Tea Party could help, or hurt!

February 8, 2010

Anything would be better than what we have; or not!

By Jack E. Lohman

Our politicians have ruined our economy by spending good taxes on bad policy. Who would complain about taxation if there wasn’t do much waste and special interest giveaways?

A recent Institute for Wisconsin’s Future newsletter noted that “Due to state budget shortfalls, assistant district attorneys across the state may receive pink slips.”  That’s not good news for the state.

California is looking to furlough tens of thousands of non-violent criminals because they can no longer afford to house them. Criminals are being put on the street because taxes were used to satisfy special interest giveaways instead.

Wisconsin is no better off. We are spending billions on road building (the Zoo, Oconomowoc and Airport Interchanges, I94 Milwaukee to Chicago, Hoan Bridge, and others), but we are withholding funds needed by localities to strengthen schools and fire and police coverage.

Is it any wonder that the Tea Partiers are marching?

They don’t like our political system, but they don’t really know why. Some are D’s and others R’s, but frightfully, some are fringe wackos. Let’s hope the former oust the latter and we move on to fix the system.

The Partiers haven’t been told by their leaders (extremists Dick Armey, Rush Limbaugh, and Glenn Beck) what the real problem is, and if or when they find out they’ll be even madder than they are today. And I hope they will be, as I support their ire. Their leaders are scary.

They are being misled. Conservatives promise that tax cuts will lead to more jobs, but that’s wishful thinking. Remember George Bush’s tax cuts in 2001 and 2003? Where are the jobs they were supposed to create? Yea, I know, in China and India.

Obama’s election promised change, but the election in Massachusetts sent the needed message: he isn’t cutting it. Whether he has finally smartened up only time will tell. He says he’d rather be a good one-term president than a bad two-term president, but he may get a mixture: a bad one termer. And he’s got a good start already.

  1. The recent Supreme Court decision didn’t help, and Obama’s failure to reform congress has made it worse. Robert Reich rightfully suggests “adequate public financing for presidential and congressional candidates who refuse private funding, more constraints on lobbyists, tighter rules for who must register as a lobbyist, fuller disclosure, and tougher rules on the revolving door between public service and private gain.”
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  2. But we also need reforms on corporations. Let shareholders decide what political expenditures are made, if any at all. Also give them a binding vote on CEO and executive pay and bonuses, rather than defaulting to a conflicted “compensation consultant” hired by the CEO-friendly board. Let them also appoint and vote on the board of directors using the IRV voting system. If shareholders are to own the company, let them control it.
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  3. We must also pay politicians depending on the degree to which they balance the budget while keeping the “tax per citizen” to a minimum.  That is, how well are they running the state/country? Double their wages if they do a good job, halve them if they don’t.

While the politicians should be ashamed of their corruption, the voters and taxpayers should be absolutely irate. Only a 100% turnover in November will fix it. Vote the incumbents out in the primary so you can stick to your favored party.

Tidbits

– Having owned stock in a company that was driven into the ground by exorbitant executive salaries and poor management, and having absolutely no say in its operation, I am indeed sympathetic to shareholders.

On Reagan/Bush: “To cover tax cuts we stopped maintaining the infrastructure and started borrowing.  To satisfy their  hatred of government we increasingly stripped away rule of law, regulation, and belief in one-person-one-vote.  We are seeing the consequences of all of that coming back to roost now.”

– So Paul Ryan proposes a flat tax and vouchers for Medicare? Who’s paying this guy? Will congress switch to a voucher plan?

– Tax cuts? Yea, for small businesses only. Eliminate them!

Dr. Margaret Flowers on Bill Moyers talking about single-payer healthcare.


Only an economic turnaround will save the Dems

February 1, 2010

But that’s the last thing Republicans want.

By Jack E. Lohman

What’s done is done, and we can thank Massachusetts voters for sending the message. Obama has not been keeping his promises, but maybe now he will.

