Pat Robertson

I have always considered Pat Robertson to be a hideous ass, but the video below shows him about as vapidly inane as I have ever seen him. He has been more aggressive, vicious and hateful at other times, but this segment brings "laughably wrong" to a new level. Perhaps it is his advanced age that makes him incoherently lash out at all that he hates, much like Justice Scalia, who is in his own cognitive downward spiral. If so, I would cut him, and Scalia, some slack. But if he is going to remain on TV and spout his nonsense, then he can forget it.

First, Robertson calls for a revolution. He could have stopped there, but I should have known bullshit would follow. You can seen from the video that Robertson is recounting a recent visit to his doctor. He complains that the nurse was asking him many questions, but he admits they are medically related. So the problem with this is what, exactly? The nurse should not be asking you such questions? Really, Pat?

And she, the nurse, was typing the answers into a computer, and thus, a database. What are you saying, Pat? That she should not bother to record the data? And it took a long time, what with all those questions and all that typing? Perhaps medical professionals should skip asking and recording medically relevant information? Because you know better, Pat?

The implication I draw is that Robertson wants us to think his horrific experience was the direct result of Obamacare. He wants you to feel the Affordable Care Act has created new levels of big-government intrusiveness while draining him of his last bit of freedom. Apparently even the omniscient power of his ever-loving god is not enough to save us. I thought we were supposed to pray and leave everything to god, who knows best and always guides us, never lets us down, should always be relied upon, ad infinitum. Revolution is what those secular guys do, 'cause Jesus doesn't whisper in their ear. Hey Pat, millions claim their prayers were answered when the ACA was passed. I guess those prayers don't count.

The inane implication in all of this is that he wants this revolution because:
   Nurses never asked those questions before Obamacare;
   They didn't record your medical history before Obamacare;
   Health care didn't use computers before Obamacare;
   There wasn't a lot of paperwork before Obamacare;

Perhaps Pat has forgotten that medicine has been switching to computerized medical records for some time, and for good reason. Who wants to go back to pen and paper? I mean, besides Pat?

And one of the reasons why health care in the US has been so expensive for so long, long before the ACA, is the incredible amount of paperwork brought on by what, liberal bureaucrats? Wrong again, Pat. We have been choking on paperwork beyond what other nations do because of the privatized nature of our health care system, dominated as it was, and mostly still is, by a profit-seeking insurance industry.  Europe and Japan provide coverage for all; it's cheaper and it is better. They have not had many thousands of their citizens die each year because they didn't have health insurance. And they didn't have many thousands more file for bankruptcy every single year because they couldn't pay their medical bills, or lose their insurance just because a private insurer didn't want to pay. It is these unacceptable realities that have defined the United States for generations, and that the Affordable Care Act has begun to change.

So Pat, is it asking too much for you to do some homework? There is a reason, whether you like it or not, why France is often regarded has having the best health care system in the world. France! Not the US, and quite frankly, we are not even close, even though circumstances have improved, thanks to the ACA, for America's poorest -- those who had no insurance at all. You forgot about them, didn't you Pat?

For the record, I had good insurance before the ACA went into effect. I have not had to do anything different because of Obamacare. I didn't have to switch, I didn't have to change doctors, no premium hikes, nothing. I'm guessing multi-millionaire Pat Robertson also had good medical insurance before the ACA kicked in. Nothing has changed with his insurance plan; no new doctors, no hike in premiums. Nothing. If he had real issues to complain about, the kind of disaster ideological fucks like Robertson claimed would happen, you know damn well he would have enumerated them in whining detail.

No changes with Pat Robertson either. Same asshole he has always been. But he loves Jesus, so it's OK.



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What Romney Won't Run On: Mormonism

We have seen a curious pattern with Mitt Romney's campaign style over the months. Earlier in the year, Romney pointedly told us how qualified he is to be president and how proud he was of his accomplishments. And what have been his examples? Romney repeatedly touted his business acumen, specifically his record at Bain Capital. It was, he claimed, a clear indication not only that he knew how to successfully run a company, but that he would take those same clear-eyed instincts to turn the country around. The oft-stated implication is that running a business is very much like running a government;  meeting payroll, balancing the books, and all that. Many seem persuaded by this analogy. 

But hey, Romney has real political experience too, as Massachusetts Governor. Look at his sensible record in a very blue state. It shows, Romney says, that he knows how to work with the Democrats and that he has executive experience. Notice also his difficulty in deciding whether or not he still stands behind Romneycare. He wants to denounce Obamacare, wants to trot out his own health care plan while Governor of Massachusetts, but doesn't want voters to realize how similar the two programs are. He cannot decide to run on Romneycare, and it shows.

And let's not forget his private-sector executive leadership as chief executive of the 2002 Winter Olympics Organizing Committee. Did that not show his poise under pressure? His turn-around skills? His ability to bring people together and attain goals? That was the message. As with the rest of his record, he hoped voters would take his narrative on the Salt Lake Olympics at face value. However, he not only has felt compelled to frequently alter that narrative, he flat-out runs from his record whenever he senses the need.

