The Intellectual Mosquito

THE PIG FARM: YOUR U.S. CONGRESS IN ACTION ON HEALTHCARE REFORM

THINK CONGRESS CARES A FIG ABOUT YOU, ME OR ANY AVERAGE CITIZEN? WAKE UP, READ ON AND LEARN THE TRUTH.

Holy Crap! Where have I been? All these years I thought that gleaming white building on the hill in Washington, D.C.-- you know, the one with the elegant giant dome? I thought it was the Capitol Building. It was only recently that I discovered it's a pig farm! Imagine that. Who would have guessed?

I stumbled on to this while researching what I've come to call "The Mud Bowl", the showdown between the Democrats and Republicans over the Health Care Bill. For almost a year they've been playing something that resembles football without  rules. Senators and House Representatives with old-style leather helmets strapped on and each of them--men and women--are wearing vintage football uniforms.The Dem's have cream-colored  jerseys with dark blue shoulders and sleeves. The numerals are in dark blue as are the names on the back. The pants are camel with a dark blue stripe down each leg. The Repub's are dressed identically, except their highlight color is deep red.

This knockdown dragout is being fought on a slick  muddy field that has replaced the floor of the Capitol, and all members of Congress, men and women, young and old, duking it out. All of them are in the game as there is no player limit. Each side claims they are doing it for the good of the country. There are no first downs or time outs and there's no four-down rule.  As long as one side has the ball (which is as big as a prize watermelon and weighs as much) they can keep running all over the place, throwing it, catching it, kicking it. There is no scoring apparently, no such thing as a touchdown.

There are no unsportsmanlike penalties. No penalties, period. Both sides are throwing elbows, kicking shins, sticking out arms to make clothesline tackles, tripping opposing players and blocking from behind. The air is full of cussing like in real football games. It's crazy, I tell you.

HOW INSURANCE  AND DRUG COMPANIES FEED THE PIGS

Truthfully, this Pig Farm idea really did materialize while I was researching the neverending brawl on healthcare reform. I was on an intense Google search when the following headline posted on the Consumer Watchdog web site (March 9, 2009) snagged my attention:

"HEALTH INSURERS & DRUG COMPANIES CONTRIBUTED $5.5 MILLION

 to TOP 10 SENATE AND HOUSE RECIPIENTS SINCE 2005" 

According to the Watchdog, health insurance companies and big pharma doled out those millions over two election cycles, at a time not unlike today when health care reform was the dominant subject of political debate. The insurers gave $2.2 million to the top ten members of the Senate and House while the pharmaceutical giants kicked in $3.3 million to them.  

Altogether, health insurers and drug makers contributed $24,220,976 during the same period to all members of Congress. Here are the top ten, courtesy of Consumer Watchdog:  

    
Drift back to March of 2009 and slowly meander forward through those hot, muggy days of boisterous Town Hall Meetings where T-baggers congealed, ugly racist posters portrayed the president in whiteface and surrounded by swastikas, the hammer & sickle of  Stalinist Russia and scrawled handwriting dragged ugly words across posters made by bigots and people so ignorant and locked into their cockeyed beliefs they are beyond reasoning. Some carried slogans like "Leave My Medicare Alone" (Medicare is not an issue in reform),  "No Socialism in America" (By people who appear qualified to be receiving Medicare or Medicaid.), "No Government Takeover of Health Care" (Yeah. We're doing just fine with the insurance and drug companies running it.),"We Demand Our Rights!" (By people who couldn't tell you what the Bill of Rights is), "Leave the Constitution Alone" (No one's trying to change it.), and "No Redistribution of Wealth" (We're talking about spending our tax dollars wisely versus giving them to insurers and drug manufacturers.)

Yokels showed up at crowded presidential appearances and Town Hall Meetings wearing guns, no less, and hoisting signs crowing the time has come when "The Tree of Liberty Needs to Be Watered With Blood." Various Republican Senators and Representatives strolled  in to troll for votes, shaking hands, passing out pats on the backs of strangers and delivering phony speeches about how health care reform will wreck the nation and drive us  into bankruptcy faster than the Wall Street bankers did.

