Category Archives: Government

An Endorsement No One Should Welcome

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The Houston Chronicle’s Fuel Fix blog reports that Richard “The Dick” Cheney is gaga over Congressman Paul Ryan.  “I worship the ground he walks on,” said Cheney.  “I hope he doesn’t run for president because that would ruin a good man who has a lot of work to do.”

If voters didn’t already have enough reason to be wary of Ryan following his attempt to gut the Medicare program, this should raise some even larger red flags. Whatever, or whomever, Cheney favors is almost certain to mean greater largess for corporations (especially big oil) and trouble for ordinary working people.

One man’s solution for Medicare and the health care crisis.

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Now that House Republicans have voted to end Medicare and Medicaid as we know them, I believe it’s time to look at the real problems with the system. In addition to Medicare fraud, many of the problems are structural. Not with Medicare. But with the health care industry itself.

Unless the skyrocketing costs of health care are controlled, we will not be able to fix our social insurance programs such as Medicare. Moreover, we will not be able to control our deficits. That is precisely why President Obama and the Democratic Congress chose to focus on health care reform in 2009. Unfortunately, the resulting bill was a compromise with Republicans hell-bent on protecting the insane profits of the health insurance industry and PhRMA (Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America).

Therefore, I humbly offer the following suggestions for consideration:

1 – Create a medical triage system with the entry point being Board Certified Family Nurse Practitioners, rather than MDs. These people are Registered Nurses with additional education and training. They are more than capable of identifying and treating the majority of illnesses and symptoms, as well as writing prescriptions, and they can refer patients to a physician or specialist as needed. However, they are billed at a lower rate than physicians. Implemented nationally, this system could save millions, if not billions, of dollars.

2 – Encourage patients to call medical professionals more often. Ignoring symptoms usually doesn’t make them go away. Patients of all ages tend to avoid talking to medical professionals until they absolutely have to. This often results in illnesses being allowed to advance which, in turn, makes them more difficult (and expensive) to treat. All patients should be encouraged to call or visit with Nurse Practitioners whenever they notice a change in their bodies or a symptom of concern.

3 – Eliminate unnecessary tests and treatments. Currently, (some) doctors order a battery of lab tests and treatments in order to maximize their profits. They also claim to do this as a defensive measure against potential malpractice suits. I believe it’s time to recognize that everyone makes mistakes (including health care professionals). We should try to limit the number of malpractice suits and the size of the awards. At the same time, the medical profession needs to more aggressively weed out those who are responsible for the most egregious errors.

4 – Regulate the cost of pharmaceuticals. Currently, Big PhRMA is able to charge whatever it wants for its products. In some cases, the mark-up on pharmaceuticals is astronomical. An inhaler used by millions of Americans costs $38-$40 in the US. But in other countries, its price is as little as 5 cents!

5 – Create incentives for family practice physicians. Too many of our medical students focus on specialties that offer the greatest return on the investment of their medical education. They reason that, since they will be faced with the daunting task of paying off tens of thousands of dollars in loans, they should choose the specialty that pays the most and faces the least probability of legal issues. As a result, the percentage of family practice physicians and OB/GYN physicians is dwindling. This could be fixed by offering more government scholarship awards and tax benefits to those who choose the traditionally lower paying specialties.

6 – Eliminate the need for the poor and uninsured to use Emergency Rooms for primary care. We’ve all heard stories of people who call an ambulance in order to be transported to the ER to be treated for a common cold. Of course, since many of these people can’t afford to pay for their care, the costs are absorbed by the hospital and passed on to other patients.

Recognizing that many of the stories are likely exaggerated, it is true that people go to the ER when a simple visit to a doctor’s office would suffice at a fraction of the cost. But rather than complain about the phenomenon, we should look at the cause. Often it’s simply because these people don’t have ready access to any other form of care. By creating more and better access such as clinics staffed into the night by Nurse Practitioners, people would be encouraged to seek care through more appropriate means.