  1. Campaign Finance Reform: Don’t even think about moving forward without getting the political bribes out of the system. If the payola in the recent health care battle taught us anything, it’s that our politicians work for them and not us.
    .
    With the recent (stupid) Supreme Court ruling it is even more important to offset the corporate money. Public funding of campaigns — with matching public funds when a candidate is outspent — will level the playing field, enable more new challengers, and return political loyalties to the people. It’s optional, but incumbents will either switch or answer to the voters, and they’ll moderate or eliminate their corporate bias. Corporations are important, but not over the rest of society.
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    More importantly, it will reduce the political obstructionism and let congress get things done in the best interest of the nation’s economy.
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  2. Bring Back Jobs: Jobless recovery? Dream on, it’s not possible. Temporary government jobs will be gone in a year and we’ll be back to where we started; except a lot poorer. We must (a) revisit NAFTA as promised, and (b) bail out 100% of  our U.S. corporations, not just the bankers and car manufacturers. Whatever we can save “American” corporations in taxes and health care costs will be invested in new jobs and economic growth.
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  3. Zero Taxes for US Corporations: These taxes are passed to the consumers anyway and make our companies uncompetitive with foreign product. They should be eliminated or offset for companies who employ US workers, perhaps with a “per employee” subsidy for full time employees. Taxes on corporations that outsource jobs should be retained and increased.
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  4. We must… absolutely MUST… implement a single-payer Medicare-for-all system. If not for reasons of humanity, then for the sake of our nation’s economy. Employer health care costs are 15% of wages and are passed on to the consumers in any case. But in the process we make our corporations uncompetitive and massive jobs are lost to countries that already have universal healthcare.
    .
    For the same dollars we are spending today (16.5% of GDP) we could provide first-class CheneyCare to 100% of our population. We’d pay for it differently — via our national infrastructure and progressive tax system rather than through wages — but we would remove this burden from employers and allow them to spend their money on wages and new jobs instead.
    .
    But sensible spending on health care is the last thing the insurance industry wants, because 31% of healthcare costs are going to the insurance bureaucracy.
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    And incidentally, our politicians share in every private health care dollar, because private insurance can give campaign contributions and Medicare can’t.

But note this: NOTHING will happen unless we taxpayers buy back our political system through public funding of campaigns. Write your congressmen and ask that they support the Fair Elections Now Act.

There are only two possible reasons why our country is in a tailspin: either our politicians are inept or they are corrupt, and there’s little indication of it being the former.

If campaign cash were not so relevant, politicians would not be spending half their time recruiting it and the other half protecting it.

Tidbits

– Want to know why we are spending $7 million on a railroad bridge in Nebraska and another in Florida? Follow the road builder’s campaign contributions. Want to know why your community is not getting shared revenues from the state, and is being forced into laying off police and fire fighters and eliminate special needs programs? Politicians are spending the cash satisfying their business cronies.

– Yea, I know. You want to be able to buy your congressman. Our so-called freedom of speech, don’cha know. We’ve had it for years; how are you liking the results?

– Banking reform? Don’t even think about it.


Does Obama not get it?

January 25, 2010

It’s time! Dump Rahm Emanuel and listen to the people!

By Jack E. Lohman

When is President Obama going to govern for the people and not the health insurers, bankers and pharmaceutical interests?

Yes, we want health care reform, but not the kind Obama has chosen to shove down our throats. Two-thirds of Americans support a single payer Medicare-for-all system and over half oppose his current industry giveaway. We weren’t even given single-payer as an option, because — get this — it would work!

But that’s the last thing the industry wanted, and that’s what campaign contributions can buy ($20 million to Obama and $125 million to congressional members). But the public wants nothing of it.

Even if Obama wins this health care package it would doom his next term.

So I think underneath he’s happy with this new excuse to back off. Mandating insurance purchases is not the extending of care the public expected. Massachusetts learned that under RomneyCare, thus they voted for change. (Sound familiar?)

We are already spending 31% of health care dollars on the private insurance bureaucracy, and Obama wanted to add massive new administrative costs to the system. Waste would have increased to 40% and costs to 20% of GDP (from 16.5% today).

Massachusetts sent another message: a referendum against Obama’s direction. This win went to the middle and far-right conservatives that have mobilized to take their country back and run it their way. And while I support some of their ideas, others are pretty far out and the Left best be aware.

The Tea Party is also not going away, and as this plays out we’ll see angry Righties and angry Lefties agitating for their favorite political party. Hopefully we’ll not see violence, but I fear that we will.

And all because of the one root cause that neither party has chosen to deal with, campaign finance reform. We have a corrupt political system that (a) affects both political parties and (b) is as unsustainable here as it is in any other country. But we cover our eyes.

