Sunday, October 31, 2010
Thursday, October 28, 2010
2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) – less care for more $$; The Remedy: #singlepayer Vote #GreenParty!
PNHP.org: Getting less care for more money
The price problem that health-care reform failed to cure
By Alec MacGillis
The Washington Post
October 24, 2010
The health-care law of 2010… sets us on the road to universal health insurance.
But the Democrats’ effort to sell the law to the public may be undermined by what even some ardent supporters consider its biggest shortfall. The overhaul left virtually untouched one big element of our health-care dilemma: the price problem. Simply put, Americans pay much more for each bit of care — tests, procedures, hospital stays, drugs, devices — than people in other rich nations.
Health-care providers in the United States have tremendous power to set prices. There is no government “single payer” on the other side of the table, and consolidation by hospitals and doctors has left insurers and employers in weak negotiating positions.
“We spend fewer per capita days in the hospital compared with other advanced countries, we see the doctor less frequently, and we swallow fewer pills,” said Jon Kingsdale, who oversaw the implementation of Massachusetts’s 2006 health-care law. “We just pay a lot more for each of those units than other countries.”
The 2010 law does little to address this. Its many cost-control provisions are geared toward reducing the amount of care we consume, not the price we pay. The law encourages doctors and hospitals to join “accountable care organizations” that have financial incentives to limit unnecessary care; it beefs up “comparative effectiveness research” to weed out inefficient treatments; and it will eventually tax the most expensive insurance plans to restrain consumers’ superfluous use of health care.
Such measures could reduce redundant tests, emergency room visits and hospital readmissions, which would help control the costs of Medicare, where the government sets rates. But they are less likely to lower prices outside Medicare and stem the growth of private insurance rates.
The main reason for this is politics. Remember how drawn-out the health-care battle was? It started in the spring of 2009 and was waged for a full year. The bill’s proponents in the White House and in Congress had some inkling of how tough the fight with the insurance companies would be. Taking on hospitals, doctors, and drug and device manufacturers as well — the people you’d face in a showdown over prices — might have been fatal.
So there was no price fight. It is one of those fine political ironies: The law derided as socialism may have had an easier time winning favor from a skeptical public if it was, well, a little more socialist.
Politicians wanted to avoid a confrontation over providers’ prices. So a different policy argument took hold: The real reason everything cost so much was the overuse of health care, not the actual prices of treatment.
This argument came primarily from Dartmouth College researchers who had amassed data showing wide disparities in Medicare spending among different regions. Hospitals in the lower-spending areas, mostly in the Upper Midwest and the Northwest, seized on the study to argue that the key to controlling costs was to reward providers like them.
The theory caught fire at the White House. It gave President Obama and his then-budget guru Peter Orszag a way to talk about costs without taking on doctors and hospitals; instead, the White House could simply differentiate between providers that offer “value” and those that don’t.
But the Dartmouth rankings, and the concept they supported, did a “disservice” to the debate, said Robert Berenson of the Urban Institute. For one thing, he and others say, the figures overstate regional differences in Medicare spending, which shrink when socioeconomic factors are taken into account. Second, rates of Medicare spending are not necessarily representative of health-care spending for people under 65. Some of the places that do well in the Dartmouth rankings charge high prices for non-Medicare patients — and were, not surprisingly, among those pushing hardest against a public option.
More broadly, the skeptics argue that merely providing care in smaller quantities will not sufficiently lower costs. They note that Americans already have shorter hospital stays and fewer doctors’ visits than people in other advanced countries. What sets us apart is our high prices for these health-care “units” — a finding trumpeted in a landmark 2003 paper by Princeton’s Uwe Reinhardt and others titled “It’s the Prices, Stupid.” The price problem is only getting worse, researchers and antitrust investigators have found, because of consolidation among providers, and it could be exacerbated by goading them to form even bigger networks. WashingtonPost.com Article
Many have commented on the fact that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) did little to address one of the most important drivers of the reform process – our unique problem of the outrageous costs of health care. We spend far more per capita on health care than any other nation. This article by Alec MacGillis is singled out as recommended reading on this topic, as he is one of the most credible and well-informed journalists who closely observed the reform process.
