SENSE AND NONSENSE—BLOB II
From the editor: Many of us now fighting for a public option in health care reform can remember a horror movie released in the 1950s called “The Blob.” The Blob was simply a massive jelly-like substance that consumed everything in its path. As I watched the movie in a neighborhood theater in Ft. Worth, I had no knowledge that the script had been conceived by an evangelical ideologue by the name of Irvin “Shorty” Yeaworth. “The Blob” was intended to be a subliminal metaphor for the cold-war threat of communism—a threatening mass of destructiveness poised to consume all God-fearing Christians in the free world.
The documented purpose and background of the movie is revealed in Chapter 7 of a new book by Jeff Sharlet titled, “The Family.”
Although we are not viewing “Blob II” in a neighborhood theater, we are watching it displayed almost nightly in angry town hall meetings across the nation. Instead of communism, the Blob is now our own government. The propaganda war now being orchestrated by the private insurance industry was succinctly identified by ex-CIGNA executive Wendell Potter when he told Bill Moyers, “The industry has always tried to make Americans think that government-run systems are the worst thing that could possibly happen to them, that if you even consider that, you’re heading down on the slippery slope towards socialism.”
The Obama administration in general and chief of staff Rahm Emanuel in particular need to hear the following message:
“LET PRIVATE INSURANCE COMPETE WITH A STRUCTURE THAT PUTS PATIENTS AHEAD OF THE BOTTOM LINE.”
Quality health care and the sanctity of life are not and should not be for sale. That is what is wrong with our current health care system. Profit is now the controlling factor in the administration of private health insurance.
The country and 50 million uninsured and under-insured Americans will not have access to affordable health insurance until the obscene abuse of the profit motive by private health insurers is balanced by a public option that offers citizens a true choice of health insurance.
A Medicare-like plan, offered to all, will work just fine. It can be financed by letting the tax cuts installed by Bush, Bush, and Reagan expire. It is much past the time for those who can pay more to pay more. And they should pay it in taxes.
Taxes pay for our protection. Taxes pay for our military. Taxes pay for our police force. Taxes pay for our fire department. Taxes pay for safe roads and bridges. Taxes pay for education. Taxes pay for safe airplanes. Taxes pay for occupational health and safety. And taxes should certainly pay for quality health care. Such taxes are not a “slippery slope toward socialism.” Such taxes literally lubricate our economy.
I am a fiscal conservative and I believe in capitalism. I simply do not believe in greed, avarice, and unexamined loyalty to shareholders and the bottom line. I can remember when the Dow Jones Industrial Average was in the 500 range in the mid-1970s. It is now approaching 10,000 once again. The investor class has enjoyed government-sponsored largesse for long enough.
It is now time for the working class to get a fair shake. And that means a public option must be part of health care reform.
Maynard Chapman, Editor
The Compass
TRIGGER MECHANISM WOULD KILL HEALTH REFORM
From the editor: The trial balloon now being floated by chief advisor to the president David Axelrod is a trigger mechanism under which a public option would only be triggered if private insurance did not provide affordable health insurance within a pre-determined deadline.
How logically absurd is that notion? It is absurd for at least three reasons.
1. Private insurers have long since pulled the trigger on health care reform and the result has been disastrous for the country economically and disastrous for individuals who cannot afford health insurance or who have been the victim of “rescission” by private insurers. Rescission, as you might recall, is the widely held policy through which private insurers now ration health care.
EXAMPLE: Nicholas Kristof, New York Times columnist, wrote in an article dated August 26, 2009, that “a Congressional investigation into rescission found that three insurers, including Blue Cross of California, used this technique to cancel more than 20,000 policies over five years, saving the companies $300 million in claims.”
2. Private health insurance companies owe allegiance and loyalty to stockholders rather than the general public.
EXAMPLE: Wendell Potter, in his interview with Bill Moyers said, “Well, there’s a measure of profitability that investors look to, and it’s called a medical loss ratio. And it’s unique to the health insurance industry. And by medical loss ratio, I mean that it’s a measure that tells investors or anyone else how much of a premium dollar is used by the insurance company to actually pay medical claims…I’ve seen a company stock price fall 20 percent in a single day, when it did not meet Wall Street’s expectations with this medical loss ratio.”