The insurers and Pharma own health care, the bankers own the financial system, the oil industry owns our energy needs, and the country as a whole is owned by everybody but the voters. Most seriously the Chinese.

We have a serious problem with financial inequality, but our elites love it. Look at this chart. If more and more money is taken from the economy and given to the wealthy, can we then wonder why that economy is now dramatically suffering?

Can we allow our unfettered free-for-all market to continue? Can we allow banks to give more in bonuses than they make in profits, and then bail them out when they crash? Can we allow credit card companies to take advantage of the public?

We must continue capitalism, but with limits.

Tidbits

– Our hearts go out to the people of Haiti and our hats off to the multinational cooperation. We didn’t hear about FEMA and that’s probably good. But it is clear that better coordination is needed for future disasters.

– Given the choices — of being under-taxed and barefoot versus overtaxed and wasteful — I’d probably prefer the latter. We’ve seen what the former can do to us, and at least some of the waste helps grow the economy.  (Though I am generally fiscally conservative and socially liberal.)

– But as well, if we can get the special interest money out of the political system we can eliminate much of the waste.

– Right now we need banker reform, but also shareholder reforms that give them a binding vote on executive wages and bonuses.


The misuse of 501(c)(3) non-profits

January 18, 2010

If taxpayer subsidized, we deserve disclosure.

By Jack E. Lohman

The 501(c)(3) non-profit corporate structure works well when contributing money to charities like the Salvation Army, because your contribution comes off the top of your income before you pay taxes. Thus if you are in the 20% tax range and give $100, you are effectively giving $80 and the taxpayers are paying the other $20 (because the government never receives the $20).

Unfortunately, it also works well for fat cats like George Soros and Rupert Murdock when they want to support their Left- or Right-wing fringe groups. The taxpayers help them in their personal cause, no matter how extreme, and even if it works against the best interests of those same taxpayers.

And it helps corporate CEOs and unions that want to invest in so-called non-partisan (yet biased) “think tanks” like Cato or Heritage, when they want to develop slanted studies that support their agendas and block others (like blocking legislation that would increase their tax liability but increase yours).

Think tanks are often “taxpayer-supported propaganda machines” and I support some of them myself (like Public Citizen and other good-government groups).

Who is “Americans for Prosperity,” for example, and other apple-pie-sounding organizations? Oh, tobacco industry involvement? I didn’t know that. Getting taxpayer subsidies? I didn’t know that either!!!

But that’s the way the non-profit game is played.

This has clearly gone too far and the taxpayers deserve better. We at least deserve disclosure of who we are funding and who we are thus getting in bed with if we send a check.

We deserve to know if a particular propaganda group is working for us or against us; or if they are a front group with a deceptive name that does exactly opposite its appearance.

If our taxes are used to subsidize these propaganda machines, we have a right to know who’s behind them. Business, labor, or the health insurance bad guys.

  • Require a disclosure page on their web site.
  • Mandate disclosure of the top 20 contributors, whether corporations or individuals.
  • If those contributors are also tax-exempt, require disclosure of their top 20 contributors.
  • Mandate disclosure of all of their contributions to politicians or political action committees or other tax-exempt organizations.

Yes, I would apply this to ALL tax-exempt organizations, even the ones I support.

As well, tax-exempts can be used to enhance for-profit corporate salaries, and this must stop!

How? By having the 501(c)(3) collect exorbitant surpluses (“profits” in lay terms) and passing them on to external executives in the form of “management fees” to a for-profit company. This can be done by non-profit hospitals, as an example, and these pass-throughs must be forbidden.

Tidbits

– For-profit corporate law must also be reformed.  Shareholders, the owners of the corporations, are often at the total mercy of Boards of Directors with incestuous ties to the CEOs.

– Board members are often CEOs of other corporations and have this CEO also sit on their board, and they vote in favor of each other’s salaries.

– Shareholders must have 100% control over their CEO’s salary and benefits, as opposed to the zero control they currently have.


Kohl and Feingold are out to lunch!

January 6, 2010

Voters of both parties are upset; they must kill this bill.

By Jack E. Lohman

This is the stupidest political giveaway I’ve seen in my 72 years on this earth. It eclipses even the $780 billion giveaway to the drug industry in 2003.