Why is that?

That brings us to his religion. The other issues above, Bain Capital and the rest, will be revisited in the coming days and weeks. For the moment, I want to examine Romney's, and his party's, messaging on how they want voters to think about religion.

We were supposed to be over the religion issue, weren't we? Don't worry, Romney is one of us. Isn't that what Republican officials have been saying in an effort to rally the Evangelical base? Too bad conservatives still foam at the mouth when it comes to Obama; Muslim invective is still acceptable and is still an effective campaign tactic. But don't ridicule our Mormon candidate, you wouldn't want to be a bigot.

Republicans have finally nominated "the other." Suspicious types were only supposed to reside in the Democratic Party. Real Christians are Republicans, but Mormons? They're some type of cult, aren't they? Apparently not any more.

Some people had a fit when Jack Kennedy ran for president. They figured he would take his orders from the Pope. I personally grew up around people who believed Pope Paul VI was the antichrist, said you could see the mark of the beast on his forehead if you looked closely. And, of course, a new crop suggests that Obama may be the antichrist. Some shit never ends.

But Republicans have been busy sanitizing Mitt Romney and his religious faith. I suppose it's progress in a way; Mormonism will likely never again be a major electoral issue. So if America's right wing can swallow hard and accept Mormons as fellow Americans, then who am I to object?

Well, maybe. Bigotry is alive in the US; it is merely suppressed when required, only to express itself when it suits political operatives and even then only when the right combination of emotional triggers is reached. That combination was not reached with Romney, though it seemed that it might early in the primaries, because his religious beliefs were not entangled with other key triggers, such as race, sexual orientation, or political party. Obama's Christianity would not have been unchallenged had he been a white conservative. That is to say, he would have been seen for what he is, and not accused of being the ultimate conservative bogeyman; a black Muslim. It was the combination of race, party, political views, combined with unprincipled doubts on religion, that has brought out the worst in redstate America. Romney, by comparison, only has had to contend with doubts over his religion. His feckless pandering on policies is of his own making. 

And yet...  One of my own yardsticks on religion has not been the specific doctrines of the person's faith, because none can escape the trap of implausibility and their obvious human origins, but whether candidates take that stuff seriously. Jack Kennedy got past the Catholic issue in part because he was perceived as being a cultural Catholic, decidedly secular and modern. It wasn't all for show, but his Catholicism was also not something that inspired unthinking adherence to doctrine and dogma. There were no other significant triggers that were able to create an insurmountable roadblock to his presidential quest. His religion did cause him grief for a time, of course, and undoubtedly cost him some votes.

Fast forward to this year's Republican primaries where we witnessed religious warriors like Rick Santorum who were not just deeply religious, but were often in your face with it. Santorum in particular wore it on his sleeve, and proudly proclaimed that conservative Catholic dogma informed his policies. Others, to varying degrees, including Newt Gingrich, Michelle Bachmann, essentially all of them, did not just ask that voters tolerate their religious faith, but aggressively insisted that conservative evangelical Christianity be given primacy in public life.

You see the difference? We were once told to accept politicians and their religion precisely because there was no discernible influence, at least not of anything objectionable. Joe Biden and Barack Obama fit that category. So did Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush the Elder, and Clinton. Bush the Lesser represented something of hybrid or transitional figure. Now many candidates want you to vote for them precisely because they are conservative Christians, even the Catholic guy.

Rick Santorum represented a bold push consistent with the ongoing right-wing lurch of his party. He wrapped his campaign in religiosity that made him seem more like a revivalist preacher, a Jeremiah prophesying doom because of our moral failings, as defined by him. In so doing, Santorum made it clear he would support policies that would punish and criminalize behavior that is legal but that he personally did not approve of.

But what about Romney? He won the nomination, not Santorum. Romney is not in your face with his beliefs. He doesn't thump his Book of Mormon. But he also doesn't want to field questions about it. We are to respect his religion while he, in turn, chooses to not discuss it, except to say how wonderful it has been for him. In short, we are to respect his Mormonism, a creed that was never seen as truly Christian, but hey, close enough.

But here is the deal; Republicans have unrelentingly argued that most everything in President Obama's past ought to examined; what has been they don't like. Too exotic, not American enough, a neo-colonial mindset that explains, they tell us, why Obama is fundamentally un-American.  For many on the right, Obama is either a Muslim, or if he is a Christian, he's the wrong kind. Just look at that Reverend Wright fellow; another angry black man. Books, films, and endless pseudo-investigations have been launched in an effort to discredit the man and raise suspicions in any way possible. Many of these attacks make no substantive effort to examine the actual policies Obama supports, which are decidedly mainstream and moderate.

