Center for Progressive Reform
Video via democracynow.org
When former Harvard Law Professor and eclectic intellectual Cass Sunstein was named administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), conservative, industry-oriented Wall Street Journal editorial writers enthused that his appointment was a “promising sign.” A slew of subsequent events has proved their optimism well placed, as we have noted repeatedly in CPRBlog.
But nothing beats hard, empirical evidence. In a report released today, CPR announces the results of an exhaustive six-month analysis of the barebones information OIRA has eked onto the web regarding 1,080 meetings held over a ten-year period (October 2001-June 2011) with 5,759 outside lobbyists, 65 percent of whom represented industry and 12 percent of whom represented public interest groups. The results were shocking even to us, long-time and admittedly jaded observers of OIRA’s one-way ratchet toward weakening public health and other protections.
•Obama’s OIRA changes more rules than Bush’s did. The Obama Administration has further entrenched a regulatory system in which White House officials trump agency expertise with decisions based on raw politics. While the Bush Administration changed 64 percent of regulations under this process, the Obama Administration has changed 76 percent.
•Industry dominates the OIRA meetings process. OIRA makes no effort to balance its meeting schedule by hearing from even a rough equivalence of organizations supporting protective regulations. In only 16 percent of reviews involving meetings did OIRA meet with organizations from across the spectrum of interested groups, while in 73 percent OIRA met only with industry representatives. These meetings come on top of an already exhaustive public process run by the agencies themselves, involving numerous meetings before a rule proposal is even crafted, multiple rounds of public comments that give a wide range of interest groups the opportunity to file thousands of pages of advice, public hearings across the country, thousands of hours of staff work invested in reviewing the comments and either accepting or rebutting the information they contain, and—last but not least—court review for many major rules.
•OIRA meetings correlate with changes to rules. Rules that were the subject of meetings were 29 percent more likely to be changed than those that were not. OIRA does not disclose its changes, but there is extensive evidence that OIRA functions as a one-way ratchet, exclusively weakening agency rules.
•OIRA is obsessed with the EPA. While rules from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) made up only 11 percent of all reviews by OIRA, 41 percent of all OIRA meetings targeted EPA rules. EPA rules were changed at a significantly higher rate—84 percent—than those of other agencies—65 percent—over the whole ten-year period.
•OIRA routinely misses deadlines, stalling public health and safety protections. By executive order, OIRA has 90 days to review a rule, plus a possible 30-day extension. Of the 501 completed reviews in which outside parties lobbied OIRA, 59 (12 percent) lasted longer than 120 days and 22 extended beyond 180 days (about six months).
•OIRA ignores public disclosure requirements. OIRA is required by executive order to make available “all documents exchanged between OIRA and the agency during the review by OIRA,” and agencies are required to “identify for the public those changes in the regulatory action that were made at the suggestion or recommendation of OIRA.” OIRA never follows those requirements, and the agencies—with the notable exception of the EPA in limited circumstances—don’t either.
•OIRA ignores the limitations on its reviewing authority. An executive order instructs OIRA to focus on “economically significant rules” (those imposing more than $100 million in annual costs), allowing OIRA to extend the scope of its review in very limited circumstances. In practice, “non-economically significant rules” are reviewed at a ratio of six to one with the rules that should be the primary focus of OIRA’s work.
Despite his selection of experienced and well-respected appointees to lead health and safety agencies—most notably, Lisa Jackson at the EPA, Margaret Hamburg at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and David Michaels at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)—President Obama has not made lasting commitments to substantially increase their budgets, has not supported them when they are politically attacked, and done next to nothing to press for updating the outmoded laws that hamper their efforts to police corporate misconduct. Worst of all, he has continued the Reagan and Bush tradition of enthroning OIRA as the final arbiter of whether public health and environmental protections see the light of day.
Centralized White House regulatory review shoves policymaking behind closed doors, wastes increasingly limited government resources, confuses agency priorities, demoralizes civil servants, and, worst of all, costs the nation dearly in lost lives, avoidable illness and injury, and destruction of irreplaceable natural resources.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Occupy the White House
The Hill
If Green Party political veteran Jill Stein were to visit Occupy Boston several times, and if she were to describe the Occupy Wall Street movement’s grievances as “synergistic” with her own policy beliefs, and if she were to unveil her campaign for the 2012 presidential race at the height of the national movement’s growth, would that make her the country’s first Occupy Wall Street candidate?
Others might use simple logic to come to a “yes” conclusion, but Stein says no.
“I would not [say I’m an Occupy Wall Street candidate], because I think they have to decide who their candidate is,” Stein says in a phone interview from Boston, her hometown.
But in the same breath, she highlights the seamlessness between her candidacy and the Occupy Wall Street movement, describing the warm reception she received when she stopped by the Occupy Chicago base during a recent campaign trip through Illinois.
“I would say, when I went and showed up in Chicago, there were people who came up to me who said, ‘Oh, you’re Jill Stein — I’m so glad you’re here. I’m so grateful for what you’re doing,’ ” she says.
Occupy Wall Street candidate or not, Stein is embracing the movement — and also taking the nation’s college students under her wing — in launching a long-shot bid for the White House as another in a long line of third-party candidates who have experienced various levels of success in shaking up presidential campaigns of the recent past.
Synergy
Stein started considering a run for the presidency when the debt-ceiling showdown took shape in Washington last spring.
“This [was] really a crisis of the president’s creation, so that was pretty problematic to start with,” she says. “Then when he put Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security on the chopping block … it seemed to me absolutely unconscionable for the president’s policies not to be challenged.”
Stein announced her presidential bid in late October. Her main policy platform is what she calls the “Green New Deal,” which she claims will end unemployment through government investments in energy efficiency, among other tools. She promises to protect citizens from the special interests of Wall Street and corporate America and sees her campaign as “filling the void of a national voice for the 99 percent.”
Sound familiar?
That the Occupy Wall Street movement emerged as Stein was plotting her presidential run is merely a coincidence, she says, but a great one at that.
“It was so exciting to hear the same agenda reflected back at us, especially from a younger generation,” she says. “It felt almost miraculous that this was happening.”
But she’s careful not to appear opportunistic.
“We are not looking to hijack them or force them to be electoral or force them in any way to shift from what they’re doing,” Stein says. “I think the chemistry between the two entities is rich and synergistic, and we’ll see where it goes.”
It remains unclear how willing the Occupy Wall Street activists are to embrace Stein. An Occupy Boston spokesman said the group doesn’t endorse politicians and was unsure whether Stein had made any lasting impression on his comrades.
“I do believe I have heard that name around camp, but I am pretty sure she has kept a low profile,” spokesman Ryan Cahill wrote in an email.
Students
Stein sees a more reliable base on college campuses, and her first campaign stop reflected that priority.
The candidate traveled to Macomb, Ill., after being invited to Western Illinois University’s mock presidential election, a two-week event that includes conventions, campaigns and nominations. Stein won 27 percent of the vote, coming in third behind President Obama and GOP candidate Mitt Romney.
“I was, of course, the only candidate interested enough to show up at this thing,” she says, conceding that WIU is “hardly a hotbed of activism for Green politics.”
“We are very excited at the resonance we’ve had with students in particular, and that will be a major priority for us,” Stein says. “The student group, Campus Greens in Western Illinois, is growing and helping other colleges start up groups.”
It’s not hard to understand why any college student facing an extraordinarily tough job market and student-loan repayments would take a second look at Stein’s candidacy. She proposes forgiveness of student-loan debt and a tuition-free option at public colleges and universities.
“Students are currently an indentured class — they graduate with loans, which they cannot pay without loans,” she says. “It’s very hard for them to be contributors to the economy.”
She’s hoping to grow her student support from the Midwest outward. Other than a 10-day tour through California in late November, her campaign hasn’t yet planned other stops — “We are at the threshold of developing our plans,” she says — but ideally, she’d like to have students accompany her along the campaign trail.
Political awakening
Stein is a 61-year-old physician who was recruited by the Green Party in 2002 to run for Massachusetts governor after having made a name for herself in advocacy. She was working on community-level solutions to obesity, cancer, learning disabilities and other public health issues when the Green Party asked her to consider politics.
“I was not a political animal, but I was approached by the Green Party at a time when I was waking up,” she says.
After losing the 2002 race, she mounted losing campaigns in 2004, for the Massachusetts House of Representatives; in 2006, for Massachusetts Commonwealth secretary; and in 2010, again for the governorship. She won races for Lexington Town Meeting representative in 2005 and 2008.
“To my mind, low vote counts are not a reflection of a failed campaign,” she says.
What’s come out of her serial candidacy, Stein says, is an organization that will help her attack the monumental task that third-party candidates confront every presidential cycle: obtaining enough signatures to appear on the ballot.
Former Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader says signature collection alone can consume a third-party campaign’s resources.
“By the time you finish, it’s Labor Day, and you’re exhausted, and you don’t have any money,” says Nader, adding that he sees promise in Stein. “She’s an M.D., which is a good advantage, since healthcare is a big issue … She has a good head on her shoulders.”
But if Nader faced an uphill battle in his two third-party presidential runs, Stein is looking at reaching for the impossible, one expert says.
While Nader had name recognition before entering electoral politics, “when you pick Jill Stein, you’re starting from zero,” says Southern Methodist University political science Professor Cal Jillson, noting that the only third-party presidential candidate to win was Abraham Lincoln in 1860.
What’s more, Jillson says, “the dominant parties write the rules for the participation of third-party candidates, and they write them in a way as to make it as difficult for them as possible to participate.”
No matter how long her odds of winning, Stein is brimming with enthusiasm after her first campaign stop. She plans to build her strength and conserve resources on upcoming trips by staying with local Green Party supporters, many of whom “tend to have really healthy foods … or organic gardens in their backyards.”
“The trip to Illinois was … the first road test,” Stein says, “and it felt great.”
If Green Party political veteran Jill Stein were to visit Occupy Boston several times, and if she were to describe the Occupy Wall Street movement’s grievances as “synergistic” with her own policy beliefs, and if she were to unveil her campaign for the 2012 presidential race at the height of the national movement’s growth, would that make her the country’s first Occupy Wall Street candidate?
Others might use simple logic to come to a “yes” conclusion, but Stein says no.
“I would not [say I’m an Occupy Wall Street candidate], because I think they have to decide who their candidate is,” Stein says in a phone interview from Boston, her hometown.
But in the same breath, she highlights the seamlessness between her candidacy and the Occupy Wall Street movement, describing the warm reception she received when she stopped by the Occupy Chicago base during a recent campaign trip through Illinois.
“I would say, when I went and showed up in Chicago, there were people who came up to me who said, ‘Oh, you’re Jill Stein — I’m so glad you’re here. I’m so grateful for what you’re doing,’ ” she says.
Occupy Wall Street candidate or not, Stein is embracing the movement — and also taking the nation’s college students under her wing — in launching a long-shot bid for the White House as another in a long line of third-party candidates who have experienced various levels of success in shaking up presidential campaigns of the recent past.
Synergy
Stein started considering a run for the presidency when the debt-ceiling showdown took shape in Washington last spring.
“This [was] really a crisis of the president’s creation, so that was pretty problematic to start with,” she says. “Then when he put Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security on the chopping block … it seemed to me absolutely unconscionable for the president’s policies not to be challenged.”
Stein announced her presidential bid in late October. Her main policy platform is what she calls the “Green New Deal,” which she claims will end unemployment through government investments in energy efficiency, among other tools. She promises to protect citizens from the special interests of Wall Street and corporate America and sees her campaign as “filling the void of a national voice for the 99 percent.”
Sound familiar?
That the Occupy Wall Street movement emerged as Stein was plotting her presidential run is merely a coincidence, she says, but a great one at that.
“It was so exciting to hear the same agenda reflected back at us, especially from a younger generation,” she says. “It felt almost miraculous that this was happening.”
But she’s careful not to appear opportunistic.
“We are not looking to hijack them or force them to be electoral or force them in any way to shift from what they’re doing,” Stein says. “I think the chemistry between the two entities is rich and synergistic, and we’ll see where it goes.”
It remains unclear how willing the Occupy Wall Street activists are to embrace Stein. An Occupy Boston spokesman said the group doesn’t endorse politicians and was unsure whether Stein had made any lasting impression on his comrades.
“I do believe I have heard that name around camp, but I am pretty sure she has kept a low profile,” spokesman Ryan Cahill wrote in an email.
Students
Stein sees a more reliable base on college campuses, and her first campaign stop reflected that priority.
The candidate traveled to Macomb, Ill., after being invited to Western Illinois University’s mock presidential election, a two-week event that includes conventions, campaigns and nominations. Stein won 27 percent of the vote, coming in third behind President Obama and GOP candidate Mitt Romney.
“I was, of course, the only candidate interested enough to show up at this thing,” she says, conceding that WIU is “hardly a hotbed of activism for Green politics.”
“We are very excited at the resonance we’ve had with students in particular, and that will be a major priority for us,” Stein says. “The student group, Campus Greens in Western Illinois, is growing and helping other colleges start up groups.”
It’s not hard to understand why any college student facing an extraordinarily tough job market and student-loan repayments would take a second look at Stein’s candidacy. She proposes forgiveness of student-loan debt and a tuition-free option at public colleges and universities.
“Students are currently an indentured class — they graduate with loans, which they cannot pay without loans,” she says. “It’s very hard for them to be contributors to the economy.”
She’s hoping to grow her student support from the Midwest outward. Other than a 10-day tour through California in late November, her campaign hasn’t yet planned other stops — “We are at the threshold of developing our plans,” she says — but ideally, she’d like to have students accompany her along the campaign trail.
Political awakening
Stein is a 61-year-old physician who was recruited by the Green Party in 2002 to run for Massachusetts governor after having made a name for herself in advocacy. She was working on community-level solutions to obesity, cancer, learning disabilities and other public health issues when the Green Party asked her to consider politics.
“I was not a political animal, but I was approached by the Green Party at a time when I was waking up,” she says.
After losing the 2002 race, she mounted losing campaigns in 2004, for the Massachusetts House of Representatives; in 2006, for Massachusetts Commonwealth secretary; and in 2010, again for the governorship. She won races for Lexington Town Meeting representative in 2005 and 2008.
“To my mind, low vote counts are not a reflection of a failed campaign,” she says.
What’s come out of her serial candidacy, Stein says, is an organization that will help her attack the monumental task that third-party candidates confront every presidential cycle: obtaining enough signatures to appear on the ballot.
Former Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader says signature collection alone can consume a third-party campaign’s resources.
“By the time you finish, it’s Labor Day, and you’re exhausted, and you don’t have any money,” says Nader, adding that he sees promise in Stein. “She’s an M.D., which is a good advantage, since healthcare is a big issue … She has a good head on her shoulders.”
But if Nader faced an uphill battle in his two third-party presidential runs, Stein is looking at reaching for the impossible, one expert says.
While Nader had name recognition before entering electoral politics, “when you pick Jill Stein, you’re starting from zero,” says Southern Methodist University political science Professor Cal Jillson, noting that the only third-party presidential candidate to win was Abraham Lincoln in 1860.
What’s more, Jillson says, “the dominant parties write the rules for the participation of third-party candidates, and they write them in a way as to make it as difficult for them as possible to participate.”
No matter how long her odds of winning, Stein is brimming with enthusiasm after her first campaign stop. She plans to build her strength and conserve resources on upcoming trips by staying with local Green Party supporters, many of whom “tend to have really healthy foods … or organic gardens in their backyards.”
“The trip to Illinois was … the first road test,” Stein says, “and it felt great.”
Monday, November 28, 2011
The Struggle for Universal Health Care
by Margaret Flowers
Once my eyes were open, I couldn't ignore what was going on. Awareness crept up, starting with a sense that something was wrong. That sense led me to examine the suffering around me -- suffering rooted in the injustice of our health system. I cannot close my eyes on the human toll of corporate domination in this nation.
This is why I devote my time to working for a health system in the United States that meets the human rights principles of universality, equity, and accountability: a single-payer national health insurance. Anything less will prolong suffering and unnecessary death. Every person in this country must have access to the same high-quality standard of health care.