Lies abounded, unspeakable lies about "Death Panels" and "Pulling the plug on Grandma." They were flat out, baldface lies ardently spoken by elected officials before dozens of TV cameras and into banks of  microphones, fat  juicy lies fed to sweaty people sharing a lynch mob mentality. The  summer's events had the feel of a grainy black and white documentary on Southern fried hate and the Ku Klux Klan. I couldn't belive it was happening right here and now, and after all the tears, bloodshed and political misery we've been through in the last sixty years. It was a sickening picture, proof of the despicable possibilities that still exist in America.

 Now, take another look at that list above that shows how much those members of Congress have received from the bloated insurance companies and the gluttonous pharmaceutical makers whom we must pay whatever they demand or settle for excruciating pain or death. Ask yourself, can a Congressman who accepts this kind of money from any company be expected to vote his conscience?

 HOW  TAXPAYERS SLOP THE PIGS 

While all Republicans and a few Democrats are manning the barricades against healthcare reform, they hide the fact they are all awash in health insurance benefits that are paid for mainly by taxpayers. They have ten insurance plans to choose from, access to a nationwide network of doctors and HMOs that operate in their home states.

Our lawmakers get the red carpet treatment at Wasington's government run (but not socialist?) medical facilities. They don't even have to leave the Capitol to get medical care because they have a phalanx of doctors, nurses and medical technicians and a pharmacy conveniently on site. It's not entirely free, but for about $50 a month, it's one terrific deal.

Taxpayers picked up the tab of $15 billion in 2008 to insure 8.5 million federal workers and their dependents. The federal plans easily outstrip the coverages of normal policies while millions of Americans  go underinsured and between 35 and 40 million more have no health insurance. At the rate the insurers are hiking up their prices in retaliation for the threat of refiorm, millions more will shortly be uninsured.

Federal employees love Blue Cross Blue Shield's generous plan which covers a family for about $1,120 a month. Our taxes pay $700 of that monthlypremium. The annual deductible is $300 per person and $600 per family. There is no waiting period, no pre-existing conditions and no coverage limit.

Doctor co-pays are $20, generic prescriptions $10, a routine physical is $20 for the doctor while all screening tests are paid by insurance if a preferred provider is used. 

How are Congressmen and federal employees able to get this great insurance for such surprisingly low premiums? The same way the Health Care Reform Bill (that so-called "government takeover" of healthcare that is similar to Medicare but Republicans are carping about anyway) will make it available to all Americans.

Why is the government going to be able to get such great rates for non-federal employees? For the same reason they get for its 8.5 million employees. Because of the immense size and market power of  80 million or more potential customers and the billions of dollars in premiums to be had, insurers will be fighting like hell among themselves to get a slice of the big, new pie and to scarf up those people who prefer to buy private insurers. Premiums for the latter group will drop like rocks.

WHY NO SENATOR OR REPRESENTATIVE SHOULD

VOTE AGAINST  HEALTH CARE REFORM

Our Senators and Representatives enjoy the benefits of  health insurance  that not only far surpasses what millions of Americans can afford, but they get it at going-out-of-business prices. The base salaries for Senators and Representatives is $174,000 a year. The Speaker of the House gets $223,500 and the majority and minority leaders in both legislative chambers receive $193,400 as does the Senate president pro tem.

A member is eligible for retirement benefits from Congress at age 62 with a mere five years of service. With ten years in they can retire at 60. Twenty years in service allows retirement at 50. All members are given an Expense Allowance to cover domestic travel, stationery, newsletters, overseas postage, telephone and telegraph service and other expenses incurred whether in Washington or back home in their districts. Foreign travel is paid from public and private sources so long as it's to conduct government business.

Included in a Representatives office expensess is a minimum amount of $9,700 (2003), with additional funding based on a formula that uses the mileage between Washington and the farthest point in the member's district. A Senator's Expense Allowance is based upon a combination of his state's population, the distance from the capitol city and includes travel money.

TURNING  A SILK PURSE INTO A SOW'S EAR

Our country has millions of uninsured and underinsured people and families. Their ranks are getting fuller each day as thousands more are laid off, run out of savings or retirement funds or their unemployment compensation peters out. Millions of the employed are soldiering on, paying too much for insurance they can't afford to lose, doing without needed prescriptions or, fearing a health crisis and death, hand over money they could use for rent, food, utilities and other basic needs: dental treatment, gas, clothing, shoes, and the list goes on and on.  