Republicans have successfully snuffed anti-Mormon bigotry, which one could argue is commendable, but in so doing they have also squelched any critical examination of a breathtakingly bizarre set of beliefs and assertions. One is at pains to explain anything credible about the origins of the Mormon faith. And for those who might think the preceding sentences represent bigotry, I don't defend any religious doctrine, so I avoid the hypocrisy of denouncing one set of beliefs while asking forbearance on my own. No special pleading is needed nor is it allowed. Instead, one must recognize the very thick line that separates unprincipled bigotry from critical examination.

Romney, I would argue, is well aware of this country's tentative embrace of his secretive religion, especially from those on the religious right. He has dodged a bullet, if you will. The less he needs to talk about Mormon doctrine, the better it is for his campaign.

Romney has been allowed to campaign on unexamined religious claims because Republicans found no alternatives to him in the Republican primaries. They are stuck with him, so rallying around your candidate now means to shut up about the Mormon stuff.

No similar restraint is required for President Obama. Muslim or Christian, it doesn't matter. He wasn't born here anyway, right?

Single Payer

This is a short story of a psychiatrist named Carol Paris, who is leaving her practice in the US and is relocating to New Zealand. She is fed up with a market-based system that jerks around both physicians and their patients in an effort to extract profits. As I have written before, US health care is compelled to offer a hybrid system of care for those who cannot afford the ghastly fees, especially insurance premiums, combined with those same insurance companies out to maximize profits. It may make sense to a free-market ideologue, but in practice, it is clearly a mess. It creates profits for shareholders by refusing coverage for those who cannot afford the premiums. The federal government pays for those not profitable to the private sector. Health care in America is, after all, a profit center. The Affordable Care Act has changed only some of the most egregious practices. Below is a partial transcript originally from Common Dreams.

Dr. Carol Paris is a psychiatrist. She’s practiced for 13 years in southern Maryland. And she’s fought hard for a single payer system. She’s even been arrested in Congress for speaking out for single payer. But now, she’s had enough. She’s closing her practice. And moving it to New Zealand. 

“I’m so tired and weary of trying to practice sane, passionate, good medicine in this insane health care system in the United States,” Paris said last month in an interview at Union Station before walking over to protest in front of the Supreme Court against the Obama health care law and for single payer. “It impairs my ability to practice in a way that is ethical and passionate. I have a few years left in me to practice. And I’ve decided see what it is like in another country. I have a couple of friends who are psychiatrists who have done a sabbatical in New Zealand. And they said they are so sad to be back in the United States practicing because it was so much more sane and caring in New Zealand. I’m going to see what it is like for my own mental health.” 

“The insanity here is that we have a system of financing health care in this country that is all about profit for corporate America and not about the health care of the people,” Dr. Paris said. “It is opposed to the health care of the people of America. You can’t be about profit and be about a social service.” 

“Every day, I spend more time helping my patients figure out how to game the system, how to maneuver the system of health care insurance,” Dr. Paris said. “Maybe they can afford to see me and maybe afford medicine, but they can’t afford therapy. So, I’m robbing Peter to pay Paul.” 

“Any recommendations I make for my new patients is based on the assumption that they will have no health insurance tomorrow...."

For visual learners I have included the video below.

Good luck, Doc. Can't say that I blame you.

Labor Day Blues

Labor Day seems like a good time to share this interesting link. It is called IfItWereMyHome.com. What it does is compare living standards from around the world. There are different ways to do it, but the most obvious, and most eye-opening for internationally-challenged Americans, is to compare the US with similar industrialized countries. Take Germany for example.

According to the site, Germans, on average,
    consume 50% less oil (!),
    use 47% less electricity,
    make 26% less money
    are 83% less likely to have AIDS,
    spend 48% less on health care, and
    live one year longer

To be sure, some of the stats can be misleading; the risk of AIDS in the US is not evenly distributed. And though the US continues to show high per capita income, that fact completely masks the reality of extreme income inequality experienced in the US. Outsized incomes on Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and in entertainment are the only reason average income in the US remains high.

Some trends consistently pop up when you compare the US with other industrialized countries; the US has much higher health care costs, terrible figures on child mortality, uses far more energy than most, and has a much higher class divide.  

But hey, those Labor Day parades. Makes you so proud to wave Old Glory and to see all those politicans who have done so much for labor, especially those Republicans, marching and waving and such.

They must really support working families. What more proof could you want?

US Bringing Up the Rear

Here is yet another study demonstrating how costly and inefficient the US health care system is. The full report, from Canada, is behind a paywall, but the abstract makes clear how "interacting with payers," what we would call paperwork or red tape, drives up costs dramatically in the US and how Canada is significantly less costly:

Physician practices, especially the small practices with just one or two physicians that are common in the United States, incur substantial costs in time and labor interacting with multiple insurance plans about claims, coverage, and billing for patient care and prescription drugs. We surveyed physicians and administrators in the province of Ontario, Canada, about time spent interacting with payers and compared the results with a national companion survey in the United States. We estimated physician practices in Ontario spent $22,205 per physician per year interacting with Canada’s single-payer agency—just 27 percent of the $82,975 per physician per year spent in the United States...