The important lesson that MacGillis provides us here is that we do not use more health care than other nations, we simply pay much more for it.
Yet reform was based on the principle that we need to cut back on health care excesses that don’t even exist except to a limited extent in some of those regions identified by the Dartmouth researchers as areas of higher utilization. When you consider that we use less care per capita than other nations, it’s clear that efforts to ferret out this marginal waste will have very little impact on our total national health expenditures, though eliminating any waste is certainly beneficial.
The real problem is the amount that we pay for health care, yet very little in PPACA will ameliorate that problem. What could provide relief?
Alec MacGillis provides a strong hint: “Health-care providers in the United States have tremendous power to set prices. There is no government ’single payer’ on the other side of the table.”
As Margaret Flowers and others have been shouting out all along: “We want a seat at the table!"
The price problem that health-care reform failed to cure
By Alec MacGillis
The Washington Post
October 24, 2010
The health-care law of 2010… sets us on the road to universal health insurance.
But the Democrats’ effort to sell the law to the public may be undermined by what even some ardent supporters consider its biggest shortfall. The overhaul left virtually untouched one big element of our health-care dilemma: the price problem. Simply put, Americans pay much more for each bit of care — tests, procedures, hospital stays, drugs, devices — than people in other rich nations.
Health-care providers in the United States have tremendous power to set prices. There is no government “single payer” on the other side of the table, and consolidation by hospitals and doctors has left insurers and employers in weak negotiating positions.
“We spend fewer per capita days in the hospital compared with other advanced countries, we see the doctor less frequently, and we swallow fewer pills,” said Jon Kingsdale, who oversaw the implementation of Massachusetts’s 2006 health-care law. “We just pay a lot more for each of those units than other countries.”
The 2010 law does little to address this. Its many cost-control provisions are geared toward reducing the amount of care we consume, not the price we pay. The law encourages doctors and hospitals to join “accountable care organizations” that have financial incentives to limit unnecessary care; it beefs up “comparative effectiveness research” to weed out inefficient treatments; and it will eventually tax the most expensive insurance plans to restrain consumers’ superfluous use of health care.
Such measures could reduce redundant tests, emergency room visits and hospital readmissions, which would help control the costs of Medicare, where the government sets rates. But they are less likely to lower prices outside Medicare and stem the growth of private insurance rates.
The main reason for this is politics. Remember how drawn-out the health-care battle was? It started in the spring of 2009 and was waged for a full year. The bill’s proponents in the White House and in Congress had some inkling of how tough the fight with the insurance companies would be. Taking on hospitals, doctors, and drug and device manufacturers as well — the people you’d face in a showdown over prices — might have been fatal.
So there was no price fight. It is one of those fine political ironies: The law derided as socialism may have had an easier time winning favor from a skeptical public if it was, well, a little more socialist.
Politicians wanted to avoid a confrontation over providers’ prices. So a different policy argument took hold: The real reason everything cost so much was the overuse of health care, not the actual prices of treatment.
This argument came primarily from Dartmouth College researchers who had amassed data showing wide disparities in Medicare spending among different regions. Hospitals in the lower-spending areas, mostly in the Upper Midwest and the Northwest, seized on the study to argue that the key to controlling costs was to reward providers like them.
The theory caught fire at the White House. It gave President Obama and his then-budget guru Peter Orszag a way to talk about costs without taking on doctors and hospitals; instead, the White House could simply differentiate between providers that offer “value” and those that don’t.
But the Dartmouth rankings, and the concept they supported, did a “disservice” to the debate, said Robert Berenson of the Urban Institute. For one thing, he and others say, the figures overstate regional differences in Medicare spending, which shrink when socioeconomic factors are taken into account. Second, rates of Medicare spending are not necessarily representative of health-care spending for people under 65. Some of the places that do well in the Dartmouth rankings charge high prices for non-Medicare patients — and were, not surprisingly, among those pushing hardest against a public option.