That our politicians have allowed the foxes — the pharmaceutical industry then, the insurance industry now — to control the health care debate is absolutely shameful, if not totally criminal. And the corruption is on both sides of the aisle.

Now it’s the corrupt Dems, but you can be sure that if the tables were turned it would be the corrupt R’s instead.  Even Senators Kohl and Feingold would not stand tough and demand a single-payer system, which 2/3rds of the nation supports. They must be pleased that insurance company stocks have increased by 30% since October.

The insurers caused today’s problem and must be eliminated from the system, not expanded as congress plans. Our insurance bureaucracy consumes 31% of our healthcare costs, and the bills before congress will increase waste to 40% (though much of it will be in government overhead, it is still a taxpayer cost).

Where are our heads?

Instead of health care draining 16.5% of GDP, as it is today, it will grow to 20% virtually overnight! And insurers will be the benefactor. Over 20 new governmental departments must now be supported by the taxpayers, all to administer the massive new mandates and taxes and regulations currently being traded on the House and Senate floor.

The most inclusive and efficient health care system is an “Expanded Medicare-for-all system,” and that administration is already in place! Has been for 50 years! The 31% of insurance bureaucracy waste would instead be spent on health care for America’s 15% who are unemployed or do not have coverage.

THAT is a single-payer system! It does not change your care, if you have it. It changes how we pay for it and increases participation to 100%.

All 100% of our citizens could receive first-class Cheney-care for the same dollars we are paying today. You get sick, you get care, and the caregiver gets paid. Simple as that.

But Oh, some will claim that’s “socialized medicine!”  They are wrong, because it uses our same private hospitals and doctors we use today. But what if they were right? Who cares? It works in virtually every other industrialized country!!!! And their employers are better off for it and hold a strong competitive advantage over companies in the US.

Yes, we’d pay for it differently; through taxes rather than wages. But it would bail out 100% of our companies that spend 15% of their wages on health care. Not just the banks and car manufacturers. And it would help bring jobs back to America.

      
That our esteemed politicians have traded American lives for campaign cash is utterly disgraceful.
  
This is now and always has been an issue of political corruption. Only public funding of campaigns will come close to fixing it.
        

Tidbits

– I didn’t vote for Obama, but when he was elected I at least had hope for the political system. I do no more. He has become a total waste, just like the others.

– IF this bill passes it may indeed be the Dem’s undoing. The R’s must be very hopeful at the moment, if they don’t crash and burn themselves.

– Why no transparency? What politician wants his constituents to see what goes on when he sleeps with the industry?

– They must kill this bill and restart from scratch. But first they must sideline the campaign cash that is buying their vote.


Political corruption and climate change

December 21, 2009

Is anything sacred to these jerks?

By Jack E. Lohman

I can’t believe that I have no strong opinion about climate change.

It’s not that I don’t want one, because I do.

It seems that at least “some” climate change is going on, but I can’t trust my politicians to give me an honest answer.

Did we cause it? Is it harmful? Can we change it? Should we change it? What are the effects on my grandchildren if we do nothing? Or if we do something???

I’d like an honest answer, Dammit, and I can’t get one.

Half of our politicians are being paid by the bad-guy industries to accept studies performed by scientists that also are paid by industry to keep the monkey off their back. The other half is being paid by the bribers on the other side of the issue, who are poised to reap billions when congress lays out its demand for new Green technologies, whether needed or not.

Another group owns stock in one industry or the other, and this whole politician thingy, well, it’s just temporary for them anyway.

Of course I would prefer that my politicians were not taking cash bribes from industry, and they instead ran the country in the best interest of the public. That’s what they should be doing.

But they aren’t. We have a political system driven by special interest bribes that controls our nation to the detriment of its taxpayers. We have congress members poised to share in a piece of the action if the vote goes their way, and in some cases they win no matter which way it goes.

Surely new jobs may be created by new green technologies, but so will other make-work efforts by differently-corrupted politicians. But will those new jobs be in the US or in China and India? And if we force Cap & Trade unnecessarily, how many jobs will leave our country nonetheless?

Like all matters important to society, congress must recuse itself and turn this over to an unbiased panel of independent scientists, paid for by the taxpayers and working for the taxpayers. (And wow, if we can’t trust politicians on climate change, health care, Afghanistan, and “all matters important to society,” just where can we trust them?)

That’s an issue we must address in 2010.