Herman Melville observed that the well-housed, well-warmed and well-fed often judge those of us who happen to be less well-situated harshly and inhumanely. Congress is facing a choice. In view of all the benevolence life and lucky breaks have handed them, will they vote for Healthcare Reform, or against it? Those who say "Nay" are no better than swine. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE DECLINE AND FALL OF AMERICA (1950-2010)

         

    It's looking more and more like the last days of Pompeii, the sin city of Italy that was smothered in the thick, broiling lava of Mt.Vesuvius over 1900 years ago.There's a Big Money orgy going on in our country right now that nobody seems to have a clue about. Maybe I'm wrong, but here's what I think is happening.

    The Wall Street thieves are bailing out, sending footlockers stuffed with cash overseas to exotic places with great beaches and no extradition treaties with the U.S.. Former CEO's and other tin horn "Captains of Industry" are vacuuming the last pennies out of the corners of their shuttered factories while the little lady is at home helping the help pack the luggage. Our used-to-be automotive geniuses are in China,   being chauffeured around in limos while they shop for prime real estate on which to build their retirement palaces. In between stops they're asking their drivers about "safe" banks with friends in high places in Beijing. Back home in just-been-raped- again America, the Boards of Directors for the Health Care monopolies and Big Pharma are having a joint session, synchronizing their Rolexes and crossing checking calendars while  computing exactly how many more billions they can safely suck out of this country before the volcano blows.

    Everybody is screwing everybody else and it's impossible to tell who's with whom. It's the drunken billionaires' last big blowout before the ship departs. If you're a Republican national office holder or lobbyist, you don't need an invitation or your credit cards. "Come on all ready, buddy!" one of them shouts to one of the lobbyists. "It's our turn to take care of you. Come on, come on, Lieberman, you too!" 

    It's happening right before our eyes and not an single ordinary Joe is out in the street throwing Molotov cocktails and screaming bloody murder at the bastards. We're all walking around like everything's going to be all right. The Democrats said so, right? And after eight years of being bullshitted, ripped off and screwed over by the Bush-Cheney regime, we believe them. Where are the Democrats , anyway?

Health Care Reform's Public Option: A Culture War, Plain & Simple

Mitch Albom wrote the best-seller about the five people you will meet in heaven. I'm working on a sequel: All the Republicans You Will Meet In Hell.

I used to simply regard most Republicans as the servants of big business. Now, after months of  watching them use flat-out lies and fear in their attempt to defeat health care reform and the "public option" in particular, I see them   for   what they are: amoral and souless. Now I know they are  an evil force, up to their armpits in our country's social and economic plight, not to help, but to climb back in to power.They ignore  decency and morality, choosing instead to court favor with the mega rich and to fulfill the wishes of Wall Street and big business, the people whose money pays the way to election, re-election, wealth and power.

Considering their devasting defeat at the polls last November, it's remarkable that the Republicans haven't gotten the message. What's  their rescue plan for all  the families that got scammed in the "now-you-see-it-now-you-don't" mortgage circus of '08? Yet they're  stressed  out over the future of the health insurance companies. They don't waste time worrying about the welfare of the average family, so you can write off the homeless. Right now they're hotly focused on bringing down President Obama and his Campaign for Change, the centerpiece of which was his promise for health care reform.

If they can cause Obama to fail, which they and right-wing radio comedians like Rush Limbaugh have flatly stated they hope he does, Republicans see a chance to seize  long term  political dominance. They believe that would give them the needed time and control of Congress to turn the nation into their vision of what kind of country we shall have, and whose country it will be.

As commoners, low income and middle class Americans  will  have no meaningful role  in their utopian society, one under control of  the supremely rich. The America they imagine is free from  all  fear of  the  unwashed masses. What causes them night terrors  is the Power of the Vote. Without the ability to subvert, dilute or minimize our votes,  the wealthy see us as a threat to their indulgent way of life. As the  financiers of the GOP, their interests are much better served with the legislative power to ignore demands for a living wage, affordable health care, access to higher education, tight oversight of predatory moneylenders and new laws regulating large employers who are currently free to jerk employees around as if they were a subhuman form of species bred only to meet their labor needs.  