But it goes beyond that. The International Declaration of Human Rights states that every person has the right to reach the highest level of health possible. And so, beyond access to care, we must also insist that every person have a home in an environment that is free of violence and poisons, an education, a job with a living wage, access to clean water, and healthy food that is affordable. Every person must be treated with dignity and respect. This is what we who advocate for health aspire to achieve.
Many will say this is asking for too much. Throughout history, people who sought real social change were told this. The Abolitionists, the Suffragists, and activists in the Civil Rights Movement were all told they were demanding too much, but they didn't accept that criticism and continued on.
This is what my colleagues and I will do. Those of us who work for social and economic justice will persist in our work, not because we believe that we will attain our final goal in our lifetime, but because we must. If we don't do it, then who will?
And so what are the secrets of this work?
First is to know the "why" and to keep that always at the forefront.
Second is to know where I fit in. I do not necessarily expect to succeed in my lifetime. However, I will die knowing that I contributed all that I could to advance humanity in the direction of a healthier society. This movement is greater than me. I am a small part of a continuum of evolution toward the survival of our species.
And third is to work from a place of love -- love for yourself and love for all those around you. Love is constructive. Love is forgiving when you or somebody else makes a mistake. And love is optimistic during even the darkest days.
This is what I have learned and what I want to share with you.
Dr. Margaret Flowers is a pediatrician who serves as the congressional fellow for Physicians for a National Health Program and is on the board of Healthcare-Now. She is one of the "Baucus 8."
Once my eyes were open, I couldn't ignore what was going on. Awareness crept up, starting with a sense that something was wrong. That sense led me to examine the suffering around me -- suffering rooted in the injustice of our health system. I cannot close my eyes on the human toll of corporate domination in this nation.
This is why I devote my time to working for a health system in the United States that meets the human rights principles of universality, equity, and accountability: a single-payer national health insurance. Anything less will prolong suffering and unnecessary death. Every person in this country must have access to the same high-quality standard of health care.
But it goes beyond that. The International Declaration of Human Rights states that every person has the right to reach the highest level of health possible. And so, beyond access to care, we must also insist that every person have a home in an environment that is free of violence and poisons, an education, a job with a living wage, access to clean water, and healthy food that is affordable. Every person must be treated with dignity and respect. This is what we who advocate for health aspire to achieve.
Many will say this is asking for too much. Throughout history, people who sought real social change were told this. The Abolitionists, the Suffragists, and activists in the Civil Rights Movement were all told they were demanding too much, but they didn't accept that criticism and continued on.
This is what my colleagues and I will do. Those of us who work for social and economic justice will persist in our work, not because we believe that we will attain our final goal in our lifetime, but because we must. If we don't do it, then who will?
And so what are the secrets of this work?
First is to know the "why" and to keep that always at the forefront.
Second is to know where I fit in. I do not necessarily expect to succeed in my lifetime. However, I will die knowing that I contributed all that I could to advance humanity in the direction of a healthier society. This movement is greater than me. I am a small part of a continuum of evolution toward the survival of our species.
And third is to work from a place of love -- love for yourself and love for all those around you. Love is constructive. Love is forgiving when you or somebody else makes a mistake. And love is optimistic during even the darkest days.
This is what I have learned and what I want to share with you.
Dr. Margaret Flowers is a pediatrician who serves as the congressional fellow for Physicians for a National Health Program and is on the board of Healthcare-Now. She is one of the "Baucus 8."
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Doctors Support Occupy Wall Street Because Wall Street Is Occupying Health Care
PNHP
We support Occupy Wall Street because the private health insurance industry exemplifies the OWS movement’s central tenet: its unchecked corporate greed tramples human need.
We support OWS because economic and social inequalities make our patients sick.
We support OWS because we reject a system that forces us to treat patients differently based on the types of insurance they have and what kinds of treatments they can “afford.”
We support OWS because we believe in evidence, and evidence shows us that profit-driven health care raises costs and lowers quality. It’s unhealthy for the 99%; only CEOs and stockholders benefit.
We support OWS because our political leaders, held hostage by corporate money, reject evidence-based health policies such as a single payer reform that would save both lives and money.
We support OWS because the health care economy – like the overall economy –has more than sufficient resources to take care of 100%, but the resources are siphoned off by profit-driven corporations in the interest of the 1%.
We support OWS because we took the oath to do no harm, and our corrupt political and economic systems are doing all of us harm.
We support OWS because we are hopeful that we can change our society.
Join us!
We support Occupy Wall Street because the private health insurance industry exemplifies the OWS movement’s central tenet: its unchecked corporate greed tramples human need.
We support OWS because economic and social inequalities make our patients sick.
We support OWS because we reject a system that forces us to treat patients differently based on the types of insurance they have and what kinds of treatments they can “afford.”
We support OWS because we believe in evidence, and evidence shows us that profit-driven health care raises costs and lowers quality. It’s unhealthy for the 99%; only CEOs and stockholders benefit.
We support OWS because our political leaders, held hostage by corporate money, reject evidence-based health policies such as a single payer reform that would save both lives and money.
We support OWS because the health care economy – like the overall economy –has more than sufficient resources to take care of 100%, but the resources are siphoned off by profit-driven corporations in the interest of the 1%.
We support OWS because we took the oath to do no harm, and our corrupt political and economic systems are doing all of us harm.
We support OWS because we are hopeful that we can change our society.
Join us!
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Obama Silent In Wake Of Pepper Spray Torture, Jill Stein Speaks Out
Irregular Times
Barack Obama refuses to say a word against it.
In the latest incident in what’s become a nationwide streak of policy brutality against protesters in the Occupy Movement, police at UC Davis pepper sprayed a line of protesters who were doing nothing but sitting peacefully in a line on a sidewalk. A police officer walked back and forth, spraying the protesters until their faces were orange with the chemical weapon. Officers forced open protesters’ mouths to put the spray down their throats, causing one student to cough up blood for at least an hour.
As people watching the protest started chanting “Shame on you,” the police officer then pointed his canister of pepper spray at the crowd, to warn them to stop chanting.
Not once during this protest were the police under any threat of physical violence.
Barack Obama refuses to even acknowledge the incident, and other pepper spray attacks against peaceful protesters.
Instead of opposing the police crackdowns against nonviolent protests, Obama has supported the police assaults , issuing a statement through his Press Secretary that it’s up to local governments to do what they want with the protests. Furthermore, the Obama Administration seems to have, through the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, assisted police in developing plans to quash occupation protests across the country.
Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate for President in 2012, is countering Obama’s acceptance and assistance of police brutality against protesters with strong and clear opposition. Stein has called for the creation of an investigation by Congress of abusive law enforcement practices in the United States, and has pledged to undo the Homeland Security excesses that have led to the many pepper spray incidents against protesters in the Occupation Movement. “The President, as head of the executive branch, bears a responsibility to protect our citizens from infringement of their civil liberties. Should I become President, I would immediately issue an executive order to all federal agencies instructing them, in cases of peaceful assemblies of citizens, to oppose the use of militaristic assaults, intimidation, threats, or brutality. I would order the Department of Justice to stop conspiring against our people – and instead, work with the community to make sure that people’s rights are being respected. And I’d ask all agencies involved to ensure that the press is able to report on what happens, because the people have a right – and a need – to know,” Stein said in a press release.
At this point, I’d rather be pepper sprayed in the face than vote for Barack Obama. Jill Stein.looks like a good liberal alternative to me.
Barack Obama refuses to say a word against it.
In the latest incident in what’s become a nationwide streak of policy brutality against protesters in the Occupy Movement, police at UC Davis pepper sprayed a line of protesters who were doing nothing but sitting peacefully in a line on a sidewalk. A police officer walked back and forth, spraying the protesters until their faces were orange with the chemical weapon. Officers forced open protesters’ mouths to put the spray down their throats, causing one student to cough up blood for at least an hour.
As people watching the protest started chanting “Shame on you,” the police officer then pointed his canister of pepper spray at the crowd, to warn them to stop chanting.
Not once during this protest were the police under any threat of physical violence.
Barack Obama refuses to even acknowledge the incident, and other pepper spray attacks against peaceful protesters.
Instead of opposing the police crackdowns against nonviolent protests, Obama has supported the police assaults , issuing a statement through his Press Secretary that it’s up to local governments to do what they want with the protests. Furthermore, the Obama Administration seems to have, through the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, assisted police in developing plans to quash occupation protests across the country.
Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate for President in 2012, is countering Obama’s acceptance and assistance of police brutality against protesters with strong and clear opposition. Stein has called for the creation of an investigation by Congress of abusive law enforcement practices in the United States, and has pledged to undo the Homeland Security excesses that have led to the many pepper spray incidents against protesters in the Occupation Movement. “The President, as head of the executive branch, bears a responsibility to protect our citizens from infringement of their civil liberties. Should I become President, I would immediately issue an executive order to all federal agencies instructing them, in cases of peaceful assemblies of citizens, to oppose the use of militaristic assaults, intimidation, threats, or brutality. I would order the Department of Justice to stop conspiring against our people – and instead, work with the community to make sure that people’s rights are being respected. And I’d ask all agencies involved to ensure that the press is able to report on what happens, because the people have a right – and a need – to know,” Stein said in a press release.
At this point, I’d rather be pepper sprayed in the face than vote for Barack Obama. Jill Stein.looks like a good liberal alternative to me.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Six Green mayors sign on to letter from over 100 mayors opposing Keystone XL tar sands pipeline
GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES
http://www.gp.org/
WASHINGTON, DC -- Six Green mayors have signed on to a joint letter to President Obama from more than 100 mayors expressing grave concerns about the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.
The mayors, representing communities across the US, voiced relief at President Obama's decision to postpone the decision, as well as hope that the permit for the pipeline will be rejected when it comes up for review after the presidential election.
A summary of the letter, a link to the text, and a list of the mayors can be found online here: http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/sclefkowitz/over_100_mayors_voice_concern.html
The Green mayors who signed the letter are Larry Bragman (Fairfax, Calif.), Bruce Delgado (Marina, Calif.), David Doonan (Greenwich, NY), Gayle McLaughlin (Richmond, Calif.), Jim Sullivan (Victory, NY), and Jason West (New Paltz, NY). (Mayor Bragman signed after the web site was published.)
"The delay in the Keystone XL decision is a victory for all those who protested and spoke out about the dangers of the pipeline," said David Doonan. "The small number of jobs created by the pipeline do not justify the health risks of a pipeline carrying tar sands crude oil from Canada to the Gulf. We can create far more jobs through a national public works program that includes conversion to safe, clean energy technology. Besides the Keystone XL pipeline, the Green Party has called for a ban on hydrofracking, mountaintop removal mining, and offshore oil drilling, all of which increase fossil fuel addiction and represent serious public health risks."
Richmond, with a population of about 103,000, is the largest US city with a Green mayor. Mayor Gayle McLaughlin made news recently when she enthusiastically welcomed Occupy protests to Richmond (http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2011/11/09/one-bay-area-mayor-welcomes-occupy-protests-to-her-city).
Mayor Jason West made national news in 2003 when he solemnized same-sex weddings as mayor in defiance of state law, drawing 19 misdemeanor counts (later dismissed) and a restraining order. Same-sex marriage was legalized in New York in July, 2011.
See also:
Tar Sands Pipelines Safety Risks
National Resources Defense Council
http://www.nrdc.org/energy/tarsandssafetyrisks.asp
"Beyond Fossil Fuels"
By Cecile Lawrence, PhD, JD, New York Green Party candidate for US Senate in 2010
Green Papers, January 25, 2011
http://www.greenpapers.net/?p=58
http://www.gp.org/
WASHINGTON, DC -- Six Green mayors have signed on to a joint letter to President Obama from more than 100 mayors expressing grave concerns about the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.
The mayors, representing communities across the US, voiced relief at President Obama's decision to postpone the decision, as well as hope that the permit for the pipeline will be rejected when it comes up for review after the presidential election.
A summary of the letter, a link to the text, and a list of the mayors can be found online here: http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/sclefkowitz/over_100_mayors_voice_concern.html
The Green mayors who signed the letter are Larry Bragman (Fairfax, Calif.), Bruce Delgado (Marina, Calif.), David Doonan (Greenwich, NY), Gayle McLaughlin (Richmond, Calif.), Jim Sullivan (Victory, NY), and Jason West (New Paltz, NY). (Mayor Bragman signed after the web site was published.)
"The delay in the Keystone XL decision is a victory for all those who protested and spoke out about the dangers of the pipeline," said David Doonan. "The small number of jobs created by the pipeline do not justify the health risks of a pipeline carrying tar sands crude oil from Canada to the Gulf. We can create far more jobs through a national public works program that includes conversion to safe, clean energy technology. Besides the Keystone XL pipeline, the Green Party has called for a ban on hydrofracking, mountaintop removal mining, and offshore oil drilling, all of which increase fossil fuel addiction and represent serious public health risks."
Richmond, with a population of about 103,000, is the largest US city with a Green mayor. Mayor Gayle McLaughlin made news recently when she enthusiastically welcomed Occupy protests to Richmond (http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2011/11/09/one-bay-area-mayor-welcomes-occupy-protests-to-her-city).
Mayor Jason West made national news in 2003 when he solemnized same-sex weddings as mayor in defiance of state law, drawing 19 misdemeanor counts (later dismissed) and a restraining order. Same-sex marriage was legalized in New York in July, 2011.
See also:
Tar Sands Pipelines Safety Risks
National Resources Defense Council
http://www.nrdc.org/energy/tarsandssafetyrisks.asp
"Beyond Fossil Fuels"
By Cecile Lawrence, PhD, JD, New York Green Party candidate for US Senate in 2010
Green Papers, January 25, 2011
http://www.greenpapers.net/?p=58
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
JOBS WITH JUSTICE: TAKE ACTION!
dcjwj.org
Since Occupy DC began two months ago, we’ve seen perpetual street heat, with actions almost daily and sometimes twice a day to confront corporate power and support the demands of the 99%. DC Jobs with Justice is continuing our campaigns to hold Walmart accountable, win a fair contract for Verizon workers, fight wage theft, and defend immigrant rights in DC, while also looking for opportunities to join together other struggles. Please join us the next two weeks for actions, teach-ins and discussion!
*Thurs, Nov. 17th: Labor –Community – Occupy Day of Action!
*Mon, Nov. 21st, 12:30pm: Save the US Postal Service action
*Mon, Nov. 21st, 5:30pm: Vigil in Solidarity with Alabama Families
*Mon, Nov. 21st, 6:30pm: Dialogue on Community Needs and Community Spaces
*Dec. 5th, 6:30pm: Paid Sick Days campaign briefing
*Nominate Scrooge of the Year!
*Labor –Community – Occupy Day of Action!
Thursday, Nov. 21st
Join union members, community members, and members of Occupy DC for a day of marches and teach-ins focused on good jobs! Join any part of the day. Schedule of activities:
10am – 10:30: Verizon workers and CWA members will gather at the Giant/Home Depot Parking lot at 901 Rhode Island NE for a brief rally and then march downtown to join Occupy DC. List of stops along march route and times available here: http://www.dclabor.org/ht/display/EventDetails/i/99621
Noon: Washington Teachers’ Union Teach- on public education reform and local education issues at McPherson Square (15th and K, NW)
2:30pm: March on the Key Bridge in Georgetown in protest of the deterioration of our public infrastructure and public services. March will leave from McPherson Square and join OUR DC to call on Congress to create jobs, stop cuts, and fix our crumbling infrastructure. Rally at Key Bridge will continue through rush hour. Join us there!
*Rally to Save the US Postal Service
Monday, Nov. 21st
12:30 p.m.
