility, Conyers will push it.

This “Tantrum” Left, as I call it, is not unfamiliar. It was this kind of public fit that characterized the anti-war movement in the 1960’s, and gave Nixon the openings he needed to keep the Viet Nam War going. First, it split the Democratic Party in 1968 and hobbled the nomination prospects of Gene McCarthy, who would have ended the war, and gave the nomination to a thump-able Humphrey. Then, it produced the McGovern nomination in 1972, which is exactly the kind of weak and self-undermining opponent that Nixon needed to win back the White House in spite of overwhelming opposition to the war. And when Nixon put up the hippies as the personification of the anti-war sentiment, he was able to keep control of the “silent majority” that actually opposed the war, but wasn’t going to give control of our foreign policy over to a bunch of rioting teenagers.

In effect, this massive anti-war movement, headed up by the likes of Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, extended our involvement in Viet Nam. I know Nixon credited them (the movement, that is, not them personally) with forcing him to end the war, but the fact is he shouldn’t have been in office to drag it out another 5 years, and his own arrogance prevented him from recognizing that. This same condition exists now, as Democrats look for ways to end the war, a “movement” undermines them at every turn, by making the party seem weak, entitled, fussy, whiny, divided, and committed to failure. When there’s an obvious approach to this issue, that we’ve done all we can and it’s time for Iraq to resolve its issues politically, quickly, there’s no time for screams from the back of the room about impeachment.

The issue is separate, Medea, as much as you refuse to admit it. To get the war debate bogged down in an almost impossible attempt to “put an elephant head on a pike”, would be irresponsible and counter-productive. It is time for your “movement” to start writing letters, paying visits, making phone calls, and do it all without getting arrested or yelling at congressional allies. Cindy Sheehan was a political force until she started hanging out with you, and her message has since been lost in the annoying white noise of the Tantrum Left. We can’t allow you to do this to the rest of the 60% who oppose this war. Do us all a favor and stop handing Republicans the brush with which to paint all of us. Don’t go away mad, just go away.