More broadly, the skeptics argue that merely providing care in smaller quantities will not sufficiently lower costs. They note that Americans already have shorter hospital stays and fewer doctors’ visits than people in other advanced countries. What sets us apart is our high prices for these health-care “units” — a finding trumpeted in a landmark 2003 paper by Princeton’s Uwe Reinhardt and others titled “It’s the Prices, Stupid.” The price problem is only getting worse, researchers and antitrust investigators have found, because of consolidation among providers, and it could be exacerbated by goading them to form even bigger networks. WashingtonPost.com Article
Many have commented on the fact that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) did little to address one of the most important drivers of the reform process – our unique problem of the outrageous costs of health care. We spend far more per capita on health care than any other nation. This article by Alec MacGillis is singled out as recommended reading on this topic, as he is one of the most credible and well-informed journalists who closely observed the reform process.
The important lesson that MacGillis provides us here is that we do not use more health care than other nations, we simply pay much more for it.
Yet reform was based on the principle that we need to cut back on health care excesses that don’t even exist except to a limited extent in some of those regions identified by the Dartmouth researchers as areas of higher utilization. When you consider that we use less care per capita than other nations, it’s clear that efforts to ferret out this marginal waste will have very little impact on our total national health expenditures, though eliminating any waste is certainly beneficial.
The real problem is the amount that we pay for health care, yet very little in PPACA will ameliorate that problem. What could provide relief?
Alec MacGillis provides a strong hint: “Health-care providers in the United States have tremendous power to set prices. There is no government ’single payer’ on the other side of the table.”
As Margaret Flowers and others have been shouting out all along: “We want a seat at the table!"
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Green Party: ‘Whether you elect Democrats or Republicans, you’re getting a GOP agenda’ #GOTV2010 Vote #GreenParty!
The Green Party of the United States: Another U.S. is Possible - Another Party is Necessary
Democrats are shifting to the right and abandoning their progressive values, a top Green Party official charged in an interview, arguing the liberal standard-bearers can no longer be "rehabilitated" and voters ought to consider a third choice.
"This is a very opportune moment to tell people that whether you elect Democrats or Republicans, you're basically getting a GOP agenda," Scott McLarty, a national spokesman for the US Green Party, told Raw Story.
The Green Party, officially founded in 2001 with organizations across the country, has, like all modern third parties, been unable to muster up the clout to compete in major national races. But it has gradually made headway in statewide elections, and has hundreds of candidates running for offices next month.
McLarty claimed the Democratic Party has largely gone all in with the GOP on issues such as war, civil liberties and military spending, and is moving to the right on major national issues such as health care and climate change.
"Democrats are as likely to increase military spending as Republicans are now," he said, "and the Obama administration has maintained a lot of the worst policies of the Bush administration."
Democrats' recent energy bills were designed to "serve polluters," he averred, while saying the health care law enacted this March was "not really a victory" as it was short on cost controls and embraced prior Republican ideas such as the individual mandate.
Needless to say, there remain stark ideological differences between the Democratic and Republican parties, on issues such as taxes, social programs, torture, climate change and science, and a panoply of social issues.
The core issue that separates the Democratic and Green parties, McLarty posited, is that the latter "takes no corporate contributions" and is therefore not indebted to big business.
"The center of political gravity in this country is corporate money," he said. "Republicans are right on that center of gravity and Democrats are attracted to it."
Yet many Democratic-aligned progressives, including those who feel more aligned with the Green Party's values, are extremely wary of jumping ship, fearing that Green candidates are not viable and their votes must be strategically cast to prevent the worst outcome.
"We get that argument over and over again," McLarty said. "But the Democratic Party is not going to be rehabilitated. There's no hope for that at this time."
Unlike the right-wing Tea Party, which has in the Obama era wielded significant influence working within the Republican Party, the Green Party isn't interested in playing nice with Democrats.