7 – Demand that health care providers publish outcomes for the most serious ailments and treatments, and encourage patients to seek out the most successful providers. It is a well-accepted fact that it is less expensive to seek treatment from the most successful providers, even if that means traveling out of state. There are fewer complications and patients tend to recover faster.

8 – Last, and most important, take the profit out of the health care industry for those who aren’t directly involved in providing care. In other words, contrary to Republican beliefs, eliminate the middle men (insurance companies) and allow the government to finance care through taxes and/or withholding. I’d much rather have the government determine the accessibility of medical care than large corporations whose primary goal is to limit care in order to maximize profits.

Limited Government Redefined.

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For years, Republicans have been campaigning on lower taxes and limited government.  They do seem sincere about cutting taxes – at least for corporations and the very wealthy.  But when it comes to limited government, I guess it depends on which government you’re limiting. 

When Republicans last controlled the White House, the US House of Representatives and the Senate, they limited the Environmental Protection Agency, the Dept. of Education, the Dept. of Energy and the FDA as well as limiting the regulation of the oil and gas industry, the insurance industry, the financial industry, commodities, and Medicare. 

At the same time, Republicans created the gargantuan agency of Homeland Security.  They also determined that it was the government’s role to police the interaction between a woman and her doctor, to invade the privacy of our citizens, to limit who could marry, and to suspend the laws of habeus corpus so it could detain citizens indefinitely without right to trial.

Now Republicans are pushing their limited government ideas at the state level as never before.  In Arizona, they’re trying their best to destroy public schools, take health care away from the poor and force everyone to carry guns.  In Wisconsin, they’re limiting the voices and bargaining rights of government workers.  In Vermont, the governor limited the images of laborers in the Labor Dept.  And in Michigan, the GOP-led state government has literally usurped the governance of Benton Harbor in order to give a city park to a corporate developer so the developer can turn it into a golf course for the very wealthy.

It appears that Republicans really want a government limited to enforcing their narrow-minded values and increasing benefits for corporations and the very wealthy.

Senator Kyl’s Legacy

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This year, Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona announced that he would not run for his seat in the Senate in 2012.  Following his announcement, the Arizona media was filled with people (Republicans, teabaggers and other conservatives) extolling Senator Kyl’s mostly forgettable accomplishments.

As the conservative mouthpiece in the Senate, Kyl was given lots of attention by the media.  And he was very good at capitalizing on it.  During the Bush administration, he became one of the administration’s most visible apologists.  And during the Obama administration, he has railed against virtually every administration initiative.

But those actions won’t serve as his lasting legacy.  Instead, he’ll be remembered for two events that took place on the Senate floor.  The first was his objections to approximately 80 appointments by President Obama.  As Senate Democrats called the names of individuals who had been appointed as judges, Kyl stood at the microphone and repeated the words “I object” for each and every one.

More recently, in arguing against the funding of Planned Parenthood, Kyl stated that abortion is “more than 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does.”  Of course, he was wrong.  The actual percentage of abortions provided by Planned Parenthood represents less than 3 percent of its budget.  When confronted with this discrepency, Kyl’s office announced that his statement “wasn’t intended to be factual!”  Of course, that came as no surprise to those of us who have been following Senator Kyl for some time.  He has seldom told the truth about anything regarding Democratic proposals or Democratic-supported initiatives.

Thanks to public ridicule led by Stephen Colbert and other comedians, Senator Kyl has since amended the Congressional Record to remove the inaccurate percentage.  The Record has been changed to read, “… you go to Planned Parenthood for abortions because that’s what Planned Parenthood does.”

So now Kyl’s statement in the Congressional Record implies that abortion is the only service provided by Planned Parenthood.  Apparently Kyl really doesn’t intend for his statements to be factual.  Even when he has an opportunity to correct them.

Maybe the best way to fix the deficit is to do nothing.

