Burlington Free Press
MONTPELIER — After a night and day of debate, the House voted 92-49 Thursday to approve a bill that could set the state on the road to creating a first-in-the-nation consolidated health insurance system that offers coverage to all Vermonters.
“There was universal agreement on the House floor that the current system will bankrupt us. We have a problem. We need to solve it,” House Speaker Shap Smith, D-Morristown, said in explaining the need for the bill.
Democratic Gov. Peter Shumlin, who made health reform a priority for his first term, congratulated Smith for securing passage of the bill, then noted it was the Senate’s turn.
Senate President Pro Tempore John Campbell, D-Windsor, promised the Senate would deliver a bill before the Legislature adjourns.
The vote in the House split along party lines, with all but three Democrats, all five Progressives and two of three independents supporting the legislation while the Republican caucus battled unsuccessfully for its defeat.
Supporters deflected every attempt to weaken the bill.
With the outcome certain Thursday afternoon, House Republicans demanded the governor and Democratic “supermajority” in the Legislature reduce the uncertainty that would result from enactment of the bill.
“All we are asking for is a promise,” Rep. Oliver Olsen, R-Jamaica, said. “We call on the governor and legislative leaders to promise employers and employees they won’t have to pay for coverage they don’t use.”
Olsen said employers who provide medical coverage for their workers through self-insurance plans worry about the financial impact of a change to a universal coverage system. Employers might decide it was too risky to do business in Vermont, Olsen said.
House Health Committee Chairman Mark Larson, D-Burlington, countered, “The assumption that there is predictability in our health-care system now is a fallacy.”
Ringside seat
Peg Franzen sat through weeks of deliberations in the crowded House Health Care committee room, then stayed at the Statehouse until after midnight Wednesday to hear every minute of the House debate on the bill.
The 71-year-old Montpelier resident is president of the Vermont Workers Center, an organization that sponsored a campaign to establish health care as a human right.
She became convinced, after listening people recount health insurance nightmares, that the state has a health care crisis — “a crisis we can’t let continue.”
“We are pretty excited,” she said because the bill recognizes health care as a public good and sets out a plan to provide universal coverage.
“It isn’t everything we want,” Franzen said listing concerns about the upfront costs Vermonters might still be asked to pay for care. “We’ve heard that actually prevents people from going to doctors in a timely manner.”
Also, Franzen noted, “We are concerned it isn’t going to happen quickly.” Many of the changes won’t be implemented until at least 2014.
Franzen acknowledged the bill’s complexity, so she said she understood why lawmakers had dozens of questions that extended the House session until after midnight Wednesday and through much of Thursday.
“Last night it was really amazing — the civility,” Franzen said. “I think that really has to be applauded.”
Another perspective
Andy Higgins of Fletcher was at the Statehouse on Thursday to observe his daughter, a legislative page, but his visit also gave him a chance to listen to debate on the health care bill. He wasn’t impressed.
“My concern is government is taking over another part of my life,” Higgins said after listening to a morning of House deliberations. “I think it is kind of arrogant that they think they can run things more efficiently than the market.
“That is an oxymoron, efficient government,” he said.
Higgins works in investments and life insurance, but has a window into the state’s health care system as an emergency medical technician in Fairfax.
He said he has paid attention to the discussion this winter, starting with a radio interview of William Hsiao, a Harvard economist who led a research team that concluded Vermont could save millions if it adopted a single-payer health care system.
Higgins disagrees with Hsiao’s recommendation.
“Government has to get out of the way and let the market drive it,” he said. “If people want to smoke, not exercise, use drugs, why do I have to pay?”
Higgins said he was resigned to passage of the health reform bill.
“What can I do about it?” he asked, but added, “It is not going to work.”
Thrust and parry
Republican complaints about the bill centered on the power given to a new board and details about Green Mountain Care — which would be a unified, state-coordinated health-insurance program open to all Vermonters — that wouldn’t be known for several years.
Rep. Tom Koch, R-Barre, called the bill an empty shell.
“We as a legislature ought to know what we are doing, not pass the ball so it can be dealt with later,” Koch said.
Supporters painted a different picture.
Rep. Jim Masland, D-Thetford, called the bill a bold experiment and responded to the talk about uncertainties.
“We can’t know all the answers at this time — that is the nature of pioneering work,” Masland said. He chided opponents, saying “It is rather easy when there are some uncertainties to sow suspicion and angst.”
Rep. Eldred French, D-Shrewsbury, summed up conflicting complaints made about the bill.
“We’ve been told this bill goes too fast, too slow, that it does too much or not enough,” French said. “Sounds like it may be close to the mark.”
Before the final vote, Rep. Duncan Kilmartin, R-Newport, offered an amendment to change the selection process for the new board that would undertake much of the planning for and regulation of the new health system. Kilmartin said these decisions were too significant to give to an appointed board.
He proposed instead that voters elect a 16-member board with each member representing a geographic region of the state.
“It is not the hospitals, the physicians, the tax department, it is you and me and our fellow citizens who are the stakeholders,” Kilmartin said. “The citizens would control their destiny, not political appointees.”
Larson, who responded to every challenge of the bill, defended the two-step appointment process for the Green Mountain Care Board. An 11-member nominating committee would be named, with the governor, legislature and interest groups each filling seats. The nominating panel would recommend board candidates to the governor, who would make the officials appointments.
“One thing we have heard most clearly,” Larson said, “is we had to have a board that was independent of political pressure.” He said Kilmartin’s plan would result in a partisan rather than an impartial board.
The Democratic majority exerted its muscle, defeating Kilmartin’s amendment by a vote of 99-42.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Can’t Buy Me Love: Health Care Reform’s PR Campaign Fizzles
FDL
After the health care law passed, we were promised a massive, $125 million PR campaign staffed with top quality talent that would really sell the new law to the American people. In a fascinating article, Politico found that this promised campaign essentially crashed and burned:
"Wal-Mart Watch founder Andrew Grossman unveiled the Health Information Campaign with great fanfare last June. Tom Daschle and Ted Kennedy’s widow, Vicki, were expected to lead the effort. They’d have help from former White House Communications Director Anita Dunn. They’d have an office in Washington with 10 or 15 operatives backing the Affordable Care Act and those who supported it.
And they’d have money to spend: Grossman hoped for $25 million a year for five years.
But nine months later, the Health Information Campaign has all but disappeared. Its website hasn’t been updated since the end of last year. Its executive director and communications director are gone. There’s no sign that it has any money. And neither Daschle nor Dunn will return calls asking about it."
It seemed the game plan was to pass corporate health care reform and expect the corporatists, in gratitude, to spend big, convincing everyone to love the new law. I don’t know if the strategy was simply some wishful vision of Rahm Emanuel ala Field of Dreams, “sell it out and they will fund,” or was meant to be part of the secret deal the White House cut with the big industries players until the corporations reneged. What is clear, though, is that it failed miserably.
This is a big problem because to pass the corporate bill Democrats had to go out of their way to destroy any hope of producing an organic, grassroots PR campaign to sell the law. It wasn’t just the lack of a public option, or the lying by Obama as he literally sold out his base. No bones were thrown to the hardcore progressive activists, like an immediate waiver that would in theory allow states to adopt single payer, so they could have a glimmer of hope instead of feeling like their dream was just sold into corporate servitude.
The result is that 13 percent of the country still opposes the law for not being “liberal enough.” Democrats managed the unbelievably dysfunctional “accomplishment” of turning a large segment of the most dedicated part of their base against a purely Democrat-passed law.
What makes that 13 percent so critical is that a lot them are the true diehard activists that attend local meetings, write letters to the editors, and canvas neighborhoods in the winter. Basically, the dedicated volunteers whose work makes grassroots campaigns possible.
So, we have a law without a grassroots campaign to show it love or a corporatist PR campaign to sell it. It’s no wonder a whole year after the signing of the Affordable Care Act, public support, on average, has dropped.