"They can only see as far as the next election," McLarty said of liberals who insist on voting for Democrats. "The Green Party is looking at the rest of the century. Do we want the same dismal, limited politics of the two titanic parties?"
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Doctor’s survey: Single-payer health care system favored #hcr #singlepayer #sphc #Solidarity
People Before Profits!
In early September, The News-Dispatch published a story about Dr. Rade Pejic’s presentation to Michigan City Rotary on his support for a single-payer national health care program.
At the Rotary meeting, local accountant Ed Lysaught said the government already provides 60 percent of health care benefits in the U.S., covering the armed services and their families, as well as veterans, Medicare and Medicaid recipients, and government employees.
Although Pejic would never describe himself as a liberal, he does defend the government’s operation of Medicare and he believes an expansion of and some improvement of Medicare might be the way to go for a one-payer national health care system.
The Chicago-based Physicians for a National Heath Program, of which Pejic is a member, believes Medicare is a viable option as well.
Dr. Quentin Young, the volunteer national coordinator for PNHP and a frequent guest on radio and television talk shows, in a telephone interview Friday said the poverty level among people over 65 today is about 16 percent. “But without Medicare, it would be at least twice as high.” A neighbor and friend of President Obama, Young has talked with the president about universal health care many times, dating to the time when Obama was an Illinois state senator. “And I know he favored a single-payer plan,” Young said.
But the bill that came out of Congress likely will leave some 20 million Americans uninsured while enriching the pockets of the already-rich insurance giants, Pejic said. “The HMOs love the health care legislation,” he added.
That’s not quite half the number of uninsured Americans today. The latest figures indicate that some 50.3 million have no health insurance.
“And many more, about 20 million, are under-insured,” Pejic said.
Another problem cited by Pejic is this: “Nobody knows the true cost of health care,” he said.
As an example, he said, a hospital might charge $9,000 for a surgical procedure, but one insurance company may pay only $6,000 while another might pay $7,000. Medicaid might pay just $5,000.
While national experts estimate the cost of health care in the U.S. at somewhere between $2.3 trillion and $2.4 trillion, Pejic said he doesn’t believe the numbers because he doesn’t know which numbers are being added.
Pejic believes the country could save billions by eliminating waste, fraud, duplication of services, unnecessary procedures and what Pejic calls “unnecessary profiteering.”
Referring to insurance executives, Young said, “They get obscene rewards (in salaries and bonuses).”
Dr. Vidya Kora, a internist who founded the Franklin Clinic, like Pejic, also believes one-payer universal health care would be best for the country. Kora, former La Porte County Coroner and former chairman of the county’s Democratic Party, has worked closely with state and national physician groups, including the Indiana State Medical Association, where he served as president, to build a consensus on national health care.
The Obama bill is not perfect, he says, “but it does address in a very substantial way, access to care and affordability.”
In addition, the new law will keep watch over insurance profiteering, Kora said. For example, if a company spends less than 80 percent of the premiums paid by a group of policy holders on medical care, that insurance company must make reimbursements to policy holders.
Kora recommends checking the Kaiser Family Foundation site at www.krr.org for understandable explanations of many issues connected to the new health care bill.
“I have done a lot of speaking on health care reform and I have done a lot of traveling,” Kora said. His travels and the people he has met in his travels have convinced him that the country does not yet have the political will for a one-payer system.
Pejic, on the other hand, believes the country must move to a one-payer plan, “because we just cannot sustain the cost of health care as it is.”
In early September, The News-Dispatch published a story about Dr. Rade Pejic’s presentation to Michigan City Rotary on his support for a single-payer national health care program.
At the Rotary meeting, local accountant Ed Lysaught said the government already provides 60 percent of health care benefits in the U.S., covering the armed services and their families, as well as veterans, Medicare and Medicaid recipients, and government employees.
Although Pejic would never describe himself as a liberal, he does defend the government’s operation of Medicare and he believes an expansion of and some improvement of Medicare might be the way to go for a one-payer national health care system.
