Election 2009 : Reading the Tea Leafs

November 4, 2009 in Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Even before a single vote was cast, political pundits and spin-masters of both political parties were busy defining political reality for us. The election of Republican candidates for governor in Virginia and in New Jersey is not the real story of this election 2009, however. There are local compelling reasons why Bob McDonnell won in Virginia and Chris Christie won in New Jersey. In Virginia you have a charismatic and strong Republican candidate in a traditionally Republican state poised against a weak and ineffective Democratic candidate in Deeds. And in New Jersey you have a very unpopular Democratic governor Jon Corzine seeking re-election in a state that is experiencing hard economic times and high unemployment. The people voted once again for change! In both of these states, President Obama continues to be popular, though polls show rising disapproval for his handling of Health Care Reform and other key issues. Obama’s slipping poll numbers reflect more the disappointment of supporters of his policies than outrage by opponents to his policies, as Republican would have us believe.

Republican spin-masters interpret these results as Obama’s policies being rejected by the people. That the people fear the changes Obama is seeking in solving the many problems created by prior Republican Administrations. That the people would rather go back to the ‘good old days’ of a country governed by Conservative Ideology the past thirty years. Such self-serving political tea leaf reading can only be as successful as the confusion, uncertainty and fear that people feel these days. And that’s what makes these political pronouncements dangerous. They feed on peoples fears and confusion, stoking political hot buttons for narrow special interests, taking us down the road of America’s demise. We must not let these misleading views take hold of our national consciousness.

The real story in yesterday’s election is the repudiation of Conservative Politics in the Congressional Election of the 23rd District in Upstate New York. Republicans held this seat for more than one hundred and forty years! In this election you have a clear contest between Democratic policies as represented by President Obama and Conservative Ideology as represented by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Dick Armey and Sarah Palin, who actively campaigned for the Conservative candidate. This was an election for a member of Congress! This was a clear referendum of where the people stand on national and not local issues. And in this election Bill Owens the Democratic candidate won, with little campaigning at that.

Democrats across the country should take heart and see this victory as a clear signal that people want change. That going back to the same policies and the same people and the same solutions of the past thirty years that brought America to its economic knees is no longer an option. We must move forward with the kind of change that President Obama can only bring about. Not Socialism, but a functioning government that can serve the people and not the narrow special interests. America is strong only when its people are strong and secure. Obama understands that. Republicans can only spin this Truth with clever political curlicues.

Our Profit-less Health Insurance Companies

October 28, 2009 in Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Lou Dobbs of CNN, and other apologists for the Health Insurance Industry, make the point that since the profit margin of Health Insurance Companies is a meager 1.5% attacks that vilify them as exploitative and predatory are unjustified. Such spurious arguments are nothing more than smoke screens to appeal to the free market/capitalist believes of most Americans while hiding the real issues and abuse. Anyone who has recently dealt with Health Insurance Companies will tell you of their anger and frustration with all the complexities, obstacles, denials and exclusions these companies make to any legitimate claim. I will spare the reader of my own personal experience dealing with my daughter’s health insurance company over routine medical care. Suffice it to say it has been the worst experience of my life dealing with any private or public company or institution.

 

But what of the argument that these for-profit private companies make so very little profit? Well, let’s say they show so little profit. And certainly it is in their PR interest to show small margins. There are many ways of hiding revenues. One way is in high salaries, compensation and benefits. Another is in administrative costs ( at 30-35 %, the highest for any industry and much higher than the administrative cost  of 4% for the government run Medicare program). Yet another way of wasting our premium dollars is to spend great sums of money in marketing and advertising. Still another way that profits are ‘eaten up’ by these companies is in their very extensive and expensive lobbying efforts and issue advocacy advertising that buys them influence with our government and aims to keep them in the business of running our Health Care System –  for the benefit of the few against the needs and interests of the people. All these expenses would be rendered totally unnecessary with a government run Health Care System. Eliminating just these wasteful expenses from our Health Care System would mean huge savings for all of us. More than enough to help cover all of us and give us real Health Care Security. (Paying for Health Care Reform)

Take Down the Drug-Ads!