After the health care law passed, we were promised a massive, $125 million PR campaign staffed with top quality talent that would really sell the new law to the American people. In a fascinating article, Politico found that this promised campaign essentially crashed and burned:
"Wal-Mart Watch founder Andrew Grossman unveiled the Health Information Campaign with great fanfare last June. Tom Daschle and Ted Kennedy’s widow, Vicki, were expected to lead the effort. They’d have help from former White House Communications Director Anita Dunn. They’d have an office in Washington with 10 or 15 operatives backing the Affordable Care Act and those who supported it.
And they’d have money to spend: Grossman hoped for $25 million a year for five years.
But nine months later, the Health Information Campaign has all but disappeared. Its website hasn’t been updated since the end of last year. Its executive director and communications director are gone. There’s no sign that it has any money. And neither Daschle nor Dunn will return calls asking about it."
It seemed the game plan was to pass corporate health care reform and expect the corporatists, in gratitude, to spend big, convincing everyone to love the new law. I don’t know if the strategy was simply some wishful vision of Rahm Emanuel ala Field of Dreams, “sell it out and they will fund,” or was meant to be part of the secret deal the White House cut with the big industries players until the corporations reneged. What is clear, though, is that it failed miserably.
This is a big problem because to pass the corporate bill Democrats had to go out of their way to destroy any hope of producing an organic, grassroots PR campaign to sell the law. It wasn’t just the lack of a public option, or the lying by Obama as he literally sold out his base. No bones were thrown to the hardcore progressive activists, like an immediate waiver that would in theory allow states to adopt single payer, so they could have a glimmer of hope instead of feeling like their dream was just sold into corporate servitude.
The result is that 13 percent of the country still opposes the law for not being “liberal enough.” Democrats managed the unbelievably dysfunctional “accomplishment” of turning a large segment of the most dedicated part of their base against a purely Democrat-passed law.
What makes that 13 percent so critical is that a lot them are the true diehard activists that attend local meetings, write letters to the editors, and canvas neighborhoods in the winter. Basically, the dedicated volunteers whose work makes grassroots campaigns possible.
So, we have a law without a grassroots campaign to show it love or a corporatist PR campaign to sell it. It’s no wonder a whole year after the signing of the Affordable Care Act, public support, on average, has dropped.
Health Care Reform: A Well-Documented, Fully Acknowledged Corporate Sellout
firedoglake.com
There are many legitimate diverging opinions about the quality of the new health care reform law, what shouldn’t be in dispute is the well-documented fact that it was a corporate sellout, or at least contained several large very specific sellouts to large corporate interests. Yet David Leonhardt, who must have been hiding under a rock during the entire debate, put it “on the list of blind spots for the noneconomist left”
Last year’s health reform bill was a sellout to the insurance companies. (Or alternatively, real health reform requires a “public option.”)
I didn’t come to the vague conclusion that the law was like a “corporate sellout” simply because it failed to implement many of the needed cost controls that would reduce profits for some health care corporations. I know for a fact that it was an actual corporate sellout because the Obama administration quite literally sold away provisions in exchange for money in the form of direct financial assistance with public relations campaigns.
The fact that the Obama administration sold out reform in deals with different health care industries, like the drug companies and the hospitals, was widely reported. Senators even publicly admitted in the Senate hearings themselves that provisions were sold in exchange for campaign money.
People can argue that these corporate sellouts were acceptable, necessary evils required to pass something, but no one can deny the fact that they happened.
Given the widely reported facts, to not believe that the health care reform law (lacking a public option, providing massive subsidies for private insurance companies, and forcing people to be their customers) dramatically resembled the health insurance companies’ reform proposal would require one to actively engage in willful ignorance.
There are many legitimate diverging opinions about the quality of the new health care reform law, what shouldn’t be in dispute is the well-documented fact that it was a corporate sellout, or at least contained several large very specific sellouts to large corporate interests. Yet David Leonhardt, who must have been hiding under a rock during the entire debate, put it “on the list of blind spots for the noneconomist left”
Last year’s health reform bill was a sellout to the insurance companies. (Or alternatively, real health reform requires a “public option.”)
I didn’t come to the vague conclusion that the law was like a “corporate sellout” simply because it failed to implement many of the needed cost controls that would reduce profits for some health care corporations. I know for a fact that it was an actual corporate sellout because the Obama administration quite literally sold away provisions in exchange for money in the form of direct financial assistance with public relations campaigns.
The fact that the Obama administration sold out reform in deals with different health care industries, like the drug companies and the hospitals, was widely reported. Senators even publicly admitted in the Senate hearings themselves that provisions were sold in exchange for campaign money.
People can argue that these corporate sellouts were acceptable, necessary evils required to pass something, but no one can deny the fact that they happened.
Given the widely reported facts, to not believe that the health care reform law (lacking a public option, providing massive subsidies for private insurance companies, and forcing people to be their customers) dramatically resembled the health insurance companies’ reform proposal would require one to actively engage in willful ignorance.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Hopeless Candidates, Corruption and the Public Interest
SPA News
In Tunisia, the demand was – Ben Ali dictatorship out.
In Egypt, the demand was – Mubarek dictatorship out.
In Libya, the demand is – Gaddafi dictatorship out.
And what should be our demand here in the USA?
Two-party dictatorship out.
Unfortunately, many liberals and progressives are tethered to the crumbling corrupt regime.
Most in the so-called public interest community – especially those inside the Beltway – remain closely tied to the Democratic Party, often putting the interests of the Democratic Party above the public interest they claim to protect.
Examples abound.
Remember last year?
US PIRG came out for Obamacare.
At the same time, they dissed a proposed single payer national health insurance bill – the only proposal that would cover everyone and control costs.
Other public interest groups gave lip service to single payer.
But they put up only a token fight – they didn’t want to embarrass our President of Hope and Change – and were nonetheless shoved aside by the Obama White House.
The result – ongoing insurance industry rip-offs, skyrocketing premiums, and 120 Americans dying every day due to lack of health insurance.
Like in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, the only way forward is to stand firm on the core demand – dictatorship out.
The American people continue to lead on this.
Registered independents continue to grow in numbers as they abandon the two corporate parties.
A new study released last week, for example, shows that from 1982 to 2010 in Massachusetts, registered independents jumped from 40.6 percent to 51.9 percent.
During the same period, registered Democrats fell from 45.3 percent to 36.5 percent.
And Republicans dropped from 14 percent to 11.3 percent.
Nationwide, independents are now more than 40 percent of the voting population.
But inside the Beltway, even the most liberal of public interest groups can’t seem to extricate themselves from the corrupt two-party dictatorship.
Most recent case in point – an independent voter court case that is making its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Remarkably, in the case, the so-called progressive public interest groups have sided against the fundamental rights of independent and minor party voters.
In December 2005, in the wake of state wide corruption scandals, Connecticut passed a public campaign finance law – the Citizens Election Program.
Three states have passed comprehensive campaign finance laws – Arizona, Maine and Connecticut.
Under these laws, candidates can qualify for public funding for their campaigns.
How?
Raise a certain amount of funds from small contributions – say $100 or less each.
This qualifies the candidate for public funds.
The idea is this – qualifying for public funding ends the candidate’s reliance on special interest campaign cash.
Freed from the money chase, the candidates have time to address the needs of their constituents.
Arizona and Maine passed public campaign finance laws via the ballot initiative.
Connecticut passed its law through the state legislature.
Both Arizona and Maine passed laws that treat all candidates equally – regardless of party affiliation.
Bizarrely – or some would say intentionally – Connecticut passed a law that substantially favors major party candidates over minor party or independent candidates.
How?
Well, to gain public funding, all candidates must raise a certain amount of money – say $15,000 – from small contributions – $100 or less.
Under the Arizona and Maine laws, that’s it.
Meet it and you can collect the public funds.
And under the Connecticut law, that’s all the Democratic and Republican candidates have to do – raise the certain number of $100 contributions and they are in.
They too can collect public funds.
