Our Sex-Crazed Nation

OMG! Yet another politician had an affair, and that is burning up the media waves. Okay, I over simplified the situation…a lot.

What makes the Sanford affair newsworthy is not that he had the affair, but that he left SC without notifying the Lt. Governor and transferring power, literally leaving the state unattended in his absence. Or that some of his trips to his lover were (may have been?) paid for by taxpayers.

Then we have the hypocrisy, and I mean blatant hypocrisy, that being backing the impeachment proceedings of Bill Clinton. Additional hypocrisy lies in the whole “family values” idea the wing-nuttiest of politicians have adopted.

The fact is, humans are sexual beings. And, to put it very simply, sex is not just for procreation and, furthermore, monogamy is a cultural-imposed phenomena. This imposed phenomena has created a bunch of people that are outraged over something that is very natural, missing the bigger points. Perhaps if more people realized and accepted that humans are not meant to be monogamous, we wouldn’t be so upset over the affair, and be able to focus on Sanford ditching his goobernatorial duties.

I don’t care that Sanford had an affair. I do care that he chose to leave his state unattended.

Why Aren’t Gas Prices Going Down?

Demand at the gas pump is still down, yet prices continue to rise. According to Jim Hightower, Foreclosure Phil has everything to do with pick-pocketing your wallet at the pumps. (note, abiding by fair use is going to be very difficult in this instance, with apologies to Jim Hightower)

But hold your BPExxonMobilShellChevron horses right there. Supply and demand? The supply of crude oil has risen this year to its highest level in nearly two decades, even while the demand for gasoline has dropped dramatically, having fallen this month to a 10-year low. Let’s see – supply up, demand down. That’s a classic market formula for cheaper prices at the pump. Yet our prices have steadily moved up, rising by two-thirds since the beginning of the year (and by 60 cents a gallon in the past two months alone).

What’s going on here is not the “magic of the marketplace,” but some hocus-pocus by brand-name dealers. What might surprise you, though, is that the wheeler-dealers now jacking up our pump prices don’t operate under the BPExxonMobilShellChevron brands – but the logos of Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and other Wall Street traders that have been placing vast, unregulated, secretive bets on the future price of oil. They’re playing an electronic casino game in a global “dark market” of exotic derivatives and credit swaps.

If this sounds vaguely familiar to you, it’s because this is the same game that Wall Street played with subprime mortgages, leading to the present crash of our economy. And, yes, these are the exact same banksters that you and I are presently bailing out with our trillions of tax dollars.

Yet, there they go again. By pooling money from sheltered hedge funds, sovereign state funds, offshore accounts and other super-wealthy investors, speculators like Goldman and Morgan have quietly been buying trillions of dollars worth of oil derivatives – which essentially are bets that oil prices will rise to a certain level by a certain date.

Unlike those investors who actually purchase contracts for future delivery of oil, there is no limit on how much money these gamblers can put into the oil market. Nor do they have to report to anyone how much they have bet, even though their massive infusion of money is totally and artificially distorting the real value of petroleum.

This money-flow problem tracks directly back to Foreclosure Phil Gramm, in the Commodity Futures’ Modernization Act of 2000, and was backed by misogynist Larry Summers.

Instead of the truth, what do we get from the media? Some cock and bull story that refineries are cutting back on production. Or sad-sac stories of OPEC countries needing the money for one reason or another. But it is this Time story that hints at the truth.

Despite such dangers, investors and oil producers are betting that global demand will roar back, apparently hoping that the recession has already hit bottom. Over the past two months, investors have plowed billions of dollars into oil futures.

Unfortunately, according to this article, we are reassured that prices per barrel won’t go as high as they did in 2008. But, is that any consolation, when investors like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan are betting heavily on oil futures, that will continue to drive up the price at the pump when supply is up and demand is down?

I wonder what Phil Gramm would do should I send him a bill for the cost of my inflated gas for reimbursement? I doubt he’d pay it, but at the same time, I’m left wondering why the hell should I pay an inflated price for his ineptness.