The Chicago-based Physicians for a National Heath Program, of which Pejic is a member, believes Medicare is a viable option as well.
Dr. Quentin Young, the volunteer national coordinator for PNHP and a frequent guest on radio and television talk shows, in a telephone interview Friday said the poverty level among people over 65 today is about 16 percent. “But without Medicare, it would be at least twice as high.” A neighbor and friend of President Obama, Young has talked with the president about universal health care many times, dating to the time when Obama was an Illinois state senator. “And I know he favored a single-payer plan,” Young said.
But the bill that came out of Congress likely will leave some 20 million Americans uninsured while enriching the pockets of the already-rich insurance giants, Pejic said. “The HMOs love the health care legislation,” he added.
That’s not quite half the number of uninsured Americans today. The latest figures indicate that some 50.3 million have no health insurance.
“And many more, about 20 million, are under-insured,” Pejic said.
Another problem cited by Pejic is this: “Nobody knows the true cost of health care,” he said.
As an example, he said, a hospital might charge $9,000 for a surgical procedure, but one insurance company may pay only $6,000 while another might pay $7,000. Medicaid might pay just $5,000.
While national experts estimate the cost of health care in the U.S. at somewhere between $2.3 trillion and $2.4 trillion, Pejic said he doesn’t believe the numbers because he doesn’t know which numbers are being added.
Pejic believes the country could save billions by eliminating waste, fraud, duplication of services, unnecessary procedures and what Pejic calls “unnecessary profiteering.”
Referring to insurance executives, Young said, “They get obscene rewards (in salaries and bonuses).”
Dr. Vidya Kora, a internist who founded the Franklin Clinic, like Pejic, also believes one-payer universal health care would be best for the country. Kora, former La Porte County Coroner and former chairman of the county’s Democratic Party, has worked closely with state and national physician groups, including the Indiana State Medical Association, where he served as president, to build a consensus on national health care.
The Obama bill is not perfect, he says, “but it does address in a very substantial way, access to care and affordability.”
In addition, the new law will keep watch over insurance profiteering, Kora said. For example, if a company spends less than 80 percent of the premiums paid by a group of policy holders on medical care, that insurance company must make reimbursements to policy holders.
Kora recommends checking the Kaiser Family Foundation site at www.krr.org for understandable explanations of many issues connected to the new health care bill.
“I have done a lot of speaking on health care reform and I have done a lot of traveling,” Kora said. His travels and the people he has met in his travels have convinced him that the country does not yet have the political will for a one-payer system.
Pejic, on the other hand, believes the country must move to a one-payer plan, “because we just cannot sustain the cost of health care as it is.”
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Progressive Democrats' Stockholm Syndrome
By Daniel W.K. Lee
Last August, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, told progressive Democrats to “fuck off” and leave the Blue Dog Dems alone in order to pass a heavily compromised healthcare bill. This week, Vice President Joe Biden told attendees at a fundraiser for Democratic candidates in New Hampshire to “remind our base constituency to stop whining and get out there and look for the alternatives.”
These two moments over the early course of Obama’s presidency are indicative of the patronizing and hostile attitude “Establishment Democrats” have toward progressives/liberals within their party. Instead of a politics of hope and change, both Emanuel and Biden have fallen back into a politics of fear in order to try to keep Democrats in line by employing the following narrative, or variations of: “Shut the fuck up. We’ve delivered watered-down, progressive legislation that you should thank us for, instead of bitching about, otherwise the only alternative is the GOP, which is worse. You definitely don’t want that so stop rabble-rousing, take what you can get, and don’t forget to vote us back into power in November or be really afraid of what the Republicans might do.” As a result, progressive Democrats—dismayed by the unemployment rate, paltry finance reform, devastating austerity measures, non-existent climate-change bill, still yet to be repealed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, still open Guantánamo Bay, the legal black holes/continued suspension of habeas corpus, and of course, an unclear vision of immigration reform, among other things—have become blatant apologists for the administration, calling for patience, to accept an incrementalist approach, and a steady diet of presidential rhetoric. Essentially, progressive Democrats have developed Stockholm Syndrome for their Beltway, center-leaning captors—some more intensely than others.