This kind of shit is at the heart of our embarrassingly poor health care system. Much of the red tape relates to insurance companies jerking health-care providers around because they, the insurers, have profit margins to protect. What we rarely heard in the mainstream media during last year's health care debate was any recognition that the high cost of health care in the US is precisely the opposite of free marketeers' claims that competition and profit motive always improve service and drive down cost.

And the other side of that ideological shibboleth is that any government-run, socialized, or nationalized program, and that would certainly include anything so massive and complex as national health care, cannot be efficiently run, and is absolutely a terrible choice for freedom-loving Americans (cue the fireworks).

Once again, conservative ideology needs to explain itself to empirical reality. The United Kingdom has fully-nationalized health care. As reported in The Guardian on August 7, the UK's National Health Service, or NHS, is among the developed world's most efficient health care systems.

The "surprising" findings show the NHS saving more lives for each pound spent as a proportion of national wealth than any other country apart from Ireland over 25 years. Among the 17 countries considered, the United States healthcare system was among the least efficient and effective.

Nothing surprising about it. The study merely confirms what other research has shown. Maybe they should have watched Michael Moore's Sicko. The irony to this is that Prime Minister David Cameron, of the Conservative Party, just came out and said that the NHS needs to foster more competition so it can be more competitive. You mean like the US?

Maybe Cameron is the one surprised; he should not have been. He should have read that report first.

The Guardian's story, with a link to the complete study (pdf), is here.

Signs Our Health Care System is Broken

Here are a few signs we have a shitty health care system. Read them and consider why citizens in other industrialized countries have no desire to adopt our system.

1. Spam e-mail for Canadian drugs. We are all besieged with email offering low-cost pharmaceuticals from the land of Molson. Ever thought why? Many reasons, one of which is that our own government has guaranteed profits for the domestic drug industry. The Bush administration made it illegal for medicare to negotiate for discounts, or to obtain cheaper Canadian or other foreign-made drugs. (Just another Bush travesty Obama has embraced).

So now we get a steady stream of offers, of questionable legality, from abroad because they know we are getting ripped off.

2. Fundraisers to pay medical bills. This time it is grandpa's hip; next time it will be your co-worker'sw emphysema. Please give what you can. For millions of Americans getting sick without insurance puts a life at risk and a family ever closer to bankruptcy. This shit happens because our health care system lets it happen. Yeah, yeah, I know; much of this is supposed to end with health care reform. We'll see.

3. Medical tourism. Yet another growing industry, as Americans desperately seek medical care, even of questionable quality, because of prohibitive US prices. High quality care in industrialized nations is often cheaper, even after airfare and hotels, than the domestic stuff.

A hat tip to Southern Beale. See her post here for a more extensive purview. She is absolutely correct when she says: "Too many people are getting far too rich off of our current system. American healthcare no longer serves the majority of its customers. Which is precisely why nothing will change without a huge fight."

Yup, health care is a profit center in America. It does not serve citizens very well, but it enriches the health care industry, the investor class, and politicians willing to obstruct real reform.

And that is why we are unable to change it.

The Party of Distraction

Bill Maher nails 'em again.

When you go down the list of useless distractions that make up the Republican party agenda -- public unions, Sharia law, anchor babies, the mosque at Ground Zero, ACORN, National Public Radio, the war on Christmas, the new Black Panthers, Planned Parenthood, Michelle Obama's war on dessert...you realize that the reason nothing gets done in America is that one of the political parties puts so much [energy] into fantasy problems than real ones...

Distractions indeed; Republicans have nothing to say about Wall Street recklessness, income inequalitiy, homelessness, jobs, our crumbling infrastructure, or any substantive improvement in our deeply dysfunctional health care system.

There's more, so watch the whole segment.






And if you think Repubicans want to get government off your back, have a look at what they want the IRS to do.

Deficits, Health Care, and Willful Ignorance

Paul Krugman recently published an article in the New York Times in which he bemoans the inane level of discourse on the budget deficit as well as our out of control health care system.

Krugman writes,

According to a column in Kaiser Health News, Republican staffers jeered at any and all proposals to use Medicare and Medicaid funds better. Spending money on prevention was no more than a 'slush fund.' Research on innovation was 'an oxymoron.' And there was no reason to pay for "so-called effectiveness research."

Damn; Republicans are no longer even trying. They say nothing, offer nothing, that even pretends to be serious.

But today’s Republicans just aren’t into rationality. They claim to care deeply about deficits — but they’ve spent the past two years putting cynical, demagogic attacks on any attempt to actually deal with long-run deficits at the heart of their campaign strategy.

Here’s a recent example. In his new book, Mike Huckabee — the current leader in polls asking Republicans whom they want to nominate in 2012 — attacks the Obama stimulus because it included funds for, yes, comparative effectiveness research: “The stimulus didn’t just waste your money; it planted the seeds from which the poisonous tree of death panels will grow.” Will others in the G.O.P. stand up and say that Mr. Huckabee is wrong, that Medicare needs to know which medical procedures actually work? Don’t hold your breath.