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While the government and the media debate the pros and cons of President Obama’s and Congressman Ryan’s competing deficit reduction plans, Ezra Klein of the Washington Post suggests another possibility.  Do nothing.

That’s right.  Do nothing to address the deficit and growing national debt!

Using a graph based on the Congressional Budget Office’s September numbers, Klein shows what will happen if Congress fails to act.  Our national budget would begin to balance itself in two years.  And despite the so-called “crises” of Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare, the budget would remain balanced into the forseeable future.

Given the doom and gloom scenarios of the teabaggers and their Republican allies, how is this possible?

It’s the result of allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire at the end of their 2-year extension, implementing the program that changes the way doctor payments are handled in Medicare, and allowing the Affordable Care Act (so-called Obamacare) to be fully implemented.

That’s it!  No privatizing Social Security, no ending Medicaid and no changing Medicare to a voucher system that will likely drive up the cost of health care while dramatically adding to the insurance industry’s bottom line.  All we have to do is keep the politicians from further messing things up!  (Of course, it wouldn’t hurt if we could stop bleeding money and lives in Iraq and Afghanistan.  It’s estimated that those wars have already cost us as much as $3 trillion.  A number that’s increasing by the day.)

Remember this as the debate over the deficit escalates between now and the 2012 election.  The choice is likely to be between a Republican plan of pulling the safety nets out from under our most vulnerable citizens while lining the pockets of the wealthy.  Or enacting President Obama’s plan which will reduce the deficit while continuing to care for the poor, the sick and the elderly.  Or doing nothing and returning to Clinton-era tax rates.Personally, I vote for one of the last two options.  After all, unless my memory fails me, the decade of the 90s was prosperous for most everyone.  Not just the super-wealthy.

A Culture of Blame.

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The recent standoff in Wisconsin raises some unpleasant questions about American society.  Why do we now blame union workers and their pensions for our economic troubles?  Certainly, public employees who make around $50,000/year aren’t getting rich off of taxpayer money.  And why blame foreclosed homeowners for the housing crisis?  Surely they didn’t benefit from purchasing a home for more than its current value and being forced to move.  And how can anyone logically blame the Obama Administration for an economic meltdown that occured before the President took office?

My point is that there is plenty of blame for our problems to go around starting with deregulation, two unfunded wars, unnecessary tax cuts for the wealthy and the greed of Wall Street bankers.  But why focus on blame?  Wouldn’t we all be better served by spending our time trying to find solutions to our current problems instead?

Of course, those who committed illegal acts, if any, should pay for them.  But we should let our legal system address those people.

As for our economy, our deficit can easily be reduced by rescinding tax cuts for the nation’s wealthiest Americans.  We could create high-paying jobs in the U.S. by ending tax incentives for the corporations that send jobs overseas, and by adding tariffs on goods made outside the U.S.  We could generate more revenue by lowering the tax rate on corporations while, at the same time, removing corporate tax loopholes.  We could generate revenue for our state and local governments by ending corporate welfare such as Tax Increment Financing.  We could cut costs by refusing to help the billionaire owners of professional sports franchises pay for palatial new arenas.  We could increase innovation by improving public education and providing small businesses with the same tax advantages as large corporations.

We could save businesses and individuals billions of dollars by creating Medicare for all and hiring enough regulators to eliminate fraudulent claims.  We could save billions by de-criminalizing drugs and ending the so-called “War on Drugs” which has put thousands of non-violent people in prison to learn new skills from hardened criminals.  We could save billions by using our prison system to educate and reform those who would benefit instead of merely warehousing inmates until we’re forced to release them.

We could finally end our dependence on oil by eliminating taxpayer subsidies to big oil companies and spending the same amount of money on alternative sources of energy.  Most important, we could reform our political campaigns by holding political ads to the same truth-in-advertising standards as ads for products and services.  If they don’t tell the truth, the politicians must be removed from office and new elections held as they are in Great Britain.

Of course, you could continue to assume that significant changes like these are impossible.  But if our nation continues to fall behind others in education, health care and innovation, don’t blame me.