Even scarier, what the hell will this do to our already failed economy?

SCOTUS for the United Corporations of America

If there was any doubt left in your mind that our country is run by and for the corporations, SCOTUS’s ruling yesterday in Coeur Alaska Inc. v. Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, should clear that remaining doubt.

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that the Clean Water Act does not prevent the Army Corps of Engineers from allowing mining waste to be dumped into rivers, streams and other waters.

In a 6-to-3 decision that drew fierce criticism from environmentalists, the court said the Corps of Engineers had the authority to grant Coeur Alaska Inc., a gold mining company, permission to dump the waste known as slurry into Lower Slate Lake, north of Juneau.

“We conclude that the corps was the appropriate agency to issue the permit and that the permit is lawful,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority.

The corps permit, issued in 2005, said that 4.5 million tons of waste from the Kensington mine could be dumped into the lake even though it would obliterate life in its waters. The corps found that disposing of it there was less environmentally damaging than other options.

Forget life. Forget safekeeping the environment. Whatever the corporations want to do is just fine and dandy.

But the bigger question is why in the world do these 6 justices think industrial businesses can take an end run around the EPA by using the Army Corps of Engineers? That boggles the mind.

Where are the jobs?

While regular folks that have been unemployed so long they are no longer on the unemployment rolls and newly unemployed are searching for jobs, you should rest easy that former Bush administration officials are cashing in, big time.

In May, the U.S. economy lost 345,000 nonfarm jobs, pushing the unemployment rate from 8.9% to 9.4%. According to official statistics, 14.5 million Americans are now looking for work and, as a recent headline at Time.com put it, “The jobs aren’t coming back anytime soon.” In fact, a team of economists at the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank recently reported that “the level of labor market slack could be higher by the end of 2009 than at any other time in the post-World War Two period.”

The news, however, is not altogether grim. While times are especially tough for teenagers (22.7% jobless rate) and blacks (14.9% jobless rate), one group is doing remarkably well. I’m talking about former members of the Bush administration who are taking up prestigious academic posts, inking lucrative book deals, signing up with speakers bureaus, joining big-time law firms and top public relations agencies, and grabbing spots on corporate boards of directors. While their high-priced wars, ruinous economic policies, and shredding of economic safety nets have proved disastrous for so many, for them the economic outlook remains bright and jobs are seemingly plentiful. In fact, many of them have performed the eye-opening feat of securing two or more potentially lucrative revenue streams at once during these tough financial times.

The very people that created the mess we currently find ourselves in, are making millions. One would think that “regular”  folks would be able to find a job this easily, but alas that is not to be.

Health Care Reform: 1993 Redux

As bad as the health care situation in the US is, republicans are still thinking it’s 1993. But, there are a few dems that are stuck in the last century as well, as Krugman notes. And this is a severe problem, for the people most impacted by the lack or health insurance and those that are underinsured.

The real risk is that health care reform will be undermined by “centrist” Democratic senators who either prevent the passage of a bill or insist on watering down key elements of reform. I use scare quotes around “centrist,” by the way, because if the center means the position held by most Americans, the self-proclaimed centrists are in fact way out in right field.

What the balking Democrats seem most determined to do is to kill the public option, either by eliminating it or by carrying out a bait-and-switch, replacing a true public option with something meaningless. For the record, neither regional health cooperatives nor state-level public plans, both of which have been proposed as alternatives, would have the financial stability and bargaining power needed to bring down health care costs.

A few small changes, besides moving to a single-payer system, to the way the US handles health care would go a long way in helping control costs. My top two changes would be:

1. put caps on what pharmaceuticals and medical device companies can charge patients (every other industrialized nation does this)

2. Put caps on what the health insurance industry can charge for premiums. This could be a firt step in changing the insurance industry from profit driven greedy leeches towards a non-profit entity that would have a place running a single-payer system.

The thing for our congresscritters to remember is that barring a true single payer system, there is overwhelming support for a true public option by the public (as opposed to the watered-down clap-trap being pushed by conservative dems). As Chris asks:

What part of “72% support” are the Democrats missing?