The more afflicted show their sympathy by rationalizing only so much can be accomplished in two years time and perhaps conceding that President Obama wouldn’t be able to transform Washington as he and they had hoped; while the less afflicted may be shouting and resisting the easy compromises by congressional Democrats and POTUS, nonetheless, they will still stay in their taken-for-granted, psychologically-exhaustive, disappointing, and borderline(?) emotionally-abusive relationship with the party and vote Democrat come November because the unknown wilderness outside this prison is too scary to imagine other possibilities.
Biden commands the base to “go out there and look for the alternatives,” which is exactly what liberals should do by daring to support candidates that actually do represent their progressive or even radical political agenda, irrespective of political party. People talk about candidates’ “viability” like it were an immutable trait, but the truth is that a candidate is viable because voters believe, support, and empower him or her whether or not s/he is a Democrat, Republic, Green, Libertarian, or Socialist. It is a politics of fear, it is voting from fear—like the fear of a Republican majority—that limits democracy, marginalizes truly better candidates, and keeps progressive voters in their Democratic Party cages. So which is it: voting your fears or voting your hopes?
#tlot #tpot Vote your hopes not your fears! #GOTV2010 Vote #GreenParty!
Last August, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, told progressive Democrats to “fuck off” and leave the Blue Dog Dems alone in order to pass a heavily compromised healthcare bill. This week, Vice President Joe Biden told attendees at a fundraiser for Democratic candidates in New Hampshire to “remind our base constituency to stop whining and get out there and look for the alternatives.”
These two moments over the early course of Obama’s presidency are indicative of the patronizing and hostile attitude “Establishment Democrats” have toward progressives/liberals within their party. Instead of a politics of hope and change, both Emanuel and Biden have fallen back into a politics of fear in order to try to keep Democrats in line by employing the following narrative, or variations of: “Shut the fuck up. We’ve delivered watered-down, progressive legislation that you should thank us for, instead of bitching about, otherwise the only alternative is the GOP, which is worse. You definitely don’t want that so stop rabble-rousing, take what you can get, and don’t forget to vote us back into power in November or be really afraid of what the Republicans might do.” As a result, progressive Democrats—dismayed by the unemployment rate, paltry finance reform, devastating austerity measures, non-existent climate-change bill, still yet to be repealed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, still open Guantánamo Bay, the legal black holes/continued suspension of habeas corpus, and of course, an unclear vision of immigration reform, among other things—have become blatant apologists for the administration, calling for patience, to accept an incrementalist approach, and a steady diet of presidential rhetoric. Essentially, progressive Democrats have developed Stockholm Syndrome for their Beltway, center-leaning captors—some more intensely than others.
The more afflicted show their sympathy by rationalizing only so much can be accomplished in two years time and perhaps conceding that President Obama wouldn’t be able to transform Washington as he and they had hoped; while the less afflicted may be shouting and resisting the easy compromises by congressional Democrats and POTUS, nonetheless, they will still stay in their taken-for-granted, psychologically-exhaustive, disappointing, and borderline(?) emotionally-abusive relationship with the party and vote Democrat come November because the unknown wilderness outside this prison is too scary to imagine other possibilities.
Biden commands the base to “go out there and look for the alternatives,” which is exactly what liberals should do by daring to support candidates that actually do represent their progressive or even radical political agenda, irrespective of political party. People talk about candidates’ “viability” like it were an immutable trait, but the truth is that a candidate is viable because voters believe, support, and empower him or her whether or not s/he is a Democrat, Republic, Green, Libertarian, or Socialist. It is a politics of fear, it is voting from fear—like the fear of a Republican majority—that limits democracy, marginalizes truly better candidates, and keeps progressive voters in their Democratic Party cages. So which is it: voting your fears or voting your hopes?