But under the Connecticut law, minor party candidates and independents have to show public support by raising the small contributions.
But then they must do more.
They have to gather a certain number of signatures – or show a certain level of voter support from past elections to qualify for the public funding.
These additional requirements did not please minor party and independent candidates in Connecticut.
So, they sued arguing that the law was unconstitutional in that it denied them their fundamental rights. (Green Party of Connecticut v. Garfield.)
In August, 2009, a federal court in Connecticut agreed.
In a 93-page decision, Judge Stefan Underhill ruled that by enhancing “the relative strength of major party candidates to the detriment of the political opportunity of minor party candidates,” the Connecticut law “imposes a discriminatory burden on minor party candidates’ fundamental rights.”
But in July 2010, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, while admitting that the law’s burdens on independent and minor party candidates “come close to the outer edge of the constitutionally permitted range,” it nevertheless overturned Judge Underhill’s decision.
The plaintiffs are appealing that decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.
And guess who, lo and behold, has weighed in against the plaintiffs in this case?
Guess who doesn’t want the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case?
Common Cause.
Public Citizen.
Democracy 21.
Three of the most in influential inside the Beltway public interest groups.
Their brief was filed by WilmerHale’s Seth Waxman – Bill Clinton’s former Solicitor General.
Regrettably, these groups have once again weighed in on the side of the two-party dictatorship.
In the brief, our friends in the public interest community warn against public finance laws that fund “hopeless” candidacies.
(Of course, we know, they all support the candidate of “hope and change.”)
They could have – and should have – joined with Judge Underhill.
“The issue is not whether the government may discriminate between major and minor party candidates when crafting a public financing statute,” Judge Underhill wrote. “The government certainly has an interest in not funding hopeless candidacies with large sums of public money.”
“The government, however, in creating such a public campaign financing scheme to combat the influence and appearance of corruption in politics, may not simultaneously disadvantage minor party candidates’ political opportunity.”
Public Citizen’s Rob Weissman defends his decision to file the brief in support of the Connecticut law.
“Potentially at stake – particularly in combination with other cases – is the viability of public financing schemes altogether,” Weissman said.
“If the request from the Connecticut Greens leads to a more intrusive scrutiny by the Supreme Court, that may threaten the viability of public financing. And that is why we took the position we took in the brief.”
But Oliver Hall of the Center for Competitive Democracy said it was “unfortunate” that Public Citizen and the other groups “are supporting a campaign finance scheme that automatically provides public funding to major party candidates – Republicans and Democrats – while denying funding to all others unless they submit signature petitions to qualify.”
“The potential for private funding to corrupt the electoral process is real, but a more fundamental threat to democracy is the consolidation of power in two private political parties, which are increasingly insulated from competition and unresponsive and unaccountable to voters,” Hall said. “A scheme that further entrenches those parties is too high a price to pay for campaign finance reform – especially since the same goal could be achieved by non-discriminatory legislation that promotes voter choice in free and fair elections.”
Richard Winger of Ballot Access News sees a political calculation.
“It’s pure partisanship in favor of Democrats,” Winger said.
Lowell Weicker, the former independent Governor from Connecticut, was deposed for the case.
And he too was harshly critical of the Connecticut law.
Weicker said the law “will diminish the opportunities for independent and minor party candidates to compete effectively” and “will increase the opportunities for major party candidates to compete effectively and further entrench their hold on state government.”
“Except for a candidate with unlimited resources, an independent candidate is at a permanent disadvantage against major party candidates,” Weicker said. “An independent candidate could not realistically collect the hundreds of thousands of signatures needed to qualify for a full grant.”
This was a disheartening – but predictable – decision by major inside the Beltway public interest groups.
Once again, they have sided with the two party dictatorship.
And against the American people.
In Tunisia, the demand was – Ben Ali dictatorship out.
In Egypt, the demand was – Mubarek dictatorship out.
In Libya, the demand is – Gaddafi dictatorship out.
And what should be our demand here in the USA?
Two-party dictatorship out.
Unfortunately, many liberals and progressives are tethered to the crumbling corrupt regime.
Most in the so-called public interest community – especially those inside the Beltway – remain closely tied to the Democratic Party, often putting the interests of the Democratic Party above the public interest they claim to protect.
Examples abound.
Remember last year?
US PIRG came out for Obamacare.
At the same time, they dissed a proposed single payer national health insurance bill – the only proposal that would cover everyone and control costs.
Other public interest groups gave lip service to single payer.
But they put up only a token fight – they didn’t want to embarrass our President of Hope and Change – and were nonetheless shoved aside by the Obama White House.
The result – ongoing insurance industry rip-offs, skyrocketing premiums, and 120 Americans dying every day due to lack of health insurance.
Like in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, the only way forward is to stand firm on the core demand – dictatorship out.
The American people continue to lead on this.
Registered independents continue to grow in numbers as they abandon the two corporate parties.
A new study released last week, for example, shows that from 1982 to 2010 in Massachusetts, registered independents jumped from 40.6 percent to 51.9 percent.
During the same period, registered Democrats fell from 45.3 percent to 36.5 percent.
And Republicans dropped from 14 percent to 11.3 percent.
Nationwide, independents are now more than 40 percent of the voting population.
But inside the Beltway, even the most liberal of public interest groups can’t seem to extricate themselves from the corrupt two-party dictatorship.
Most recent case in point – an independent voter court case that is making its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Remarkably, in the case, the so-called progressive public interest groups have sided against the fundamental rights of independent and minor party voters.
In December 2005, in the wake of state wide corruption scandals, Connecticut passed a public campaign finance law – the Citizens Election Program.
Three states have passed comprehensive campaign finance laws – Arizona, Maine and Connecticut.
Under these laws, candidates can qualify for public funding for their campaigns.
How?
Raise a certain amount of funds from small contributions – say $100 or less each.
This qualifies the candidate for public funds.
The idea is this – qualifying for public funding ends the candidate’s reliance on special interest campaign cash.
Freed from the money chase, the candidates have time to address the needs of their constituents.
Arizona and Maine passed public campaign finance laws via the ballot initiative.
Connecticut passed its law through the state legislature.
Both Arizona and Maine passed laws that treat all candidates equally – regardless of party affiliation.
Bizarrely – or some would say intentionally – Connecticut passed a law that substantially favors major party candidates over minor party or independent candidates.
How?
Well, to gain public funding, all candidates must raise a certain amount of money – say $15,000 – from small contributions – $100 or less.
Under the Arizona and Maine laws, that’s it.
Meet it and you can collect the public funds.
And under the Connecticut law, that’s all the Democratic and Republican candidates have to do – raise the certain number of $100 contributions and they are in.
They too can collect public funds.
But under the Connecticut law, minor party candidates and independents have to show public support by raising the small contributions.
But then they must do more.
They have to gather a certain number of signatures – or show a certain level of voter support from past elections to qualify for the public funding.
These additional requirements did not please minor party and independent candidates in Connecticut.
So, they sued arguing that the law was unconstitutional in that it denied them their fundamental rights. (Green Party of Connecticut v. Garfield.)
In August, 2009, a federal court in Connecticut agreed.
In a 93-page decision, Judge Stefan Underhill ruled that by enhancing “the relative strength of major party candidates to the detriment of the political opportunity of minor party candidates,” the Connecticut law “imposes a discriminatory burden on minor party candidates’ fundamental rights.”
But in July 2010, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, while admitting that the law’s burdens on independent and minor party candidates “come close to the outer edge of the constitutionally permitted range,” it nevertheless overturned Judge Underhill’s decision.
The plaintiffs are appealing that decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.
And guess who, lo and behold, has weighed in against the plaintiffs in this case?
Guess who doesn’t want the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case?
Common Cause.
Public Citizen.
Democracy 21.
Three of the most in influential inside the Beltway public interest groups.
Their brief was filed by WilmerHale’s Seth Waxman – Bill Clinton’s former Solicitor General.
Regrettably, these groups have once again weighed in on the side of the two-party dictatorship.