National Press Club, 529 14th St. NW (Metro Center)
Fight Back Against Union-Busting, Layoffs, and Service Cuts! The Postal Service is pushing to cut over 100,000 jobs and close down hundreds of post offices nationwide in order to save money, even though USPS has made a net profit of more than $600 million sorting and delivering the mail the past four years. At a time of record unemployment and inequality, USPS is attacking union contracts, pushing privatization, cutting good jobs, and scaling back services. Join Occupy DC and the National Association of Letter Carriers to rally outside of the National Press Club where Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe will be speaking. You've got mail. And you are 99 percent!
*Vigil in Solidarity with Alabama Families
Monday, Nov. 21st
5:30pm
Lafayette Park in front of the White House (16th and H, NW – gather by the status in the center of the park)
Stand Up Against Racial Profiling, Stand Up for Immigrant Rights! Alabama recently passed the harshest immigration law in the country. Modeled on Arizona’s “paper please” law, Alabama’s HB 56 mandates racial profiling and discrimination. This coming Monday, Nov. 21, the Alabama Coalition for Immigrant Justice will launch its “One Family, One Alabama” campaign to repeal HB 56. Communities around the country will be standing in solidarity with their efforts to repeal this hateful law. Join us in Washington, DC for a vigil to show solidarity with families in Alabama and call on our leaders in Washington, DC to intervene to halt implementation of this law and others like it.
*Public Dialogue on Community Needs and Community Spaces
Monday, Nov. 21st
6:30 PM
Asbury United Methodist Church, 11th and K St NW
On Wall Street, on K Street, and around the country, thousands of people are Occupying public spaces, highlighting the failures of our government in ensuring that people’s basic needs are met, and creating a new vision of direct democracy and mutual aid. Here in DC, we have a long history of communities organizing to protect public services and public property, as well as creating community-run alternatives to meet our needs. What are the needs that you see in your community? How can we work together to make the transformations you want to see? Join us for a community meeting to discuss our visions for vibrant, valuable spaces that our city needs and the ways we can get there! For childcare rsvp to 202-420-1707. Co-sponsored by: Empower DC, One DC, DC Jobs with Justice and the Washington Peace Center.
Paid Sick Days for Tipped Workers Briefing
Monday, Dec. 5th
6:30 PM to 9:00 PM
SEIU 32BJ offices, 1025 Vermont Ave NW, 7th floor
Learn about the campaign to extend DC’s paid sick days law to cover tipped workers. Event will feature workers' testimonials, campaign training, and dinner! RSVP online at: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/2486166190.
*Not too late to nominate your Scrooge of the Year!
The race for this year’s Scrooge Award is sure to be a close one. The award – given to the person or company that did the most “dastardly deeds” to working people in Washington, DC this year – could go to anyone, from Verizon to Solanges Vivens (CEO of healthcare contractor VMT) and the field is still wide open. Don’t let a bad boss go unrewarded! Nominate your scrooge here:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/23HGMGF
Once the nominations are in you’ll have the chance to vote for your favorite Scrooge and then attend our Winter Cabaret on Dec. 10th where we’ll unveil the winner!
Help build the movement for workers' rights in the District. Become a sustainer https://secure.ga6.org/08/DCdonate
Visit http://www.dcjwj.org/ for updates news, actions, and events.
Since Occupy DC began two months ago, we’ve seen perpetual street heat, with actions almost daily and sometimes twice a day to confront corporate power and support the demands of the 99%. DC Jobs with Justice is continuing our campaigns to hold Walmart accountable, win a fair contract for Verizon workers, fight wage theft, and defend immigrant rights in DC, while also looking for opportunities to join together other struggles. Please join us the next two weeks for actions, teach-ins and discussion!
*Thurs, Nov. 17th: Labor –Community – Occupy Day of Action!
*Mon, Nov. 21st, 12:30pm: Save the US Postal Service action
*Mon, Nov. 21st, 5:30pm: Vigil in Solidarity with Alabama Families
*Mon, Nov. 21st, 6:30pm: Dialogue on Community Needs and Community Spaces
*Dec. 5th, 6:30pm: Paid Sick Days campaign briefing
*Nominate Scrooge of the Year!
*Labor –Community – Occupy Day of Action!
Thursday, Nov. 21st
Join union members, community members, and members of Occupy DC for a day of marches and teach-ins focused on good jobs! Join any part of the day. Schedule of activities:
10am – 10:30: Verizon workers and CWA members will gather at the Giant/Home Depot Parking lot at 901 Rhode Island NE for a brief rally and then march downtown to join Occupy DC. List of stops along march route and times available here: http://www.dclabor.org/ht/display/EventDetails/i/99621
Noon: Washington Teachers’ Union Teach- on public education reform and local education issues at McPherson Square (15th and K, NW)
2:30pm: March on the Key Bridge in Georgetown in protest of the deterioration of our public infrastructure and public services. March will leave from McPherson Square and join OUR DC to call on Congress to create jobs, stop cuts, and fix our crumbling infrastructure. Rally at Key Bridge will continue through rush hour. Join us there!
*Rally to Save the US Postal Service
Monday, Nov. 21st
12:30 p.m.
National Press Club, 529 14th St. NW (Metro Center)
Fight Back Against Union-Busting, Layoffs, and Service Cuts! The Postal Service is pushing to cut over 100,000 jobs and close down hundreds of post offices nationwide in order to save money, even though USPS has made a net profit of more than $600 million sorting and delivering the mail the past four years. At a time of record unemployment and inequality, USPS is attacking union contracts, pushing privatization, cutting good jobs, and scaling back services. Join Occupy DC and the National Association of Letter Carriers to rally outside of the National Press Club where Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe will be speaking. You've got mail. And you are 99 percent!
*Vigil in Solidarity with Alabama Families
Monday, Nov. 21st
5:30pm
Lafayette Park in front of the White House (16th and H, NW – gather by the status in the center of the park)
Stand Up Against Racial Profiling, Stand Up for Immigrant Rights! Alabama recently passed the harshest immigration law in the country. Modeled on Arizona’s “paper please” law, Alabama’s HB 56 mandates racial profiling and discrimination. This coming Monday, Nov. 21, the Alabama Coalition for Immigrant Justice will launch its “One Family, One Alabama” campaign to repeal HB 56. Communities around the country will be standing in solidarity with their efforts to repeal this hateful law. Join us in Washington, DC for a vigil to show solidarity with families in Alabama and call on our leaders in Washington, DC to intervene to halt implementation of this law and others like it.
*Public Dialogue on Community Needs and Community Spaces
Monday, Nov. 21st
6:30 PM
Asbury United Methodist Church, 11th and K St NW
On Wall Street, on K Street, and around the country, thousands of people are Occupying public spaces, highlighting the failures of our government in ensuring that people’s basic needs are met, and creating a new vision of direct democracy and mutual aid. Here in DC, we have a long history of communities organizing to protect public services and public property, as well as creating community-run alternatives to meet our needs. What are the needs that you see in your community? How can we work together to make the transformations you want to see? Join us for a community meeting to discuss our visions for vibrant, valuable spaces that our city needs and the ways we can get there! For childcare rsvp to 202-420-1707. Co-sponsored by: Empower DC, One DC, DC Jobs with Justice and the Washington Peace Center.
Paid Sick Days for Tipped Workers Briefing
Monday, Dec. 5th
6:30 PM to 9:00 PM
SEIU 32BJ offices, 1025 Vermont Ave NW, 7th floor
Learn about the campaign to extend DC’s paid sick days law to cover tipped workers. Event will feature workers' testimonials, campaign training, and dinner! RSVP online at: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/2486166190.
*Not too late to nominate your Scrooge of the Year!
The race for this year’s Scrooge Award is sure to be a close one. The award – given to the person or company that did the most “dastardly deeds” to working people in Washington, DC this year – could go to anyone, from Verizon to Solanges Vivens (CEO of healthcare contractor VMT) and the field is still wide open. Don’t let a bad boss go unrewarded! Nominate your scrooge here:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/23HGMGF
Once the nominations are in you’ll have the chance to vote for your favorite Scrooge and then attend our Winter Cabaret on Dec. 10th where we’ll unveil the winner!
Help build the movement for workers' rights in the District. Become a sustainer https://secure.ga6.org/08/DCdonate
Visit http://www.dcjwj.org/ for updates news, actions, and events.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
War Is a Force That Pays the 1 Percent: Occupying American Foreign Policy
Truthout.org
If the last decade was the era of occupations that everyone called liberations, then the 99 percent movement is seeking to make this the era of liberations everyone calls occupations.
"It's clear that the interests of the majority of people in this country do not align with the military-industrial complex who put corporate profiteering based on destruction ahead of the needs of people," said Alex Kane, a journalist and activist. "The nexus of power that Occupy is looking to challenge in this country does not stop at Wall Street. Military profiteering is an integral part of the system and it should be challenged."
The "liberation" of Afghanistan has yielded a corrupt government in Kabul, where Hamid Karzai, the former CIA-paid fundraiser for the Mujahideen, is positioning himself as chief lapdog for the Taliban and the ISI (the Pakistan intelligence agency), this alliance acting alongside American bombs to create, in the words of one member of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, "no positive change." Well, no positive change for some. For others, like Karzai's wealthy friends, embezzling great chunks of the $70 billion worth of security assistance and development projects American taxpayers have spent in Afghanistan since the invasion has yielded quite a large chunk of positive change.
The "liberation" of Iraq was so successful that America is getting all her troops out of there by the end of 2011, unless you count the thousands of mercenaries who will remain there to enrich their corporate ownership on the 99 percent's dime. The Obama administration would also like you please to ignore its forthcoming troop buildup in the region simultaneous to the "withdrawal" from Iraq and the huge amount of money it will cost American taxpayers, who are told we're too broke to stimulate the economy.
America appears to have "liberated" Libya right into quasi-theocratic governance, its transitional government announcing that the decision regarding what to do with the body of its summarily raped and executed former dictator would be taken by the head of the Islamic Fatwa society. This is not actually a problem for America, whose mind is on other things. "It may not be quite the country that NATO thought it was fighting for (when Sharia is implemented in Libya)," said Libya expert David Hartwell, senior analyst at HIS Jane's. "But the huge amounts of oil and gas in Libya will make everyone learn how to reconcile themselves with the new Libya."
The state of these "liberations" all point to the great need for a different type of liberation, that of American democracy from the corporate interests that pull its levers to facilitate their accumulation of wealth. That is precisely the focus of the Wall Street occupiers, whose movement has attracted solidarity occupations and protests in cities around the world.
The 1 percent knows what good business war is, owing partly to America's seemingly insatiable will to spend its money on military affairs and the ease with which the national security state can be gamed to furnish private corporations with windfall profit-yielding public contracts. More than half of the discretionary budget is devoted to military matters, as though there were no use for that money domestically. Rakaa Iriscience of Dilated Peoples puts it well in the aptly titled "Big Business": "If more than half the budget goes to military spending, less than half goes to whatever it's defending."
And the 1 percent are making out like bandits. Robert Greenwald provides a handy comparison at Firedog Lake (http://my.firedoglake.com/robertgreenwald/2011/10/27/77853/)
Military Contractor CEO Pay in 2010
Northrop Grumman CEO Wes Bush: $22.84 million.
Lockheed Martin CEO Robert Stevens: $21.89 million.
Boeing CEO James McNerney: $19.4 million.
Financial Sector CEO Pay in 2010
JP Morgan Chase CEO James Dimon: $20.81 million.
Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf: $18.97 million.
Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan: $1.94 million.
Lobbying Expenditures for 2010
Lockheed Martin: $12.7 million.
Northrop Grumman: $15.7 million.
Boeing: $17.89 million.
JP Morgan Chase:$7.41 million.
Wells Fargo: $5.43 million.
Bank of America: $3.98 million.
War profiteers benefit from the same corrupt system that bolsters the wealth of stock traders: this country provides more democracy, freedom and protection to the very wealthy than to the average citizen.
Mercenaries with well-placed lobbyists get off scot-free for massacres, while staggering numbers of poor people of color (who have no lobbyists) are imprisoned and disenfranchised for nonviolent attempts to survive in a jobless economy. Every time we are told about the lack of money available for teachers and home heating assistance for the poor, we should recall that the Pentagon simply lost more than $6 billion in Iraq, and there is no serious attempt afoot to account for it.
Instead of facing justice, the mercenary industry continues to receive snuggles and handouts from our highest democratic leadership. Jeremy Scahill reports that the Obama administration has furnished Chicago mercenary firm Triple Canopy with millions of dollars to continue where Blackwater left off in Iraq.
Surely, this is not the democracy that Iraq war veterans Scott Olson and Kayvan Sabeghi were hoping to export to other countries. Now, both have been nearly killed in crackdowns on dissent by police officers sworn to uphold a document prohibiting governmental abridgement of the right of the people peaceably to assemble. Protesters spurred on by the Occupy movement have already surrounded the White House to protest special favors paid to the 1 percent by the government at the expense of atrocities; perhaps they'll head to the Pentagon next.
Or perhaps, as with the Move Your Money campaign and foreclosure resistance, they won't only protest, but also take direct self-reliant action to confront the system. "It is no secret that Israel receives $3.1 billion per year in military aid from the United States," says Anna Lekas-Miller, a New York University student who spends a lot of time at Liberty Plaza. "However, what many Americans are not aware of, is that their investments and retirement funds are directly invested in companies that fund and facilitate the occupation of Palestine rather than to education or healthcare in the United States. Let's empower ourselves on how to stop corporations in the United States from wreaking havoc on the world."
If the last decade was the era of occupations that everyone called liberations, then the 99 percent movement is seeking to make this the era of liberations everyone calls occupations.
"It's clear that the interests of the majority of people in this country do not align with the military-industrial complex who put corporate profiteering based on destruction ahead of the needs of people," said Alex Kane, a journalist and activist. "The nexus of power that Occupy is looking to challenge in this country does not stop at Wall Street. Military profiteering is an integral part of the system and it should be challenged."
The "liberation" of Afghanistan has yielded a corrupt government in Kabul, where Hamid Karzai, the former CIA-paid fundraiser for the Mujahideen, is positioning himself as chief lapdog for the Taliban and the ISI (the Pakistan intelligence agency), this alliance acting alongside American bombs to create, in the words of one member of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, "no positive change." Well, no positive change for some. For others, like Karzai's wealthy friends, embezzling great chunks of the $70 billion worth of security assistance and development projects American taxpayers have spent in Afghanistan since the invasion has yielded quite a large chunk of positive change.
The "liberation" of Iraq was so successful that America is getting all her troops out of there by the end of 2011, unless you count the thousands of mercenaries who will remain there to enrich their corporate ownership on the 99 percent's dime. The Obama administration would also like you please to ignore its forthcoming troop buildup in the region simultaneous to the "withdrawal" from Iraq and the huge amount of money it will cost American taxpayers, who are told we're too broke to stimulate the economy.
America appears to have "liberated" Libya right into quasi-theocratic governance, its transitional government announcing that the decision regarding what to do with the body of its summarily raped and executed former dictator would be taken by the head of the Islamic Fatwa society. This is not actually a problem for America, whose mind is on other things. "It may not be quite the country that NATO thought it was fighting for (when Sharia is implemented in Libya)," said Libya expert David Hartwell, senior analyst at HIS Jane's. "But the huge amounts of oil and gas in Libya will make everyone learn how to reconcile themselves with the new Libya."
The state of these "liberations" all point to the great need for a different type of liberation, that of American democracy from the corporate interests that pull its levers to facilitate their accumulation of wealth. That is precisely the focus of the Wall Street occupiers, whose movement has attracted solidarity occupations and protests in cities around the world.
The 1 percent knows what good business war is, owing partly to America's seemingly insatiable will to spend its money on military affairs and the ease with which the national security state can be gamed to furnish private corporations with windfall profit-yielding public contracts. More than half of the discretionary budget is devoted to military matters, as though there were no use for that money domestically. Rakaa Iriscience of Dilated Peoples puts it well in the aptly titled "Big Business": "If more than half the budget goes to military spending, less than half goes to whatever it's defending."
And the 1 percent are making out like bandits. Robert Greenwald provides a handy comparison at Firedog Lake (http://my.firedoglake.com/robertgreenwald/2011/10/27/77853/)
Military Contractor CEO Pay in 2010
Northrop Grumman CEO Wes Bush: $22.84 million.