In the meantime I see from www.GlobalResearch.ca

“Much of the people in the world have been riled up with predictions of a catastrophic end to mankind and the world unless we don’t do something about so-called “man-made” climate change. Ironically enough, our refusal to adapt to a changing world, and instead a determination to fight it with our efforts to “go green” and “carbon neutral” may, in fact, cause the catastrophic end of our civilization. And sadly, in this instance, it would undeniably be a man-made disaster.”

And here’s Al Gore exposed by congress

Why can’t my congress… my country’s esteemed board of directors… hire an unbiased, non-conflicted, non-partisan team of scientists to get to the bottom of it? Do they not understand the concept of uncorrupted analysis?

Tidbits

– See “What’s The Worst That Could Happen: A rational response to the climate change debate” by Greg Craven (gregcraven.org) — Excellent youtube videos, or buy his DVD. He doesn’t push his point of view — he pushes the idea that we ought to think carefully about the risks that we are wrong, no matter what we believe about the science.

– The argument is “the costs of ignoring something that is direly needed, versus doing something that is not needed.” Overkill.

– Of course nothing is as simple as a yes or no; I still wish I could trust our politicians to shed the special interest money on both sides of the issue and find a non-biased answer.

– What would happen if our astute special interests started pumping something into the air to counter the CO2, only to find out that they went too far or shouldn’t have done it in the first place?


Agreeing with Howard Dean, finally!

December 18, 2009

By Jack E. Lohman

“If I were a senator, I would not vote for the current health-care bill. Any measure that expands private insurers’ monopoly over health care and transfers millions of taxpayer dollars to private corporations is not real health-care reform. Real reform would insert competition into insurance markets, force insurers to cut unnecessary administrative expenses and spend health-care dollars caring for people. Real reform would significantly lower costs, improve the delivery of health care and give all Americans a meaningful choice of coverage. The current Senate bill accomplishes none of these.” By Howard Dean

Get this: “Improving access” comes at a dear price to those who get it and don’t want it or can’t afford it. The congressional plans will mandate that every US citizen buy medical insurance, much like mandated car insurance, whether they can afford it or not.

That’s called “mandated access,” not improving access. And frankly, everybody had this kind of “access” before, if they had the cash to pay for it. Now they will be forced to.

So if you’ve been using your money to instead put food on the table, get used to the change. The insurance industry wants some of it, and your favorite congressman is willing to give it to them, because he gets a share of the profits in the campaign contributions he receives from the industry.

That’s why they much prefer this thing called privatization; Medicare can’t give political cash but the privates can. And the longer they can keep the industry in the loop, the longer they can milk it going forward. So this is not an issue of old cash; they’ve received and spent that already. It’s about new and continued cash. Once they’ve finally switched to a single-payer system that cash stops.

And as Dean points out, “the legislation allows insurance companies to charge older Americans up to three times as much as younger Americans, pricing them out of coverage they are forced to buy.”

That improves access? And while they’ll be prohibited from denying pre-existing diseases, they’ll not be limited to what they can charge for such premiums. How’s that for an industry giveaway?

This bill will eclipse even Bush’s 2003 Medicare D, $780 billion giveaway to the pharmaceutical industry. And Pharma’s promise to Obama to give back $80 billion??? You can see their sincerity in the recent drug price increases and the fact that the “Senate last night voted down an amendment that would have allowed Americans to buy FDA-approved prescription drugs from overseas, where prices are usually much lower.”

So much for “presidential deals.”

This is “legal” organized crime.

Can it really be called anything else? I’ve searched for better words, but none can describe our political system more accurately.

This is absolutely amazing. Our “esteemed” politicians are in the pockets of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, and get a piece of their mighty profits. Is it any wonder that they refuse to fix the healthcare system? Or any system, for that matter?

And we the voters live with it!!!

Obama’s willingness to roll over to the insurance industry, all to get a “win” under his belt, just may kill his presidency. His only possible savior will be the Teabaggers who promise to split the Republicans and conservatives.

I did not vote for Obama, but when he was elected I had hope. But I’ve lost even that now.


Badger Poll comes close on health care

December 15, 2009

Wisconsinite’s views on health care reform

By Jack E. Lohman

Like others, the Badger Poll was taken of normal people who often are not versed in what’s truly behind the high costs of health care.