In the brief, our friends in the public interest community warn against public finance laws that fund “hopeless” candidacies.
(Of course, we know, they all support the candidate of “hope and change.”)
They could have – and should have – joined with Judge Underhill.
“The issue is not whether the government may discriminate between major and minor party candidates when crafting a public financing statute,” Judge Underhill wrote. “The government certainly has an interest in not funding hopeless candidacies with large sums of public money.”
“The government, however, in creating such a public campaign financing scheme to combat the influence and appearance of corruption in politics, may not simultaneously disadvantage minor party candidates’ political opportunity.”
Public Citizen’s Rob Weissman defends his decision to file the brief in support of the Connecticut law.
“Potentially at stake – particularly in combination with other cases – is the viability of public financing schemes altogether,” Weissman said.
“If the request from the Connecticut Greens leads to a more intrusive scrutiny by the Supreme Court, that may threaten the viability of public financing. And that is why we took the position we took in the brief.”
But Oliver Hall of the Center for Competitive Democracy said it was “unfortunate” that Public Citizen and the other groups “are supporting a campaign finance scheme that automatically provides public funding to major party candidates – Republicans and Democrats – while denying funding to all others unless they submit signature petitions to qualify.”
“The potential for private funding to corrupt the electoral process is real, but a more fundamental threat to democracy is the consolidation of power in two private political parties, which are increasingly insulated from competition and unresponsive and unaccountable to voters,” Hall said. “A scheme that further entrenches those parties is too high a price to pay for campaign finance reform – especially since the same goal could be achieved by non-discriminatory legislation that promotes voter choice in free and fair elections.”
Richard Winger of Ballot Access News sees a political calculation.
“It’s pure partisanship in favor of Democrats,” Winger said.
Lowell Weicker, the former independent Governor from Connecticut, was deposed for the case.
And he too was harshly critical of the Connecticut law.
Weicker said the law “will diminish the opportunities for independent and minor party candidates to compete effectively” and “will increase the opportunities for major party candidates to compete effectively and further entrench their hold on state government.”
“Except for a candidate with unlimited resources, an independent candidate is at a permanent disadvantage against major party candidates,” Weicker said. “An independent candidate could not realistically collect the hundreds of thousands of signatures needed to qualify for a full grant.”
This was a disheartening – but predictable – decision by major inside the Beltway public interest groups.
Once again, they have sided with the two party dictatorship.
And against the American people.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Wis. doctors' group opposes governor's budget bill
Warns of dangers posed to BadgerCare, other safety-net programs
The Wisconsin chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program joins countless organizations in Wisconsin in opposition to the governor’s budget repair bill. We particularly oppose the dramatic changes in policy regarding Medicaid. These changes would take decision-making authority away from our elected officials and into the hands of unelected, partisan appointees with oversight only by the Joint Finance Committee.
As proposed in the bill, the director of the Department of Human Services would control future rule-making and policy changes could take place without full legislative oversight or public input. These policy changes could include important decisions about program eligibility, covered services, patient cost-sharing, enrollment procedures and provider reimbursement.
PNHP Wisconsin believes that any changes in Medicaid and BadgerCare should be made in the public eye and with public debate. We feel the changes to oversight of these programs should not be included in a bill that claims to solve a fiscal crisis for the current budget year.
PNHP Wisconsin supports universal, comprehensive and affordable health care. Programs like BadgerCare, Medicaid and Medicare are critical safety-nets that must be defended and preserved until we have such a universal health care system. We recognize these programs are not the cause of our rising health care costs, but are just part of our irrational, fragmented and failed market-based model of health care financing.
If the governor and the Wisconsin Legislature want to control costs, PNHP suggests an improved Medicare for all – single-payer national health insurance – as the remedy for our health care cost woes. By replacing private insurers with a streamlined, publicly financed system of care, we’ll have enough resources to provide comprehensive, quality care for all.
The 350 physician-members of PNHP Wisconsin stand in solidarity with the many other groups opposing the budget repair bill. Wisconsin’s admirable record of health coverage, currently at 94 percent of the state population, is a record we’re proud of and hope to expand, so that we can truly achieve “Health Care for All!”
The Wisconsin chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program joins countless organizations in Wisconsin in opposition to the governor’s budget repair bill. We particularly oppose the dramatic changes in policy regarding Medicaid. These changes would take decision-making authority away from our elected officials and into the hands of unelected, partisan appointees with oversight only by the Joint Finance Committee.
As proposed in the bill, the director of the Department of Human Services would control future rule-making and policy changes could take place without full legislative oversight or public input. These policy changes could include important decisions about program eligibility, covered services, patient cost-sharing, enrollment procedures and provider reimbursement.
PNHP Wisconsin believes that any changes in Medicaid and BadgerCare should be made in the public eye and with public debate. We feel the changes to oversight of these programs should not be included in a bill that claims to solve a fiscal crisis for the current budget year.
PNHP Wisconsin supports universal, comprehensive and affordable health care. Programs like BadgerCare, Medicaid and Medicare are critical safety-nets that must be defended and preserved until we have such a universal health care system. We recognize these programs are not the cause of our rising health care costs, but are just part of our irrational, fragmented and failed market-based model of health care financing.
If the governor and the Wisconsin Legislature want to control costs, PNHP suggests an improved Medicare for all – single-payer national health insurance – as the remedy for our health care cost woes. By replacing private insurers with a streamlined, publicly financed system of care, we’ll have enough resources to provide comprehensive, quality care for all.
The 350 physician-members of PNHP Wisconsin stand in solidarity with the many other groups opposing the budget repair bill. Wisconsin’s admirable record of health coverage, currently at 94 percent of the state population, is a record we’re proud of and hope to expand, so that we can truly achieve “Health Care for All!”
Physicians for a National Health Program: Wis. physician: ‘Gov. Walker, Tear up this bill!’
The following text is an unofficial, slightly edited transcript of a March 5 speech made by Dr. Charles Benedict of Beloit, Wis., to a large crowd outside of the State Capitol in Madison who gathered there to protest Gov. Scott Walker’s budget repair bill. Benedict is a retired neurologist, former representative in the State Assembly and longtime single-payer advocate. He was joined on the speaker’s platform by about 20 colleagues and health professional students.
Emcee: Please give a warm welcome to Chuck Benedict and all the medical students who marched here from campus today. [Prolonged cheers.]
Dr. Charles Benedict: I hope this is a reinforced platform here. We’ve got a lot of support up here. [Many chants of “Thank you! Thank you!”] Thank all of you.
I want to start off by thanking the medical students, some of my colleagues – there are physicians up here, there are nurses up here, there are future physicians, future nurses, health care people, social workers. We’re all banding together in support of the cause up here, which is to – and we usually don’t like to use this word – kill the bill!
In fact, I’m finding that this bill makes us ill. (You can see I wasn’t an English major!)
I’m up here today mainly because I’m a single-payer advocate, that is, I favor a properly funded Medicare for everybody. I supported single payer long before I ever got into the State Assembly.
There is a national group, Physicians for a National Health Program, which has been advocating for this approach to health reform for well over a decade, since the ’90s, maybe even before that – before I was politically aware.
We have a strong group here, a strong Wisconsin chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program, the Gene and Linda Farley chapter. And in fact Gene and Linda Farley were mentors of mine in bridging politics and health care. And of course that’s been my passion.
For the whole time I was in the State Assembly I was frustrated because we didn’t make as much progress as I would have liked, but at least until this year we did very well. Gov. Jim Doyle did a very good job, getting 98 percent of people covered in this state, with much better health outcomes than almost any other state. So I’m proud of that work.
The motto of our state is “Forward.” In my considered opinion, we could best move forward if we had in place a single-payer health care system. We would cut health care costs, we would cover everybody, we would enjoy much better health in general.
