Tag: reform

Rosencrantz and Shorties Are Undead

Volcanoes!: Ok, the Eyjnafjallajökull eruption was bad, but usually when it goes the far more dangerous Katla volcano goes as well. Icelandic volcanic eruptions are blamed for temporary climate change that resulted in the Mississippi river freezing as far south as New Orleans and causing famines that eventually resulted in the French Revolution. Here’s 5 more great volcanic eruptions.

Real banking reform, now!: Mr. Reich presents what I consider to be a minimum regulatory laundry list. In the meantime, here’s some things you can do to figure out who really owns your mortgage. Oh, and if you are having trouble with your mortgage (or are in bankruptcy), pay extra close attention to this. Crap like that would not happen if it weren’t for “deregulation.” If you are a little lost figuring out the Goldmann Sachs story, here’s a nice analysis. Don’t forget that there’s a criminal investigation into what happened at Countrywide. Could it bring down Bank of America? We can only hope.

The recession is over? Like hell: The economy is very far from normal (and in my opinion will stay that way until the fundamental banking issues and certain insurance issues are solved).

Oh yeah, it’s 4/20: Did you know that a majority of Americans in the West support legalizing (and regulating) marijuana?

Stupid School Administrator Tricks: The story of a school district in Pennsylvania secretly using webcams in school issued notebook computers to spy on children gets deeper and weirder. They now admit to having some 56,000 pictures (and those are just the keepers and the ones they admit to having). Yet somehow, even though they have pictures of sleeping students, they miraculously don’t have any nudies? Yeah, I’m with Amanda on this one: suuuuure they don’t.

On the other hand: The Supreme Court isn’t amused by a SWAT officer who was reprimanded for texting his wife and girlfriend — both!? — on a police issued phone. Justice Stevens asked “Wouldn’t you just assume that the whole universe of conversations by SWAT officers who were on duty 24/7 might well have to be reviewed by some member of the public or some supervisor?”

Stupid Tax Tricks: Teabaggers who don’t know what they are talking about, and the myth that somehow corporations will pass on the cost of taxes on profits to customers.

Stupid Legislator Tricks: Apparently they are using some “new math” on Capitol Hill, as Senator Coburn is going on record as saying more money is “wasted” on Medicaid than is actually spent on it. Can’t he just admit he hates poor people and thinks any money spent on them is a waste? Either that or sign him up for Kumon.

Chemo sucks: but it is better than dying of cancer.

Almost makes me want to take up guitar: light-up guitar picks!

A cool cookbook, I hope: The Primal Blueprint Cookbook. Mine is on pre-order. So far all the recipes shared on Mark Sisson’s blog have been winners.

I will have more to say about this soon: Local interest lawsuit with nationwide ramifications.

Building a castle:  In the Ozarks. Now. It’s a pretty cool project!

Star Wars Japan Filter: Did you know that Mark Hamill went to High School in Japan? He’s working on a new movie project, by the way. And just to wrap things up, here’s an artist’s impression of what Star Wars characters would look like as done by Akira Kurasawa.

Reform. For Freedom.

We have officially gotten to the point where corporations control us.

They control how much money we are allowed to make. They control our finances on the national, international, and personal level — badly. They control our health care in a system that is doomed to collapse under the weight of its own expense real soon now. Worst of all, they play by whatever rules they like while squeezing ordinary people to desperation. Now they have a green light to even more openly control our government.

And unless this worthless Congress remembers that the one thing corporations can’t do — yet, anyway — is vote, things are going to get worse rather than better. We desperately need real financial reform now, the kind that restores rules that worked through most of the 20th century and not the kind so riddled with loopholes as to be a gift to the financial services industry. We need insurance reform that puts more of our health care dollars to work providing health care and curtailing the abuse of patients who foolishly want the care they think they (or their bosses) are paying for, not a “reform” that forces everyone to participate in a broken system through mandatory coverage.

“I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free,” the song goes. Free to do what? Free to get involved in staged protests of issues we don’t understand? Free to loudly proclaim “facts” with no basis in reality? Free to watch propaganda dressed up as news? Free to owe everything to the companies that hire us, care for us, and mis-manage our money with no hope of anything else?

If you don’t mind, I’d prefer a different flavor of freedom.

In Closing: Roman Army Knife; “Um, because it was the right thing to do and we didn’t want any lawyers saying we did wrong later? Was the 5th Amendment repealed while I wasn’t looking?”; nice to see that we are going to count job losses more honestly, but it’s a shame that Mr. Obama will be blamed for “losing” these jobs when he merely counted Bush Administration losses correctly; I couldn’t have said it better either; at least child abuse is down!; where genetic testing and “pro-life” collide; trees are loving global warming (much more so than the polar bears); and Americans are drinking more, but we’re not paying for the Good Stuff. So, uh, maybe the price of Scotch will return to rational levels? No? I thought not.

4 Thoughts on Health Insurance Reform

Notice I never call it health care reform? That’s because it isn’t. Very little of what is being discussed will change what happens between you and your doctor beyond how (and how much) he* gets paid.

As I see it, there are 5 points of view on the bill currently being rammed through the Senate:

1. It goes too far. This point of view has a problem with anything that might be called “socialized”. They are barely able to tolerate the idea that their tax dollars go towards schools where the people who will eventually sack their groceries attend; subsidies for buying insurance is way out! Let them get jobs that have decent benefits!

2. It does some important things, even if it’s a little too liberal. Hey, at least it’s making those lazy bastards buy insurance so they can go to a doctor instead of just sneezing their germs on me! In other words, it’s better than a lot of things and the bad things can be fixed later. Some people I generally respect hold this position.

3. It does some important things, even if it’s a little too conservative. Or, the Ezra Klein position. Hey, we’ll take out that Stupak thing in conference or something. At least there is some money set aside for subsidies to help people afford the overpriced and underfeatured health plans they will soon be forced to purchase. In other words, it’s better than a lot of things and the bad things can be fixed later. Huh, where have I heard that before?

4. It does almost nothing — except give favors to Big Insurance and Big Pharma. Or, the Howard Dean position. Progressives didn’t get anything they wanted or needed out of this bill. No public option. Pre-existing conditions can still be used to set rates. Corporations are still in charge, and because we are legally obligated to do business with them — that’s what mandatory coverage or “the coverage mandate” is about — there is no incentive for them to chance their ways.

In short, two points of view say “It’s better than nothing, and far better than it could have been,” and two points of view say “This is worse than nothing and should be scrapped.” While I appreciate where the others are coming from, I generally hold to view 4. What we wanted and needed was a short laundry list that included getting rid of abusive practices such as use of pre-existing conditions for coverage or pricing, rescission, and constantly rising prices, maybe 10 pages of law. What we appear to have is a legal requirement to bend over and take it, a law so long that the Republicans are threatening to make them read the whole thing out loud in open session.

And nobody is talking about not just the elephant in the room, but a veritable zoo: obesity rates raising the amount we spend on health care; baby boomers who will soon be on Medicare; obscene insurance company profits; a looming shortage of primary care physicians and experienced nurses to assist them.

* Um Yeah, that’s right, I said “he.” Not “he or she”, not “she.” Politically correct horsehockey aside, odds are very good your doctor is a dude. Don’t like it? Encourage women in your life to go to medical school. Just don’t get them any books on the subject like House of God. I can’t find the book that made me decide I wanted no part of medical school on Amazon, but this looks like similar content.