Lockheed Martin CEO Robert Stevens: $21.89 million.
Boeing CEO James McNerney: $19.4 million.
Financial Sector CEO Pay in 2010
JP Morgan Chase CEO James Dimon: $20.81 million.
Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf: $18.97 million.
Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan: $1.94 million.
Lobbying Expenditures for 2010
Lockheed Martin: $12.7 million.
Northrop Grumman: $15.7 million.
Boeing: $17.89 million.
JP Morgan Chase:$7.41 million.
Wells Fargo: $5.43 million.
Bank of America: $3.98 million.
War profiteers benefit from the same corrupt system that bolsters the wealth of stock traders: this country provides more democracy, freedom and protection to the very wealthy than to the average citizen.
Mercenaries with well-placed lobbyists get off scot-free for massacres, while staggering numbers of poor people of color (who have no lobbyists) are imprisoned and disenfranchised for nonviolent attempts to survive in a jobless economy. Every time we are told about the lack of money available for teachers and home heating assistance for the poor, we should recall that the Pentagon simply lost more than $6 billion in Iraq, and there is no serious attempt afoot to account for it.
Instead of facing justice, the mercenary industry continues to receive snuggles and handouts from our highest democratic leadership. Jeremy Scahill reports that the Obama administration has furnished Chicago mercenary firm Triple Canopy with millions of dollars to continue where Blackwater left off in Iraq.
Surely, this is not the democracy that Iraq war veterans Scott Olson and Kayvan Sabeghi were hoping to export to other countries. Now, both have been nearly killed in crackdowns on dissent by police officers sworn to uphold a document prohibiting governmental abridgement of the right of the people peaceably to assemble. Protesters spurred on by the Occupy movement have already surrounded the White House to protest special favors paid to the 1 percent by the government at the expense of atrocities; perhaps they'll head to the Pentagon next.
Or perhaps, as with the Move Your Money campaign and foreclosure resistance, they won't only protest, but also take direct self-reliant action to confront the system. "It is no secret that Israel receives $3.1 billion per year in military aid from the United States," says Anna Lekas-Miller, a New York University student who spends a lot of time at Liberty Plaza. "However, what many Americans are not aware of, is that their investments and retirement funds are directly invested in companies that fund and facilitate the occupation of Palestine rather than to education or healthcare in the United States. Let's empower ourselves on how to stop corporations in the United States from wreaking havoc on the world."
As some Occupy Movement participants turn to electoral activism, the Green Party sends them an invitation
GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES
http://www.gp.org/
Greens condemn orders for police to clear Occupy encampments in Oakland, California and New York's Zuccotti Park
WASHINGTON, DC -- As some participants in the Occupy Movement across the US begin to turn towards involvement in elections, Green Party leaders are inviting them to run for office as Greens and to support Green candidates.
"The Green Party encourages those Occupiers who want to have an effect on the 2012 elections to help us build a permanent alternative party that represents the interests of We The People -- the 99 percent -- instead of banks, oil companies, arms manufacturers, insurance firms, and other powerful lobbies. The Green Party accepts no money from corporate PACs. Our platform reflects the values and demands of Occupy Wall Street," said Kent Mesplay, candidate for the Green Party's 2012 presidential nomination (http://www.mesplay.org).
• Breaking News: Greens condemned the police clearance of the Occupy Oakland encampment and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's order for police to evict the Occupy Wall Street encampment at Zuccotti Park on November 15. New York Greens are offering assistance in the form of emergency housing, arrest support, and food and expressed hope that the court order obtained by the National Lawyers Guild would allow the encampment to continue. Greens noted that the clearances and other police actions in various cities will swell the November 17 Day of Action (http://occupywallst.org/action/november-17th). (See "Eviction of Wall Street Occupation Exposes Mayor's Corporate Collusion, Says NY Green Party," Green Party of New York State press release, Nov. 15, http://www.gp.org/press/pr-state.php?ID=459
Occupy Wall Street in New York City and other Occupy protests have declared that they do not endorse any political party and that the demonstrations are not a venue for electioneering. The Green Party has respected and cooperated with this request (http://www.gp.org/press/pr-national.php?ID=453).
But many Occupiers have begun to embrace electoral participation as a strategy for challenging the corporate corruption and the erosion of democracy in the US http://www.occupytheballot.org/ Occupy Cincinnati demonstrators are working to establish their own party http://www.denverpost.com/nationworld/ci_19279413/ http://www.occupationparty.org/) Carl Mayer, public defender and long-time Ralph Nader/Green Party supporter, recently spoke before Occupy Wall Street in Zuccotti Park and expressed "his hopes of the OWS movement's becoming a viable third party in the future" (http://www.policymic.com/articles/2251/carl-mayer-speaks-at-zuccotti-park-says-ows-can-be-third-party).
"The Green Party, as an established national party, has laid a foundation for Occupy candidates to run for public office," said Budd Dickinson, secretary of the Green Party of the United States. "In many states, Greens have accomplished the difficult task of achieving ballot status, overcoming prohibitive rules enacted by Democratic and Republican politicians to hinder alternative parties and candidates. By allying themselves with the Green Party, by becoming the Green Party in some states and towns, Occupiers who wish to launch campaigns for office can take advantage of the infrastructure and experience we've been building for more than a decade."
In New York, the Green Party gained major-party status through Howie Hawkins' campaign for governor in 2010, fulfilling the state's difficult requirements and earning the Green Party of New York State its place on the 2012 ballot. New York Greens have been active participants in Occupy Wall Street since the protests began in September. (See "Hawkins Blasts Cuomo for Arrests at Occupy Albany," Nov. 14, http://www.web.gpnys.com/?p=11207
"If the policy goals and legislative agenda of the Green Party and Occupy Movement participants who wish to pursue electoral activism are the same, there's no reason we should compete with each other in 2012. Nor do we want to see the Occupy Movement exploited by the Democratic Party and front groups like MoveOn.org or the American Dream movement, which seek to corral people sympathetic to the Occupy Movement into voting Democratic and reelecting Barack Obama. There is no hope for the Occupy agenda as long as the US is stuck in the two-party status quo. Elections aren't the only way to effect social change, but change must including replacing the corporate-money politicians who now hold public office. We appeal to those who support Occupy Wall Street -- help the Green Party emerge as a major party," said Audrey Clement, co-chair of the Green Party of the United States.
"Without Green Party candidates to vote for, the demands of movements like Occupy get ignored, because their votes are routinely taken for granted by Democratic politicians who know that progressive voters have nowhere else to take their votes," said David Doonan, Green Mayor of Greenwich, New York.
The Occupy Movement's demands, such as an end to the legal status of corporations as 'persons', a halt to home foreclosures in the wake of the Subprime Mortgage Crisis, rejection of an austerity budget that burdens working people and the poor, requiring corporations and the wealthy to pay their fair share in taxes, a ban on hydrofracking, and withdrawal of all US military forces from Afghanistan and Iraq (including private contractors, which President Obama intends to keep in Iraq after 2011) reflect the Green Party's positions.
The Green Party also supports Medicare For All (single-payer national health care) and rejects the Democratic health care bill passed in 2010, which requires Americans to subsidize the for-profit insurance industry through 'mandates' to purchase private coverage or pay a penalty. The party also supports a massive public works program to include millions of new green jobs in conservation, conversion to safe clean energy, expansion of public transportation, and other efforts to curb the advance of global climate change.
The Green Party's goals are summarized in the 'Green New Deal' adopted by Green candidates across the US (http://www.greenpartywatch.org/2010/08/11/62-green-candidates-endorse-green-new-deal/). The Green Party will nominate a presidential candidate at its 2012 national convention, at a site to be announced.
Greens have warned that the Occupy Movement and its agenda may be eclipsed by late spring 2012 as the media focus on the debate between the Democratic and Republican candidates for the White House.
"No one can pretend that either of the establishment parties -- the Democrats and Republicans -- represents the Occupy Movement in any way," said Jill Stein, candidate for the Green Party's 2012 presidential nomination (http://www.jillstein.org/). "President Obama campaigned in 2008 as the candidate of change, but after taking office he simply continued the pro-war and pro-Wall Street policies of the Bush Administration, with troop surges and bank bailouts and attacks on social programs under the guise of deficit reduction. We need to create eight times more jobs than are promised by his inadequate 'jobs bill' and we need to stop his attempts to create job-destroying trade pacts with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea. I'm glad he backed down from his climate-destroying threat to approve the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada, but we know that without a long-term political pressure, schemes to exhaust the tar sands into the atmosphere will be back on the table. This is the time for a principled opposition party to emerge and give an effective voice to all those who are suffering under the current Republican/Democratic doctrines. Greens and OWS together are a formidable force to take our democracy back.
See also:
"Green Party calls for a nationwide moratorium on home foreclosures"
Green Party press release, November 3, 2011
http://www.gp.org/press/pr-national.php?ID=458
"Occupy Wall Street looks ahead to 2012"
By Justin Elliott, Salon.com, November 11, 2011
http://www.salon.com/2011/11/11/occupy_wall_street_looks_ahead_to_2012/singleton/
"One Bay Area mayor WELCOMES Occupy protests to her city"
("At least one Bay Area mayor is actually welcoming the Occupy Wall Street movement to her city: [Green] Richmond Mayor Gayle McLaughlin.")
By Joe Garofoli, Politics Blog, San Francisco Chronicle, November 9, 2011
http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2011/11/09/one-bay-area-mayor-welcomes-occupy-protests-to-her-city/
http://www.gp.org/
Greens condemn orders for police to clear Occupy encampments in Oakland, California and New York's Zuccotti Park
WASHINGTON, DC -- As some participants in the Occupy Movement across the US begin to turn towards involvement in elections, Green Party leaders are inviting them to run for office as Greens and to support Green candidates.
"The Green Party encourages those Occupiers who want to have an effect on the 2012 elections to help us build a permanent alternative party that represents the interests of We The People -- the 99 percent -- instead of banks, oil companies, arms manufacturers, insurance firms, and other powerful lobbies. The Green Party accepts no money from corporate PACs. Our platform reflects the values and demands of Occupy Wall Street," said Kent Mesplay, candidate for the Green Party's 2012 presidential nomination (http://www.mesplay.org).
• Breaking News: Greens condemned the police clearance of the Occupy Oakland encampment and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's order for police to evict the Occupy Wall Street encampment at Zuccotti Park on November 15. New York Greens are offering assistance in the form of emergency housing, arrest support, and food and expressed hope that the court order obtained by the National Lawyers Guild would allow the encampment to continue. Greens noted that the clearances and other police actions in various cities will swell the November 17 Day of Action (http://occupywallst.org/action/november-17th). (See "Eviction of Wall Street Occupation Exposes Mayor's Corporate Collusion, Says NY Green Party," Green Party of New York State press release, Nov. 15, http://www.gp.org/press/pr-state.php?ID=459
Occupy Wall Street in New York City and other Occupy protests have declared that they do not endorse any political party and that the demonstrations are not a venue for electioneering. The Green Party has respected and cooperated with this request (http://www.gp.org/press/pr-national.php?ID=453).
But many Occupiers have begun to embrace electoral participation as a strategy for challenging the corporate corruption and the erosion of democracy in the US http://www.occupytheballot.org/ Occupy Cincinnati demonstrators are working to establish their own party http://www.denverpost.com/nationworld/ci_19279413/ http://www.occupationparty.org/) Carl Mayer, public defender and long-time Ralph Nader/Green Party supporter, recently spoke before Occupy Wall Street in Zuccotti Park and expressed "his hopes of the OWS movement's becoming a viable third party in the future" (http://www.policymic.com/articles/2251/carl-mayer-speaks-at-zuccotti-park-says-ows-can-be-third-party).
"The Green Party, as an established national party, has laid a foundation for Occupy candidates to run for public office," said Budd Dickinson, secretary of the Green Party of the United States. "In many states, Greens have accomplished the difficult task of achieving ballot status, overcoming prohibitive rules enacted by Democratic and Republican politicians to hinder alternative parties and candidates. By allying themselves with the Green Party, by becoming the Green Party in some states and towns, Occupiers who wish to launch campaigns for office can take advantage of the infrastructure and experience we've been building for more than a decade."
In New York, the Green Party gained major-party status through Howie Hawkins' campaign for governor in 2010, fulfilling the state's difficult requirements and earning the Green Party of New York State its place on the 2012 ballot. New York Greens have been active participants in Occupy Wall Street since the protests began in September. (See "Hawkins Blasts Cuomo for Arrests at Occupy Albany," Nov. 14, http://www.web.gpnys.com/?p=11207
"If the policy goals and legislative agenda of the Green Party and Occupy Movement participants who wish to pursue electoral activism are the same, there's no reason we should compete with each other in 2012. Nor do we want to see the Occupy Movement exploited by the Democratic Party and front groups like MoveOn.org or the American Dream movement, which seek to corral people sympathetic to the Occupy Movement into voting Democratic and reelecting Barack Obama. There is no hope for the Occupy agenda as long as the US is stuck in the two-party status quo. Elections aren't the only way to effect social change, but change must including replacing the corporate-money politicians who now hold public office. We appeal to those who support Occupy Wall Street -- help the Green Party emerge as a major party," said Audrey Clement, co-chair of the Green Party of the United States.
"Without Green Party candidates to vote for, the demands of movements like Occupy get ignored, because their votes are routinely taken for granted by Democratic politicians who know that progressive voters have nowhere else to take their votes," said David Doonan, Green Mayor of Greenwich, New York.
The Occupy Movement's demands, such as an end to the legal status of corporations as 'persons', a halt to home foreclosures in the wake of the Subprime Mortgage Crisis, rejection of an austerity budget that burdens working people and the poor, requiring corporations and the wealthy to pay their fair share in taxes, a ban on hydrofracking, and withdrawal of all US military forces from Afghanistan and Iraq (including private contractors, which President Obama intends to keep in Iraq after 2011) reflect the Green Party's positions.
The Green Party also supports Medicare For All (single-payer national health care) and rejects the Democratic health care bill passed in 2010, which requires Americans to subsidize the for-profit insurance industry through 'mandates' to purchase private coverage or pay a penalty. The party also supports a massive public works program to include millions of new green jobs in conservation, conversion to safe clean energy, expansion of public transportation, and other efforts to curb the advance of global climate change.
The Green Party's goals are summarized in the 'Green New Deal' adopted by Green candidates across the US (http://www.greenpartywatch.org/2010/08/11/62-green-candidates-endorse-green-new-deal/). The Green Party will nominate a presidential candidate at its 2012 national convention, at a site to be announced.
Greens have warned that the Occupy Movement and its agenda may be eclipsed by late spring 2012 as the media focus on the debate between the Democratic and Republican candidates for the White House.
"No one can pretend that either of the establishment parties -- the Democrats and Republicans -- represents the Occupy Movement in any way," said Jill Stein, candidate for the Green Party's 2012 presidential nomination (http://www.jillstein.org/). "President Obama campaigned in 2008 as the candidate of change, but after taking office he simply continued the pro-war and pro-Wall Street policies of the Bush Administration, with troop surges and bank bailouts and attacks on social programs under the guise of deficit reduction. We need to create eight times more jobs than are promised by his inadequate 'jobs bill' and we need to stop his attempts to create job-destroying trade pacts with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea. I'm glad he backed down from his climate-destroying threat to approve the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada, but we know that without a long-term political pressure, schemes to exhaust the tar sands into the atmosphere will be back on the table. This is the time for a principled opposition party to emerge and give an effective voice to all those who are suffering under the current Republican/Democratic doctrines. Greens and OWS together are a formidable force to take our democracy back.
