This state can move forward, but …

June 29, 2009

Are politicians willing to cut ties with special interests?

By Jack E. Lohman

This is absolutely absurd. We Americans cannot manage our own affairs without corruption, yet we ask others to follow our lead.

We are all jockeying for position in life. More personal cash makes life easier, so some are willing to work harder to get there, some are willing to manipulate the system and steal from others to get there, and some are unable or unwilling to work for their place in life.

Worse is that we have state legislators and US congressmen, both of whom we trust are working for us but are taking money from them, who are willing to write laws that benefit those who fund their elections. We want laws to benefit our society and our families, and the special interests want exactly the opposite.

So you know who our politicians cotton to. Good guys these.

Only public funding of campaigns will reverse the payola and get politicians voting for the people rather than their pocketbooks. Only then can we trust politicians to properly adjust the equations of life.

Wisconsin has the opportunity to move beyond all other states, and perhaps create a model that will repair our dismal economy.

First we must get our politicians working for “us” rather than “them,” and if we aren’t willing to do that we should hang it up. We will remain in this hole for years to come.

Then we must protect our state jobs and commerce. If we want jobs coming to the state instead of leaving, we must eliminate business taxes and health care costs for our corporations. Totally! Both should become a part of our infrastructure and paid for out of a progressive tax on wages.

The rich won’t like this, at least until they realize that its contribution to a solid economy benefits their stash as well. The poor and unemployed will like it, at least until we pass a work-for-welfare program. It doesn’t matter what your situation, if you get a public check for welfare or unemployment you must contribute 20 hours per week sweeping streets, shoveling snow, volunteering time to non-profits, whatever. But you must work!

Are you willing to pay $500 more per month in taxes to eliminate $700 per month health insurance premiums? If your employer is now laden with these costs, are they willing to give employee raises to offset their increased taxes to get themselves out from under this burden? Even if not, are we willing to absorb those costs and taxes so jobs and corporations and commerce remain and grow in the state? (Right wingers, I already know your answer!)

Look, we consumers already pick up 100% of the costs for corporate taxes and health care costs, if nowhere else then when they add their costs to the price of their product and we reimbuse them at the cash register. But in the process we make our companies less competitive and drive jobs out of the state and country. That’s real smart.

Politicians must pass a state single-payer health care plan. Yes, it might draw people from other states… and corporations and jobs and commerce and, well, what’s not to like about that? We must recognize that the very thing this state needs is the very thing the insurance industry doesn’t want us to have: efficient health care. Let them take a walk, we can no longer afford them.

Sure it would be better if congress did this, but congress members from both political parties are too much in the pocket of the special interests. They should go the way of Iran’s leaders, they are no better.

Our Democrats have a problem. They have control at both the state and Federal level and I don’t think they want it. They’d much prefer that Republicans block progress, because doing what is right is now entirely up to them. If they don’t do it right it is their problem and they’ll be out of a job in 2010.

2 Comments | Economy, Health Care, Political Money | Permalink
Posted by MoneyedPoliticians

“America will always do the right thing,

June 22, 2009

… but only after everything else fails.”

By Jack E. Lohman

That’s Winston Churchill, talking about our politicians. And at the time he didn’t even know about the $46 million they received from the insurance industry and $60 million from Big Pharma and the hospitals. Oh yea; they’ll do the right thing alright.

Funny how that works. The industry got their profits from patients and business premiums, shared them with the politicians to work against those same patients and businesses to put even more profits in the industry’s pocket. And today we get word that “insurance premiums” are increasing by 9% even with a stagnant economy.

Bingo!  That’s capitalism at work.

Well, with a little bit of political bribery thrown in.

The people are mad, businesses are mad, but the politicians aren’t. They love the arrangement, this pocketing a share of patient dollars. That’s why politicians always prefer “private industry” over “public services.” One can give campaign cash; the other can’t.

Question #1: Will 40 million people lose their current health care “insurance” if single payer is adopted, as the naysayers claim?

If we do it right, indeed they would and they should. But they’ll keep their same doctor and hospital and keep their same health care!!!  And if that’s not good enough, you or your employer can supplement it to add all the frills you want!

Oh, they didn’t tell you that?

In some cases single-payer will even improve care. We’ll go to the same caregivers as before, but they will send their invoice to the single-payer administrator instead. That, without adding all of the costs needed to support our current inefficient, middleman system, or having the insurance CEO cutting care to increase profits. That won’t happen anymore.

Question #2:  Will taxes go up?

Again, if we do it right, taxes will go up for some, progressively, with the rich paying more than the middle class and the poor paying little or nothing. But whatever we pay we’ll get back through lower product costs, a drastically improved economy, dollars being spent on society rather than waste, fewer companies going belly-up, and jobs staying in the U.S. versus being exported to countries with universal health care already.

One thing you can count on … is that if single-payer were really, really bad, the insurance industry would not have to spend $46 million bribing politicians to block it!  And of course, with public funding of campaigns the politicians wouldn’t have to take the bribes in the first place, they’d just do the right thing.

Tidbits

– Importantly, we’d pay for health care with taxes instead of with inefficient commerce. You know, instead of the massive profits needed by the insurance industry to offset high CEO salaries and bonuses, high shareholder profits, marketing and actuarial costs, broker commissions, and even the lobbying and campaign contributions that the insurers then pass on to the patient via their employer premiums. Those costs won’t be included.