October 19, 2009 in Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Have you noticed the increasing number of prescription drugs television commercials? Marketing of prescription drugs in such a blatant fashion flies in the face of the belief that nothing should stand between ‘the patient and their doctor’. So what is the purpose of prescription drugs advertizements? These only create a non-medical market demand for a drug, when such medical issues should be left for doctors to determine. Doctors are either pressured by patients to prescribe a drug they’ve seen advertised (against their own independent judgment), or doctors themselves are complicit with such advertisement, as they see their new roles as sales distributors for such products.

Americans have the highest cost for health care and prescription drugs in the world. As a country we pay two to three times as much per man, woman and child (insured and uninsured) for health care than any other country. People in others countries pay far less for the same prescription drug by the same pharmaceutical company than Americans pay. Many of us go to Canada or Mexico to purchase the prescription drugs we need but can’t afford to buy in the U.S.

Advertisements of prescription drugs and other marketing activities account for some 70% of the price we pay for these drugs, by some estimates. At a time when so many people cannot afford health insurance and are at the mercy of fate were they to get sick, such vast and costly advertising of drugs is just unconscionable. It is unnecessary and inexcusable and should be stopped. Certainly if we can prohibit cigaret and alcohol advertisements in television, we can stop prescription drugs from being advertised as well. These advertisements create an artificial demand and raise the cost of drugs for all of us. They also provide the pharmaceutical companies with a gateway to our collective consciousness to influence and shape our public opinions and attitudes. All this power paid for by us in blood, sweat and tears.

A Winning Strategy in Afghanistan

October 15, 2009 in Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

President Obama is about to make the most important decision of his Presidency. (see “Why the ‘Troop Surge’ in Afghanistan is a Bad Idea”). Will he send forty thousand more troops in Afghanistan and commit America to a prolonged, costly and uncertain military conflict there, or will he make a new beginning with a new strategy that depends less on military conflict and more on cooperation among people, peace and economic development. I like to suggest that we can still win in Afghanistan without escalating the military conflict there. Here is what I think should be done:

Limit America’s military involvement in Afghanistan to fighting and disrupting Al Qaeda activities there and in Pakistan. This can be done by establishing strong military bases along the Afghan-Pakistan border and other key areas from which quick-strike forces can seek and destroy Al Qaeda terrorist activities, using drones and other high tech weaponry and surveillance. Al Qaeda simply will not be allowed to train and organize in the area. This can be achieved without a massive military buildup seeking to defeat the Taliban first. We can have a ‘watchful presence’ in the region for as long as necessary, without military conflict and involvement with the Taliban.

Eliminate GI foot patrols through villages and towns that only create ‘targets of opportunity’ for terrorists and do not make the local people any safer or better. This will also vastly reduce civilian casualties inflicted by American military operations, which are often terrorist traps set up by deceptive intelligence for the purpose of inciting the people against America. Continuing with the same tactics of fighting insurgency in Afghanistan is a losing strategy. We can end the conflict with the Taliban by simply ignoring them and reducing them in stature and importance. Take away their ‘reason for being’ and they wither away.

Use a fraction of the cost of full scale military operations in Afghanistan to help the people directly by buying up all the heroin poppy cultivation, building schools and infrastructure, and generally build up the economy and political institutions of the country. The Taliban can be offered a place in the political table, if they should choose to take it. By buying up all the heroin poppy production we’ll cut off the Taliban’s main source of funding and will allow the people to move away from the corrupting and immoral heroin trade. If the Taliban choose to destroy and disrupt such efforts, then they will be sowing their own seeds of destruction, rejection and condemnation by the people and will give America the moral high ground. Every Taliban terrorist act, without reciprocal American inflicted civilian casualties, will bring about greater resentment and rejection of the Taliban by ordinary people – just as it has in Iraq that resulted in the country seeking a different course away from terrorism and killings.

President Obama now has the opportunity to earn his Nobel Peace Prize by the decision he’s about to make in Afghanistan. I pray that he decides wisely.

Why the ‘Troop Surge’ in Afghanistan is a Bad Idea!