Note the reference to comparative effectiveness research. That means we spend a little to look closer at what other countries are doing, the ones that offer care that is better, universal, and less expensive. But this is what Mike Huckabee ridicules.

Really, Mike? Do your really want Americans to remain uninformed and not know just how dysfunctional our health care really is? Most analyses of health care that make it to our mainstream media are incredibly vapid. In particular, they almost never explore in any depth why universal health care in other countries works well, contains costs, and is so popular. Ask yourself why the public in Europe, Canada, or Japan does not demand their governments adopt the US system. 

I have embedded a PDF below that offers a comparative analysis of the US health care system and those of several other industrialized nations. This is just one of several. The others I will post in due time.



1400_Davis_Mirror_Mirror_on_the_wall_2010


I hope this link and embedded PDF stuff works OK. I am using docstoc.com for this. Seems to be working, hope it stays working. Readers can let me know if the above PDF does not work. Note the text is a bit small, but you can click to open to full screen.

Alternatively, you can click here to view via Google docs.

Rick Scott Set to Descend on Florida

I had forgotten the extent to which Rick Scott had masterminded the teabaggers' Town Hall riots back in the summer of 2009. OK, I knew he threw a lot of his own money into the health care debate, such as it was, and I certainly knew he wanted to stop any reform that would undermine the healthcare industry's profits. But Scott has been a one-man wrecking crew.

You remember Rick Scott, yes? In a post on September 20, I wondered, as did others, what Scott's appeal was, given his extremely dubious past as a CEO of a demonstrably fraudulent health care insurer. It was all very public information, and yet he had the inside track as Florida's next governor.

He, of course, won the election and so he will be that state's next CEO come January 4th (what is it about people who think CEOs make good politicians? The jobs are so similar, don't you know?)

Madfloridan has an excellent post excoriating the press for recently raising a few good questions about Slick Rick, now that the election is over. He cites three sources.

One is The St. Petersburg Times, which writes, "Incoming Gov. Rick Scott's disdain for government regulation appears to be absolute — and absolutely irresponsible. The Times quotes Scott who declares, "What's the benefit of a regulation, other than delay?"

Yikes, and this after deregulation ran amuck on Wall Street. And the St Petes Times concern about this? As Madfloridian says, "So now they worry." At least the Times bothered to explain the value of regulation.

Meanwhile, Time magazine asks, "Is Florida ready for Governor Rick Scott?" As Time writes:

Florida has some of the broadest open-government laws in the country. So when Governor-elect Rick Scott held a number of behind-closed-doors meetings with business leaders earlier this month during a five-day jobs tour, many political observers fretted that he might not fully appreciate the Sunshine State's sunshine rules. "It would have been a nice gesture on his part to hold those meetings more in the open," says Ben Wilcox, Florida director of the government watchdog group Common Cause. "But Florida's sunshine laws are going to take some getting used to on his part, since just about all he's known is the corporate world."

The Miami Herald quotes a Scott advisor who doubts that Florida needs public hospitals. That's pretty rich. Scott says it's all about improving efficiency, which sounds reasonable. But he is part and parcel of the conservative obsession with privatizing everything in sight, an idea wrapped with the wholly-unsupported insistence that the private sector is inherently and always more effective than the public sector. What that ideology really means is that by privatizing, profit becomes the central focus. And that is precisely why health care in the US is so inadequate. For other industrialized countries, universal health care is first and foremost a public health care issue. For the US, health care is a profit center. The primary fiduciary duty of US corporations, including those in health, is to their shareholders, not their customers. The insurance industry's big pushback on President Obama's health care plan was not because it would not work. It was because they knew a public option would end their ability to continue gouging the American people. 

So I feel for Madfloridian, who says, "I fear for our state the next few years. This guy makes Jeb look saintly." That, of course, is Jeb, as in Jeb Bush.

European Dismay

In my last post I referred to Tom Friedman's article on how badly the US is polarized and how deeply it has affected our ability to function on even a basic level. Thanks in no small measure to Republican obfuscation, we have become a bizarre parody of ourselves. It is almost like a skit on Saturday Night Live, to which Republicans would whine about how they are being unfairly stereotyped as being in the pockets of the rich. "We will not try to balance the budget on the backs of the poor," I can hear them say.  Except that they are. Slash social security and threaten to shut down the government if Dems don't give tax breaks to the rich? They want that too. How painfully obvious does it have to get before we realize today's Republicans are no longer the party of Eisenhower?

Unfortunately, there are too many Democratics who seem either resigned to events, and are not fighting back, or are actively assisting our transition to oligarchy.

Americans don't take foreign opinion into proper account account very well. As a result, too many Americans have increasingly indefensible views on our international role and rank. And thanks to our deeply compromised media, few Americans are hearing what others think about us and our government, and why it should matter.  

Our recent elections, a giveaway to corporate America disguised as economic populism, has dismayed many in Europe just as it did many progressives here.  How can it be, they ask, that Americans can be so narrow and forgetful as to vote back into power the same corrupt party that helped put the economy in the ditch just before Obama's term began in January 2009?

