Health Care Reform Must Be Passed
Nate Silver, the numbers man, tells us why it is so important to pass the health reform bill – even without the more desirable public options. What he sees: poorer people getting subsidized care and the subsidy coming from higher incomes sources.“I understand that most of the liberal skepticism over the Senate bill is well intentioned. But it has become way, way off the mark. Where do you think the $800 billon goes? It goes to low-income families … Where do you think it comes from? We won’t know for sure until the Senate and House produce their conference bill, but it comes substantially from corporations and high-income earners, plus some efficiency gains,” writes Silver. He operates a website, http://www.FiveThirtyEight.com, and does unique political polling.
He has a chart that shows the breakdown of what families pay presently and would under the reform bill. It reveals the subsidies that would benefit lower income families.
His full statement can be found here: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/12/why-progressives-are-batshit-crazy-to.html
For another example of the importance of even a watered-down health care bill one can read an insightful take from a surgeon in the New Yorker. The article was mentioned by President Barack Obama yesterday in his talk after meeting with Senate Democrats.
The article says essentially that while the bill is seems “hopelessly inadequate” maybe it really isn’t. Then tells us why.
“Where we crave sweeping transformation, however, all the current bill offers is those pilot programs, a battery of small-scale experiments. The strategy seems hopelessly inadequate to solve a problem of this magnitude. And yet – here’s the interesting thing – history suggest otherwise,” says the article.
The author treats us to an interesting examination of our agricultural experience as regards to how health care could be advanced and expanded following the present inadequate legislation.
You can find it here: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/12/14/091214fa_fact_gawande
The crucial thing now is to get something passed that can be expanded and modified in the future.
The Republican Party and the insurance industry need to be rebuffed for their obstructionist push to kill any health care reform.
Listen To The Sane Voices On Health Care
There are some sane voices around. Better we listen to them or wait another 40 years for some kind of health care reform. Listen to the sane voices for a change.
Read Paul Krugman’s take on the health care bill today.
What is it about people, even well-meaning, that they jump all over Democrats – who are at least trying to pass a bill – and leave the Republican, or as I like to call them the Repugnant Party, alone and happy with their obstructionist policies.
It’s a disgrace that EVERY Repugnant is voting NO on health care and other matters. It’s obstructionist to the nth degree.
We’re also getting a terrible example of how the main stream media work in the reporting about the health bill.
Please read my post lower down which links to two articles that have some sanity in their assessments of the health bill, even without a public option.
Allowing this opportunity to pass will set us back decades and allow the wealthy to laugh at our fighting among ourselves.
It’s not about President Barack Obama, as some try to position it. It’s about getting direly needed health care to people who need it. Please read Krugman. He tells you why.
Here’s Krugman:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/16/illusions-and-bitterness
Does The PD Shy from Rapping Mason?
Did the Plain Dealer kill a story on Prosecutor Bill Mason because of the paper’s so – maybe too - close relationship with the people behind Issue 6 – County Reform?
County reform has become a crusade for the Pee Dee. And it has been so far a successful drive. Issue 6 passed rather easily with the paper’s backing. A good deal of the credit for passage goes to the PD for its concentration on corruption in county government. It set a tone – a climate for change - voters heard.
So that’s why it is interesting that the paper appears to shy away from one politician.
But the Cleveland Independent, a new alternative paper, this week published a piece on Mason and his political patronage problems. The problems seem strikingly familiar to those of other politicians that the Pee Dee vigorously and dramatically spanks. You’ve seen the stories, big headlines, many photographs of the “guilty.”
Although the Independent’s article doesn’t mention the reporter who did the story on Mason, it appears it is Joe Wagner, a hard-nosed veteran reporter of city politics.
Wagner doesn’t say that a story he wrote was killed but he does say, “Ah, I was told it was tabled.” That’s all he would say.
Must be a long table.
James Renner of the Independent wrote that the story was “pulled” by metro editor Chris Quinn.
Quinn said that the PD wasn’t “holding back” any story on Mason. He said that the paper had done a number of pieces about patronage issues on a number of officials that “we felt strongest about.”
He said nothing of Wagner’s comment.
Others have complained to me privately that they believe Mason has special cover at the Pee Dee and that critical stories about him are suppressed.