October 14, 2009 in Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , | 1 comment

Advocates for sending forty thousand  more soldiers in Afghanistan point to the success of a similar troop surge in Iraq to support their position. But there are some very important differences between Iraq and Afghanistan. The sectarian conflict and insurgency in Iraq arose spontaneously and artificially from the American occupation of Iraq and from the toppling of Saddam Hussein. These events left an internal power vacuum and political struggle for control in the country. The Insurgency was not a well organized and well established broad movement, but  makeshift alliances of convenience among war lords and foreigners with their own conflicting agenda (e.g. Al Qaeda in Iraq, the Sunni, Iran, etc.). These alliances among diverse groups and people could be compromised and have been broken by Gen. Petraeus’s strategy and tactics. 

But in Afghanistan we have the Taliban! This is a well organized movement that once ruled the country before the American invasion in ‘01. It has still many supporters among the widely spread population, and had some eight years of American negligence and mistakes in Afghanistan to regroup, strengthen and better organize. Their influence and history goes back to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. And they are widely credited for defeating the Soviet Union, a military superpower at the time. They are well trained, well equipped and fanatical fighters. And they are defending their own homeland, fundamental beliefs and way of life. They blend in with the mainly agrarian population and probably are supported by many of them as friends and relatives. And they are fighting their style of warfare, following their game plan,  forcing America to fight them on their terms. This is not good. This is fighting the Wind. Just when you think you have defeated them they can rise anew from the ground and the woods and the civilian population to strike again and again with suicide bombings and road side IEDs. And they have neighboring Pakistan to hide and plan. This is Vietnam all over again. And no troop surge and escalation of fighting will defeat them. The Taliban simply cannot be militarily defeated because they are not a military force, but a Force of Will that only strengthens and becomes more resolute with every struggle and suicide bombing.

The Taliban can only be defeated by taking away their ‘reason for being’. More American soldiers patrolling the streets of Afghan villages and towns only strengthens their cause and support. More GI boots in Afghanistan means more ‘targets of opportunity’ for the Taliban and more civilian deaths to make the local population even more embittered and hardened towards America and towards their own government. You can defeat the Taliban by taking away their Afghan heroin trade. America, instead of spending hundreds of billions in executing a war (as we did in Iraq) can spend far less than that in helping the population move away from the corrupting heroin poppy cultivation and by improving their lives through education and work. All people are naturally inclined to seek a better life for themselves and for their children. In a world of peace and prosperity movements like the Taliban just can’t exist. They wither away and disappear on their own accord once their ‘reason for being’ has gone. And if there is to be a ‘destructive force’ in Afghanistan, let it be the Taliban. This will only bring their ultimate demise that much sooner.

America, and President Obama, are at a critical crossroads in Afghanistan. A troop surge now will commit America to a prolonged, costly and uncertain military conflict in Afghanistan, very reminiscent of Vietnam. To make matters even worse, our real purpose for being in Afghanistan (fighting Al Qaeda) has now shifted over into Pakistan. President Obama has inspired the people of the World with renewed hope and a different approach to World problems. The biggest casualty of a ‘troop surge’ in Afghanistan I predict will be Obama’s ‘audacity of hope’.

How to Kill Health Care Reform!

August 25, 2009 in Health Care Reform | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

… “buying time”! That’s the strategy Republicans and other opponents of Reform are following dealing with President Obama’s election mandate for Health Care Reform. The President’s position will not get stronger with the passage of time, but only weaker. Consider the August offensive by Conservative groups with the pretext of taking time to ‘do Reform right’. President Obama was right in wanting passage of the Health Care Reform bill before the summer recess! But the spineless Democratic Congress did not deliver, even with such unprecedented majorities. We’re seeing success of this “buying time” strategy by opponents of Reform with deception, mass confusion, misplaced aggression, outrage, malcontent and declining poll numbers. Delaying Health Care Reform now will essentially kill all attempts at Reform for a long time (possibly till the next great economic collapse). It will also deeply weaken the Obama Presidency and will politically paralyze him from doing anything (as it did Pres. Clinton).