See also:
"Green Party calls for a nationwide moratorium on home foreclosures"
Green Party press release, November 3, 2011
http://www.gp.org/press/pr-national.php?ID=458
"Occupy Wall Street looks ahead to 2012"
By Justin Elliott, Salon.com, November 11, 2011
http://www.salon.com/2011/11/11/occupy_wall_street_looks_ahead_to_2012/singleton/
"One Bay Area mayor WELCOMES Occupy protests to her city"
("At least one Bay Area mayor is actually welcoming the Occupy Wall Street movement to her city: [Green] Richmond Mayor Gayle McLaughlin.")
By Joe Garofoli, Politics Blog, San Francisco Chronicle, November 9, 2011
http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2011/11/09/one-bay-area-mayor-welcomes-occupy-protests-to-her-city/
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Why are we here?
By Claudia Fegan, M.D.
[Note: The following remarks were delivered to the participants in this year’s PNHP Leadership Training Institute in Washington, D.C.]
Why are we here?
We are here because every patient deserves to be treated with dignity and respect.
I had a patient who worked as a laborer, not a high-paying job, but a job that allowed him to buy a home and support his family. I met him 10 years ago. I was challenged to control his blood pressure. It was very difficult. I tried numerous combinations of medications.
Over the course of 2-3 years he had frequent visits, allowing me to adjust his meds. We talked a lot. I got to know this man very well. He always came alone. He talked about his children, his wife, his disappointments, his accomplishments and life.
Eventually we got that blood pressure under control and we saw each other less frequently. Five years later he had a massive myocardial infarction, a heart attack. His wife brought him to County Hospital and we admitted him. He was a good candidate for bypass surgery, so he had the procedure, did well and went home weakened, but hopeful.
I remember he told how fortunate he felt because his brother, with poorly controlled diabetes, doesn’t live near County and is unable to get regular care.
Six months after his bypass surgery my patient had a massive gastrointestinal bleed and again his wife brought him to County where he eventually had to have a hemicolectomy. After that his wife brought him to all his appointments with all of his medications. It was clear he was having trouble with his memory and he needed help to manage his complicated regimen.
There were good times and bad, sometimes everything was working and sometimes not.
He developed claustrophobia and could not stand being sent to the Emergency Department at County where there was usually a 12-24 hour wait on a gurney before he got admitted to the floor. Sometimes he yelled and complained and his wife cried, sometimes the three of us had a good laugh about something silly. Life carried on.
Last month in the middle of the night he became short of breath and stopped breathing before the paramedics arrived. Although he was revived it was clear by the time he arrived at the hospital we had lost the man we all knew.
I had that conversation with his wife – that he would not want to be preserved on a ventilator this way indefinitely. She told me she believed that, but wanted to know how I knew.
I told her we had had that conversation early on in our relationship and, although he never returned the advance directives form, despite being given it numerous times, he was clear on his wishes. I don’t think he could read the form and he didn’t want to discuss it with his wife.
Once his brothers and sisters arrived from out of town, life support was discontinued and he died.
His wife called me a week later to thank me for all I had done. I told her it was my job.
Two weeks later his sister called to ask if I would be her doctor.
Why are we here? Because there is no patient in need who doesn’t deserve what my patient got: he was treated with dignity and respect.
Why are we here? This month Wal-Mart, the largest private employer in the United States, decided all future part-time workers who work less than 24 hours a week would no longer be eligible for insurance benefits; new workers who work 24-33 hours a week would no longer able to cover their spouses on their policies; employees with HMO coverage would now have a $5,000 deductible; and all employees would have to pay a larger share of their premium costs, causing more employees to opt out of accepting the company’s health insurance benefit.
We are here because access to health care should be a right and not a privilege based on your ability to pay for it.
Why are we here? We are here because this month the esteemed Institute of Medicine decided the “essential health benefits” under the new health law should be defined as a package that will fall under a pre-defined cost target instead of building a package of essential benefits based on appropriate data and then figuring out what that would cost.
We are here because someone has to say this is wrong.
Why are we here? We are here because a Consumer Reports analysis of National Committee for Quality Assurance rankings noted the five largest national insurers, Aetna, Cigna, Humana, Kaiser Permanente and United Healthcare, plus the mostly state-based Blue Cross Blue Shield plans, account for about 75 percent of the 390 ranked private plans, but only 36 percent of the top 50 in terms of quality.
United Healthcare is the nation’s largest health insurance company, but none of its private plans rank among the top 100, and most occupy the bottom half.
We are here because we know there is a better way to guarantee the public access to quality health care. A single-payer health care system would actually allow us to get a better handle on the quality of care delivered.
Why are we here? We are here because undocumented immigrants represent 1 in 7 of the uninsured. These undocumented immigrants will not be eligible for public insurance or any type of the private coverage obtained through the exchanges created under the Affordable Care Act.
If we had a real single-payer national health program, the financing of the system and the delivery of care would be separated from each other. Everyone would contribute funds to the system based on their ability to pay.
In such a system, everyone, including undocumented immigrants, would receive care. We are here because in a just society we would guarantee access to care to everyone, regardless of their ability to pay or their immigration status.
Archbishop Oscar Romero from El Salvador said, “Do not give in charity what is due in justice.” Archbishop Romero was assassinated one day after a sermon where he called on Salvadoran soldiers, as Christians to obey God’s higher order and to stop carrying out the government’s repression and violations of basic human rights.
I mention Archbishop Romero not because I am a religious person, but because he spoke to a responsibility of people in positions of authority.
As physicians we have a responsibility to those in need, particularly to our nation.
Why are we here? We are here because people are suffering, people are dying and we know the answer. We are here to arm ourselves with the information we need to heal our nation, to save our patients.
Why are we here? We are here because Dr. Quentin Young turned 88 years old this year. He has worked tirelessly in this effort his entire professional career. We owe it to Quentin to carry on this fight and to win it in his lifetime.
Although Quentin’s parents Abe and Sarah each lived to be 98, we should not assume we have 10 more years to win this fight. We know what needs to be done and we know how to frame the discussion.
It is so simple, we need a plan that takes everybody in and leaves nobody out. Come one say it with me, we will feel better for it:
Everybody in, Nobody out!
Everybody in, Nobody out!
Everybody in, Nobody out!
Now let’s go out and change this country for the better.
Claudia Fegan, M.D., F.A.C.P, C.H.C.Q.M., is interim chief medical officer at the Cook County Health and Hospitals System and past president of Physicians for a National Health Program. She is co-author of the book "Universal Health Care: What the United States Can Learn from Canada" and a contributor to another book, "10 Excellent Reasons for National Health Care.”
[Note: The following remarks were delivered to the participants in this year’s PNHP Leadership Training Institute in Washington, D.C.]
Why are we here?
We are here because every patient deserves to be treated with dignity and respect.
I had a patient who worked as a laborer, not a high-paying job, but a job that allowed him to buy a home and support his family. I met him 10 years ago. I was challenged to control his blood pressure. It was very difficult. I tried numerous combinations of medications.
Over the course of 2-3 years he had frequent visits, allowing me to adjust his meds. We talked a lot. I got to know this man very well. He always came alone. He talked about his children, his wife, his disappointments, his accomplishments and life.
Eventually we got that blood pressure under control and we saw each other less frequently. Five years later he had a massive myocardial infarction, a heart attack. His wife brought him to County Hospital and we admitted him. He was a good candidate for bypass surgery, so he had the procedure, did well and went home weakened, but hopeful.
I remember he told how fortunate he felt because his brother, with poorly controlled diabetes, doesn’t live near County and is unable to get regular care.
Six months after his bypass surgery my patient had a massive gastrointestinal bleed and again his wife brought him to County where he eventually had to have a hemicolectomy. After that his wife brought him to all his appointments with all of his medications. It was clear he was having trouble with his memory and he needed help to manage his complicated regimen.
There were good times and bad, sometimes everything was working and sometimes not.
He developed claustrophobia and could not stand being sent to the Emergency Department at County where there was usually a 12-24 hour wait on a gurney before he got admitted to the floor. Sometimes he yelled and complained and his wife cried, sometimes the three of us had a good laugh about something silly. Life carried on.
Last month in the middle of the night he became short of breath and stopped breathing before the paramedics arrived. Although he was revived it was clear by the time he arrived at the hospital we had lost the man we all knew.
I had that conversation with his wife – that he would not want to be preserved on a ventilator this way indefinitely. She told me she believed that, but wanted to know how I knew.
I told her we had had that conversation early on in our relationship and, although he never returned the advance directives form, despite being given it numerous times, he was clear on his wishes. I don’t think he could read the form and he didn’t want to discuss it with his wife.
Once his brothers and sisters arrived from out of town, life support was discontinued and he died.
His wife called me a week later to thank me for all I had done. I told her it was my job.
Two weeks later his sister called to ask if I would be her doctor.
Why are we here? Because there is no patient in need who doesn’t deserve what my patient got: he was treated with dignity and respect.
Why are we here? This month Wal-Mart, the largest private employer in the United States, decided all future part-time workers who work less than 24 hours a week would no longer be eligible for insurance benefits; new workers who work 24-33 hours a week would no longer able to cover their spouses on their policies; employees with HMO coverage would now have a $5,000 deductible; and all employees would have to pay a larger share of their premium costs, causing more employees to opt out of accepting the company’s health insurance benefit.
We are here because access to health care should be a right and not a privilege based on your ability to pay for it.
Why are we here? We are here because this month the esteemed Institute of Medicine decided the “essential health benefits” under the new health law should be defined as a package that will fall under a pre-defined cost target instead of building a package of essential benefits based on appropriate data and then figuring out what that would cost.
We are here because someone has to say this is wrong.
Why are we here? We are here because a Consumer Reports analysis of National Committee for Quality Assurance rankings noted the five largest national insurers, Aetna, Cigna, Humana, Kaiser Permanente and United Healthcare, plus the mostly state-based Blue Cross Blue Shield plans, account for about 75 percent of the 390 ranked private plans, but only 36 percent of the top 50 in terms of quality.
United Healthcare is the nation’s largest health insurance company, but none of its private plans rank among the top 100, and most occupy the bottom half.
We are here because we know there is a better way to guarantee the public access to quality health care. A single-payer health care system would actually allow us to get a better handle on the quality of care delivered.
Why are we here? We are here because undocumented immigrants represent 1 in 7 of the uninsured. These undocumented immigrants will not be eligible for public insurance or any type of the private coverage obtained through the exchanges created under the Affordable Care Act.
If we had a real single-payer national health program, the financing of the system and the delivery of care would be separated from each other. Everyone would contribute funds to the system based on their ability to pay.
In such a system, everyone, including undocumented immigrants, would receive care. We are here because in a just society we would guarantee access to care to everyone, regardless of their ability to pay or their immigration status.
Archbishop Oscar Romero from El Salvador said, “Do not give in charity what is due in justice.” Archbishop Romero was assassinated one day after a sermon where he called on Salvadoran soldiers, as Christians to obey God’s higher order and to stop carrying out the government’s repression and violations of basic human rights.
I mention Archbishop Romero not because I am a religious person, but because he spoke to a responsibility of people in positions of authority.
As physicians we have a responsibility to those in need, particularly to our nation.
Why are we here? We are here because people are suffering, people are dying and we know the answer. We are here to arm ourselves with the information we need to heal our nation, to save our patients.
Why are we here? We are here because Dr. Quentin Young turned 88 years old this year. He has worked tirelessly in this effort his entire professional career. We owe it to Quentin to carry on this fight and to win it in his lifetime.
Although Quentin’s parents Abe and Sarah each lived to be 98, we should not assume we have 10 more years to win this fight. We know what needs to be done and we know how to frame the discussion.
It is so simple, we need a plan that takes everybody in and leaves nobody out. Come one say it with me, we will feel better for it:
Everybody in, Nobody out!
Everybody in, Nobody out!
Everybody in, Nobody out!
Now let’s go out and change this country for the better.
Claudia Fegan, M.D., F.A.C.P, C.H.C.Q.M., is interim chief medical officer at the Cook County Health and Hospitals System and past president of Physicians for a National Health Program. She is co-author of the book "Universal Health Care: What the United States Can Learn from Canada" and a contributor to another book, "10 Excellent Reasons for National Health Care.”
Friday, November 11, 2011
Green Veterans Speak Out
By Gail Dixon (via DC Statehood Green Party)
Veterans Day, for many Americans, means parades, speeches, flags, and the usual political theatrical displays of patriotism. Those who have never experienced war itself can never truly understand the effect on the lives of those who have endured the horrors of warfare.
Since the advent of industrialized warfare in World War I, working people have too often served as cannon fodder in wars for the profits of the ruling class. The dawning understanding of this dynamic has birthed anti-war protests and resistance movements like Occupy Wall Street, which continues to draw veterans and others outraged at the current wars and their cost in lives and a damaged national economy.
"The late singer and composer Phil Ochs wrote 'It's always the old to lead us to the wars, it's always the young to die,'" said Mike Spector, chair of the Green Party of New Jersey. "The young men and women returning from the conflicts are finding themselves in trouble, mentally and physically. As wars become enshrined in the nation's foreign policy, the more they will be forgotten, tear-drenched home-comings and memorial flag-waving ceremonies to the contrary. The Green Party has always been the party of peace in this country, the true alternative to the parties of ceaseless war. Our goal is to ensure that Veterans Day will eventually be replaced by World Peace Day."
We in the Green Party have always believed what Gil Scott Heron said: "Peace is not just the absence of war, but the active pursuit of justice." With this thought in mind, we offer the perspectives of Green veterans on war.
• TE Smith, Washington, DC, member of the DC Statehood Green Party: I am a Black Vietnam vet. Lke hundreds of other young Black males in Washington, DC in the 1960s, I really had no real idea what was going on. There was very little to no conversation or explanation in the Black community about the war, the draft, or much else of real importance.
We all heard about the Civil Rights Movement and the marches "down south," but they were not really explained to us teenagers. While I was in Nam I became more knowledgeable of the Black Power movement and the Civil Rights Movement. After returning to the states I became a student of Black consciousness, which includes all of Black thinking. This led me to more reading and more awareness of different peoples' struggles in the world, like those of the native peoples on this continent, the Palestinians, and others. The one thing I read about that caused me to see the African American struggle on an international scale was Malcom X's speech and analysis at the-non aligned conference in 1956 in Bandung, Indonesia. The next reading that helped shape my present position was Noam Chomsky's book "Manufacturing Consent," which he co-wrote with Edward Herrman.
As a Black veteran of the second largest imperial war in this century, I always noticed that none of the physical, social, and psychological analysis and history about Viet Nam spoke to the Black experience, nor was there local recognition upon return. I, like most others, took this for granted -- it was typical of the anti- Black sentiment pervasive in this society. Now, some 35 years later, I am not concerned about those aspects as a veteran.
My concern now is that there be no more combat veterans. I don't think there has been any evidence that this country is in any physical danger from any other country commensurate with the level of armament and military manpower we have amassed. Young people should not be indoctrinated into the war mentality. Veterans Day should be dedicated to understanding why we were killing and being killed for the world resources that capitalism demands -- by any means, fair or foul. My fondest dream is that in the future humans will be "veterans" of an effort to build a just world where all humans can develop and flourish to their maximum.
• Richard P. Fuller, Coordinator of the Green Party of Monmouth County, NJ, with seven years of Naval service, Final Rank: Lt. (j.g.), Communications Officer on USS THOR (ARC-4): I am a Korean War era veteran for peace. At the University of Rhode Island, all males were required to serve two years in Army ROTC classes and drills. Simultaneously, I joined the Naval Reserve as a freshman, went to boot camp, and later to Reserve Officer Candidate school and graduated college as an Ensign. My active duty service on the cable-laying ship, the USS THOR (ARC-4), lasted for three years so I had a total of seven years of paid naval service. I received an honorable discharge in 1959.
Before the Iraq War began I had already become a veteran for peace. My decision was determined mainly by the Green Party's Key Value of Nonviolence and by the lives and teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi. In high school I had read about the courageous nonviolent path that Gandhi took in a book entitled "Fighter without a Sword." After Rutgers University showed the film "Sir! No Sir," I met with some Iraq Veterans Against War and purchased their fundraiser comic-style book "Addicted to War" by Joel Andress, which I highly recommend.