They were asked:

“Do you favor or oppose creating a health insurance plan that would be available to most Americans and administered by the federal government that would compete with plans offered by private health insurance companies?”

In today’s parlance that’s “a public option!”

Though a very impressive 58% answered YES, a “public option” means different things to different people. To the hopeful it means giving people and businesses the option to enter the non-profit Medicare system at cost, whose prices would be well below the privates and whose coverage is well above.

But to the politicians whose campaigns are funded by the insurance industry, it means “Okay, if we have to do this let’s make it miserable: higher prices, lower coverage, and let’s limit it to the unemployed and exclude companies to force them to stay with the industry. You know, let’s cover 2% instead of the 30% who are uninsured or under-insured. And oh, they’ll have to pay for it, and BIG TIME!”

Importantly, other polls show approval by 70% of the public, 80% of nurses, and 60% of physicians. And when people know all of the facts I expect the numbers will approximate the 90% of satisfied Canadians.

The new “option”

Then they wanted to replace the word “option” and allow 55-64 year olds the opportunity to buy into the Medicare system. But Joe Lieberman, who proposed it earlier and now opposes it, clearly got word that his insurance funders don’t like is. If you doubt the insurancw industry sway look at the recent increase in insurance company stocks for confirmation.

I Much prefer this way of polling:

#1 arguments and question:

Pro: Supporters of a single-payer Medicare-for-all system say that for the same dollars we are spending today, 16.5% of GDP, we could provide health care to 100% of the public, use the same private doctors and hospitals, disconnect it from employment, eliminate the need for COBRA, and free businesses to spend the savings on building and keeping jobs in the US. We’d pay for the system through infrastructure (taxes) rather than wages.

Con: Opponents say that this results in socialized medicine that will disproportionately cost the rich, and Blah, Blah, Blah (I’ll leave the rest to Rush Limbaugh, because I don’t know which of the lies are most believed.)

Now therefore:

Question #1:

“Do you favor the current for-profit insurance system that is tied to your employment, or a single-payer Medicare-for-all system that is not connected to employment and merges all Medicaid, BadgerCare, SCHIP and politicians into one system of everybody-in-nobody-out?”

1) Current system, leave the insurance industry in the loop

2) Medicare-for-all, remove the industry and spend the money saved on health care instead

3) Not sure

Wow, I’m not sure how to deal with the simplicity.  And neither are the politicians, as this asks a question in a way to get one yes-no answer. Their funders are likely not going to like the answer either, because they’ll be on the outside looking in, and the elimination of the insurance industry would mean that the politicians can’t share in future profits.

Damn, that complicates the whole thing! Back to the drawing board.

Tidbits

– If you never ask the right question you will never get the right answer, and congress refused to allow single-payer to be considered. It would have won hands down.

– The senators will have a chance to redeem themselves when Bernie Sanders introduces his bill to replace the mish-mash with a simple single-payer Medicare-for-all bill. But don’t count on our Sens. Kohl and Feingold signing on; both have refused to be co-sponsors in spite of their pretty letters espousing a good public solution. They have chosen to support the party leaders instead, all of whom have received millions from the insurance industry.


Why would Afghanistan want our democracy?

December 11, 2009

When you have corruption you know, why import a western version you don’t?

By Jack E. Lohman

Clearly, given the options, most of us will choose America’s style of democracy over all others. We have a great country, although with serious problems. Not the temporary unemployment and the economy, but the permanent mismanagement and political corruption that got us here in the first place.

We can fix it, but only if we recognize and are willing to deal with the root cause. We cannot remain complacent and awed by our politicians. They are the problem.

Our problem is not the Left or the Right, because neither have control of the political system. One dislikes taxes and the other the way they are spent, but neither has the cash needed to buy congress. Only corporate America does, and it has, and that’s why we’re here.

Comically, our politicians have placed themselves on funny little pedestals and broadcast this air of royalty. They do not dare call each other what they really are, and instead use terms like “my esteemed colleague” and other self-aggrandizations. It’s sickening if you can see through it, but sorry if you can’t.

They cautiously criticize the CEOs who gain even while their company loses, but will not pass laws that press their own performance, even while their country loses because of their actions and inactions.

Virtually all of our congressmen will retire as millionaires and many will move on as lobbyists to play the system and taxpayers for what they can.  It is a human trait to look after your own wealth first.