Which leads me to my third change in the system

3. Disallow health industry (from insurance to pharmaceuticals and medical device companies to hospitals and doctors) from lobbying all politicians.

Unfortunately, in any universe, money talks. Industry money takes precedence over the people that elect their congresscritters. And that, must change.

What Happens Now, After Health Insurance Industry Refuses to Stop Cutting the Sick?

Apparently, nothing much.

Let’s back up, a moment. Health insurers have been regularly cutting policy holders from their rolls that have been diagnosed with such diseases as breast cancer, lymphoma, and a multitude of other ailments. This act of cutting the sick from coverage rolls is called, in the industry, recission. And, some in congress have been investigating health insurers recission practices.

So, it should come as no surprise that yesterday, in congressional hearings, three main insurers told congresscritters that they have no intention of stopping their receission practices.

Executives of three of the nation’s largest health insurers told federal lawmakers in Washington on Tuesday that they would continue canceling medical coverage for some sick policyholders, despite withering criticism from Republican and Democratic members of Congress who decried the practice as unfair and abusive.

The hearing on the controversial action known as rescission, which has left thousands of Americans burdened with costly medical bills despite paying insurance premiums, began a day after President Obama outlined his proposals for revamping the nation’s healthcare system.

An investigation by the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations showed that health insurers WellPoint Inc., UnitedHealth Group and Assurant Inc. canceled the coverage of more than 20,000 people, allowing the companies to avoid paying more than $300 million in medical claims over a five-year period.

Now, our congresscritters are trying to get these insurers to agree to only cutting folks from their rolls when the person applying for health insurance gives fraudulent information in order to get that insurance. But, the health insurance companies are having none of that. In fact, they have every intention of continuing dropping the sick from their rolls. Why would the sick get recinded?

A Texas nurse said she lost her coverage, after she was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer, for failing to disclose a visit to a dermatologist for acne.

The sister of an Illinois man who died of lymphoma said his policy was rescinded for the failure to report a possible aneurysm and gallstones that his physician noted in his chart but did not discuss with him.

But, these actions are not just the fault of policy holders. These insurance companies praise workers that find ways to drop sick policy holders. And, not just sick policy holders, but pregnant policy holders as well.

Recission is an ugly practice, and one that the insurers agressively follow. If they didn’t follow that, why in the world would their workers be praised in preformance reviews for cancelling thousands of policies?

The committee’s investigation found that WellPoint’s Blue Cross targeted individuals with more than 1,400 conditions, including breast cancer, lymphoma, pregnancy and high blood pressure. And the committee obtained documents that showed Blue Cross supervisors praised employees in performance reviews for rescinding policies.

One employee, for instance, received a perfect 5 for “exceptional performance” on an evaluation that noted the employee’s role in dropping thousands of policyholders and avoiding nearly $10 million worth of medical care.

As it stands, the insurance companies have no incentive to stop this rescission practice, as they have no incentive to curtail costs. These are businesses where their main concern is profit, profit, and more profit. These companies are NOT in the business to help you, no matter what PR campaign they come up with to sway you to believe otherwise.

Last week, I noted a post over at Knoxviews which pointed out the president of BCBSofTN getting a salary boost, and I have a feeling recission plays a part in his salary. At the very least, a public-option must be part of the health care reform being played out in Washington as I type. Unfortunately, a public option that will be available to people that were cut from insurers, as well as the current uninsured isn’t going so well.

Perhaps most important, Obama has not yet demonstrated how hard he’s prepared to fight for the so-called “public option”—a government-run alternative to private insurance—or what such a reform might entail. At the AMA, Obama reiterated his position that one of the choices available to Americans “needs to be a public option.” But could this position be a straw man, set up only to be knocked down? The public plan has certainly served as a panacea to single-payer advocates and other critics of medicine for profit, including important Democratic constituencies like labor unions. One health care advocate told me that the speculation around town was that the administration could eventually abandon the public option in order to win bigger concessions from its opponents.