Unfortunately, that’s not why we’re here right now. We’re here to stop us from going retro, to stop us from going backwards, because part of our new governor’s bill is to undermine and underfund BadgerCare, which has been so good. He wants to make stricter requirements to get on BadgerCare and I think that’s an outrage. There’s so much else in this bill that’s an outrage, but I’ll let other people address that. I’m concerned mostly with the health care issues.
I would also like to thank my state senator, Tim Cullen, and his 13 colleagues who are actually sacrificing quite a bit [by staying out of state to deny the Senate a quorum]. They can’t be with their families, but they’re sticking with it and I encourage them.
I’ll stop now except for one more thing. What I would like to like to say to Gov. Walker is this: “Gov. Walker, Tear up this bill!”
Emcee: Please give a warm welcome to Chuck Benedict and all the medical students who marched here from campus today. [Prolonged cheers.]
Dr. Charles Benedict: I hope this is a reinforced platform here. We’ve got a lot of support up here. [Many chants of “Thank you! Thank you!”] Thank all of you.
I want to start off by thanking the medical students, some of my colleagues – there are physicians up here, there are nurses up here, there are future physicians, future nurses, health care people, social workers. We’re all banding together in support of the cause up here, which is to – and we usually don’t like to use this word – kill the bill!
In fact, I’m finding that this bill makes us ill. (You can see I wasn’t an English major!)
I’m up here today mainly because I’m a single-payer advocate, that is, I favor a properly funded Medicare for everybody. I supported single payer long before I ever got into the State Assembly.
There is a national group, Physicians for a National Health Program, which has been advocating for this approach to health reform for well over a decade, since the ’90s, maybe even before that – before I was politically aware.
We have a strong group here, a strong Wisconsin chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program, the Gene and Linda Farley chapter. And in fact Gene and Linda Farley were mentors of mine in bridging politics and health care. And of course that’s been my passion.
For the whole time I was in the State Assembly I was frustrated because we didn’t make as much progress as I would have liked, but at least until this year we did very well. Gov. Jim Doyle did a very good job, getting 98 percent of people covered in this state, with much better health outcomes than almost any other state. So I’m proud of that work.
The motto of our state is “Forward.” In my considered opinion, we could best move forward if we had in place a single-payer health care system. We would cut health care costs, we would cover everybody, we would enjoy much better health in general.
Unfortunately, that’s not why we’re here right now. We’re here to stop us from going retro, to stop us from going backwards, because part of our new governor’s bill is to undermine and underfund BadgerCare, which has been so good. He wants to make stricter requirements to get on BadgerCare and I think that’s an outrage. There’s so much else in this bill that’s an outrage, but I’ll let other people address that. I’m concerned mostly with the health care issues.
I would also like to thank my state senator, Tim Cullen, and his 13 colleagues who are actually sacrificing quite a bit [by staying out of state to deny the Senate a quorum]. They can’t be with their families, but they’re sticking with it and I encourage them.
I’ll stop now except for one more thing. What I would like to like to say to Gov. Walker is this: “Gov. Walker, Tear up this bill!”
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Echoes of the Exodus Story in Wisconsin
Rabbis for Human Rights
As events in our state capital rage on for a second week, I want to take some time this evening to examine why religious groups all over the state and groups of rabbis, in their own right, are speaking out on one particular side of this issue. To some, the connection to religion may seem obscure. What does the state budget or collective bargaining have to do with matters of faith and soul? How can ancient sacred texts speak to something that is going on in Madison, WI today?
Judaism is as much a system of ethics and a way of life as it is a set of beliefs and a source of faith. Other religious groups that are speaking out on this issue see themselves as expressing the moral values inherent in their teachings as well. In the past week, we have seen statements from the rabbis of Madison and a separate one from rabbis across the state, spearheaded by our Reform movement Religious Action Center in Washington, DC. Yet another statement came from a coalition of interfaith leaders in WISDOM, of which our local CUSH organization is a part. In addition, the Archbishop of Milwaukee has sent a letter to the Capitol, quoting a papal encyclical, and the Lutheran Bishop of Milwaukee has sent his own letter as well. The Episcopal Bishop of Milwaukee joined with others in prayer and procession in Madison on Tuesday and the head of the Methodist Church in Wisconsin has offered a statement too. A quick search on Google shows that official religious statements thus far have all been critical of either the bill or of the Governor’s tactics and have cited support for workers, the poor, and unions.
I have provided for your perusal two of these documents, which I signed onto this week. By reading these pieces, you will see that the religious community and Judaism, in particular, have strong precedents for supporting the rights of the worker and labor unions, from the Torah forward. And the Reform movement has statement after statement over the last century, siding with the rights of unions. But rather than reiterating this material, which you can read for yourself, what I want to do tonight is to tie the events in Madison to a story with which we are all familiar. That story is the Exodus from Egypt.
Soon, in the Jewish world, we will observe the holiday of Passover, during which we retell the story of the Exodus. This Shabbat and next week in synagogues all over the world, we are reading the very last chapters of the Book of Exodus. In essence, the Exodus story is about laborers suffering under the burden of government control over their lives and ultimately confronting the powers that be over that injustice.
Of course, there is a limit to linking this story to Wisconsin’s current struggle. The ancient Israelites were slaves, not unionized public employees. They had no contracts or benefits, no collective bargaining or any other rights, for that matter. But they did face off with an intransigent head of government, the Pharaoh, whose heart was hardened to their plight. Sacred scripture tells us that these ancient laborers were freed from Egypt thanks to courageous human leadership and, of course, thanks to God seeing the injustice of the situation and taking the side of the slaves.
Interestingly, among the first commandments that the freed slaves received from God at Mt. Sinai, was the commandment to observe Shabbat–a guaranteed day of rest from labor every single week. The idea of a day of rest was an innovation at the time. Many other laws specific to workers’ rights are found in the elsewhere in Torah and developed in the Talmud, and you can see these in the materials I have provided.
In making this comparison to the Exodus, it is important not to exaggerate. Union workers, like teachers and nursing home employees and prison workers, are not slaves, and Governor Walker is not a Pharaoh. No one is suggesting that Wisconsin workers be denied a day of rest or beaten if they do not return to their jobs or produce a certain quota of bricks. But there are some relevant similarities here.
To begin with, there is the blaming of one group for the ills of the state. The unions did not cause Wisconsin to have a deficit, but they are singularly being asked to “pay” for it by giving up their collective bargaining rights. As in the Exodus story, one group is singled out to bear the burden of the State’s needs.
In the Torah, Moses approaches the Pharaoh about the unjust treatment of workers and finds Pharaoh unwilling to give at all. It takes days, weeks, perhaps even months (it is not entirely clear just how long the whole process of the Ten Plagues takes), but Moses, with the people behind him, waits it out until something finally breaks the will of the Pharaoh. Weeks of crying out for justice and so far, only the hardening of the heart: We cannot deny that there are echoes of this story in Wisconsin today.
Finally, according to the midrash, in the end it is the courage and faith not of Moses, but of a regular guy, Nachshon ben Amindav, that leads to true freedom. Nachshon steps into the raging waters at the Red Sea, causing the sea to split. Nachshons of our time have been pouring into Madison on a daily basis. And now, they are all over the state. I was at the UAW hall in Kenosha yesterday; there were 700 regular guys and gals like Nachshon–in jeans and sweatshirts, with their kids in tow, holding home-made signs, wading into the waters, looking for a way to make the sea part.
Clearly, Egypt was not a democracy. The slaves had no expectation of their representatives being “heard,” negotiating, or putting matters to a vote. But, in our world, we do expect and have a right to these opportunities. Being denied these things have tested our state’s leaders. Senators have left the state; assemblymen filibustered for 60 hours until the majority cut off debate early this morning. These are extreme measures for extreme circumstances.