We must start paying politicians the way private industry pays managers, with bonuses for good performance. Double their income if they are worth it but get rid of them if they aren’t. If they want to make a lot of money, they can earn it by making the economy flourish. If they fail, their income goes down.

But I would establish an elected body of 10 economic advisers to set the rules, and certainly wouldn’t trust the politicians to do it.

On Afghanistan, how can our politicians even think of criticizing its government for corruption when ours is so filled with it?

Do you doubt that?

Why would a congress filled with 535 “esteemed” members have such a tough time fixing the American healthcare system, especially when so many other advanced countries have led the way?  Has it anything to do with the $125 million in campaign cash from the medical-industrial complex, including the insurance and pharmaceutical industries?

Neither Republicans nor Democrats can come together. They (conveniently) have “divisive” issues, better called “poison pill” amendments designed to kill or neutralize the entire bill, and both parties are in on the strategy because both parties receive cash bribes from the same insurance sources. They know their esteemed colleague is just doing what must be done to keep the ball from going in the net.

Whether you agree or not, with this or that health care option, is this the way you want your nation’s board of directors responding to constituent needs? On the basis of who passes them the most money?

Whether you are Right, Left, Center or whatever, we must restore honesty to our government, because it is currently being run like a Mafioso unit of organized crime. Drastic wording, yes, but can you call it anything else?


Business leaders must speak up!

December 7, 2009

Eliminating three words in Medicare law will do it

By Jack E. Lohman

I can hear it now. “Honey, I won’t be home this weekend, we have games to play in the senate… trying to make the public believe we’re working for them while we give the private insurance industry a massive taxpayer subsidy. Kiss the kids for me.”

And that’s from the Democrats!

Even John McCain, who proposed massive “savings” in Medicare when he campaigned, now wants to protect us from democratic efforts to cut the same fraud, over-use and Medicare Advantage subsidies.

His is partisan obstructionism and I hope he wins, but for different reasons.

I hope the $46 million in campaign bribes work as intended and our corrupt politicians kill the current health care bills in Congress. To me, a bad bill is worse than no bill at all. The R’s complain of 2000 pages and dozens of new government departments, and they are right. And having “coverage” you are forced to pay for even if you can’t afford it, is not the “access” we should be proud of.

We need only a minor change in Medicare law; eliminating those three little words “65 and older.”

Medicare should cover everybody, even those on Medicaid, SCHIP and the unemployed. Everybody in, nobody out. Our economy needs it, our businesses need it, and we can cover 100% of our people for the same dollars we are spending today, all by spending the insurance bureaucracy waste on health care instead.

The simplest, most efficient, least costly, most business friendly method of solving our health care crisis is to eliminate the wasteful insurance bureaucracy. Especially small business leaders should embrace a single-payer Medicare-for-all system.

But two critical (sometimes ideological) questions must be addressed:

1) Should this “captive health market” be controlled by the “free market health insurance industry” or should it instead become part of the national infrastructure, as it has in every other industrialized country in the world, and with whom we now compete?

2) Should healthcare even be the responsibility of employers, who now spend 15% of wages on this benefit and have to compete with foreign products that do not have the costs of this burden in their prices?

Surely the Wisconsin Manufacturers Commerce (WMC) and other business associations would most likely say Yes to both. But they have many insurance companies and brokers as paying members who would be negatively affected, so they have an internal conflict between their members that only they can resolve. They also sell health insurance.

But those are potentially serious conflicts that can work against the state’s business community. The resolution is the implementation of a single-payer Medicare-for-all system which would eliminate much of the 15% health benefits costs and provide a bailout for 100% of our corporations, not just the bankers.  That savings could instead be spent on saving old jobs and creating new ones, with obvious benefit to all.

Tidbits

This is NOT a partisan issue. Both Republican and Democrat citizens would benefit equally from a plan done right, but they are being thwarted by both Republicans and Democrats in congress who get money from the insurance industry.

It IS an issue of political corruption. Over $125 million in 2008 alone have been given to political campaigns of both parties, and if this is the way you want your government run you should be very happy.

– We must stop complaining about the corruption in Afghanistan. Political corruption is as bad here and is killing our country in more ways than just health care.

Transparency International listed the U.S. as 19th in their Corruption Perceptions Index. Got that? Our government is 19th in honesty!!! Not first, New Zealand got that, and Canada is 9th.