Homeless in the good ol’ USA.

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A couple of weeks ago, CBS’ 60 Minutes ran an incredibly touching segment on homeless families.  Scott Pelley assembled a diverse group of homeless children and asked them a series of questions about their circumstances.  They responded by talking about going to bed hungry, the effects of homelessness and hunger on their studies, the shame of feeling different than “normal” kids and their sense of guilt from feeling as though they are a hardship on their parents.

The impact of the segment was both heart-wrenching and utterly maddening.  Despite our current economic problems, we are the richest nation on Earth.  Yet we not only seem to accept the reality that a large segment of our population is struggling to get through each day without proper food, health care or a home.  Some of our right-wing politicians and media pundits even seem determined to blame them for their problems.

They’ve blamed homebuyers for being tricked into unaffordable home loans.  They’ve tried to block unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed.  They have called the unemployed lazy.  And they’re trying to repeal (or at least de-fund) the health care bill that will make affordable health care accessible to all Americans.

If these politicians can watch a few of the 16 million impoverished children in America talk about their struggles and still continue to attack programs that could make the lives of these kids better, it’s time for these politicians to go.

Yesterday couldn’t be soon enough.

The beginning of the end of Democracy in the U.S.

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Yes, I know that probably sounds alarmist.  But consider the following:

1- The Citizens United ruling by the Supreme Court gave corporations the free speech rights of individuals.  The effect is to make them super-citizens allowing them to inject tens of millions of dollars into our political campaigns with virtually no oversight.  This, of course, greatly benefits the Republican Party which represents the interests of large corporations.

2- Ohio, Wisconsin and other states which are now controlled by Republican governors and Republican-led legislatures have attacked labor unions in order to limit their bargaining rights.  Of course, it’s only coincidence that labor unions are the last remaining large contributors to Democratic Party election campaigns.

3- Republicans at all levels of government are pushing legislation that would de-fund Planned Parenthood, another traditional contributor to Democratic campaigns.

4- Republicans are pushing to de-fund Public Broadcasting which they see as liberal-leaning media that ask too many difficult questions.

5- Finally, many of the states controlled by Republican governors and Republican legislatures are now pushing legislation that would require state-issued IDs in order to vote.  While seemingly innocuous, these IDs would prevent many college students and minorities from voting in their states.  Again, it’s merely coincidence that college students and minorities most often vote for Democratic candidates.The impact of all of this is to greatly increase campaign funds for Republican candidates and to decrease available funding for Democratic candidates.  These tactics would also serve to disenfranchise Democratic-leaning voters and to quiet independent media that refuse to adhere to Republican talking points.

This is a serious threat, folks!  We can’t allow Republicans and their corporate masters to continue to stack the deck against working citizens.  Speak up!  Ask your Republican friends why, if their political ideas are so great, do they have to resort to trickery and bullying tactics in order to push them on ordinary people?

The Real Reagan Legacy.

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On the occasion of Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday, Republicans and other conservatives simply could not contain their myopic admiration for “The Great Communicator.”  In reality, he should have been called “The Great Propagandist.”  Or, perhaps, “The Great Bullsh***er.”

For, I believe, the collapse of the middle class can be traced directly to the decisions made during his terms in office.  Take the assault on labor unions.  It was Reagan who decided that he could not be troubled with the PATCO strike.  So he fired most of the nation’s air traffic controllers and replaced them with new, more obedient controllers.

Or take “Reaganomics,” AKA “Voodoo Economics” and “Trickle-down Economics.”  Under Reagan, the administration began the biggest transfer of wealth in the nation’s history.  All upward.

He began by paving the way for interstate banking, which effectively did away with usuary laws that limited the interest rate banks could charge for loans.  And he ended tax deductions for the interest paid on loans.  (For those too young to remember, prior to Reagan, all of the interest paid on loans for education, cars, credit cards, etc. was tax deductible.)  The effect was to enact a huge tax increase on the poor and the middle class while, at the same time, cutting taxes for corporations and the wealthy.