– By paying in taxes we can provide 100% of our population with first-class Cheney-care for the same amount of dollars we are spending today to cover just 85% of the population. A business leader will understand this immediately. We are now funding health care on the backs of corporations, who incidentally add these costs to the price of the product and we reimburse them at the cash register. But worse, we load them down and they can’t spend these dollars on American employees and we make them uncompetitive with foreign competitors. That’s a terrible deal for corporations.

– Except for the insurance companies, who now stand to reap a windfall profit if insurance mandates go though and the government requires everbody to buy their product. This is political corruption beyond belief.

4 Comments | Health Care | Permalink
Posted by MoneyedPoliticians

Health care corruption…

June 10, 2009

Why are politicians always on the receiving end?

By Jack E. Lohman

This is not a pretty sight. In 2008 members of congress received $46 million from the insurance industry and $400 million from the complete health care complex. You might ask, Why would this money be given if it didn’t buy or block policy? Aren’t these patient dollars to begin with?

The last thing in the world the insurers want is a good public system competing with a good private system. Neither do the politicians. The private system cannot come close on price because of excessive costs not seen in the public plan. Like broker commissions, high CEO salaries, high shareholder profits, marketing and actuarial costs, and even their lobbying and campaign contributions that must be passed on to the patient.

The privates want to do away with the public option and so do the politicians. Not just because of the $46 million in bribes that they’ve already received from the industry, but because going forward private entities can continue loading up their campaign coffers, and public entities like Medicare cannot give political cash.

Politicians will always prefer private over public for this reason. And this is why they prefer mandates to buy “private” insurance, even if some is taxpayer subsidized. But “mandates” are just more of the same waste we’ve been trying to get rid of.

Why else would they block more efficient health care? In this case the politicians get a share of the private system but zero from the public system. They even get a piece of the taxpayer-subsidized dollars, and they get some patient dollars as a sweetener.

Aren’t politicians great?

And of course even if we win this the insurers will continue bribing the politicians to weaken whatever efficiencies we achieve, just as they are doing in Canada to destroy their system. A weak system gives both parties another shot at the prize, and that’s also why they seek to preserve the right to make campaign bribes.

As long as we keep playing with the words we give them wiggle room. Public option or not, single payer or not, mandated insurance or not… they can keep dancing around the real issue. Money. They are getting paid campaign bribes to cannibalize the system to the benefit of the insurers and to the detriment of the public.

We MUST start calling this what it is… political corruption. It may be an “issue,” but its one that generates loads of campaign cash.

Until we achieve full public funding of campaigns, it is what it is. Live with it, or change it.

Leave a Comment » | Health Care | Permalink
Posted by MoneyedPoliticians

Politicians trash society

June 5, 2009

This is absolutely absurd, and it must stop!

By Jack E. Lohman

These are our politicians. Paid by the taxpayers to look after our state and federal infrastructure.  But they are corrupt. No better than any other corrupt government!

This nation’s economy was trashed by greedy executives who wanted an ever-bigger share of the pie, and the politicians who deregulated the banking laws to allow a massive transfer of wealth. They both got a piece of the spoils. We got a trashed economy.

Elimination of banking regulations in 1999 permitted the hyping and selling of worthless securities and home loans. Fake growth. A market bubble ensued, then it popped. What else could be expected. It was a timebomb.

What more can you buy when you already have everything? Except, perhaps, another politician.

CEOs who aren’t satisfied with their already-gigantic salaries, outsource jobs to make them even bigger. And our politicians give them tax breaks in the process.

Inequality is not just a word. We cannot continue to transfer wealth from the many to the few without totally destroying commerce and our society.

Worse, when the rich have it all and the rest have nothing, civil war is the only logical next step.

So now all of the massive wealth that was drained from the system must be restored on the backs of the taxpayers, through both cash installments and job losses. When will it end?

We’ve cleaned up the label. We call them campaign contributions but they are just plain bribes. I’m tired of hearing about how “strong” this or that lobby is. They are not strong when they must rely on cash bribes to get their way. They are weak, and that’s why cash bribes are needed. Good laws do not require cash to flow. They happen because they should.

At the state level we are giving pink slips to teachers (one while in the hospital battling cancer) all because the state needs the cash for projects requested by the special interests that fund political elections. We are cutting child care and releasing prisoners early to free up revenues for the contributors. But then politicians increase taxes to compensate. And conservatives yowl, but fail to see what caused it.

So then we put them on unemployment and we pay them anyway, to not work. And the economy further tanks. So we cut back on entitlements and drive people onto the public dole instead. Where are our heads?

The poor and middle class cannot bail us out of this, only the wealthy can. With more progressive taxes and by keeping jobs in the U.S.. Do the politicians have the guts to make it happen?

The fix? There is only one. Full public funding of campaigns. At $5 per taxpayer per year, $6 at the federal level, it’d be a bargain at 100 times the price.

Are the Dems smart enough to make it happen? They’d lock themselves in for decades to come if they’d fix it. Or the R’s could push it and make the D’s look like wooses.

But let’s not do it because it’s the right thing to do!  :-)

Sequel

And speaking of political corruption, in walks the King, Sen. Max Baucus, who shared in the $46 million in contributions from the insurance industry and has thus far refused to put our most efficient option, single payer, on the table for consideration. If you are one of the very few who opposes a single-payer solution, thank your lucky stars that our politicians are on the take. They are looking out for you, don’cha know?