These officials say that these actions were aimed at gaining time to get the issue heard and discussed more. They hoped that time would bring understanding among the people. In the same way, the rabbis of the midrash taught that the plagues were not to convince Pharaoh– but to convince the Israelites– to help them understand their plight and what they could do with God’s help. God could have made Pharaoh give up right away; but instead brought days or weeks or months of plagues. The senators and assemblymen have bought time to help average Wisconsin citizen see what is at stake. They are succeeding. The crowds are growing and expanding to more cities. Remember when we were amazed that 13,000 showed up in Madison 10 days ago? 100,000 are expected in Madison tomorrow.
Next week, an interfaith group of religious leaders that I am part of through CUSH will propose an action that religious folks throughout Wisconsin, regardless of their religious tradition can take: We will offer a prayer to be recited along with some kind of sacrifice or commitment to be made in solidarity with those who stand to lose the most if this bill is passed. The action could be fasting, serving at a Soup Kitchen, or any other type of action. There will be a website where people can post their actions. This will be another way for people to make their voices heard, speaking truth to power in our State Capitol.
It is no coincidence that the religious community is lining up only on one side of this issue. Our traditions, since the time of enslavement in Egypt, have always sided with the poor, the powerless and the disenfranchised, and have taught us to speak out when we see injustice. There are now numerous ways that we, as the bearers of our religious heritage today, can speak and act from our tradition. We need not make a trip to Madison or sign a petition, though those actions are admirable and encouraged. As we observe our day of rest from labor over these next 24 hours, let us each ponder how we can share our Jewish values about the fair treatment of workers with those who would deny them. Let us commit ourselves to act and to speak out about the injustices that could face our state if we are not heard.
As events in our state capital rage on for a second week, I want to take some time this evening to examine why religious groups all over the state and groups of rabbis, in their own right, are speaking out on one particular side of this issue. To some, the connection to religion may seem obscure. What does the state budget or collective bargaining have to do with matters of faith and soul? How can ancient sacred texts speak to something that is going on in Madison, WI today?
Judaism is as much a system of ethics and a way of life as it is a set of beliefs and a source of faith. Other religious groups that are speaking out on this issue see themselves as expressing the moral values inherent in their teachings as well. In the past week, we have seen statements from the rabbis of Madison and a separate one from rabbis across the state, spearheaded by our Reform movement Religious Action Center in Washington, DC. Yet another statement came from a coalition of interfaith leaders in WISDOM, of which our local CUSH organization is a part. In addition, the Archbishop of Milwaukee has sent a letter to the Capitol, quoting a papal encyclical, and the Lutheran Bishop of Milwaukee has sent his own letter as well. The Episcopal Bishop of Milwaukee joined with others in prayer and procession in Madison on Tuesday and the head of the Methodist Church in Wisconsin has offered a statement too. A quick search on Google shows that official religious statements thus far have all been critical of either the bill or of the Governor’s tactics and have cited support for workers, the poor, and unions.
I have provided for your perusal two of these documents, which I signed onto this week. By reading these pieces, you will see that the religious community and Judaism, in particular, have strong precedents for supporting the rights of the worker and labor unions, from the Torah forward. And the Reform movement has statement after statement over the last century, siding with the rights of unions. But rather than reiterating this material, which you can read for yourself, what I want to do tonight is to tie the events in Madison to a story with which we are all familiar. That story is the Exodus from Egypt.
Soon, in the Jewish world, we will observe the holiday of Passover, during which we retell the story of the Exodus. This Shabbat and next week in synagogues all over the world, we are reading the very last chapters of the Book of Exodus. In essence, the Exodus story is about laborers suffering under the burden of government control over their lives and ultimately confronting the powers that be over that injustice.
Of course, there is a limit to linking this story to Wisconsin’s current struggle. The ancient Israelites were slaves, not unionized public employees. They had no contracts or benefits, no collective bargaining or any other rights, for that matter. But they did face off with an intransigent head of government, the Pharaoh, whose heart was hardened to their plight. Sacred scripture tells us that these ancient laborers were freed from Egypt thanks to courageous human leadership and, of course, thanks to God seeing the injustice of the situation and taking the side of the slaves.
Interestingly, among the first commandments that the freed slaves received from God at Mt. Sinai, was the commandment to observe Shabbat–a guaranteed day of rest from labor every single week. The idea of a day of rest was an innovation at the time. Many other laws specific to workers’ rights are found in the elsewhere in Torah and developed in the Talmud, and you can see these in the materials I have provided.
In making this comparison to the Exodus, it is important not to exaggerate. Union workers, like teachers and nursing home employees and prison workers, are not slaves, and Governor Walker is not a Pharaoh. No one is suggesting that Wisconsin workers be denied a day of rest or beaten if they do not return to their jobs or produce a certain quota of bricks. But there are some relevant similarities here.
To begin with, there is the blaming of one group for the ills of the state. The unions did not cause Wisconsin to have a deficit, but they are singularly being asked to “pay” for it by giving up their collective bargaining rights. As in the Exodus story, one group is singled out to bear the burden of the State’s needs.
In the Torah, Moses approaches the Pharaoh about the unjust treatment of workers and finds Pharaoh unwilling to give at all. It takes days, weeks, perhaps even months (it is not entirely clear just how long the whole process of the Ten Plagues takes), but Moses, with the people behind him, waits it out until something finally breaks the will of the Pharaoh. Weeks of crying out for justice and so far, only the hardening of the heart: We cannot deny that there are echoes of this story in Wisconsin today.
Finally, according to the midrash, in the end it is the courage and faith not of Moses, but of a regular guy, Nachshon ben Amindav, that leads to true freedom. Nachshon steps into the raging waters at the Red Sea, causing the sea to split. Nachshons of our time have been pouring into Madison on a daily basis. And now, they are all over the state. I was at the UAW hall in Kenosha yesterday; there were 700 regular guys and gals like Nachshon–in jeans and sweatshirts, with their kids in tow, holding home-made signs, wading into the waters, looking for a way to make the sea part.
Clearly, Egypt was not a democracy. The slaves had no expectation of their representatives being “heard,” negotiating, or putting matters to a vote. But, in our world, we do expect and have a right to these opportunities. Being denied these things have tested our state’s leaders. Senators have left the state; assemblymen filibustered for 60 hours until the majority cut off debate early this morning. These are extreme measures for extreme circumstances.
These officials say that these actions were aimed at gaining time to get the issue heard and discussed more. They hoped that time would bring understanding among the people. In the same way, the rabbis of the midrash taught that the plagues were not to convince Pharaoh– but to convince the Israelites– to help them understand their plight and what they could do with God’s help. God could have made Pharaoh give up right away; but instead brought days or weeks or months of plagues. The senators and assemblymen have bought time to help average Wisconsin citizen see what is at stake. They are succeeding. The crowds are growing and expanding to more cities. Remember when we were amazed that 13,000 showed up in Madison 10 days ago? 100,000 are expected in Madison tomorrow.
Next week, an interfaith group of religious leaders that I am part of through CUSH will propose an action that religious folks throughout Wisconsin, regardless of their religious tradition can take: We will offer a prayer to be recited along with some kind of sacrifice or commitment to be made in solidarity with those who stand to lose the most if this bill is passed. The action could be fasting, serving at a Soup Kitchen, or any other type of action. There will be a website where people can post their actions. This will be another way for people to make their voices heard, speaking truth to power in our State Capitol.
It is no coincidence that the religious community is lining up only on one side of this issue. Our traditions, since the time of enslavement in Egypt, have always sided with the poor, the powerless and the disenfranchised, and have taught us to speak out when we see injustice. There are now numerous ways that we, as the bearers of our religious heritage today, can speak and act from our tradition. We need not make a trip to Madison or sign a petition, though those actions are admirable and encouraged. As we observe our day of rest from labor over these next 24 hours, let us each ponder how we can share our Jewish values about the fair treatment of workers with those who would deny them. Let us commit ourselves to act and to speak out about the injustices that could face our state if we are not heard.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Standing Up to the Corporatist State
Negativo Man, Corporatism, and the Unconscious Society
A couple of years ago, I dressed in black.
Put on a black cape.
Stuck a big silver letter N on my chest.
And went out to a Halloween party as Negativo Man.