Europeans, the same people who have national health care of one sort or another, and pay less for it, have no desire to adopt America's for-profit, pay-through-the-nose model designed to enrich the insurance industry. Europeans get more for less, and they know it. They see our recent protracted effort to adopt universal health coverage as symptomatic of American ineptitude. They could see, just we could, at least those of us who didn't watch Fox News, that very high majorities of us wanted a public option.

Yet we couldn't get it done, despite public opinion and Democratic control of the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. Support declined only when it became clear that we would end up with an unworkable compromise that enabled insurance companies to continue dominating the process.

Steven Hill has written more on the European reaction. In a recent post at Alternet, Hill relates his own experience:

"While participating in a conference in Budapest in September, where prominent conservative leaders and thinkers were in attendance, including the president of the European Parliament and two prime ministers, some of the most eye-opening comments had to do with new perceptions about America. One speaker, Christian Stoffaes, who is chairman of the Center for International Prospective Studies based in Paris, stated the “United States is in disarray, extremely polarized. It is practically a civil war there, and you can’t count on it.” This theme was echoed by others speakers, who went even further. One said “We need to shift our emphasis eastward (towards Asia) and not wait for the Obama administration.” I found these statements to be surprising, and even vaguely alarming, given the importance of the transatlantic relationship in the post-World War II era. But there was a widespread view that the US is being consumed by the severity of the Great Recession, brought on by a broken Wall Street capitalism, as well as by the quagmires of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, and an inability to change course."

 Regarding the failed Copenhagen Summit on climate change, Europeans saw that the US was not serious about climate change. Calling it a real wakeup call for the Europeans, Hill notes a sudden European epiphany:

...it wasn’t George W. Bush who was the problem, but something more profound about America’s broken political system that prevents any leader, even one as talented as Obama, from delivering.  That political system is marinated in money, is paralyzed by a “filibuster-gone-wild” Senate that has allowed a minority of Senators to obstruct all legislation, and is hamstrung by a sclerotic, winner-take-all, two-party electoral system that has left voters poorly represented and deeply frustrated." 

Ain't it just swell? Hill captures one more quotation that I must share here because it is a sentiment that many progressives share, including myself. German Finance Minister, Wolfgang Schauble, says "...The USA lived off credit for too long, inflated its financial sector massively and neglected its industrial base."

Exactly.

Bear in mind this is the same Germany that has higher taxes and more regulations, higher wages and higher unionization, and health care for everyone. It has paid vacations for all, generous maternity leave, more generous pensions, and much greater job security. And wealth is much more evenly distributed because of taxes. All socialist programs.

Just what Republicans insist would destroy the US. Yet Germany has generally better demographics, such as lower homelessness, lower crime, higher literacy, and longer life expectancy.  

Germany also has a massive trade surplus. And It does not owe $ trillions to China.

Republicans have their arguments completely backwards. But at least we have more billionnaires.

They Will Never Be Satisfied

President Obama continues to get very little credit for what his administration has accomplished. He has lost some support with progressives because he has yet to make good on issues that matter to them, including DADT, overturning heavy-handed Bush-era policies such as indefinite detentions, Guantanomo, domestic wire-tapping, and that little thing called the (two) wars. Jobs continue to concern us all. And Wall Street reform, so proudly hailed by the White House, will do little to curtail the dysfunctional personalities that flock to finance, where greed, aggressiveness, and a sociopathic disregard for the welfare of others are so obscenely rewarded.

And yes, Obama, and numerous other Dems crapped out on health care reform. Although Fox News won't mention it, public support for a public option was very high during the negotiations. Support dropped only when it became clear that we were geting the shitty version, the one that allowed the insurance companies to continue to rip us off.  More than a few progressives now believe the White House never was committed to a public option. So there are reasons why many progressives, myself included, are ambivalent about his tenure so far.

Conservatives have no excuses for their animosity, other than to admit their addiction to partisan politics leaves them no choice but to continually confirm they are intellectual prostitutes.  And confirm they do: They look especially ridiculous as they howl that Obama has shackeled business, that the mini-reforms on Wall Street will destroy wealth, or that our deficits keep spiraling out of control.

The President deserves some perspective in light of the steaming pile that Bush handed him in January of 2009, coupled with the abject refusal of Republicans to offer anything other than exactly the policies that got us here.  Deregulate Wall Street? Tax cuts for millionaires? Attack the deficit by hobbling social security? That's why they are intellectual prostitutes.

Have a look at the chart below. It shows some data you will never hear from Mitch McConnell.

Right, five straight quarters of growth. The White House had the economy expanding after only six months. Don't think Obama was the reason? You can sure as hell bet the Bush or McCain White House would have stepped up to take credit. As it is, many in the media act as if the recession began when Obama took office and that eight years of Bush mismanagement never happened.

Now watch the video of Chris Hays sitting in for Rachel Maddow. Record profits for corporate America, rising stock prices, out-sized bonuses. They even got their auto industry back. It's all there.