The Independent story names a host of patronage hires at Mason’s office.
Mason could become the most powerful politician here once County reform happens. He will hold one of the few elected offices. Some politicians believe he will have much to say about who is elected County Chief and in a number of instances new County Commissioners. Issue 6 called for 11 commissioners to be elected next year.
The article in the Independent is on line and has photos of the people named with their connection to Mason and friends.
It can be seen here: http://www.clevelandindependent.com/2009/12/18/payroll-politics-cuyahoga-county-prosecutor.
A Difference Between Youth And Age
The discussion on Bill Moyers show last night on PBS between Robert Kuttner of the American Prospect and Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone offers insight into the difference between youthful smarts and elder wisdom.
Taibbi would vote to kill the health reform bill. Kuttner would hold his nose and vote for it.
We know that at least temporarily (who can tell what will happen) the Democrats have welded together 60 votes in the U. S. Senate to pass the bill out of that body.
Many of us don’t like the bill. Some of us, me included, will take even a watered down bill with hope of improving it in the future. Lack of a bill would not leave open the possibility of future process and improvement.
The discussion presents the stark difference, I think, between the youthful desire for real change and the older wisdom of taking some change as a step toward more change.
Here’s the discussion between Kuttner and Taibbi: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/18/taibi-kuttner-debate-heal_n_397757.html.
Public Square Low On Cleveland Need List
Steve Litt is back on the front page this week promoting another supposed uplift for Cleveland’s despondent condition: this time another redo of Public Square.
He writes: “City planners have dreamed for decades of doing something to resolve the conflict between vehicles and people in the square and to restore the sense of the town commons implied in the 1796 street plan that gave downtown its form.”
I wish he’d name the city planners doing this dreaming.
I hate to break it to Steve but Cleveland even by 1815 was a village and hit a population of 500 only by 1824. Maybe these people, who likely knew most of each other, (and even lived in the city) could amble about a public square and find out the latest news and gossip. A true community public square. What Sunday fun!
But now we have the Plain Dealer, television news and something called an internet. They give us the gossip, insipid as it may be.
Really this another downtown plan by the same downtown interests as always. Their real interest is keeping certain people off the public square: Homeless people. Young black. Panhandlers. You know those people who interfere with the business of downtown interests.
It’s being pushed by two front groups of the Greater Cleveland Partnership (GCP) – Parkworks and the Downtown Cleveland Alliance.
The money – always available for these Establishment projects – comes from The Alliance and the John P. Murphy Foundation. Both occupy space at Tower City whose front door is Public Square. The Murphy Foundation has a fair market value of $40 million.
One proposal suggests a 76 feet mound of dirt. Now isn’t that clever planning. That must have taken imagination.
This is another Greater Cleveland Partnership project for the rest of us to finance. The Greater Cleveland Partnership, if you don’t know, is the representative of the top corporate people in Cleveland. It doesn’t represent the interests of ordinary people. GCP gets something as the Murphy Foundation interested and we’re off to the races.
All the usual suspects have usual trite things to say. City Planning director Bob Brown finds the ideas “fascinating.” Joe Cimperman Public Square is “pretty thrilled.” Chris Roynane is “excited.”
Is there anyone here who thinks for him or herself? Does everyone have to eat the pie served by GCP and its boosters?
In the mid 1980s we spent some $12 million to spruce up Public Square and I’m sure more than that (though I can’t find a figure) in 1975 when the wife of PD publisher and Editor Tom Vail, Iris Vail, headed up a beautification of Public Square.
Unfortunately, Litt, who has the PD morgue files, doesn’t tell us just how much we’ve already spent in “bettering” Public Square.
With all the problems that Cleveland has why is the PD pushing once again – at the behest of downtown interests, not the least the Tower City gang whose front door is Public Square – for another redo of Public Square.
Can’t they pay attention to the real problems of real Cleveland people? And then they grouse about “leadership” as they march in lock step to every task presented by the downtown business people.
Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
The grandiose talk of turning Public Square into a Chicago Millennium Park is so farfetched as to be laughable. Litt should be ashamed of himself for putting this as even a thought. Chicago’s park cost $475 million, some $270 million from the city’s revenues.
Have you noticed that the city is supposed to be so hard-up that it has to charge $8 a month to collect people’s garbage?