Until we get the private money out of the political system it is going to be a constant battle with the insurers to keep effective whatever health care system we get passed. Even a full-fledged single-payer system. It happens daily in Canada that they chip away at parliament to undermine and underfund their system. Now add the $46 million per year in congressional bribes and we are faced with a major battle that is not over even when we think we’ve won it.

See CREW’s most corrupt politicians HERE

And WDC’s The Problem Behind Every Problem HERE

1 Comment | Economy, Education Reform, Health Care | Permalink
Posted by MoneyedPoliticians

Health care; the rest of the story

June 1, 2009

Senators Kohl and Feingold still sitting it out!

By Jack E. Lohman

So here’s how the game works: Give $46 million in campaign contributions and congress will roll over.  No explicit threats are needed, it’s an unwritten rule.

Whether you agree with health care reform or not, government corruption is costing you dearly. Most congressmen can be bought, and there’s no fancy packaging that can clean that up.

And while today’s miscreant is Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), seemingly well on the take, other senators (including our Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl) are complicit in their absolute silence. I’m ashamed for them and would have expected more.

In this dire economy you’ve stashed some extra money, but now the insurance industry wants it. They plan to get it through mandated insurance policies foisted upon you by congress. Can you imagine your excitement if congress made it a law that 100% of the population must own your product? Wow. There goes your economy problems.

You want mandated health “care” but our politicians want mandated “insurance” instead. The failed Massachusetts model. You can’t afford insurance, but the politicians can’t afford to shun their contributors. Sorry, you lose.

There will be just one winner in this – the insurance industry– because they are willing to invest cash in politicians all to claim the massive taxpayer dollars at stake. With public funding of campaigns this would not happen.

Do not accept that it would be “disruptive” (Obama’s words) to anything other than the political cash flow. This so-called “disruption,” single payer, is a simple matter of allowing all citizens to sign up to the Medicare system.

In the PBS broadcast by Bill Moyers, Baucus said he left single-payer off the table “because it’s not passable.” That’s absolute hogwash; it is just the opposite. He knows that if he does put it on the table it will pass hands down, and his funders won’t like that a bit. “Why offer an option if you know it will win and you don’t want it to?,” they ask?

This fight is more about a corrupt political system than about health care. It affects every societal law and taxpayer dollar spent. It will also drive the success or failure of our business community. But our nation’s Board of Directors is taking cash bribes from the people that want in taxpayer pockets, and these people are winning. And in this case killing citizens in the process.

Importantly, this is now a “Democrat” issue. They now have total control of the president, House, and soon the senate. They can no longer blame Republican obstructionists. And they inherently know that “good patient care” and “for-profit medicine” are 180 degrees out of phase. Favoring insurers over citizens is going to be very tricky.

A single-payer system, by itself, will eliminate the 31% of insurance bureaucracy waste. It’ll reduce health care expenditures by $400 billion per year. Then, and only then, can we attack overutilization and other inefficiencies.

Tidbits

– Fixing both health care and ethics (campaign finance reform) will give the Dems a virtual lock on the political system for at least 20 years. Are they smart enough to capture the moment?

– This appears to be Baucus’ last hurrah. I expect he’ll be hired by the industry at a fat salary and not run again. But we must now give him every reason to walk. He should be voted out.

– Spend massive advertising dollars and you’ll also keep the media from covering the story. That’s what you call “editorial corruption.” How lucky we are.

– The congressional bills: Fair Elections Now Act (S.752, H.R.1826) and Single Payer, Expanded Medicare For All, (SB703 and HR676)

2 Comments | Health Care, Political Money | Permalink
Posted by MoneyedPoliticians

Business Community must get behind single-payer health insurance

May 22, 2009

By Jack E. Lohman

(original post and comments at Small Business Times)

So okay. I’ve been a CEO and I know what’s going through your mind. “I don’t want the government involved in anything! Period!” 

I understand. The government does some pretty stupid things.

But remember that the legislators writing the laws are paid to do those stupid things by special interests that want in the taxpayer’s pockets. They drive up government spending, which increases their profits and our taxes, and forces the state to cut employee pay and revenue-sharing and school spending and whatever it takes to retain the cash flow to the special interests that fund their elections.

Don’t get me wrong. I believe our state and federal government both need a thorough scrubbing to eliminate waste and unneeded departments. But giving away taxpayer dollars is not the correction I would recommend.

It’s getting ridiculous. Satisfying campaign contributors has already trashed our national economy, and has for a long time driven Wisconsin’s personal and business taxes out of sight.

There are two expenses that businesses should not incur, and for exactly the same reason. Taxes and health care (and related administrative costs) are simply passed on to consumers in the price of the product. We taxpayers pay 50% more for the mere pleasure of sticking it to corporations.

Both should be a zero burden on corporations because they make them uncompetitive with those in other countries that are not faced with them. As a result US companies must cut jobs or outsource manufacturing and services. This is absolutely stupid.

Those opposing healthcare reform are usually insurance industry CEOs and sales brokers, because they are the make-work middlemen pocketing the cash. Unfortunately, many non-insurance executives can’t see the forest through the trees. Their business “partners” from the insurance sector are dipping into their health care wallets, in some cases to make up for losses in other areas like Katrina and the stock market. It is a total waste.