This is a big fat Happy Thanksgiving for corporate America. Instead they whine. 

Health Care May Get Worse Before It Gets Better

I see where our beloved health care industry, the world's best most profitable, gave $86 million to the US Chamber of Commerce trying to defeat last year's health care legislation. I guess they have to protect that gravy train.

Meanwhile, yet another study has been released which lays bare our deficient health care. Reuters reports that a study by the Commonwealth Fund shows ..."that while Americans pay far more per capita for healthcare, they are unhappier with the results and less healthy than people in other rich countries."

The Fund's data also revealed that 20% of adults in America had significant problems paying medical bills. Only 2% in Britain and 9% in France reported similar problems.

The single biggest difference, it strikes me, between health care in the US and elsewhere in the OECD is that in the United States, health care is compelled by conservative economic doctrine to be a profit center. And if doctrine is not enough, what with all those pesky socialists, powerful interests, with their lobbyists and paid-for politicians, will work to make it happen, on their terms. Elsewhere in the OECD, the focus is on low cost health care for all, not profits. Yes, I know; it drives conservatives wild--it can't work if someone isn't making money off of it.

Thus, the primary purpose of the health insurance industry is to turn a profit, not to care for the sick. Only this would explain why a nation can so ineffectively care for millions, especially the poor and others who cannot get insurance.  What we have had are highly profitable insurance companies that were able to cherry pick their customers, and ignore or abandon those who threaten profits.

Health care reform was supposed to address at least some of the most egregious aspects, all of which the health care industry fought like crazy to protect. Current legislation is deeply flawed, but hey, it was a start. The egregious, and some might say inevitable flaw, is that taxpayers will now pay for those previously rejected, which is ok, but without cost controls on the insurers, which is not. Lots of new customers and no one saying you can't raise your premiums. That single condition explains why the health care bill ultimately passed.

And with Republicans, fortified with a gaggle of ignorant and strident teabaggers, about to take back control of the House, I am not expecting any progress.

A Few Good Questions

Ralph Nader has a few questions he would like to ask of teabaggers. Good luck on that, Ralph. They are excellent questions, but try getting these people to answer moderately-detailed questions on policy, or to explain inconsistencies, or whatever. They can't and they won't. Teabaggin's all about visceral, feel good identity politics.  Not that some won't try, mind you. They are happy to talk, but they mostly want to attack, accuse, and smear, all while acting out their tribalist instincts; they don't want to be challenged.  This is true for the candidates by and large, but I think especially so for the fist-pumping, gun-toting, sign-waving crowds who have an awfully hard time getting their facts straight. There I go again, talking like a Democrat, fussing over facts and evidence.

Have you noticed how the teabagger signs (which you can easily google) are almost entirely directed against government, especially liberal government policies, such as health care reform, stimulus spending, unemployment benefits? Yeah, right, just the things that benefit the middle class. More to the point, notice the absence of any anger or venom directed at the real culprits; Wall Street, the bankers, the corporations that outsource, and all the other assorted motherfuckers that put the economy in the ditch and lined their pockets with our tax dollars? Not a word about how health insurance companies have been raising rates and denying coverage. They have almost nothing to say about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or the monstrously expensive government contracts for the defense industry that has profited so greatly.

The teabaggers are, in the main, angry, but ill-informed. Check that, I am mincing words. I should say they don't know what the fuck they are talking about. They actually believe that President Obama has raised their taxes, just one example of how they get so much ass-backwards. And that is because their Republican handlers keep saying it. They are being played by the Republican Party which has fed them prime talking points that benefit the wealthy and powerful.

Can teabaggers really be this misinformed? Can they really not see whose jerking their chain?  Matt Taibbi thinks so. He wrote at length recently about the astonishing willingness of teabaggers to believe ridiculous horseshit.  Have an eye-opening read about your fellow Americans.

Myths vs Facts

Below is an excellent list of myths about President Obama that far too many people believe are true. For this you can thank the congenital liars in the Republican Party, a captured media, as well as an unfortunately large, pervasive swath of voter ignorance. The White House's inability to get its message out, especially in the face of the incessant right-wing noise machine, ain't helping.

The list, along with the links, was originally compiled by Dave Johnson at Campaign for America's Future. Many thanks to Dave for his excellent work.

 * * *

There are a number things the public "knows" as we head into the election that are just false. If people elect leaders based on false information, the things those leaders do in office will not be what the public expects or needs.

Here are eight of the biggest myths that are out there:

1) President Obama tripled the deficit.
Reality: Bush's last budget had a $1.416 trillion deficit. Obama's first budget reduced that to $1.29 trillion.

2) President Obama raised taxes, which hurt the economy.
Reality: Obama cut taxes. 40% of the "stimulus" was wasted on tax cuts which only create debt, which is why it was so much less effective than it could have been.