So, what plan would cover those that the greedy insurance companies have rescinded? Single payer would begin to take health care out of the so-called free market system, that has failed so miserably. It would be a stop-gap measure that would cover those that have been rescinded for some ridiculous reason by the for-profit insurance companies. As a single payer system is not even being discussed, the next best option is a public option, and as Ridgeway notes, even a public option has little chance of being affordable, equitable and available for the people that need the coverage the most. And this, folks, is one of the saddest commentaries about our current health care system.

Privatizing the Government

It appears that my US Rep, John Duncan (R-TN) has never opened his eyes to the gorging private companies have done at the government trough, since he feels that private companies are generally not as wasteful as the government.

It’s a complaint that U.S. Rep. John J. Duncan Jr. has heard for years: Small businesses interested in providing their services to the federal government never get the chance because government agencies handle the work in-house.

Yet often, private business could do the job cheaper and much more efficiently, the Knoxville Republican said.

“There’s waste in the private sector just like there’s waste in government,” Duncan said. “But the waste in the private sector pales to the waste that’s in the public sector for this simple reason: A business large or small that continuously wastes money is going to go out of business. But government agencies, if they waste money, they just seem to use that as justification for getting increased appropriations.”

Duncan has filed legislation that is designed to keep federal agencies from competing with private business for government work.

Let’s look at a couple of examples when private companies suckled at the government teet, when republicans forced privatization upon government agencies.

IRS privatizes collections, and failed. Note that in order to turn collections over to private companies, it would cost the IRS MORE to collect LESS under a contract with private companies. In other words, for delusional folks like Duncan, keeping collections in-house was cheaper and more efficient. The program was a failure before it started, as private collection companies could never have collected back taxes as cheaply as the government.

One of the biggest failures, on many different levels, has been Blackwater. Seems that after a very recent audit, Blackwater owes the government $55M. They charged for services that were not delivered. And they took a fryer. Fraud and theft? This is hardly encouraging for promoting privatization.

That’s just two examples, if I had more time this morning, I would list some more.

Bottom line, republicans are still delusional in thinking that private companies will provide services more cheaply for the government. Once these private companies grab hold, they bilk each and every one of us for as much as they can get, as it is the taxpayers that have to make up what these companies steal from us.

RIP Huey Long

Sad to say, an old family friend has departed this world, at the ripe young age of 105. There is a lovely write-up in the New York Times.

Frank Davis and his Louisiana Jazz Band were booked to play at the Rice Hotel in Houston in 1925. The banjo player never showed. For Huey Long, who shined shoes outside the hotel and occasionally got onstage to announce the bands, this was the unmistakable sound of opportunity knocking. Putting down his ukulele, he ran out to a music store, got a banjo on credit and stepped into the breach.

And so began an 80-year career in jazz and popular music. For the rest of the century Mr. Long, who took up the guitar in 1933, performed with an extensive list of greats in a journey that began with Dixieland, moved into swing and jumped forward to bebop. Along the way, he spent nine months in 1945 as a guitarist and singer with the Ink Spots, the enormously popular and influential vocal quartet that paved the way for rhythm and blues and rock ’n’ roll.

I first met Huey when I was about 7 years old, with my stepfather. As I got older I grew to appreciate Huey’s intensity, knowledge and love of music. Spending the weekend with him was like having 4 years of music theory in one sitting. Did I say intense?

I am lucky that I still have old recordings of musical get togethers my parents taped (okay we’re still having those switched from reel-to-reel onto CD’s). Some of those I had sent to Huey and his daughter for his museum. Do check out the website — there is some fascinating information there, as well as some videos.

Huey was truly one of the greats. He will be missed, and may his music live on.

AMA Shoots Self in Foot

So, the AMA (American Medical Association) is taking the schoking position against a public option in the health care reform debate, using the favored tactic of fear-mongering as their reasoning.