Several years ago I joined a weekly anti-war demonstration at the gates of the recently closed military base at Fort Monmouth in Eatontown, NJ. My favorite protest sign reads STOP WAR & OCCUPATION. Over the years my fellow protesters and I have supported the troops with signs that carry messages like HEALTH CARE NOT WARFARE, MONEY FOR EDUCATION NOT OCCUPATION, SUPPORT THE TROOPS---BRING THEM HOME NOW! and many more. Dressed in my Green Party gear and a button-bedecked cap, I have marched for peace in at least six venues in New Jersey, as well as in New York City and Washington, DC.
I believe that all vets should be eligible for the GI-type educational benefits that I and others received in the past. Veterans and their families should be provided with hospitals, rehabilitation services, psychological counseling, detoxification programs, and with lots more government support. I'm proud to be a Green vet for peace.
Gail Dixon is a former elected member of the Board of Education of the District of Columbia and leader in the DC Statehood Party (now the DC Statehood Green Party). She currently resides in Trenton, NJ, and is a member of the Green Party of New Jersey.
Veterans Day, for many Americans, means parades, speeches, flags, and the usual political theatrical displays of patriotism. Those who have never experienced war itself can never truly understand the effect on the lives of those who have endured the horrors of warfare.
Since the advent of industrialized warfare in World War I, working people have too often served as cannon fodder in wars for the profits of the ruling class. The dawning understanding of this dynamic has birthed anti-war protests and resistance movements like Occupy Wall Street, which continues to draw veterans and others outraged at the current wars and their cost in lives and a damaged national economy.
"The late singer and composer Phil Ochs wrote 'It's always the old to lead us to the wars, it's always the young to die,'" said Mike Spector, chair of the Green Party of New Jersey. "The young men and women returning from the conflicts are finding themselves in trouble, mentally and physically. As wars become enshrined in the nation's foreign policy, the more they will be forgotten, tear-drenched home-comings and memorial flag-waving ceremonies to the contrary. The Green Party has always been the party of peace in this country, the true alternative to the parties of ceaseless war. Our goal is to ensure that Veterans Day will eventually be replaced by World Peace Day."
We in the Green Party have always believed what Gil Scott Heron said: "Peace is not just the absence of war, but the active pursuit of justice." With this thought in mind, we offer the perspectives of Green veterans on war.
• TE Smith, Washington, DC, member of the DC Statehood Green Party: I am a Black Vietnam vet. Lke hundreds of other young Black males in Washington, DC in the 1960s, I really had no real idea what was going on. There was very little to no conversation or explanation in the Black community about the war, the draft, or much else of real importance.
We all heard about the Civil Rights Movement and the marches "down south," but they were not really explained to us teenagers. While I was in Nam I became more knowledgeable of the Black Power movement and the Civil Rights Movement. After returning to the states I became a student of Black consciousness, which includes all of Black thinking. This led me to more reading and more awareness of different peoples' struggles in the world, like those of the native peoples on this continent, the Palestinians, and others. The one thing I read about that caused me to see the African American struggle on an international scale was Malcom X's speech and analysis at the-non aligned conference in 1956 in Bandung, Indonesia. The next reading that helped shape my present position was Noam Chomsky's book "Manufacturing Consent," which he co-wrote with Edward Herrman.
As a Black veteran of the second largest imperial war in this century, I always noticed that none of the physical, social, and psychological analysis and history about Viet Nam spoke to the Black experience, nor was there local recognition upon return. I, like most others, took this for granted -- it was typical of the anti- Black sentiment pervasive in this society. Now, some 35 years later, I am not concerned about those aspects as a veteran.
My concern now is that there be no more combat veterans. I don't think there has been any evidence that this country is in any physical danger from any other country commensurate with the level of armament and military manpower we have amassed. Young people should not be indoctrinated into the war mentality. Veterans Day should be dedicated to understanding why we were killing and being killed for the world resources that capitalism demands -- by any means, fair or foul. My fondest dream is that in the future humans will be "veterans" of an effort to build a just world where all humans can develop and flourish to their maximum.
• Richard P. Fuller, Coordinator of the Green Party of Monmouth County, NJ, with seven years of Naval service, Final Rank: Lt. (j.g.), Communications Officer on USS THOR (ARC-4): I am a Korean War era veteran for peace. At the University of Rhode Island, all males were required to serve two years in Army ROTC classes and drills. Simultaneously, I joined the Naval Reserve as a freshman, went to boot camp, and later to Reserve Officer Candidate school and graduated college as an Ensign. My active duty service on the cable-laying ship, the USS THOR (ARC-4), lasted for three years so I had a total of seven years of paid naval service. I received an honorable discharge in 1959.
Before the Iraq War began I had already become a veteran for peace. My decision was determined mainly by the Green Party's Key Value of Nonviolence and by the lives and teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi. In high school I had read about the courageous nonviolent path that Gandhi took in a book entitled "Fighter without a Sword." After Rutgers University showed the film "Sir! No Sir," I met with some Iraq Veterans Against War and purchased their fundraiser comic-style book "Addicted to War" by Joel Andress, which I highly recommend.
Several years ago I joined a weekly anti-war demonstration at the gates of the recently closed military base at Fort Monmouth in Eatontown, NJ. My favorite protest sign reads STOP WAR & OCCUPATION. Over the years my fellow protesters and I have supported the troops with signs that carry messages like HEALTH CARE NOT WARFARE, MONEY FOR EDUCATION NOT OCCUPATION, SUPPORT THE TROOPS---BRING THEM HOME NOW! and many more. Dressed in my Green Party gear and a button-bedecked cap, I have marched for peace in at least six venues in New Jersey, as well as in New York City and Washington, DC.
I believe that all vets should be eligible for the GI-type educational benefits that I and others received in the past. Veterans and their families should be provided with hospitals, rehabilitation services, psychological counseling, detoxification programs, and with lots more government support. I'm proud to be a Green vet for peace.
Gail Dixon is a former elected member of the Board of Education of the District of Columbia and leader in the DC Statehood Party (now the DC Statehood Green Party). She currently resides in Trenton, NJ, and is a member of the Green Party of New Jersey.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Why Amend the Constitution to Eliminate Corporate Personhood?
My Left Nutmeg
Amending the U.S. Constitution to eliminate corporate personhood will open up the creative space in the American democracy, according to David Cobb, the Green Party 's presidential candidate in 2004.
Cobb, who is now the spokesman for MovetoAmend.org addressed 35 people at the University of Connecticut's Dodd Center on Tuesday, October 25. It was the first stop on his Connecticut grassroots organizing tour.
The problem is not with the idea of a corporation," Cobb said, "The problem is what we are doing with it. It is stupid that we are embedding a corporation with human rights."
"Democracy means conversations in public places," Cobb said. "Democracy means that I have the opportunity to participate in power."
Cobb has been on the road barnstorming about the for six weeks, and every time he speaks to a crowd, he asks if they think that the American people run their government. No one ever raises their hands.
"I think it is a good thing that no one ever raises their hands," Cobb said. "People are disabusing themselves of the notion that we rule the government."
The most important thing we can do is be honest and tell the truth, Cobb said.
He took the audience on a historical tour of the corporate framework that we know today. Corporations were first created during the Roman Republic as a means to build roads, aqueducts, hospitals and universities.
The genius of a corporation is to take private goods and put them to public use, voluntarily," Cobb said. Taxes, on the other hand, appropriate private goods for public use involuntarily.
"We are not anti-corporate," Cobb said. Agglomerations of capital are necessary to accomplish certain tasks. "It is valid to say corporations work for good things," Cobb said.
In fact, Cobb supposed that 99 percent of corporations are fine. But, the one percent of corporations that have become the modern transnational corporation are now predatory instruments of oppression.
Cobb did not cite this, but a study released by Swiss researchers last week explained that 147 corporations seem to control more than 50 percent of the global economy.
The modern corporation began during the European Age of Discovery, which, as a truth teller, Cobb said was an age of empire and colonialism and rape and theft of resources.
Corporations like the British East India Company existed to exploit people, lands and resources. "It was designed to legalize the destruction of Indian institutions and replace them with British institutions," Cobb said.
The divine right of kings - which most of us cannot discuss without laughing now - created these companies to benefit the king and the members of parliament, who were all shareholders.
Of the 13 original American colonies, 10 were joint stock corporations. One, Georgia, was a penal colony, and the original slaves there were white, Cobb noted.
The original charter of the Massachusetts Bay Trading Company stated its purpose was to plant and rule and govern on the king's behalf and on behalf of the shareholders, ie, parliament.
The king appointed governors to run the colonies. The colonists did not like this. The American revolution, then, is a story about a people's uprising against unaccountable corporate CEO's, Cobb said.
"We cannot merely call for socially responsible corporations," Cobb said.
It makes no sense to ask corporations "Would you please not cause so much cancer? Would you please not cause so much asthma? Would you please not destroy the Gulf of Mexico? Is a little less death all we want?" Cobb asked.
In a word, no. The Move to Amend the constitution is about people regaining the sovereign power over corporations. The beauty of the American constitution is that it vests all authority to govern in the people, who delegate that to the government.
People are sovereign, government is subordinate. People have rights, government has duties.
"In discharging those duties, government is not allowed to violate the sovereign rights of people," Cobb said. "Government cannot infringe on human rights."
In 1789, the US Constitution became the supreme law of the land, yet it applied to only five percent of the people who lived here - the landholding, white males. Women, blacks, Native Americans, indentured servants - none of them had legal personhood under the Constitution.
Historian Howard Zinn considered American history to be a struggle of people to be defined as persons with rights under the U.S. Constitution.
At the formation of the American Republic, corporations had to be created by acts of the legislature, Cobb said. They had to be for the public good, were time delimited, and were dissolved when they served their functions.
Today, corporations can be formed for any legal purpose, go on forever, and be created with the stroke of a pen. And they have the rights of legal personhood. This needs to change, Cobb said.
The real world ramifications of amending the Constitution to eliminate corporate personhood are vast, Cobb said. For example, if a corporation had to open its books to the public like at the start of the American republic, the Enron disaster never would have happened.
The move to amend the constitution will hopefully result in a conversation that involves securing the affirmative rights to food, health care, housing, education, clean air, clean water, and meaningful employment.
Cobb closed by asking "What is our social contract? We have not renegotiated the social contract in America in a long time. The current social contract in the Constitution protects property rights."
Getting metaphysical, he said that if enough people believe something, it can be true. Just as the divine right of kings was eliminated, so can corporate personhood be eliminated, and a new world be created in its wake.
Amending the U.S. Constitution to eliminate corporate personhood will open up the creative space in the American democracy, according to David Cobb, the Green Party 's presidential candidate in 2004.
Cobb, who is now the spokesman for MovetoAmend.org addressed 35 people at the University of Connecticut's Dodd Center on Tuesday, October 25. It was the first stop on his Connecticut grassroots organizing tour.
The problem is not with the idea of a corporation," Cobb said, "The problem is what we are doing with it. It is stupid that we are embedding a corporation with human rights."
"Democracy means conversations in public places," Cobb said. "Democracy means that I have the opportunity to participate in power."
Cobb has been on the road barnstorming about the for six weeks, and every time he speaks to a crowd, he asks if they think that the American people run their government. No one ever raises their hands.
"I think it is a good thing that no one ever raises their hands," Cobb said. "People are disabusing themselves of the notion that we rule the government."
The most important thing we can do is be honest and tell the truth, Cobb said.
He took the audience on a historical tour of the corporate framework that we know today. Corporations were first created during the Roman Republic as a means to build roads, aqueducts, hospitals and universities.
The genius of a corporation is to take private goods and put them to public use, voluntarily," Cobb said. Taxes, on the other hand, appropriate private goods for public use involuntarily.
"We are not anti-corporate," Cobb said. Agglomerations of capital are necessary to accomplish certain tasks. "It is valid to say corporations work for good things," Cobb said.
In fact, Cobb supposed that 99 percent of corporations are fine. But, the one percent of corporations that have become the modern transnational corporation are now predatory instruments of oppression.
Cobb did not cite this, but a study released by Swiss researchers last week explained that 147 corporations seem to control more than 50 percent of the global economy.
The modern corporation began during the European Age of Discovery, which, as a truth teller, Cobb said was an age of empire and colonialism and rape and theft of resources.
Corporations like the British East India Company existed to exploit people, lands and resources. "It was designed to legalize the destruction of Indian institutions and replace them with British institutions," Cobb said.
The divine right of kings - which most of us cannot discuss without laughing now - created these companies to benefit the king and the members of parliament, who were all shareholders.
Of the 13 original American colonies, 10 were joint stock corporations. One, Georgia, was a penal colony, and the original slaves there were white, Cobb noted.
The original charter of the Massachusetts Bay Trading Company stated its purpose was to plant and rule and govern on the king's behalf and on behalf of the shareholders, ie, parliament.
The king appointed governors to run the colonies. The colonists did not like this. The American revolution, then, is a story about a people's uprising against unaccountable corporate CEO's, Cobb said.
"We cannot merely call for socially responsible corporations," Cobb said.
It makes no sense to ask corporations "Would you please not cause so much cancer? Would you please not cause so much asthma? Would you please not destroy the Gulf of Mexico? Is a little less death all we want?" Cobb asked.
In a word, no. The Move to Amend the constitution is about people regaining the sovereign power over corporations. The beauty of the American constitution is that it vests all authority to govern in the people, who delegate that to the government.
People are sovereign, government is subordinate. People have rights, government has duties.
"In discharging those duties, government is not allowed to violate the sovereign rights of people," Cobb said. "Government cannot infringe on human rights."
In 1789, the US Constitution became the supreme law of the land, yet it applied to only five percent of the people who lived here - the landholding, white males. Women, blacks, Native Americans, indentured servants - none of them had legal personhood under the Constitution.
Historian Howard Zinn considered American history to be a struggle of people to be defined as persons with rights under the U.S. Constitution.
At the formation of the American Republic, corporations had to be created by acts of the legislature, Cobb said. They had to be for the public good, were time delimited, and were dissolved when they served their functions.
Today, corporations can be formed for any legal purpose, go on forever, and be created with the stroke of a pen. And they have the rights of legal personhood. This needs to change, Cobb said.
The real world ramifications of amending the Constitution to eliminate corporate personhood are vast, Cobb said. For example, if a corporation had to open its books to the public like at the start of the American republic, the Enron disaster never would have happened.
The move to amend the constitution will hopefully result in a conversation that involves securing the affirmative rights to food, health care, housing, education, clean air, clean water, and meaningful employment.
Cobb closed by asking "What is our social contract? We have not renegotiated the social contract in America in a long time. The current social contract in the Constitution protects property rights."
Getting metaphysical, he said that if enough people believe something, it can be true. Just as the divine right of kings was eliminated, so can corporate personhood be eliminated, and a new world be created in its wake.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Census Bureau measures more Americans living in poverty
The Washington Post
The Census Bureau on Monday released a new, comprehensive poverty measure that painted a more dismal picture of the nation’s economic landscape than the official measure from September.
The report found that 49.1 million Americans — 16 percent of the population — lived in poverty in 2010, which is higher than the 46.2 million Americans found to live in poverty by the official measure released in September.
The new report marked the culmination of a years-long effort by the Census Bureau to come up with a poverty measure that takes into account the huge amounts of money in social services benefits provided to the needy, as well as their expenses for things such as medical care and payroll taxes.
The increased level of poverty revealed by the supplemental measure is at odds with what some poverty experts expected. The increased level of poverty was fueled by the sharply higher levels of poverty among senior citizens found by the alternative measure.
“The elderly just overwhelm it,” said Ron Haskins, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
The poverty rate for those 65 and older was 15.9 percent based on the supplemental measure, much higher than the 9 percent rate for the elderly when using the official poverty yardstick.
The biggest factor increasing the poverty rate for seniors under the alternative measure was out-of-pocket medical expenses, which are not captured by the official poverty rate but are by the alternative measure. At the same time, neither the accumulated wealth of senior citizens nor their Medicare benefits are included in the official or supplemental measure, which some experts said skews the number of elderly who are counted as impoverished.