The defenders of health insurance companies have finally been forced to stop falsely crowing about our having the Number One health care system in the world. We are not Number 1. We are  Number 37 according a study by the World Health Organization. It is true that we're first in the amount we spend on health care, but we're only thirty-seventh in the quality of care. Clearly, we are not getting our money's worth under a system insulated from change by the Republicans and ruled by companies who act as the official Keepers of the Health Care Treasury. Here are  the facts according to the September 21st issue of  Newsweek:

     1) About 22,000 Americans die annually of treatable diseases because they can't afford insurance and earn too much to qualify for Medicaid. They fall through the cracks and into early graves. We are the only industrialized democracy where this occurs.

     2) We have 46 million citizens without health insurance while virtually every western European nation provides universal coverage. Britain, Spain, Italy, France,  Austria and Germany see health care as a moral obligation of the government to its people. So does Japan. And the European Union has a "right to medical care" embedded in its Charter of Fundamental Rights.

     3)  No one in Canada files bankruptcy due to medical bills. In the U.S., 700,000 people do so annually.

     4) In the U.S., health insurance is not available to you and me in a competitive market  where we can shop for the best coverage at the best price. In many states, a single company is the provider and may operate under two or three business names, giving the appearance of competition, when they actually have a monoply. In states with two or three  insurance providers, the companies have a captive market and operate as a cartel, or price-fixing syndicate. The differences in coverages and costs among their policies is similar to studying varying shades of gray.

 A poll quoted in a recent issue of Time says, many people are "very or somewhat" satisfied with their health insurance, "more or less." If the quotations are from the poll, it tells us nothing. 

Most people I know are either resigned to paying  the ripoff premiums, deductibles  co-pays, non-covereds, etc. or loudly dissatisfied. People especially hate HMO's. They don't like being told which doctors they can and cannot see; they don't want to be limited to certain hospitals because even if the designated hospital is conveniently located, the restriction  limits the patient's choice of physician; people dislike insurers dictating what medicines they will or will not pay for. They despise being denied  seeking a specialist without getting the blessings of The Insurance Gods.

 Unless someone else is paying for your coverage, you know that rates continue to grow at about 11 to 13 % a year, benefits shrink and options are taken off the table at will under threat of huge hikes in premiums. Since 1999 insurance rates have increased 131% while workers' wages increased only 38%. An average family of four pays $13,400 a year for health insurance.

The people I know aren't "somewhat satisfied" with their insurance. They are concerned about how much longer they can keep paying the vigorish.  They worry about whether they will be able to afford coverage for the whole family, or just the member who most  needs it. Many are counting the months until they can  at last  cross the finish line to Medicare. Others dislike having to buy "gap" insurance to cover the cost of suspiciously expensive prescription medicines. They worry about financing their way through the "donut hole"--that annual cut-off point where insurers quit paying for medicines altogether until the insured coughs up  about $2,500 out-of-pocket expenses before reaching the other side of the hole where insurance benefits kick in again.

Insurance companies act as if the payment of patient claims is proof of their benevolence versus   a response to their contractual obligation for benefits bought and paid for. 

Many taxpayers are rightly concerned about the rapidly mounting and overwhelming national debt. But this chaos was created by the Republicans and the Bush White House whose leadership brought us to the edge of ruin and left the Democrats having to fix their financial damage, including health care, or send the country into a second Depression.

In 2003 the Republican dominated Congress passed the "Medicare Modernization Plan". Under this law, insurance companies were given more than $100 billion in unwarranted federal subsidies while raking in billions more in profits. The legislation that made it possible was flown in below the public radar or it surely would not have become law. Only the Republicans can see where it makes sense to subsidize a greedy business all ready glutted with money.

Under the proposed Health Care Reform Act, those billions in subsidies formerly  stuffed into corporate pockets will go to providing health care for millions of people and holding down taxes.

Another absurdity of the Republican's "Medicare Modernization" prohibited Medicare from using its buying power to wrangle the best possible prices out of pharmaceutical companies. Knowing a business deprived of its ability to wheel and deal with suppliers cannot avoid over-spending and inefficiency, the Republicans nevertheless approved this waste of taxpayer money.

 The fight for health care reform that has embedded in it the right for people  to choose who they want to buy their insurance from, is a major one. But it is also part of an even bigger struggle. That bigger is to strip the power to decide for all of us away from the minority of the  rich who always choose only for themselves. Next, we must throw those politicians (Democrat or Repbulican)  who serve them out of office. Only in accomplishing that will we truly be a country of the people, by the people and for the people.