When will the Democrats learn the “politics of surge” that worked well for the Republicans. You never admit defeat, you never admit weakness, you spin polls and public opinion, you assume an election mandate, even when you lost the popular vote and are put in the Oval Office by a politicized Supreme Court, and you do it with any means you can and not necessarily with bipartisanship. That’s the recipe for political success in Washington, e.g. the Bush Tax Cut for the wealthy that squandered Clinton’s ‘budget surplussed as far as the eye could see’. (“Why Do Republican Administrations Love Budget Deficits?”).

The Democrats have yet to learn to play ‘hardball politics’ and to go for the ‘political jugular’ as the Republicans have been doing for many decades (“Republican Infallibility and Democratic Failures“). It’s really pathetic that the only time Democrats can be politically successful is when Republicans ruin the country with reckless and greedy policies that only favor the wealthy and special interests. And even then, Democrats are capable of pulling ”defeat from the jaws of victory”.

America’s Lagging Recovery and Our Health Care Insecurity

August 18, 2009 in Health Care Reform | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

It is of considerable interest to reflect on the underlying causes for America’s slow response to the Stimulus Act with the huge infusion of federal money into the economy. It is estimated that all told some $14 trillions have been put into the economy in the last eight months to help us recover from this Great Recession. Though some argue that there are signs for long term optimism, most people will tell you that their lives are not any better off because of this Stimulus. Our economy is still in recession, shrinking rather than growing as is now the case in several other countries (Japan, South Korea, Germany, France, and others). These countries had stimulus programs far less than ours, yet are showing already positive growth, already pulling out of the Great Recession. So what is going on?

 

I am not an economist. So I wont confuse you with ‘data and statistics’. But it is well known that the American economy largely depends on the American consumer. It’s American consumption that drives the American economy. And if Americans feel insecure about their lives, if they are unemployed, if they fear for their lives because they don’t have health insurance or lack adequate health insurance, if they feel they will lose their homes, or their kids will not be able to go to college, they will pull back, not spend, become cynical and untrusting of their Government, grow angry and emotional. These are favorable conditions for the opponents of reform to seize and demagogue. These are conditions that give rise to mob behavior and to the breakdown of civil order and discourse. And this is what’s happening. And this also explains why the American economy is not showing the same response to the Stimulus given it, as the economies of other countries are now beginning to show. Most of the Stimulus went to bailout Wall Street and the Financial System, rather than directly to relief the people of their economic stress.

 

One major source of insecurity for ordinary people (not of course for the well to do) is the employer based private health insurance system we have. In contrast, all the countries that are now showing positive growth in their economies have public based health care systems. Their people are not as anxious and insecure about their lives and health care. They don’t have pre-existing exclusions, they don’t depend on their employer for coverage, they don’t have skyrocketing insurance premiums, they don’t have to fight with private insurance companies that seek to wiggle out of paying claims as they make as much profit as possible from the sickness and suffering of people. Such predatory capitalism running the people’s health care just does not exist in these other countries, even as their economies are run on capitalistic principles.

 

President Obama, if you want to save the American Economy, start by saving the American people. Give them the Health Care Security they currently lack. Health Care Security is for this Great Recession what the Social Security Act was for the Great Depression. Leaving this basic human need in the hands of private interests is as flawed as privatizing Social Security – as all of your Republican critics wanted to do just few years ago. How disastrous that would have been in the wake of the Wall Street Collapse that saw 401k pension plans plummet while Social Security checks kept coming to the dependent elderly. Only the Federal Government has the power and the means to make such assurances in protecting peoples lives, be that from external or internal threats.

Why the Democrats Will (Once Again) Lose ‘Health Care Reform’!

August 17, 2009 in Health Care Reform | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

We were repeatedly told by President Obama that the current health care system is unjust and unsustainable. That private insurances engage in ‘predatory capitalism’, interested only in making as much profit as possible and exploiting the American people in the process. And we know in our gut that health care cannot be a ‘commodity’ sold to the highest bidder. As human beings, we feel it’s inhumane to profit from the suffering and sickness of others. That any real Health Care Reform must have as a minimum a ‘public option’ to “keep the private insurance companies honest”. So what happened? Are private insurance companies now to be trusted to put the well being of people ahead of profits? Abandoning the ‘public option’ at this stage will invalidate all underlying reasoning for reforming the system. It will undermine the credibility of Pres. Obama who won the election on the backs and hopes of ordinary Americans needing justice and relief. You can’t win this political fight with Republicans, Mr. President, by compromising your principles and betraying the people that have believed in the change you promised.