The smartest thing we could do — both as a nation and business community — is to switch to a single-payer Medicare-for-all system of health care. As a Medicare patient and former CEO, I think it’s great. I get sick, I get care and the caregiver gets paid. I go to the same private hospital and physician I have for years; they just send the bill to Medicare instead. I just don’t deal with the insurance company.

Every US citizen should have this level of care, including politicians. If they want anything outside of the norm, like cosmetic surgery, they can pay for it on the outside the old-fashioned, free-market way; with cash dollars.

A Medicare-for-all system would not only save consumers $400 billion per year; it would save every US Corporation $6500 per employee per year in health care premiums. How’s that for a bailout?  But this one isn’t going to just the bankers.

Ask the Big Three how important that is; they now manufacture more cars in Canada because they only pay $800 per employee. And 80% of Canadians prefer their healthcare system to ours, even with their wait times. But since we spend twice what they do, wait times will not be an issue.

So the government has done some pretty stupid things and they’ll continue doing stupid things on healthcare because the insurance industry has given congress $46 million in campaign contributions. What else would you expect them to do?  Money talks!

That insurance bureaucracy is draining 31% of healthcare costs… money that should instead be spent on physicians, nurses and hospitals. 

Unless the business community steps in and demands a single payer fix we are doomed for years of the same. Senators Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold must pressure Max Baucus and the Finance Committee to put single-payer on the table, and they must be encouraged to co-sign Bernie Sanders’ SB703 (the senate version of HR676). Only then can our economy turn around the way it should.

– Lohman is a retired business owner from Colgate and publishes http://MoneyedPoliticians.net. He authored “Politicians – Owned and Operated by Corporate America” and can be reached at jelohman@gmail.com.

8 Comments | Health Care, Political Money | Permalink
Posted by MoneyedPoliticians

Feingold wants states to handle health care

May 14, 2009

But the states don’t want this burden either!

By Jack E. Lohman

Senator Russ Feingold co-wrote a bill with Lindsey Graham to let the states experiment with health care.

Why?  Even Feingold’s own state doesn’t want to deal with health care! And clearly, a national solution is better anyway. Let’s hope that he instead gets behind a single-payer solution.

Isn’t 44 years of national Medicare coverage enough experimentation? Isn’t the fact that Taiwan, after studying every health care system in the world including those in socialized countries, and finalizing on a Medicare replicate for all its people, enough to at least give Medicare-for-all a chance in America?

Call it politics, if you wish, but I call it political corruption. The insurance industry has given $46 million in campaign contributions and has won over Sen. Max Baucus, a pretend constituent representative from Montana. He has excluded single-payer activists from even presenting their arguments to his Finance Committee and has limited input to the for-profit mongers. Aren’t political bribes just great?

What??? You’re finding that your $100 contribution isn’t working?

Don’t you worry. Under public pressure the politicians and health care industry came up with an unbiased public policy. They’ve agreed to “curb the growth of health care inflation by 1.5% per year.”

Note that they do not mean TO 1.5% per year, they mean BY 1.5%. Instead of a 10% yearly inflation rate, they’ll keep it to 8.5%!!!  Aren’t we lucky?

You can be sure that they won’t cut into profits to do so. They’ll trim health care to patients instead.

Doesn’t President Obama get it?

The smartest thing congress could do is to remove the health care obligation from corporations. It would save these corporations $6500 per employee per year that could instead be used to add jobs and stem their layoffs and outsourcing to countries that already have universal health care.

A Medicare-for-all system would provide a base level of taxpayer-funded coverage. Nobody would go without, and such coverage would bridge periods of unemployment. But if someone wanted coverage over and above Medicare they could purchase an additional Gap policy. You know, the free-market way, with cash dollars.

Of course those who have turned health care into a profit center will object. But like fire and police and national protection, basic health should be funded by taxpayers. Also objecting will be those “everybody-for-themselves” folks.  The young bucks that don’t see themselves as ever getting old or getting sick. Or having a child being diagnosed with diabetes or other genetic disease after they’ve committed to a high-deductible HSA plan.

And if any of that happens they have just the answer. They’ll sign up for the public system.

But please, let’s not fall for the standard industry scare tactics. We spend twice the dollars on health as does any other country. We’ll not have their wait times or rationing. We have neither of those with Medicare today, and we’ll not have them going forward. Especially if “all” also includes the politicians.

Understand that we are currently paying 100% of today’s health care costs through cost shifting, bankruptcy costs and when manufacturers add their expenses to the price of their products. Nothing is free and Medicare will not be free. But we’ll pay $400 billion less per year when we pay though our tax system. And that’s exactly why the industry objects.

Medicare going broke? How about eliminating the $780 billion drug bill that prohibits Medicare from getting the same 50% discount the VA system gets? How about using just the pharmacist rather than also the middleman insurance industry?

Tidbits

– If you really believe that mandated health insurance is the answer, please read this summary from physicians in Massachusetts.

– Massachusetts has failed and failed miserably. ER visits have gone UP instead of down, as you would expect any positive plan to achieve.

– But oh, the insurance industry and its brokers just love this. Can you imagine having the state write a law to mandate that every citizen purchase your product?

– And “affordable?”  To whom?  The politicians taking the cash from the industry?  Whose definition do we go by?

– I say let’s give the industry a few billion dollars to just go away.