3. Apparently, the Obama administration has forgotten how to define “victory.” Obama was elected president because he stood for change. A health care bill without a public option simply continues a four-decade trend toward privatization of normal government functions. The proper role of government is to PROTECT its citizens. The Republican Party, Blue Dog Democrats, and bought-and-paid-for conservative Democratic Senators are in the business of protecting a few greedy Americans at the expense of low and middle income families. Having achieved a victory in the presidential election, Obama is about to surrender and squander the support of many voters who helped him achieve that victory. Governance is a different ‘kettle of fish’.
EXAMPLE: The New York Times reports “Medicare Part D, the prescription benefit that went into effect three years ago, was supposed to let the elderly get their medicines more cheaply by creating competition between private insurers…When the program went live in 2006, a fragmented market of 80 insurers -- with 1,400 prescription drug plans -- lacked the purchasing power to negotiate drug prices.” In addition, Medicare Part D provides $30 billion in windfall profits and taxpayer subsidies for drug companies through 2015 and lobbyists defeated proposals to allow the government to use the buying power of 40 million Medicare patients to negotiate prescription prices.
CHANNELING FDR
From the editor: Much ado was made about how much candidate Obama respected the legacy of FDR, read the book F.D.R., and patterned much of his strategy to bring the country out of deep recession after the policies of FDR during the great depression of the 1930s. This past week, the author of F.D.R., Jean Edward Smith, Marshall University professor, wrote an editorial for the New York Times. Following are excerpts from his article.
“President Obama’s apparent readiness to backtrack on the public insurance option in his health care package is not just a concession to his political opponents -- this fixation on securing bipartisan support for health care reform suggests that the Democratic Party has forgotten how to govern and the White House has forgotten how to lead.
“This was not true of Franklin Roosevelt and the Democratic congresses that enacted the New Deal. With the exception of the Emergency Banking Act of 1933 (which gave the president authority to close the nation’s banks and which passed the House of Representatives unanimously), the principal legislative innovations of the 1930s were enacted over the vigorous opposition of a deeply entrenched minority. Majority rule, as Roosevelt saw it, did not require his opponents’ permission.
“When Roosevelt asked Congress to establish the Tennessee Valley Authority to provide cheap electric power for the impoverished South, he did not consult with utility giants like Commonwealth and Southern. When he asked for the creation of a Securities and Exchange Commission to curb excesses of Wall Street, he did not request the cooperation of those about to be regulated. When Congress passed the Glass-Steagall Act divesting investment houses of their commercial banking functions, the Democrats did not need the approval of J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs or Lehman Brothers… [Editor’s Note: As reported in the April, 2009, issue of The Compass, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) repealed the parts of the Banking Act of 1933 that separated commercial banking from the securities business, which have come to be known as ‘Glass-Steagall.’ Thus, GLBA permits single holding companies to offer banking, securities, and insurance, as they had before the Great Depression. The GLBA was signed into law on November 12, 1999, by then-President Bill Clinton.]
“The Agricultural Adjustment Act setting production quotas and establishing price supports was adopted over the fierce opposition of the nation’s food processors. Establishment of the Civilian Conservation Corps was fought tooth and nail by organized labor because of the corps’ modest wages. Social Security became law over the ideological objections of those who believed that government was best which governed least and that individuals should fend for themselves or rely on charity. And the authority of the government to set maximum hours and minimum wages, as well as the right of labor to bargain collectively, was established despite the vociferous opposition of American business…
“For Roosevelt was a divider, not a uniter, and he unabashedly waged class war. At the Democratic Convention in 1936, again speaking to a national radio audience, Roosevelt lambasted the ‘economic royalists’ who had gained control of the nation’s wealth. To Congress he boasted of having ‘earned the hatred of entrenched greed’…
“Health care reform enacted by a Democratic majority is still meaningful reform. Even if it is passed without Republican support, it would still be the law of the land.”
Copyright © 2009, The Compass Society