Why Negativo Man?
Because people often asked me –
“Hey Russell, why are you so negative?”
“What do you mean?” I would ask. “Just because the name of my publication is Corporate Crime Reporter?”
“What would you have me call it — Business Ethics?”
“Confronting reality is a negative process,” writes John Ralston Saul in his book The Unconscious Civilization (Free Press, 1995).
The corporatism that has overtaken our democracy is an ideology that “insists on relentless positivism — that’s why it opposes criticism and encourages passivity.”
In the book, Saul argues that we live in a corporatist society with soft pretension to democracy.
We live in a society of corporatist groups — some are public, some are private, some are well intentioned, some not well intentioned.
The primary loyalty of the individual is not to the society but to the corporatist group.
“Real expressions of individualism are not only discouraged but punished,” Saul writes. “The active, outspoken citizen is unlikely to have a successful professional career.”
“The human is thus reduced to a measurable value, like a machine or a piece of property. We can choose to achieve a high value and live comfortably, or be dumped unceremoniously onto a heap of marginality.”
Saul is a big fan of Socrates — for always doubting.
And a not so big fan of Plato — for being so sure of himself.
“Socrates — oral, questioner, obsessed by ethics, searching for truth without expecting to find it, democrat, believer in the qualities of citizens.”
“Plato — written, answerer of questions, obsessed by power, in possession of the truth, anti-democratic, contemptuous of the citizen.”
Socrates — the father of humanism.
Plato — the father of ideology.
Corporatism versus democracy — that’s the battle.
And Saul lays the blame for the drift into corporatism on you — and me.
“If democracy fails, it is ultimately the citizen who has failed, not the politician.”
Saul reassures us that “nothing in our current crisis is untouchable because of great mystic forces of inevitability.”
We must choose doubt over certainty.
Consciousness over the comfort of remaining unconscious.
Responsibility over passivity.
Delight in the human condition over self-loathing and cynicism.
“The very essence of corporatism is minding your own business,” Saul writes.
“The very essence of individualism is refusal to mind your own business.”
“This is not a particularly pleasant or easy style of life.”
Our civilization is locked in the grip of an ideology — corporatism.
It is an ideology that “denies and undermines the legitimacy of the individual as the citizen in a democracy.”
It’s an ideology that results in the worship of self-interest and a denial of the public good.
“The practical effects on the individual are passivity and conformism in the areas that matter and non-conformism in the areas that don’t.”
What’s a citizen to do?
“Citizen based democracy is built upon participation, which is the very expression of public discomfort,” he says.
And the corporate system depends upon the “citizen’s desire for inner comfort.”
We must confront the reality in front of us.
That is — we must accept a state of “permanent psychic discomfort.”
“The acceptance of psychic discomfort is the acceptance of consciousness.”
We are doing this now, every month in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia.
Our first meeting, in January, drew more than 70 people.
Our February meeting drew more than 100.
We hope to continue to build throughout the year.
To stand up to the corporatist state.
As conscious citizens of a democracy.
Rejecting passivity and cynicism.
Doubting.
Questioning.
Engaging.
Until we topple the two party corporate dictatorship.
A couple of years ago, I dressed in black.
Put on a black cape.
Stuck a big silver letter N on my chest.
And went out to a Halloween party as Negativo Man.
Why Negativo Man?
Because people often asked me –
“Hey Russell, why are you so negative?”
“What do you mean?” I would ask. “Just because the name of my publication is Corporate Crime Reporter?”
“What would you have me call it — Business Ethics?”
“Confronting reality is a negative process,” writes John Ralston Saul in his book The Unconscious Civilization (Free Press, 1995).
The corporatism that has overtaken our democracy is an ideology that “insists on relentless positivism — that’s why it opposes criticism and encourages passivity.”
In the book, Saul argues that we live in a corporatist society with soft pretension to democracy.
We live in a society of corporatist groups — some are public, some are private, some are well intentioned, some not well intentioned.
The primary loyalty of the individual is not to the society but to the corporatist group.
“Real expressions of individualism are not only discouraged but punished,” Saul writes. “The active, outspoken citizen is unlikely to have a successful professional career.”
“The human is thus reduced to a measurable value, like a machine or a piece of property. We can choose to achieve a high value and live comfortably, or be dumped unceremoniously onto a heap of marginality.”
Saul is a big fan of Socrates — for always doubting.
And a not so big fan of Plato — for being so sure of himself.
“Socrates — oral, questioner, obsessed by ethics, searching for truth without expecting to find it, democrat, believer in the qualities of citizens.”
“Plato — written, answerer of questions, obsessed by power, in possession of the truth, anti-democratic, contemptuous of the citizen.”
Socrates — the father of humanism.
Plato — the father of ideology.
Corporatism versus democracy — that’s the battle.
And Saul lays the blame for the drift into corporatism on you — and me.
“If democracy fails, it is ultimately the citizen who has failed, not the politician.”
Saul reassures us that “nothing in our current crisis is untouchable because of great mystic forces of inevitability.”
We must choose doubt over certainty.
Consciousness over the comfort of remaining unconscious.
Responsibility over passivity.
Delight in the human condition over self-loathing and cynicism.
“The very essence of corporatism is minding your own business,” Saul writes.
“The very essence of individualism is refusal to mind your own business.”
“This is not a particularly pleasant or easy style of life.”
Our civilization is locked in the grip of an ideology — corporatism.
It is an ideology that “denies and undermines the legitimacy of the individual as the citizen in a democracy.”
It’s an ideology that results in the worship of self-interest and a denial of the public good.
“The practical effects on the individual are passivity and conformism in the areas that matter and non-conformism in the areas that don’t.”
What’s a citizen to do?
“Citizen based democracy is built upon participation, which is the very expression of public discomfort,” he says.
And the corporate system depends upon the “citizen’s desire for inner comfort.”
We must confront the reality in front of us.
That is — we must accept a state of “permanent psychic discomfort.”
“The acceptance of psychic discomfort is the acceptance of consciousness.”
We are doing this now, every month in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia.
Our first meeting, in January, drew more than 70 people.
Our February meeting drew more than 100.
We hope to continue to build throughout the year.
To stand up to the corporatist state.
As conscious citizens of a democracy.
Rejecting passivity and cynicism.
Doubting.
Questioning.
Engaging.
Until we topple the two party corporate dictatorship.
A just system of health care insurance: improved Medicare for All
H.R. 676: Expanded and Medicare For All Act
The following is a slightly edited translation of an interview with Edgar A. Lopez, M.D., F.A.C.S., which was conducted in Spanish by journalist Pablo Castelo of Al Día en América in early February. Dr. Lopez is a member of Physicians for a National Health Program and Kentuckians for Single Payer Health Care.
CASTELO: How do you explain to the common citizen what H.R. 676, the so-called single-payer bill, is?
LOPEZ: In English it is known as the “Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act,” sometimes called the U.S. National Health Care Act. In Spanish the best translation would be “universal health insurance coverage,” financed by the government with payment for medical services going directly to the medical providers. This system would eliminate the intermediaries, or third-party payers, namely, the private health insurance companies.
CASTELO: Many people ask how much this kind of program would cost the average patient.
LOPEZ: Nothing. The patient doesn’t have to pay anything when they present themselves to the doctor or the hospital. Those who are working or employed are already contributing with taxes contributions that go to Social Security and the Medicare fund; along the same lines, a single-payer system would be financed largely by progressive taxation.
CASTELO: What would make us think that this system would actually work in the United States?
LOPEZ: We already have such a system for those who reach age 65; it is called Medicare. Hence the name for H.R. 676 – the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act. We also have the Medicaid system that helps those citizens who are in the lowest income levels and have the right to free or nearly free medical attention.
CASTELO: From the point of view of the patient, what are the advantages of eliminating the private health insurance companies as intermediaries?