4 Comments | Health Care | Permalink
Posted by MoneyedPoliticians

Our parties must come together!

May 12, 2009

We should be fighting globally, not internally.

by Jack E. Lohman

How are you liking it so far?

You know, this world economy that both political parties worked so hard to trash? The housing crisis that we can mostly blame on the Dems and the banking crisis we can blame on the Republicans? And all of it we can blame on greed.

As just two of many examples, the Right is upset because the Dems take labor contributions and promote laws that protect unions, and the Left is upset because the R’s take insurance contributions and fight against single-payer health care.

Get over it, or fix it!

Both are rightfully upset, because both parties are driven by corrupt politicians who accept cash bribes. And they’ll take them from anybody, even those that want to futher drain our economy.

Is this really how we want our country to be run?

We vote out the politicians but never vote out the special interests that fund their campaigns. The new politician comes in, starts getting the old money, falls right into line and the spending continues. Taxes continue to go up as we fund more bridges to nowhere, because bribes work. They just influence different people from time to time.

Political Party Trends

Political Party Trends

Source: Time Magazine

You’d not run your company this way, and this is not how any government should be run. Our employees should not be on the take. We must get the moneyed interests out of the loop. Then sometimes the Left would win and sometimes the Right, but the politicians would be voting in your best interest rather than theirs.

Yea, there will always be the extremists on each end, but they are becoming more rare. Only 23% of the public consider themselves Republican any more, and that’s a bit frightening (at least for conservatives).

Republicans hate taxes, yet special interests give money to advance spending. The GOP obviously likes the money more than it hates the spending.

But if Republicans are ever to reclaim their leadership, they must demand a moral political system. We must fix it by eliminating the influence of private money; bribes. We must have public funding of campaigns, and we must implement Instant Runoff Voting to eliminate the wasted vote syndrome.

Tidbits

– And our congress is upset at Afghanistan’s corrupt government??? Give me a break.

– Obama, who doesn’t understand that decreasing health care inflation by 1.5% doesn’t mean reducing it to 1.5%, has gotten sucked in by the industry. That is, instead of a 10% annual increase it’ll now be 8.5%. Isn’t that just sweet?

– The industry set out to kill single-payer and this may just give them the cover to do so. See what $47 million in contributions can get you? It even buys a president!

Leave a Comment » | Economy, Political Money, Vote Reforms | Permalink
Posted by MoneyedPoliticians

Prepare for health care… failure!

May 7, 2009

Where is Kohl and Feingold when we need them?

By Jack E. Lohman

The arrogance of Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) must have cost the insurance industry a pretty penny. Representing the industry rather than his constituents, Baucus has been holding Senate hearings on health care without spokesmen from the very popular single-payer movement. Everybody but single-payer supporters were invited!

This is political corruption at its finest. Whether you agree with single-payer or not, this should not be the way you want your elected officials to run our country. Their loyalty should be directed toward the best interest of their constituents, not the special interests that funded their campaigns. They should not be open to bribes.

Our politicians should not be for sale, but in this case Baucus has received over $500,000 from the industry. Other senators are also on the hook for their take of the $46 million given by the insurance companies in 2008.

Isn’t politics great?

So on Cinco de Mayo our trusted politician thumbed his nose at the public, even ignoring the 8 doctors and protesters that were arrested during the proceedings. (See Video of arrests and list of speakers and their testimony.)

Yes, there are ideologues who prefer an everybody-for-themselves approach. Buy your own policy, or don’t. Some even know what diseases they and their families plan to get, and insure only against those. Unexpected diabetes or other childhood diseases are not on their list. But of course, when the chips are down and they are sick and unemployed, they’ll choose the public dole because dying is not on their list either.

Then there are those of us who feel that health care should be paid for like we do for fire and police and armed forces protection. Everybody chip in and hope we never need it.

That’s single payer. You get sick, you get care, and the caregiver gets paid. Medicare-for-all. Over 60% of physicians and 80% of nurses and the majority of the public prefer it, and the country would save over $400 Billion dollars per year if we were to implement it. But that $400 Billion comes out of the wasteful insurance bureaucracy, thus the industry opposition.

The health of the nation is important, but we must also protect the health of our economy. Employer cost for premiums are $6500 here and $800 in Canada. US companies are at a severe competitive disadvantage because we have saddled them with this expense as no other nation has. Rather than bailing out our greedy bankers, we should bail out our other employers instead. See Medicare-for-all is best corporate bailout. 

We consumers pay for all these costs anyway, but as it is we are forcing American companies to manufacture their products in other countries. And our politicians just sit and watch. Go figure. 

When special interest money must flow to achieve or block legislation, you know the winners are not the public. Good laws do not require payola.

Baucus wants to replicate the Massachusetts plan, but it has failed miserably and costs have gone UP! But the insurance industry loves it, don’cha know!

One thing is for sure; whether we get single-payer or not, Max Baucus must be ousted from office! If he is so openly corrupted by insurance industry dollars, can you imagine how many other issues and special interest giveaways he is involved in behind closed doors? We taxpayers can no longer support this kind of payola.

Action Request:
Fax your message to the Senate Finance Committee HERE
Call your two senators too, get their number HERE

12 Comments | Health Care, Political Money | Permalink
Posted by MoneyedPoliticians

Healthcare and computers, more lobbyist fodder

May 1, 2009

No, patient benefit isn’t part of the discussion…

By Jack E. Lohman

Okay, so doctors can’t type and prefer scribbles, even if only they can read their writing. And they don’t want to change. Shame on them.