Reagan’s economic disciples, such as George W. Bush, have not only further cut taxes for corporations and the wealthy, they have continued the assault on labor unions by providing tax incentives for corporations to ship jobs overseas.  They have dramatically cut the estate tax and capital gains taxes.  They have provided subsidies for some of the world’s most profitable corporations – oil and pharamceutical companies.  They have attacked Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare and even public education as “entitlements.”  And people like Wisconsin Governor Walker are trying to put an end to collective bargaining.

The result of the policies of all these Reaganophiles is that the 400 wealthiest people in the nation now control 50 percent of the nation’s wealth.  To be clear, that means 400 people now have as much money as the bottom 110,000,000 Americans combined!  Even Reagan’s own budget director now admits that “Reaganomics” was a disaster for the middle class.

So pardon me if I choose not to celebrate the Reagan legacy.  To me, that would be akin to celebrating the legacy of influenza.  Or measles.  Or polio!

Arizona Leads U.S.

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It’s true.  The state of Arizona is leading the nation.  Just not in a good way.

For example, we have one of the nation’s worst economies.  Our schools, home prices, and poverty rank among the nation’s worst.  Our gun shows lead the nation in exporting weapons to the Mexican drug cartels.  And, based on the actions of our state legislature, we must have more non-institutionalized lunatics than any other state in the union.  (Of course, if said legislators have their way, we may not be part of the union much longer.)

To elaborate, just consider the bills currently pending in a legislature that is overwhelmingly dominated by Republicans:

SB1433 would set up a committee of 12 lawmakers (of course, they would be mostly Republican) to review federal laws and regulations to determine which are “outside the scope of the powers delegated by the people to the federal government in the U.S. Constitution.”  If passed, the legislation would directly challenge federal supremacy as written in Article 1, Sections 8 & 10 of said Constitution.

SB1308 and HB2562 would limit federal authority setting up interstate compacts to honor each others’ birth certificates segregating children who are considered U.S. citizens from those who are not.

SB1309 and HB2561 would redefine Arizona citizenship in defiance of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

SB1328 would make it legal for Arizonans to defy any federal law or rule if federal employees or members of Congress do not have to comply.

SB1391 would create an interstate firearms freedoms act guaranteeing the right of citizens to bear arms free of federal regulation.

SB1393 declares that the state has the exclusive right to regulate carbon dioxide emissions within the state boundaries while SB1394 protects the right to emit carbon dioxide from human-caused activity.

SB 1545 would allow the production of nuclear fuel in Arizona free from federal regulation.  (It’s unknown if that also includes the production of nuclear weapons.)

SCR1016 would require the approval of the legislatures of half the states in order for Congress to increase the federal debt.

HB2077 requires any federal agency coming into an AZ county to first register with the county sheriff before conducting official business.

HB2471 would bar the appropriation of any state funds to comply with a federal mandate unless the federal government provides a report to show the mandate is constitutional.

HB2472 would allow the state to acquire federal property by eminent domain unless the federal government first receives permission of the state legislature.

HB2537 permits the AZ house speaker and senate president to defend last year’s SB1070 immigration law by lawsuit if necessary.

HB2544 requires U.S. presidential candidates to provide certain proof of citizenship before they can appear on the ballot in Arizona.

HCR2015 calls for a constitutional convention to adopt an amendment to require the consent of three-fourths of the states to increase federal debt.

HCR2022 proposes a constitutional convention to require a balanced federal budget.

On top of all this, the state attorney general has just announced that he is suing the federal government for not defending the border against illegal immigrants and drug smugglers.  (I guess more than 10 border agents per mile doesn’t qualify as a defense.)  Amazingly, it seems that Arizona Republicans are more interested in attacking the U.S. government than dealing with the very real problems in our own state!  Can’t you just picture Nero fiddling while Rome is burning?