#tlot #tpot Vote your hopes not your fears! #GOTV2010 Vote #GreenParty!
Sunday, October 10, 2010
The #GreenParty is offering voters a real choice on Election Day #GOTV
Green Party responds to Friedman’s call for third party in NYT
Green Party US Media Coordinator Scott McClarty had a letter to the editor published in the New York Times in response to columnist Thomas Friedman’s recent article calling for a third party in 2012:
In his call for a third party, Thomas L. Friedman writes about a “radical center” between Democrats and Republicans.
But instead of a gap I see an overlap, occupied by politicians who, in the name of moderateness and bipartisanship, are willing to keep our health care under the control of insurance companies, send taxpayer-funded bailouts to Wall Street, compromise with polluters on measures to curb global warming and cede constitutional war powers to the White House.
An alternative to the two parties already exists: the Green Party.
We agree with Mr. Friedman that Americans deserve the right to vote for whichever candidates best represent their interests, without a two-party limit. The Green Party is already offering voters a real choice on Election Day.
The Green New Deal
The Green Party of the United States
Green Party Watch
Green Party US Media Coordinator Scott McClarty had a letter to the editor published in the New York Times in response to columnist Thomas Friedman’s recent article calling for a third party in 2012:
In his call for a third party, Thomas L. Friedman writes about a “radical center” between Democrats and Republicans.
But instead of a gap I see an overlap, occupied by politicians who, in the name of moderateness and bipartisanship, are willing to keep our health care under the control of insurance companies, send taxpayer-funded bailouts to Wall Street, compromise with polluters on measures to curb global warming and cede constitutional war powers to the White House.
An alternative to the two parties already exists: the Green Party.
We agree with Mr. Friedman that Americans deserve the right to vote for whichever candidates best represent their interests, without a two-party limit. The Green Party is already offering voters a real choice on Election Day.
The Green New Deal
The Green Party of the United States
Green Party Watch
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Ecological, Economic, Social and Poltical Change: Join the Green New Deal Coalition
Vote Green! To mend, repair , and transform America: Join the Green New Deal Coalition now! Activism NOW! Solidarity!
The Green New Deal is an ambitious program to create economic prosperity together with ecological sustainability.
Here are the 10 policies you endorse by joining the Green New Deal Coalition:
1) Cut military spending at least 70%;
2) Create millions of green union jobs through massive public investment in renewable energy, mass transit and conservation;
3) Set ambitious, science-based greenhouse gas emission reduction targets, and enact a revenue-neutral carbon tax to meet them;
4) Establish single-payer "Medicare for all" health care;
5) Institute tuition-free public higher education;
6) Change trade agreements to improve labor, environmental, consumer, health and safety standards;
7) End counterproductive prohibition policies and legalize marijuana;
8) Enact tough limits on credit card interest and lending rates, progressive tax reform and strict financial regulation;
9) Amend the U.S. Constitution to abolish corporate personhood; and
10) Pass sweeping electoral, campaign finance and anti-corruption reforms.
The Green New Deal is an ambitious program to create economic prosperity together with ecological sustainability.
Here are the 10 policies you endorse by joining the Green New Deal Coalition:
1) Cut military spending at least 70%;
2) Create millions of green union jobs through massive public investment in renewable energy, mass transit and conservation;
3) Set ambitious, science-based greenhouse gas emission reduction targets, and enact a revenue-neutral carbon tax to meet them;
4) Establish single-payer "Medicare for all" health care;
5) Institute tuition-free public higher education;
6) Change trade agreements to improve labor, environmental, consumer, health and safety standards;
7) End counterproductive prohibition policies and legalize marijuana;
8) Enact tough limits on credit card interest and lending rates, progressive tax reform and strict financial regulation;
9) Amend the U.S. Constitution to abolish corporate personhood; and
10) Pass sweeping electoral, campaign finance and anti-corruption reforms.
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