But that’s not why the healthcare industry is opposing the digitizing of medical records. Like everything else, it has to do with cash dollars. Profits!

A well-run national patient database would have many benefits, including saving tens of thousands of patient lives from medical errors and conflicting drugs. And it would eliminate the millions of dollars we spend on duplicate testing.

But thereby lies the rub. Those duplicate tests are performed by hospitals and clinics and add substantially to their bottom-line profits. Who in their right mind would oppose profits?

And hospitals have developed their own in-house systems and lock out other clinics and hospitals from accessing them, because that opens the possibility of losing the patient and even the doctors and all of their patients to a hospital down the street. That’s a natural jealousy in the for-profit world, but it is not in the patient’s best interest.

So now we have a privatized system with hundreds of companies developing their own systems to market to the tens of thousands of hospitals and clinics. When in fact the best approach would be to expand the system taxpayers have already paid for, the VA’s VistA open-source database system.

The government should either support the VA’s effort or contract the job to one qualified company to complete and pass back for free hospital and clinic use. Pay off all the other campaign contributors to get lost*, but we need one common database.

Picture this: your first visit to a doctor requires that you sit in front of a computer and answer a lengthy questionnaire about your health and drug intake, both legal and illegal. Obviously a very strict security system (a second database linked to the first) must be established and only you and your physicians have your password (maybe even multiple passwords for increased security). Aside from your identifying data, all other data is entered into the national database.

Now doctors can compare their decisions with the national successes of other doctors and make decisions in the best interest of the patient (which they call ”best practices”). And patients have the same access and can judge the outcomes of their current or future doctor (”transparency”).

No longer must patients rely only on doctor personality or perceived skills. They can find out if he’s effective before even going to him. And whether he over-utilizes a particular test that is ineffective, or over-prescribes a particular drug compared to all other physicians. Or whether a hospital has an over-abundance of infections or medical errors.

Is that more than the health care industry wants us to know?

How does political money enter into this? If the industry doesn’t want a clean solution, just whose side will the politicians take? (You know my answer.  :-) )

It is absolutely amazing that America has so many people willing to block effective health care reform, all to pad their personal wealth. Especially politicians.

Resources:

Irrational Exuberance over Electronic Medical Records?

The Best Medical Care in the U.S.

Department of Defense continues to Disappoint

Vendors’ ideas sought for joint DOD-VA e-health record project

* Not really, but they should get lost nonetheless.

4 Comments | Health Care | Permalink
Posted by MoneyedPoliticians

Credit Card Fraud is profitable to companies

April 28, 2009

There is zero incentive for them to stop it.

By Jack E. Lohman

Wisconsin merchants should take note. And consumers too, because credit card companies make money on fraud and you bear the ultimate costs. They pay for it in higher prices as retailer’s costs go up, and it drives more customers to buy online.

None of the new credit card rules address fraud. But card companies don’t care because fraud is charged back to the vendor and the card company gets its profits nonetheless. The company that implements these changes will get my business overnight:

Fix 1

The card companies should send the cardholder an email every time their card is used.

I can handle the 30 or so emails I might generate every month, but if my card is being used by someone else I’ll find out today, not 30 days from today when I look at my bill.

Once their computers are programmed, this is a FREE process!!! But if you don’t like this, opt out or don’t give them your email address.

Fraud is not VISA’s or Mastercard’s problem, it’s the merchants. When I gave these ideas to VISA’s fraud department, all I received in return is a big yawn. How dare I step between them and profits.

Fix 2

They should add a picture to the card …

… and when the card is swiped the computer returns the picture it has on file. If they don’t match there are problems that can be immediately addressed. Yea, the retailer would have to update the swipers, but if he is concerned with fraud he gladly will.

Fix 3

They should delay online shipments …

… until confirmation is received back from the cardholder. I had a $2000 device charged against my card and shipped to a bogus (but valid) address. The following would have prevented that: 

  1. Merchant logs onto card company’s secure site with the suspected card number.
  2. Card company notifies legitimate card holder by email that a transaction is about to be made (even lists the items and vendor).
  3. Card holder clicks on a link that advises card company that the transaction is legitimate, or another that sends it to the fraud investigators.
  4. Card company responds to retailer by email with a positive or negative finding.

All for free and all in seconds. The card company would have to program their computers just once and then everything is automatic. They could fix it, overnight, if they wanted to.

You would think that these product improvements would be embraced by the card companies to attract business. Sorry. VISA told me thanks but no thanks. “Visa’s policy is not to accept unsolicited idea submissions.” Duh!

Tidbits

– Now we have Reps. Jane Harmon (D-CA) and Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), both tied to funny goings-on in passing favors to cash constituencies and Dianne Feinstein’s husband’s business interests. If not charged with corruption these politicians should be fired for outright stupidity.

– Why they continue supporting a system of political corruption that virtually 100% of politicians ultimately are drawn into is puzzling. But our state politicians support it too.

4 Comments | Credit Card Fraud | Permalink
Posted by MoneyedPoliticians

Stopping piracy 101

April 21, 2009

First let’s get the 200+ hostages back.

By Jack E. Lohman

Step One, make ‘em an offer they can’t refuse. Offer the current pirates an out, an opportunity to walk away without getting killed or maimed or prosecuted. 