I’ve walked across Public Square many times. I’ve been to demonstrations on Public Square. It can serve its purpose as it is. Let’s not get carried away with all this feel good stuff that’s being sold by the same old people.
“The project shows that a critical mass of leaders in Cleveland now believes that landscape design is essential to the success of the city and not a matter of added shrubs when a major building project or highway is finished,” Litt writes.
Please.
Do You Tell 30 Million To Wait for Perfection
Medical care for 30 million people who do not have medical care now.
30,000,000. That’s one more than 29,999,999.
What do those who want to kill the health bill because it doesn’t go far enough say to these 30,000,000 Americans? Wait longer?
Not good enough for me because I have mine and I want you to have better health care? So wait longer.
If you don’t have health care, how do you get better health care from a bill killed by those who can’t see the benefit for the 30,000,000?
Wait 10 years and we might have something better for you?
Who is so politically pure that they can tell others to wait for perfection.
Wait for heaven. You’ll have it ALL then. Actually, no need for health care anymore.
Until then, hold on. Or take two aspirin and call us in 10 years.
Here’s the good and the bad and why the-not-so-good will have to be good enough for now:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-kuttner/learning-from-lieberman_b_398705.html
Count The Numbers and then Think
COUNT THEM…KEEP COUNTING THEM… AND KEEP COUNTING THEM - YEAR AFTER YEAR, AFTER YEAR, AFTER YEAR. ONCE YOU GET HEALTH CARE TO THE PEOPLE YOU WON’T BE ABLE TO TAKE IT AWAY. JUST LIKE SOCIAL SECURITY. JUST LIKE MEDICARE.
SCREW THIS UP FOR SOME IDEAL AND THESE ARE THE PEOPLE YOU HURT: 29,999,000
29,999,001
29,999,002
29,999,003
29,999,004
29,999,005
29,999,005
29,999,006
29,999,007
29,999,008
29,999,009
29,999,010
29,999,011
29,999,012
29,999,013
29,999,014
29,999,015
29,999,016
29,999,017
29,999,018
29,999,019
29,999,020
29,999,021
29,999,022
……
29,999,890
29,999,891
29,999,892
29,999,892
29,999,893
29,999,894
29,999,895
29,999,896
29,999,897
29,999,898
29,999,899
29,999,900
29,999,901
29,999,902
29,999,903
29,999,904
29,999,905
29,999,906
29,999,907
29,999,908
29,999,909
29,999,910
29,999,911
29,999,912
29,999,913
29,999,914
29,999,915
29,999,916
29,999,917
29,999,917
29,999,918
29,999,919
29,999,920
29,999,921
29,999,922
29,999,923
29,999,924
29,999,925
29,999,926
29,999,927
29,999,928
29,999,929
29,999,930
29,999,931
29,999,932
29,999,933
29,999,934
29,999,935
29,999,936
29,999,937
29,999,938
29,999,939
29,999,940
29,999,941
29,999,942
29,999,943
29,999,944
29,999,945
29,999,946
29,999,947
29,999,948
29,999,949
29,999,950
29,999,951
29,999,952
29,999,953
29,999,954
29,999,955
29,999,956
29,999,957
29,999,958
29,999,959
29,999,960
29,999,961
29,999,962
29,999,963
29,999,964
29,999,965
29,999,966
29,999,967
29,999,968
29,999,969
29,999,970
29,999,971
29,999,972
29,999,973
29,999,974
29,999,975
29,999,976
29,999,977
29,999,978
29,999,979
29,999,980
29,999,981
29,999,982
29,999,983
29,999,984
29,999,985
29,999,986
29,999,987
29,999,988
29,999,989
29,999,990
29,999,991
29,999,992
29,999,993
29,999,994
29,999,995
29,999,996
29,999,997
29,999,998
29,999,999
30,000,000
That’s 30,000,000 people. Is it worth a compromise to them or should we stick to our precious government option or nothing?
Roldo Bartimole celebrates 50 years of news reporting this year. He published and wrote Point of View, a newsletter about Cleveland, for 32 years. He worked for the Plain Dealer and Wall Street Journal in the 1960s. He was a 2004 Cleveland Journalism Hall of Fame recipient and won the national Joe Callaway Award for Civic Courage in 1991.