3) President Obama bailed out the banks.
Reality: While many people conflate the "stimulus" with the bank bailouts, the bank bailouts were requested by President Bush and his Treasury Secretary, former Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson. (Paulson also wanted the bailouts to be "non-reviewable by any court or any agency.") The bailouts passed and began before the 2008 election of President Obama.

4) The stimulus didn't work.
Reality: The stimulus worked, but was not enough. In fact, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the stimulus raised employment by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million jobs.

5) Businesses will hire if they get tax cuts.
Reality: A business hires the right number of employees to meet demand. Having extra cash does not cause a business to hire, but a business that has a demand for what it does will find the money to hire. Businesses want customers, not tax cuts.

6) Health care reform costs $1 trillion.
Reality: The health care reform reduces government deficits by $138 billion.

7) Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, is "going broke," people live longer, fewer workers per retiree, etc.
Reality: Social Security has run a surplus since it began, has a trust fund in the trillions, is completely sound for at least 25 more years and cannot legally borrow so cannot contribute to the deficit (compare that to the military budget!) Life expectancy is only longer because fewer babies die; people who reach 65 live about the same number of years as they used to.

8) Government spending takes money out of the economy.
Reality: Government is We, the People and the money it spends is on We, the People. Many people do not know that it is government that builds the roads, airports, ports, courts, schools and other things that are the soil in which business thrives. Many people think that all government spending is on "welfare" and "foreign aid" when that is only a small part of the government's budget.

Only Teabaggers Will Be Surprised

It seems so long ago. Congress was fighting over health care reform. Republicans, well-paid by the health care lobby, dutifully trotted out their inane talking points.  Sarah Palin, appealing as she does to low-information voters, insisted health care reform would bring us death panels. And teabaggers once again had their facts wrong as they loudly proclaimed the US had the best health care system in the world. 

It is not news to the rest of us that any number of studies demonstrate otherwise. The most recent has just been released, and it makes clear that inadequate and deeply inequitable access to health care in the US is driving down life expectancy. An abstract, a PDF summary, and an explanation of the methodology, can be found here. Additional overview is at the Independent. 

Here's to the teabagger rallying cry; "Bring back pre-existing conditions. Vote Republican."

Shameless Ideologue

You might have seen this. Sharron Angle hopes you haven't, and with the 24 hour-news-cycle mentality of our media, it will probably disappear soon. The story is clear enough; Nevada Senatorial candidate Sharron Angle, who denounces so much of our government, and has said some very nutty things, has government-run health insurance. This, of course, is the woman who thinks the recently enacted health care bill is hideous socialism. She qualifies for it through her husband, who is a retired civil servant, one of them gubmint bureaucrats. Double socialist.

The more the teabaggers talk, the more they sound like a parody. No wonder she runs from the media. Her handlers must realize by now she sounds like a moron. 

Talk is cheap, hypocrite.

Why Don't Corporations Demand a Public Option?

I have often wondered why corporations have not supported a public option for health care or preferably a single payer plan. Our auto makers have longed complained about costly health care as a major reason for their relatively high overhead compared to foreign competitors.  And one of the reasons GM and Chysler were willing to build factories in Canada was government run health care.

One would think corporations would love to get out from under any costly program; after all, they have a long history of privatizing benefits and socializing costs. Why would health insurance be any different?

The Institute for Southern Studies (ISS) has offered some tentative possibilities.  One of these is that executives are reluctant to ruffle business relations for fear of encouraging expropriators. As David Himmelstein, one of the founders of Physicians for a National Health Program, says, "If you can take away someone else's business--the insurance companies' business--you can take away mine."

Moreover, says the ISS, corporations prefer some level of insecurity for their workers. The knowledge that coverage can be lost leads to a more compliant work force.

The problem with these hypotheses is that they don't explain why there is not a more heated public debate, not on the merits of health care reform, but on how non-insurance corporations would benefit from a government role and why they don't make the case. Certain executives may not want single payer for whatever reason, but why are they not at least compelled to defend their decision? Why have Democrats who support health care reform not made a better case to corporate America? Never mind the humanitarian or fairness arguments; most corporations don't give a shit about that. They do care about saving money. 

A Shady Past Matters Only if You're a Democrat

Karoli asks the question on the minds of many of us; "What do Florida Republicans see in Rick Scott?" The short answer why Scott has the inside track to be Florida's next governor is that he is perceived as a successful businessman, and who better to run a state than a rich businessman? An even shorter answer is he is the Republican candidate. That is all the reason some need, apparently.

It doesn't seem to matter to Florida Republicans that Scott was forced to resign from the giant health care provider, Columbia/HCA, in 1997, or that the company paid massive fines for fraud.

More recently, Scott created Conservatives for Patients Rights, one of the most visible of the anti-health care reform groups, and led the opposition to the health care reform bill. You surely saw the TV blurb his outfit ran incessantly in the runup to the health care vote.

So Rick Scott enriches himeself building up the giant Columbia/HCA, gets booted because of wholesale fraud at the company while he is CEO, and then tells us how we cannot trust government to play a role in health care.

Do Florida Republicans not care, or have they already forgotten?