Among whites, 14.3 percent were found to be in poverty under the supplemental measure, more than a percentage point higher than the 13.1 percent poverty rate found by the official measure.
Hispanics had a poverty rate of 28.2 percent under the alternative measure, higher than the official poverty rate of 26.7 percent.
The proportion of black Americans living in poverty declined slightly under the alternative measure, from 27.5 percent under the traditional measure to 25.4 percent. Among children younger than 18, the poverty rate under the alternative measure was 18.2 percent, much lower than the official rate of 22.5 percent.
Although there are shortcomings, poverty experts say the supplemental measure offers a more comprehensive view of the nation’s poverty picture than the official measure.
Unlike the traditional method, it offers different poverty thresholds for renters, homeowners paying a mortgage and owners who have no mortgage. Overall, the new measure puts the poverty threshold at an annual income of $24,343 for a family of two adults and two children — higher than the $22,113 poverty threshold under the official measure.
The alternative measure also factors in the effects of payroll taxes and the cost of living in different parts of the country. In addition, it accounts for any government programs including the earned income tax credit, housing subsidies, food stamps and free school lunches.
“You could not look at our official poverty statistics and see any impact of government programs,” Haskins said.
The Census Bureau on Monday released a new, comprehensive poverty measure that painted a more dismal picture of the nation’s economic landscape than the official measure from September.
The report found that 49.1 million Americans — 16 percent of the population — lived in poverty in 2010, which is higher than the 46.2 million Americans found to live in poverty by the official measure released in September.
The new report marked the culmination of a years-long effort by the Census Bureau to come up with a poverty measure that takes into account the huge amounts of money in social services benefits provided to the needy, as well as their expenses for things such as medical care and payroll taxes.
The increased level of poverty revealed by the supplemental measure is at odds with what some poverty experts expected. The increased level of poverty was fueled by the sharply higher levels of poverty among senior citizens found by the alternative measure.
“The elderly just overwhelm it,” said Ron Haskins, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
The poverty rate for those 65 and older was 15.9 percent based on the supplemental measure, much higher than the 9 percent rate for the elderly when using the official poverty yardstick.
The biggest factor increasing the poverty rate for seniors under the alternative measure was out-of-pocket medical expenses, which are not captured by the official poverty rate but are by the alternative measure. At the same time, neither the accumulated wealth of senior citizens nor their Medicare benefits are included in the official or supplemental measure, which some experts said skews the number of elderly who are counted as impoverished.
Among whites, 14.3 percent were found to be in poverty under the supplemental measure, more than a percentage point higher than the 13.1 percent poverty rate found by the official measure.
Hispanics had a poverty rate of 28.2 percent under the alternative measure, higher than the official poverty rate of 26.7 percent.
The proportion of black Americans living in poverty declined slightly under the alternative measure, from 27.5 percent under the traditional measure to 25.4 percent. Among children younger than 18, the poverty rate under the alternative measure was 18.2 percent, much lower than the official rate of 22.5 percent.
Although there are shortcomings, poverty experts say the supplemental measure offers a more comprehensive view of the nation’s poverty picture than the official measure.
Unlike the traditional method, it offers different poverty thresholds for renters, homeowners paying a mortgage and owners who have no mortgage. Overall, the new measure puts the poverty threshold at an annual income of $24,343 for a family of two adults and two children — higher than the $22,113 poverty threshold under the official measure.
The alternative measure also factors in the effects of payroll taxes and the cost of living in different parts of the country. In addition, it accounts for any government programs including the earned income tax credit, housing subsidies, food stamps and free school lunches.
“You could not look at our official poverty statistics and see any impact of government programs,” Haskins said.
Monday, November 7, 2011
"During Obama’s tenure, Wall Street has roared back, even as the broader economy has struggled."
Washington Post
President Obama has called people who work on Wall Street “fat-cat bankers,” and his reelection campaign has sought to harness public frustration with Wall Street. Financial executives retort that the president’s pursuit of financial regulations is punitive and that new rules may be “holding us back.”
But both sides face an inconvenient fact: During Obama’s tenure, Wall Street has roared back, even as the broader economy has struggled.
The largest banks are larger than they were when Obama took office and are nearing the level of profits they were making before the depths of the financial crisis in 2008, according to government data.
Wall Street firms — independent companies and the securities-trading arms of banks — are doing even better. They earned more in the first 21 / 2 years of the Obama administration than they did during the eight years of the George W. Bush administration, industry data show.
(See data in an Excel file here.)
Behind this turnaround, in significant measure, are government policies that helped the financial sector avert collapse and then gave financial firms huge benefits on the path to recovery. For example, the federal government invested hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars in banks — low-cost money that the firms used for high-yielding investments on which they made big profits.
Stabilizing the financial system was considered necessary to prevent an even deeper economic recession. But some critics say the Bush administration, which first moved to bail out Wall Street, and the Obama administration, which ultimately stabilized it, took a far less aggressive approach to helping the American people.
“There’s a very popular conception out there that the bailout was done with a tremendous amount of firepower and focus on saving the largest Wall Street institutions but with very little regard for Main Street,” said Neil Barofsky, the former federal watchdog for the Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP, the $700 billion fund used to bail out banks. “That’s actually a very accurate description of what happened.”
Neither the Bush administration nor the Obama administration, for instance, compelled banks to increase lending to consumers, known as “prime borrowers.” Such a step might have spurred spending and growth, although generating demand for loans may have proved difficult in the downturn.
A recent study by two professors at the University of Michigan found that banks did not significantly increase lending after being bailed out. Rather, they used taxpayer money, in part, to invest in risky securities that profited from short-term price movements. The study found that bailed-out banks increased their investment returns by nearly 10 percent as a result.
“If the goal was to support lending, it would have been sensible to require a portion of the money to support credit origination,” said Ran Duchin, one of the finance professors who completed the study. “Lending to prime consumers was not the most profitable use of their capital.”
Some of Wall Street’s success has moderated in recent months, with bank stock prices down and layoffs on the rise. This mostly has reflected the renewed slowdown in the U.S. economy this year and the European debt crisis buffeting global markets.
Representatives of the financial industry say regulations in last year’s Dodd-Frank legislation, which Obama pushed for and signed, also have crimped bank profits. But many analysts think the law will make the financial system more stable. The legislation, for instance, requires banks to maintain a greater capital cushion to withstand losses during bad economic times. The measure also created a regulator whose sole purpose is to police lending to ordinary Americans.
But many of the legislation’s most significant measures have yet to be put into place, and their ultimate effect on the bottom line remains unclear.
Financial firms have raised major concerns about one of the largest structural changes made by the law, the “Volcker Rule.” This measure would bar banks from engaging in trading and other speculative activity on their own behalf rather than to profit customers. But the rule’s impact could prove limited because of loopholes and exceptions allowed by lawmakers and regulators working to implement it.
Federal assistance
One of the main reasons Wall Street rebounded so quickly from its lows is government support.
Even before Obama took office, the government pumped hundreds of billions of dollars into banks. The Federal Reserve, which is independent of the administration, lowered interest rates, allowing firms to borrow money cheaply and trade with it, booking huge profits. The Fed also introduced lending programs that bolstered stock and bond markets and allowed banks to earn a steady return on reserves they kept with the central bank.
“The too-big-to-fail banks got bigger profits and avoided failure because of trillions of dollars of loans directly from the Federal Reserve,” said Linus Wilson, assistant professor of finance at University of Louisiana at Lafayette. “Today, their profits are boosted by lower borrowing costs because their managers and creditors expect a Fed lifeline when markets get jittery.”
Banks also have benefited from the large increase during the recession in unemployment insurance. Increasingly, banks offer debit cards to the unemployed to collect their government benefits. These debit cards carry a range of fees that bolster banks’ bottom lines.
What’s more, states — with their budgets shattered by the financial crisis and recession — have increasingly been moving to enroll new employees into Wall Street-run retirement accounts rather than government pension programs. That’s potentially more lucrative for Wall Street, which can charge fees for managing the savings of individual retirees.
Since Dec. 31, 2008, the largest banks — those with more than $100 billion in assets — have increased their total combined assets by about 10 percent.
As banks get larger, they can become more profitable. This is because investors tend to be more willing to lend them money at interest rates lower than those other banks are charged. There is a common perception that big banks are less risky because the government will still step in to save them if they get into financial trouble. On the flip side, under new financial regulations, the largest banks will have to hold more financial reserves than smaller banks — although precisely how much is still being discussed.
Banks’ profits up
Profits have also rebounded. The largest banks, including Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo, earned $34 billion in profit in the first half of the year, nearly matching what they earned in the same period in 2007 and more than in the same period of any other year.
Securities firms — the trading arms of big banks and hundreds of other independent firms — have fared even better. They’ve generated at least $83 billion in profit during the past 21 / 2 years, compared with $77 billion during the entire Bush administration, according to data from the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association.
Compensation at these firms also has bounced back. Financial firms paid about $20.8 billion in bonuses for work done in 2010, according to research by the New York state comptroller. In New York City, the average Wall Street salary last year grew 16.1 percent, to $361,330, which is more than five times the average salary of a private-sector worker in the city.
By contrast, millions of Americans continue to face economic difficulties. That is fueling broad public anger at Wall Street and has given rise to the “Occupy” protest movements nationwide.
Obama’s advisers say they plan to harness this frustration in the presidential campaign by drawing a contrast with Republican candidates who favor rolling back the Dodd-Frank legislation.
“People are going to make their own judgments based on the positions that candidates take and their track record,” said David Plouffe, a senior Obama adviser. “. . .You have to look at these as comparative exercises.
“Americans want leaders who will be fair and insist on accountability on Wall Street. But Republicans, including all of their presidential candidates, have essentially said, ‘Let’s give Wall Street a blank check.’ ”
The president, however, has not shunned Wall Street. He has courted financial executives for campaign donations, including inviting them to a campaign gathering at the White House. He has attracted more money for his campaign and for the Democratic National Committee from financial firm employees than all of the GOP candidates combined — a total of $15.6 million.
President Obama has called people who work on Wall Street “fat-cat bankers,” and his reelection campaign has sought to harness public frustration with Wall Street. Financial executives retort that the president’s pursuit of financial regulations is punitive and that new rules may be “holding us back.”
But both sides face an inconvenient fact: During Obama’s tenure, Wall Street has roared back, even as the broader economy has struggled.
The largest banks are larger than they were when Obama took office and are nearing the level of profits they were making before the depths of the financial crisis in 2008, according to government data.
Wall Street firms — independent companies and the securities-trading arms of banks — are doing even better. They earned more in the first 21 / 2 years of the Obama administration than they did during the eight years of the George W. Bush administration, industry data show.
(See data in an Excel file here.)
Behind this turnaround, in significant measure, are government policies that helped the financial sector avert collapse and then gave financial firms huge benefits on the path to recovery. For example, the federal government invested hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars in banks — low-cost money that the firms used for high-yielding investments on which they made big profits.
Stabilizing the financial system was considered necessary to prevent an even deeper economic recession. But some critics say the Bush administration, which first moved to bail out Wall Street, and the Obama administration, which ultimately stabilized it, took a far less aggressive approach to helping the American people.
“There’s a very popular conception out there that the bailout was done with a tremendous amount of firepower and focus on saving the largest Wall Street institutions but with very little regard for Main Street,” said Neil Barofsky, the former federal watchdog for the Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP, the $700 billion fund used to bail out banks. “That’s actually a very accurate description of what happened.”
Neither the Bush administration nor the Obama administration, for instance, compelled banks to increase lending to consumers, known as “prime borrowers.” Such a step might have spurred spending and growth, although generating demand for loans may have proved difficult in the downturn.
A recent study by two professors at the University of Michigan found that banks did not significantly increase lending after being bailed out. Rather, they used taxpayer money, in part, to invest in risky securities that profited from short-term price movements. The study found that bailed-out banks increased their investment returns by nearly 10 percent as a result.
“If the goal was to support lending, it would have been sensible to require a portion of the money to support credit origination,” said Ran Duchin, one of the finance professors who completed the study. “Lending to prime consumers was not the most profitable use of their capital.”
Some of Wall Street’s success has moderated in recent months, with bank stock prices down and layoffs on the rise. This mostly has reflected the renewed slowdown in the U.S. economy this year and the European debt crisis buffeting global markets.
Representatives of the financial industry say regulations in last year’s Dodd-Frank legislation, which Obama pushed for and signed, also have crimped bank profits. But many analysts think the law will make the financial system more stable. The legislation, for instance, requires banks to maintain a greater capital cushion to withstand losses during bad economic times. The measure also created a regulator whose sole purpose is to police lending to ordinary Americans.
But many of the legislation’s most significant measures have yet to be put into place, and their ultimate effect on the bottom line remains unclear.
Financial firms have raised major concerns about one of the largest structural changes made by the law, the “Volcker Rule.” This measure would bar banks from engaging in trading and other speculative activity on their own behalf rather than to profit customers. But the rule’s impact could prove limited because of loopholes and exceptions allowed by lawmakers and regulators working to implement it.
Federal assistance
One of the main reasons Wall Street rebounded so quickly from its lows is government support.
Even before Obama took office, the government pumped hundreds of billions of dollars into banks. The Federal Reserve, which is independent of the administration, lowered interest rates, allowing firms to borrow money cheaply and trade with it, booking huge profits. The Fed also introduced lending programs that bolstered stock and bond markets and allowed banks to earn a steady return on reserves they kept with the central bank.
“The too-big-to-fail banks got bigger profits and avoided failure because of trillions of dollars of loans directly from the Federal Reserve,” said Linus Wilson, assistant professor of finance at University of Louisiana at Lafayette. “Today, their profits are boosted by lower borrowing costs because their managers and creditors expect a Fed lifeline when markets get jittery.”
Banks also have benefited from the large increase during the recession in unemployment insurance. Increasingly, banks offer debit cards to the unemployed to collect their government benefits. These debit cards carry a range of fees that bolster banks’ bottom lines.
What’s more, states — with their budgets shattered by the financial crisis and recession — have increasingly been moving to enroll new employees into Wall Street-run retirement accounts rather than government pension programs. That’s potentially more lucrative for Wall Street, which can charge fees for managing the savings of individual retirees.
Since Dec. 31, 2008, the largest banks — those with more than $100 billion in assets — have increased their total combined assets by about 10 percent.
As banks get larger, they can become more profitable. This is because investors tend to be more willing to lend them money at interest rates lower than those other banks are charged. There is a common perception that big banks are less risky because the government will still step in to save them if they get into financial trouble. On the flip side, under new financial regulations, the largest banks will have to hold more financial reserves than smaller banks — although precisely how much is still being discussed.
Banks’ profits up
Profits have also rebounded. The largest banks, including Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo, earned $34 billion in profit in the first half of the year, nearly matching what they earned in the same period in 2007 and more than in the same period of any other year.
Securities firms — the trading arms of big banks and hundreds of other independent firms — have fared even better. They’ve generated at least $83 billion in profit during the past 21 / 2 years, compared with $77 billion during the entire Bush administration, according to data from the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association.
Compensation at these firms also has bounced back. Financial firms paid about $20.8 billion in bonuses for work done in 2010, according to research by the New York state comptroller. In New York City, the average Wall Street salary last year grew 16.1 percent, to $361,330, which is more than five times the average salary of a private-sector worker in the city.
By contrast, millions of Americans continue to face economic difficulties. That is fueling broad public anger at Wall Street and has given rise to the “Occupy” protest movements nationwide.
Obama’s advisers say they plan to harness this frustration in the presidential campaign by drawing a contrast with Republican candidates who favor rolling back the Dodd-Frank legislation.
“People are going to make their own judgments based on the positions that candidates take and their track record,” said David Plouffe, a senior Obama adviser. “. . .You have to look at these as comparative exercises.