But in comments submitted to the Senate Finance Committee, the American Medical Association said: “The A.M.A. does not believe that creating a public health insurance option for non-disabled individuals under age 65 is the best way to expand health insurance coverage and lower costs. The introduction of a new public plan threatens to restrict patient choice by driving out private insurers, which currently provide coverage for nearly 70 percent of Americans.”

If private insurers are pushed out of the market, the group said, “the corresponding surge in public plan participation would likely lead to an explosion of costs that would need to be absorbed by taxpayers.”

Well, costs have been skyrocketing for years under the free market driven health care system that has been poorly implemented. One only has to go back to the MMA of 2003 to see that when Medicare was no longer able to bargain for the lowest prices for seniors in the program, that costs skyrocketed, with insurers lining their pockets and seniors no longer taking their necessary medicines or seeing their doctors on a regular basis.

Not to mention the increasing number of doctors that are opting out of the insurance-driven health care system in this country, and treating patients directly. No longer taking insurance has significantly lowered doctors overhead, just in the employees that don’t have to be hired to specifically deal with the insurance companies.

Then we have the tremendous cost under our current legalized extortion scam promoted by the insurance companies. You know, the US spending the most health care dollars per person and getting a horrible return for those dollars.

But, seriously, folks, one must ask why is the AMA and the insurance industry so afraid of a public option?

So back to the arguments, such as they are.  (1) A public plan wouldn’t drive out private insurers unless it turns out that private insurers are actually less efficient than the post office.  In which case they’d deserve it.  (2) Nor would a public plan restrict choice — unless the AMA’s members deliberately tried to sabotage it by refusing to participate.  (3) And there would only be a surge in signups if the public plan turned out to be a better deal, which would likely mean lower overall costs even if a greater percentage of those costs was paid for out of taxes.

Which leads me to a recent blog post I read on how a specific insurer has increased the salary of their CEO’s, which would not be possible if they weren’t already bilking each and every policy holder and rationing their care. If there were a public option, these CEO’s would not be getting such cushy salaries, either.

The fact of the matter is, the public overwhelmingly wants a single-payer system because the free market system has failed. It has failed because health care is NOT a business. People’s health plays a very significant part in driving the economy. The AMA would do well to get on board with the majority of the people, instead of whining.

A Centrist Health Care Reform Approach?

Not so fast!

Is the discussion and proposals on health care reform truly “centrist”?  Mike Lux makes a few points, that no matter what the media and think tanks tell you, what is happening on the Hill is hardly new. But, we (progressives, liberals, and dems) must also take note that what is being called “centrism” is not.

2. It’s not centrist except in the bizarre world of inside-the-Beltway land. Seriously, it is only in the odd nether-world of special interest-dominated Washington, DC that a policy widely unpopular with the general public in every poll, one where the winning presidential candidate spent over $100 million in campaign advertising attacking, could ever be considered as a credible “centrist” solution to anything. The reason this is possible is that centrism inside-the-Beltway has nothing to do with what real voters think, and everything to do with wealthy special interests and contributors happy. Centrism in DC basically equals corporatism- doing what’s good for big business. Rather than do the simple, more popular (with the voter, as opposed to the  big business lobbyist) thing of paying for health care reform with progressive taxes, having wealthier taxpayers and businesses pay their fair share, as President Obama has proposed, the DC version of centrism says “Hey, let’s increase taxes on hard-pressed middle-class people who work for a living.”

As Mike points out, the proposals by so-called centrists, are not centrist positions at all.

To further confuse the issue, some of these so-called centrists apparently don’t know what their position on health care reform is (TN Rep. Cooper, can you explain your wishy-washy support of two pledges on a public plan? Let’s offer a public plan and then pledge to make sure that public plan is not a guarantee when nearly one-third (32.4%) of the people in our state are uninsured).

Obviously these fools on the hill don’t pay attention to their constituents. That has got to change before meaningful changes in health care coverage for the PEOPLE can happen. Perhaps the best way for the people to get their representatives to listen to them is to withhold support in the voting booth.