Even give them a salary spread over five years to go back home and work to better their country. A one-time amnesty, no second chances. Get caught again and their salary ends, maybe even their lives. Get them involved in useful work at home.

Their only other option is death or imprisonment. We will board to rescue the hostages and kill the pirates if the hostages are harmed.  And if the U.S. can’t handle the blood we should outsource it to our private militia, Halliburton or Blackwater. 

I doubt they’ll harm the hostages knowing that pirate death is a 100% certainty, but that’s a chance we take. Alternatively the insurers can pay the tab and we skip to the next step.

Step Two, let’s absolutely stop future takeovers. Equip the ships with electrified barbed wire and put six armed guards aboard. Add firepower to blow encroachers out of the water before they reach the ship. But if they do reach the electrified barbed wire, we can slow them down by throwing the switch. If that doesn’t stop them we shoot to kill. Buried at sea. They meet their maker and the 17 virgins.

But then we must do something about Somalia and other lawless countries. The United Nations should send in troops until they have a stable government and internal security. The U.S. Government should quit sending cash foreign aid, which is usually squandered on corruption and rarely reaches the people. We should fund U.S. volunteers instead, which will help get our unemployed people off the dole by creating new jobs. They’ll get to travel and see the world.

And if we can’t stop these criminals we can’t stop anybody. We ought to hang it up.

Tidbits

– Oh, the poor banks want to give the TARP money back to get out from under the Govt limits on executive salaries. Great!  But if they didn’t need it, why did they take it in the first place?

– Banks will stop lending? Great! The feds should take over the failed banks and use their infrastructure and taxpayer money to make the loans. Let the banks compete if they wish, like FedEx and UPS does with the US Post Office.

– Obama was wrong to release the torture memos but right to oppose proscecution of Bushites. We need to move on and the Liberal grudges need to take a back seat.

– Obama was right to shake the hand of Chavez. What else could he have done? The R’s have to get over it and quit being so partisan.

– Newt Gingrich wants to start a third party. Great! Yea, he’s as corrupt as the rest, but he’ll drain more votes from the right than the left, and we sure don’t need more of the last eight years.

2 Comments | Piracy | Permalink
Posted by MoneyedPoliticians

Health care is not a pretty sight

April 17, 2009

Will the Dems be any less conflicted?

By Jack E. Lohman

Ask any CEO; they have competition both externally and internally. The  latter includes ineffective and lazy employees, but there’s another: the insurance industry that leeches off the presence of businesses and the circumstances of the day. They draw cash from your coffers and are as bad as your worst competitor.

As a former CEO I never complained about auto or fire insurances that I needed, but experiencing 17% yearly increases in health insurance premiums when medical costs were only rising at 5%, I didn’t need. Perhaps because I was a health care provider myself and wasn’t seeing any of the 17%. Maybe had they shared their booty I’d have felt differently.

Why did they increase rates as they did? Because they could! And they needed the additional money to offset increased salaries and broker commissions and shareholder profits. And oh, campaign contributions, because the cost of having politicians in your pocket is going up.

Next to the financial industry of today privatized health care is the worst thing that has happened to this country. It can’t even be said that the insurance industry served a need because the need was not legitimate. It is make-work and adds overhead costs, and without it we’d move along just fine. We are the only industrialized country in the world without a universal healthcare system, and we can thank our conflicted politicians for that.

Total industries have left the state and country because of our awkward and costly health care structure. Steel, technology, TV’s, appliances, automobiles, you name it. The Big Three now make more cars in Ontario than Detroit because of Canada’s health care system being more friendly to corporations. And actually, to the people as well. It costs them $800 per employee per year there and $6500 here. We simply can’t compete.

But as long as the campaign cash flows, it is what it is. I thought the Dems would be different but the signs are not good. We are spending more money trying to avoid the correct solution than it would cost just to fix the system up front. We have 15,000 different private and public options when we need just one. And that “one” already exists; it’s called Medicare and it should be expanded to everybody.

Perhaps it will never be fixed until we deny health care to 15% of the politicians and under-insure another 15%, as we are doing with privatized policies.

Tidbits

– I say let Texas secede. Mexico needs the added territory and we can move the fence northward. Besides, their political contributions have not been great.

– Obama is correct in wanting to put the Bush years behind us, even his approval of over-the-top interrogation techniques. They may have served their purpose at the time, but let’s move on. We have major problems to solve without this distraction. The ACLU should hang it up.

– I am not a Bush fan, but on the terrorist issue he was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t.

– Greehouse gases? Cap and trade? Yea, let’s throw the book at them and drive the rest of them out of the country!

– On the pirates I vote for armed guards and electrified barbed wire around the boat.  No sense in forcing the guards to shoot at moving targets. They might just wound them, and that’s cruel.  ;-)

6 Comments | Health Care, Political Money | Permalink
Posted by MoneyedPoliticians

Teabaggers overlook “cause and effect”

April 15, 2009

Have our schools failed us?

By Jack E. Lohman

So the conservatives — after increasing the size of government by 10% over the last eight years — are now not happy with the increased taxes that resulted. Duh!!!

Did Wisconsin schools not teach the phenomena of “cause and effect?” Did conservatives not understand how the dominoes would fall if they kept spending taxpayer dollars on roads and bridges to nowhere? Did they ever wonder what was causing all of this government spending?