“Americans want leaders who will be fair and insist on accountability on Wall Street. But Republicans, including all of their presidential candidates, have essentially said, ‘Let’s give Wall Street a blank check.’ ”
The president, however, has not shunned Wall Street. He has courted financial executives for campaign donations, including inviting them to a campaign gathering at the White House. He has attracted more money for his campaign and for the Democratic National Committee from financial firm employees than all of the GOP candidates combined — a total of $15.6 million.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Green Party calls for a nationwide moratorium on home foreclosures
GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES
http://www.gp.org
Greens urge Obama, Congress to halt further bank foreclosures: Wall Street firms should suffer 'austerity' for the economic crisis they caused, not the American people.
WASHINGTON, DC -- The Green Party of the United States called for an immediate nationwide moratorium on foreclosures and urged President Obama and Congress to take steps to halt further actions by banks to foreclose on the homes of Americans in the continuing economic recession.
"An order barring lenders from evicting people from their homes would be a powerful first step towards restoring financial stability and easing the fears of middle- and low-income working Americans," said John Eder, Green candidate for Mayor of Portland, Maine (http://www.johneder.org) and former State Representative in Maine. "The economy might be thriving again for the one percent, but for most Americans, the Subprime Mortgage Crisis and 2008 recession are not over. Millions of families face the loss of their homes, millions are without a job or only semi-employed, millions have no health coverage or inadequate coverage."
Green Party candidate Cheri Honkala, running for Sheriff of Philadelphia in the 2011 election, has pledged not to cooperate with banks attempting to evict residents from their homes (http://www.cherihonkala.com). Ms. Honkala is a long-time housing activist and founder of the Kensington Welfare Rights Union.
Victims of the subprime scam and Americans facing the loss of their homes deserve assistance instead of eviction (Green Party Platform on housing: http://www.gp.org/committees/platform/2010/social-justice.php#1002699). The suspension on foreclosures should continue at least until a determination can be made about which would-be homeowners were offered subprime mortgages by banks with insufficient regard for the ability of the borrower to make good on payments or get refinancing.
Greens across the US are participating in Occupy movements against the greed, recklessness, criminality, and unchecked political power of banks, Wall Street firms, and other corporate elites.
Green Party leaders said that major banks and other financial institutions made billions of dollars by defrauding people who were unlikely to make good on payments into taking out adjustable-rate mortgages, pooling the high-risk mortgages into collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), giving the toxic securities high ratings, and taking taxpayer-funded bailouts when the house of cards collapsed. The banks then began to foreclose on homes, often filing fraudulent paperwork for eviction of families.
Democratic and Republican politicians, including Presidents Clinton and Bush, supported the deregulation that made these actions possible and presided over the failure of regulatory agencies to use existing laws against the abuses. President Clinton played signed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (repealing the Glass-Steagall Act) and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which deregulated derivatives, CDOs, credit default swaps, and other complex securities, both of which helped trigger the crisis.
"If the federal government can bail out Wall Street firms that caused the crisis, it can act now to protect Americans faced with the loss of their homes," said Terry Baum, Green candidate for Mayor of San Francisco (http://www.terryjoanbaum.com).
"When Democratic and Republican politicians talk about austerity, funding cuts for social services, plans to slash Social Security and Medicare, and similar steps to fix the economy, what they mean is that working people must suffer for the irresponsibility and crimes of Wall Street. As the SEC's slap on the wrist penalty for Citigroup's sale of toxic mortgage-backed securities proves, this austerity is one-sided. CEOs and other top staff whose behavior caused the meltdown continue to rake in millions in salaries and bonuses." (See "Judge questions SEC settlement with Citigroup," The Washington Post, Oct. 27).
Greens said that President Obama, despite his expressions of sympathy for people facing lost homes and jobs, remains on the side of Wall Street. Recent news stories confirm that he is seeking and receiving fat campaign checks from corporate contributors (http://october2011.org/blogs/kevin-zeese/era-occupy-wall-street-obama-relies-wall-street-fund-his-re-election). Mr. Obama received more financial industry contributions than any politician in US history in 2008. During this campign, he endorsed President Bush's bailout for Wall Street. After taking office, he stacked his administration with Wall Street insiders like Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, economics advisor Larry Summers, and Chief of Staff Billy Daley.
"President Obama has offered window dressing instead of relief for Americans hurt by the crisis. He won't risk offending the banks by stopping the foreclosures -- especially in an election season in which his campaign is desperate for stacks of campaign checks from the 'one percent' contributors. He won't consider making systematic changes in how the financial industry operates, such as restoring Glass-Steagall safeguards and breaking up the 'too big to fail' banks. President Obama's token steps toward change have been matched with real steps backward -- the President's recent minimalist jobs proposal coincided with his job-killing free-trade agreement with Korea, Colombia, and Panama. In contrast to the President's lip service about change, Greens are calling for concrete solutions, starting with a moratorium on foreclosures right now," said Mark Dunlea, former Chair of Green Party of New York State and Executive Director of a statewide anti-poverty organization in New York.
"Most Republican and Democratic politicians judge the US economy according to Dow Jones, profit margins of top corporations, the GDP, i.e., how much the rich are getting richer. Greens judge the economy by how many Americans have living-wage jobs with benefits, are safe in their homes, enjoy financial security and good health care, are moving out of poverty, and how well the environment is protected, now and for future generations. Those are the priorities of the secure green economy we are committed to creating," said Mr. Dunlea.
http://www.gp.org
Greens urge Obama, Congress to halt further bank foreclosures: Wall Street firms should suffer 'austerity' for the economic crisis they caused, not the American people.
WASHINGTON, DC -- The Green Party of the United States called for an immediate nationwide moratorium on foreclosures and urged President Obama and Congress to take steps to halt further actions by banks to foreclose on the homes of Americans in the continuing economic recession.
"An order barring lenders from evicting people from their homes would be a powerful first step towards restoring financial stability and easing the fears of middle- and low-income working Americans," said John Eder, Green candidate for Mayor of Portland, Maine (http://www.johneder.org) and former State Representative in Maine. "The economy might be thriving again for the one percent, but for most Americans, the Subprime Mortgage Crisis and 2008 recession are not over. Millions of families face the loss of their homes, millions are without a job or only semi-employed, millions have no health coverage or inadequate coverage."
Green Party candidate Cheri Honkala, running for Sheriff of Philadelphia in the 2011 election, has pledged not to cooperate with banks attempting to evict residents from their homes (http://www.cherihonkala.com). Ms. Honkala is a long-time housing activist and founder of the Kensington Welfare Rights Union.
Victims of the subprime scam and Americans facing the loss of their homes deserve assistance instead of eviction (Green Party Platform on housing: http://www.gp.org/committees/platform/2010/social-justice.php#1002699). The suspension on foreclosures should continue at least until a determination can be made about which would-be homeowners were offered subprime mortgages by banks with insufficient regard for the ability of the borrower to make good on payments or get refinancing.
Greens across the US are participating in Occupy movements against the greed, recklessness, criminality, and unchecked political power of banks, Wall Street firms, and other corporate elites.
Green Party leaders said that major banks and other financial institutions made billions of dollars by defrauding people who were unlikely to make good on payments into taking out adjustable-rate mortgages, pooling the high-risk mortgages into collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), giving the toxic securities high ratings, and taking taxpayer-funded bailouts when the house of cards collapsed. The banks then began to foreclose on homes, often filing fraudulent paperwork for eviction of families.
Democratic and Republican politicians, including Presidents Clinton and Bush, supported the deregulation that made these actions possible and presided over the failure of regulatory agencies to use existing laws against the abuses. President Clinton played signed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (repealing the Glass-Steagall Act) and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which deregulated derivatives, CDOs, credit default swaps, and other complex securities, both of which helped trigger the crisis.
"If the federal government can bail out Wall Street firms that caused the crisis, it can act now to protect Americans faced with the loss of their homes," said Terry Baum, Green candidate for Mayor of San Francisco (http://www.terryjoanbaum.com).
"When Democratic and Republican politicians talk about austerity, funding cuts for social services, plans to slash Social Security and Medicare, and similar steps to fix the economy, what they mean is that working people must suffer for the irresponsibility and crimes of Wall Street. As the SEC's slap on the wrist penalty for Citigroup's sale of toxic mortgage-backed securities proves, this austerity is one-sided. CEOs and other top staff whose behavior caused the meltdown continue to rake in millions in salaries and bonuses." (See "Judge questions SEC settlement with Citigroup," The Washington Post, Oct. 27).
Greens said that President Obama, despite his expressions of sympathy for people facing lost homes and jobs, remains on the side of Wall Street. Recent news stories confirm that he is seeking and receiving fat campaign checks from corporate contributors (http://october2011.org/blogs/kevin-zeese/era-occupy-wall-street-obama-relies-wall-street-fund-his-re-election). Mr. Obama received more financial industry contributions than any politician in US history in 2008. During this campign, he endorsed President Bush's bailout for Wall Street. After taking office, he stacked his administration with Wall Street insiders like Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, economics advisor Larry Summers, and Chief of Staff Billy Daley.
"President Obama has offered window dressing instead of relief for Americans hurt by the crisis. He won't risk offending the banks by stopping the foreclosures -- especially in an election season in which his campaign is desperate for stacks of campaign checks from the 'one percent' contributors. He won't consider making systematic changes in how the financial industry operates, such as restoring Glass-Steagall safeguards and breaking up the 'too big to fail' banks. President Obama's token steps toward change have been matched with real steps backward -- the President's recent minimalist jobs proposal coincided with his job-killing free-trade agreement with Korea, Colombia, and Panama. In contrast to the President's lip service about change, Greens are calling for concrete solutions, starting with a moratorium on foreclosures right now," said Mark Dunlea, former Chair of Green Party of New York State and Executive Director of a statewide anti-poverty organization in New York.
"Most Republican and Democratic politicians judge the US economy according to Dow Jones, profit margins of top corporations, the GDP, i.e., how much the rich are getting richer. Greens judge the economy by how many Americans have living-wage jobs with benefits, are safe in their homes, enjoy financial security and good health care, are moving out of poverty, and how well the environment is protected, now and for future generations. Those are the priorities of the secure green economy we are committed to creating," said Mr. Dunlea.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Obama administration approves virtual destruction of Medicaid
PNHP Blog
This entry is from Dr. McCanne's Quote of the Day, a daily health policy update on the single-payer health care reform movement. The QotD is archived on PNHP's website.
California gets OK for large cuts to Medi-Cal
By Anna Gorman
Los Angeles Times
The Obama administration will allow California to cut hundreds of millions of dollars from Medi-Cal, a move doctors and experts say will make it harder for the poor to get medical treatment.
California plans to reduce rates by 10% to many providers, including physicians, dentists, clinics, pharmacies and most nursing homes, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced Thursday.
Cindy Mann, deputy administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told reporters the action gives California the flexibility it had requested to address its budget shortfall. “We know that the reductions that are being approved today will have significant impact on affected providers, and we regret the very difficult budget circumstances that have led to their implementation,” she said.
California, which already spends less per beneficiary than any other state, has led the way in aggressively slashing its programs. Now the government’s decision to allow California to move forward with its plans sets a precedent for other states seeking to reduce their Medicaid bills.
The California Medical Assn. expressed frustration over the new cuts, saying that physicians could receive as little as $11 a visit. Doctors will have no choice but to stop seeing Medi-Cal patients, said CEO Dustin Corcoran. “You can’t pay the bills at these rates,” he said. “They are unconscionably low.”
Federal healthcare reform, which includes a massive expansion of Medicaid, also could be seriously hampered by this new round of cuts, Corcoran said.
“They built federal healthcare reform on the foundation of Medi-Cal, and they just destroyed that foundation,” he said. “We have a hard time seeing how healthcare reform has a chance of being successful in the state of California after these cuts are implemented.”
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-medicaid-20111028,0,4273464.story
One of the most important components of the Affordable Care Act is the expansion of Medicaid coverage for uninsured, low-income individuals. Does the Obama administration seriously believe that this will be an effective step toward bringing affordable health care to everyone?
Look at what they just approved for California. The state already spends less per Medicaid (Medi-Cal) beneficiary than any other state, yet the Obama administration has approved another 10 percent reduction. Just wait until the budget cutters in other states get wind of this!
Theoretically, drastic payment reductions are met by further ratcheting down overhead expenses. At $11 per office visit, only a fraction of expenses can be covered, no matter how stringent the budgeting. In essence, the government is asking providers to help finance Medicaid through their own personal charity. Trying to cover 7.6 million Medi-Cal patients in the state by depending on provider charity is asking more than the system can bear.
Two quotes above need to be repeated.
Cindy Mann, deputy administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services: “We know that the reductions that are being approved today will have significant impact on affected providers.”
Dustin Corcoran, CEO of the California Medical Association: “They built federal healthcare reform on the foundation of Medi-Cal, and they just destroyed that foundation.”
And the other major component of the Affordable Care Act? A mandate for individuals to purchase inadequate coverage by paying unaffordable premiums.
The Obama administration officials and their co-conspirators in Congress could not have been serious about bringing us real reform. If they were, we would have an improved Medicare covering everyone.
We need to go to Freedom Plaza and join the Occupy Movement.
This entry is from Dr. McCanne's Quote of the Day, a daily health policy update on the single-payer health care reform movement. The QotD is archived on PNHP's website.
California gets OK for large cuts to Medi-Cal
By Anna Gorman
Los Angeles Times
The Obama administration will allow California to cut hundreds of millions of dollars from Medi-Cal, a move doctors and experts say will make it harder for the poor to get medical treatment.
California plans to reduce rates by 10% to many providers, including physicians, dentists, clinics, pharmacies and most nursing homes, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced Thursday.
Cindy Mann, deputy administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told reporters the action gives California the flexibility it had requested to address its budget shortfall. “We know that the reductions that are being approved today will have significant impact on affected providers, and we regret the very difficult budget circumstances that have led to their implementation,” she said.
California, which already spends less per beneficiary than any other state, has led the way in aggressively slashing its programs. Now the government’s decision to allow California to move forward with its plans sets a precedent for other states seeking to reduce their Medicaid bills.
The California Medical Assn. expressed frustration over the new cuts, saying that physicians could receive as little as $11 a visit. Doctors will have no choice but to stop seeing Medi-Cal patients, said CEO Dustin Corcoran. “You can’t pay the bills at these rates,” he said. “They are unconscionably low.”
Federal healthcare reform, which includes a massive expansion of Medicaid, also could be seriously hampered by this new round of cuts, Corcoran said.
“They built federal healthcare reform on the foundation of Medi-Cal, and they just destroyed that foundation,” he said. “We have a hard time seeing how healthcare reform has a chance of being successful in the state of California after these cuts are implemented.”
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-medicaid-20111028,0,4273464.story
One of the most important components of the Affordable Care Act is the expansion of Medicaid coverage for uninsured, low-income individuals. Does the Obama administration seriously believe that this will be an effective step toward bringing affordable health care to everyone?
Look at what they just approved for California. The state already spends less per Medicaid (Medi-Cal) beneficiary than any other state, yet the Obama administration has approved another 10 percent reduction. Just wait until the budget cutters in other states get wind of this!
Theoretically, drastic payment reductions are met by further ratcheting down overhead expenses. At $11 per office visit, only a fraction of expenses can be covered, no matter how stringent the budgeting. In essence, the government is asking providers to help finance Medicaid through their own personal charity. Trying to cover 7.6 million Medi-Cal patients in the state by depending on provider charity is asking more than the system can bear.
Two quotes above need to be repeated.
Cindy Mann, deputy administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services: “We know that the reductions that are being approved today will have significant impact on affected providers.”
Dustin Corcoran, CEO of the California Medical Association: “They built federal healthcare reform on the foundation of Medi-Cal, and they just destroyed that foundation.”
And the other major component of the Affordable Care Act? A mandate for individuals to purchase inadequate coverage by paying unaffordable premiums.
The Obama administration officials and their co-conspirators in Congress could not have been serious about bringing us real reform. If they were, we would have an improved Medicare covering everyone.
We need to go to Freedom Plaza and join the Occupy Movement.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)