LOPEZ: The new single-payer system would be a wonderful change because, first, it would eliminate the premiums that we have to pay to the insurers, and second, it would also eliminate co-pays, deductibles and additional out-of-pocket expenses. From the standpoint of physicians, within the current system, doctors are constantly struggling with the health insurance companies over payment issues, diminishing operational effectiveness, adding unnecessary overhead and curtailing proper medical care. For example, when I was in private practice, two of my employees would spend many hours of their working day dealing with the insurance companies.
CASTELO: I understand that statistics show that many people die because of the high cost of medical care under the present system. Is this true?
LOPEZ: According to an Institute of Medicine study in 2002, in the United States, the richest country in the world, approximately 55-60 persons die everyday because of lack of health insurance; that adds to about 20,000 preventable deaths a year. Many people wait until the last moment to go to see a physician or end up at a hospital emergency room. A more recent Harvard study in 2009, using similar methods as the IOM, found the number of deaths linked to lack of health insurance as more than twice that figure – roughly 45,000 deaths each year.
Another study in 2009 showed that over 60 percent of personal bankruptcies in the U.S. can be linked to illness and medical bills. What is rather amazing is that 75 percent of those who went bankrupt under these circumstances had health insurance when they first got sick. What happens is that when you are struck with a catastrophic illness, either you die or you fall into severe debt. Once you can no longer pay your bills, bankruptcy is the result. Hence, just because you have insurance with your employer, that doesn’t mean you are safe.
CASTELO: You and I come from countries where we grew up with the concept that health care is a right, like the right to vote as an expression of democracy. Why, in this country, which calls itself the paradigm of world democracy, is health care not a right?
LOPEZ: I believe this phenomenon is a symptom of a deformed or degenerated type of capitalism that is peculiar to the United States, because there are many industrialized countries in the world where health care is provided to everybody as a right, and yet those countries are not called communist or socialist.
CASTELO: By the way, why is H.R. 676 or the single-payer system frequently characterized as a path to socialism?
LOPEZ: Socialism is a scare word or label that the extreme right in the U.S. uses to attack the single-payer concept. They claim that an improved Medicare for All would be a form of “socialized medicine.” This is a lie. A single-payer system would simply change the way in which health care is financed; it would still continue to be delivered privately. You would go to the doctor of your choice. Hospitals wouldn’t become the property of the government. Through the years, the words communism and socialism have been used to scare people. And it’s ironic: many people who say they are against an improved Medicare for All are in fact supporters of Medicare, and some of them are enrolled in the program.
CASTELO: Any final comments?
LOPEZ: The Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act, H.R. 676, has just been reintroduced in the Congress by Rep. John Conyers Jr. of Michigan. It embodies some of the key feature of a single-payer program:
1. Universal coverage. Everyone is covered automatically at birth.
2. Coverage for all medically necessary services – comprehensive care.
3. Redirects $400 billion in administrative waste back into patient care.
4. Patients will be allowed free choice of their doctor and hospital.
5. Premiums and out-of-pockets costs are replaced with a progressive structure of income taxation, resulting in almost everyone paying less in taxes than they currently pay for premiums, co-pays and deductibles.
Physicians for a National Health Program
29 E Madison Suite 602, Chicago, IL 60602 ¤ Find us on a map
Phone (312) 782-6006 | Fax: (312) 782-6007 | email: info@pnhp.org
© PNHP 2011
The following is a slightly edited translation of an interview with Edgar A. Lopez, M.D., F.A.C.S., which was conducted in Spanish by journalist Pablo Castelo of Al Día en América in early February. Dr. Lopez is a member of Physicians for a National Health Program and Kentuckians for Single Payer Health Care.
CASTELO: How do you explain to the common citizen what H.R. 676, the so-called single-payer bill, is?
LOPEZ: In English it is known as the “Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act,” sometimes called the U.S. National Health Care Act. In Spanish the best translation would be “universal health insurance coverage,” financed by the government with payment for medical services going directly to the medical providers. This system would eliminate the intermediaries, or third-party payers, namely, the private health insurance companies.
CASTELO: Many people ask how much this kind of program would cost the average patient.
LOPEZ: Nothing. The patient doesn’t have to pay anything when they present themselves to the doctor or the hospital. Those who are working or employed are already contributing with taxes contributions that go to Social Security and the Medicare fund; along the same lines, a single-payer system would be financed largely by progressive taxation.
CASTELO: What would make us think that this system would actually work in the United States?
LOPEZ: We already have such a system for those who reach age 65; it is called Medicare. Hence the name for H.R. 676 – the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act. We also have the Medicaid system that helps those citizens who are in the lowest income levels and have the right to free or nearly free medical attention.
CASTELO: From the point of view of the patient, what are the advantages of eliminating the private health insurance companies as intermediaries?
LOPEZ: The new single-payer system would be a wonderful change because, first, it would eliminate the premiums that we have to pay to the insurers, and second, it would also eliminate co-pays, deductibles and additional out-of-pocket expenses. From the standpoint of physicians, within the current system, doctors are constantly struggling with the health insurance companies over payment issues, diminishing operational effectiveness, adding unnecessary overhead and curtailing proper medical care. For example, when I was in private practice, two of my employees would spend many hours of their working day dealing with the insurance companies.
CASTELO: I understand that statistics show that many people die because of the high cost of medical care under the present system. Is this true?
LOPEZ: According to an Institute of Medicine study in 2002, in the United States, the richest country in the world, approximately 55-60 persons die everyday because of lack of health insurance; that adds to about 20,000 preventable deaths a year. Many people wait until the last moment to go to see a physician or end up at a hospital emergency room. A more recent Harvard study in 2009, using similar methods as the IOM, found the number of deaths linked to lack of health insurance as more than twice that figure – roughly 45,000 deaths each year.
Another study in 2009 showed that over 60 percent of personal bankruptcies in the U.S. can be linked to illness and medical bills. What is rather amazing is that 75 percent of those who went bankrupt under these circumstances had health insurance when they first got sick. What happens is that when you are struck with a catastrophic illness, either you die or you fall into severe debt. Once you can no longer pay your bills, bankruptcy is the result. Hence, just because you have insurance with your employer, that doesn’t mean you are safe.
CASTELO: You and I come from countries where we grew up with the concept that health care is a right, like the right to vote as an expression of democracy. Why, in this country, which calls itself the paradigm of world democracy, is health care not a right?
LOPEZ: I believe this phenomenon is a symptom of a deformed or degenerated type of capitalism that is peculiar to the United States, because there are many industrialized countries in the world where health care is provided to everybody as a right, and yet those countries are not called communist or socialist.
CASTELO: By the way, why is H.R. 676 or the single-payer system frequently characterized as a path to socialism?
LOPEZ: Socialism is a scare word or label that the extreme right in the U.S. uses to attack the single-payer concept. They claim that an improved Medicare for All would be a form of “socialized medicine.” This is a lie. A single-payer system would simply change the way in which health care is financed; it would still continue to be delivered privately. You would go to the doctor of your choice. Hospitals wouldn’t become the property of the government. Through the years, the words communism and socialism have been used to scare people. And it’s ironic: many people who say they are against an improved Medicare for All are in fact supporters of Medicare, and some of them are enrolled in the program.
CASTELO: Any final comments?
LOPEZ: The Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act, H.R. 676, has just been reintroduced in the Congress by Rep. John Conyers Jr. of Michigan. It embodies some of the key feature of a single-payer program:
1. Universal coverage. Everyone is covered automatically at birth.
2. Coverage for all medically necessary services – comprehensive care.
3. Redirects $400 billion in administrative waste back into patient care.
4. Patients will be allowed free choice of their doctor and hospital.
5. Premiums and out-of-pockets costs are replaced with a progressive structure of income taxation, resulting in almost everyone paying less in taxes than they currently pay for premiums, co-pays and deductibles.
Physicians for a National Health Program
29 E Madison Suite 602, Chicago, IL 60602 ¤ Find us on a map
Phone (312) 782-6006 | Fax: (312) 782-6007 | email: info@pnhp.org
© PNHP 2011
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