 

Health Care Reform with a ‘public option’ was a flawed political strategy from the very start. The ‘public option’ was the Democrats’ attempt to meet the Republicans halfway in crafting a bill that would have bipartisan support. But before the fight even began, in a depressingly characteristic fashion, the Democrats already conceded the political arguments and rhetoric of the Conservatives. ‘Public option’ was the ideological halfway point between ‘universal coverage / single-payer system’ and a ‘for profit privately run system’ that we now have. But such muddled compromises only encourages more opposition and confuses people. You give-in halfway to the opposition and the momentum shifts in their favor. And that’s exactly what’s happening. We’ve gone from ’single-payer’, to ‘public option’, to ‘regional co-ops’, to the ’status quo’. The Democrats’ way to reform the current system is to essentially keep it as is! If  ‘public option’ is unfair competition for private insurance companies, it is even more unfair for ‘regional co-ops’ to compete with private insurance companies that have huge reserves and far reaching tentacles to strangle any upstarts in health care. This is nothing more than a tactic for killing this latest effort to reform the current system and Democratic proponents of it must be held accountable.

 

James Carville has Lost his Mind on Health Care Reform!

August 16, 2009 in Health Care Reform | Tags: , , , | 1 comment

In a CNN Sunday morning news analysis blabber, James Carville argued that Obama and the Democrats will do well to let the Republicans kill Health Care Reform and take the issue back to the people at the midterm election. What? We have seen this movie before and it always had a bad ending, for the Democrats and Health Care Reform. The last time was with the Clinton Administration and James Carville was very much in the thick of it. Learn from your past History Carville and stop ’shooting from the hip’ with your passionate over reactions and political outbursts! The people have elected Obama to give them real Health Care Reform and have given him a solid Democratic Congress to help him do it. If Health Care Reform fails with this President, this Congress and these economic conditions, it will never happen in our lifetime! Politically, the Democrats will lose all credibility with the people and will hand the country over to regressive conservative forces for many many years to come.

Paying for Health Care Reform

August 13, 2009 in Health Care Reform | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 comment

It is often asked “how we pay for Health Care Reform?” and Pres. Obama just as often described in great detail how he proposes to do it. But the simple answer to this question, however, is that we are already paying for the cost of Reform, whether we call it premiums or co-pays or deductibles or taxes! As a country for every man, woman, and child we are paying two or three times more on health care than any other industrialized country — for comparable care and prescription drugs.  So clearly there is much waste and abuse in the system. If we are paying per person twice as much in health care than we should be able to provide with the same money, as other countries do, comparable health care to twice as many people — enough to cover the 47 million currently uninsured!

 

What Health Care Reform really is about is giving us real value for all the money we’re already spending as a country on health care. Reform will provide us with security, stability, certainty and simplicity in our over burdened and over stressed lives. We need a system that will save families from bankruptcy with the first serious illness, save our Government from bankruptcy because of rising Medicare and Medicaid costs, and make our businesses more globally competitive by reducing their medical insurance costs.

 

Health Care Security is the comparable issue for this Great Recession that Social Security was for the Great Depression. And we should expect Republicans to oppose Health Care Security as strongly as they opposed Social Security in the Great Depression. It is also a test of our Democracy, whether our Government responds to the needs of the people or to the demands of the powerful special interests. Whether our national conversation will be dominated by fear mongering tactics and distortions, especially targeted to the elderly, or by a mutually respectful exchange of views.

 

The working middle class is already over burdened with much uncertainty and insecurity in their lives. Providing security for their health care will lift a huge burden from their lives. If Reagan-era deregulation had unleashed the entrepreneurial spirit of business, health care security in peoples lives holds an even greater promise of unleashing the country’s energy in creating an economy that will bring us to a new level of competitiveness. People need relief from their current unsustainable conditions. Real Health Care Reform will go a long way in providing all people with the certainty and security that allows great things to happen!

 

November 2009
M T W T F S S
« Oct    
 1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
30