The “cause” is simple. Special interests give politicians campaign cash so they spend taxpayer money on their special projects. CEOs are not stupid. Campaign cash works, or it wouldn’t be given.

The “effect” is equally simple: taxes increase.

Oh, we didn’t count on thaaat!

There is only one thing that will cause taxes to go down; less spending. In Wisconsin our legislature spends $1300 per taxpayer per year on government giveaways to special interests that fund their elections, and both the Republicans and Democrats are guilty of succumbing to contributor pressure. Both receive cash bribes.

The cost to the special interests? About $5 per taxpayer per year in campaign contributions, but they get the $1300 in return. In the business world they call that an excellent return on investment.

So what would happen if the taxpayers spent the $5 instead? Well, that’s what we call public funding of campaigns. We ‘d save most or all of the $1300 if we eliminated the bribes.

Is there any reason why the taxpayers should not make this excellent investment?

None, except that it would level the playing field for challengers and politicians don’t like level playing fields. And conservatives prefer paying the $1300 rather than the $5. Go figure.

Politicians are paid by special interests to spend money foolishly and by the taxpayers to spend money smartly. So we as a country would be far better off publicly funding the elections. We are doing it now through the back door, let’s do it up front.

And for the record, I’m not opposed to today’s teabagger rally if it remains sensible. It may send a message to politicians that things must change. But I worry about the obvious denseness of those who do not see the high costs of our system of bribery, and hope that we can get them back into math class.

Some are concerned with high taxes in general, others with Obama’s plan to increase them for over-$250K families. Most of us, 95%, wish we had that worry.

Tidbits

– Norm Coleman knows he will lose but the longer he can hold out, the longer the Dems are short a vote in the senate. The Republican governor should at least make Franken a temporary appointment.

–  The pirates are now mad at us. Shame on Obama. Better that we start blowing them out of the water before they reach our ships. There’s no better way of sending the message. Electrified barbed wire will slow them down and provide a more stable target, but arms on board are necessary.

– Too bad John McCain left Sarah Palin off his list of potential leaders. She has potential, and probably more than current leadership.

– Corporate taxes are again in the air, and they shouldn’t be. They shouldn’t be taxed at all, unless they send jobs overseas. Otherwise, they just pass their taxes and high legal costs of tax avoidance on to consumers. And we make them uncompetitive in the process. Are more math classes in order?

– Yes, there’s been a rise in “rightwing extremist activity,” just as there was “leftwing extremist activity” when Bush did some of his stupid things.  I see both as a good balance as long as they don’t turn into riots or violations of civil rights.

7 Comments | Economy, Political Money | Permalink
Posted by MoneyedPoliticians

A fix for political corruption?

April 7, 2009

The Fair Elections Now Act could do it.

By Jack E. Lohman

Some people just don’t get it.

When you are digging yourself into a hole, the first rule is, quit digging. Unfortunately, our politicians are digging and don’t want to stop.

In my 2006 book, pictured on the right, I projected that if we kept going in the current direction we’d ultimately see anarchy. I did not expect it to occur in 2009. I did not expect it in my lifetime.

But a look at the European demonstrations and the ire of American taxpayers is not encouraging. We are treading dangerously close to rebellion; the little people against the elites. It has happened before and it can happen again.

This may get the attention of the politicians. That is, if the taxpayers can be made to understand the problem first.

Our nation’s problem is corruption, and the worst of it is with our politicians. And until they are forced to change the system, expect more of the same. The Fair Elections Now Act (S.752 and H.R.1826), sponsored by Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and Reps. John Larson (D-Conn.) and Walter Jones (R-N.C.) can get us heading again in the right direction. It will provide optional public funding of campaigns.

Corrupt politicians have destroyed many governments, both past and present, abroad and at home. And the US is not immune, as the recent trashing of the economy attests. Campaign cash (bribes) bought de-regulation in 1999 for the banks and financial companies, and it’s been downhill ever since.

So as the unemployed are scatching scratching  for food for their family, the rich are hiring security guards to protect their families and going to work in jeans so as not to be recognized. Isn’t our free-for-all system of unfettered capitalism great?  

Tidbits

– That the government backed off in the Ted Stevens case doesn’t mean that he wasn’t corrupt. Only that the prosecuting attorneys blew the case. Isn’t that reassuring?

– Corporations like Microsoft can lay off 16,000 people and then lobby for H-1B visa replacements in the same breath. Why? Because a worker glut drives wages down and profits up, along with executive salaries.

– But who will be left to buy their product? The long term problem simply doesn’t matter to short term executives.

– Folks, if we can continue rewarding politicians for failure, why not also the bankers? Yet the corrupt politicians are calling on the carpet our corrupt CEOs?

– Don’t even think about seeking Jim Sensenbrenner’s support. He claims the new bill violates Buckley-Valeo, which it does not. Yes, mandating public funding violates the Supreme Court decision against limiting freedom of speech. But the new bill does not do that. It is 100% voluntary on the part of the candidate. He can opt in or opt out, thus it is constitutional. It expands speech rather than limits it, but Sensenbrenner is grabbing at anything he can to vote against this.

– And like it or not, the one thing that would have limited the recent carnage in Binghamton NY is a concealed carry law. This wacko may never have gotten his second shot off.

3 Comments | Economy, Political Money, Vote Reforms | Permalink
Posted by MoneyedPoliticians

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