How our politicians sold out America

November 28, 2009

Campaign cash prevails over a stable society

By Jack E. Lohman

This economic crash should have been expected. It mirrors 1929 except for one thing; they had jobs to recover to and today we don’t.

It started years ago, when business leaders saw that Americans were being paid ten times what foreign workers earned. So after paying the one-tenth in wages, shipping costs, and paying off the politicians for making it all happen, the CEOs could quadruple their personal income. The rest is history. They chose and you lost.

Problem is, now there are fewer American jobs, depressed wages and few people to even pay the lower product prices. Foreclosures and bankruptcies are up, middle-incomes down, and low-end wealth non-existent. The supply is there, the demand is not. But the CEOs remain.

It’s “globalization” made possible by one-sided free trade agreements negotiated by conflicted politicians. But they weren’t free.  They took campaign money from corporate CEOs to pass laws that allowed off-shoring of jobs and importing goods made by low-wage workers.

It didn’t stop there. Bankers wanted to take bigger risks with your money, so in 1999 they paid off the politicians to repeal the Glass-Steagall banking regulations that were implemented following the 1930’s depression. Thanks to today’s robber-barons, fixing that system is not going well.

When today’s rip-off went sour the politicians offered up the taxpayers to repay the bank’s losses. You know, from the earlier failed risks and unearned bonuses and exorbitant executive salaries.

We are a really great people, aren’t we? Our politicians privatized the gains but socialized the losses for their favorite campaign contributors, all while the Forbes 400 wealthiest gained $30 billion and the rest of the country crashed. 401(k)’s and retirement accounts gone, forever.

Are we having fun yet?

Then the financial whiz-kids bought up inventories of oil and hoarded it, and when prices skyrocketed to $4.00 per gallon they sold it back into the crippled market and reaped masses in profits. That the politicians were also on the petroleum payroll certainly didn’t hurt, and our trusted SEC sat by and watched. Gas prices are again on their way up, though the increased unemployment may help put the brakes on. That’s called “capitalism.”

Now we’re faced with two critical decisions. Who knows where the war in Afghanistan will lead us, but you can rest assured that the defense industry will keep the money flowing to the political hawks calling the shots. It reminds me of private prison contractors lobbying against stronger drug laws so more people go to jail. It’s sick.

And then there’s health care, an issue controlled by the for-profit insurance industry and the politicians they own (which is nearly all of them). Instead of eliminating that wasteful insurance bureaucracy, the politicians are poised to expand it, complete with taxpayer subsidies to the industry. If you thought the $780 billion Medicare giveaway to the drug industry in 2003 was big, wait for this whopper of a bill.

It does no good talking about a “recovery” when the jobs are elsewhere. And the jobs will not come back as long as the politicians from both political parties remain corrupted by business cash.

Our nation’s Number One problem is that private political graft is driving policy! Until we get the bribery out of the political system we are destined for further inequality and future national rebellion. Corruption always destroys countries.

Who’s to blame for all of this?

You are. The voters.

You believe the politician’s rhetoric and lies, ignore their payola, and then vote him or her back into office.

We must turn this around with a 100% turnover in congress — forced term limits — until they eliminate the bribery from the political system. Throw them out in the primary so your party of choice remains.

If politicians are to be beholden to their funders, those funders must be the taxpayers. At $5 per taxpayer per year, public funding of elections would be a bargain.


So where does Health Care stand?

November 21, 2009

By Jack E. Lohman

Unfortunately, still with the politicians, and that’s not good. They have it so screwed up it’s pathetic. And now they’ll debate a $500 billion giveaway to the insurance industry at the expense of the public.

The best thing the politicians could do is kill everything in Congress and start from scratch.

But this time, instead of trying to satisfy the insurance and other campaign contributors, they should take themselves totally out of the loop, turn the issue over to a non-partisan, non-conflicted board of healthcare specialists and give them one chore: return to us the most humane, fair and efficient system for the people of the United States.

While we are waiting we can allow the uninsured and unemployed into Medicare.

And Oh, don’t reinvent the wheel. Visit with the experts in Taiwan who did this same thing for their country some years back. They studied the healthcare systems in every industrialized country in the world and returned with the most logical: An American-style Medicare system for every citizen in their country.

Wow. That sounds simple!

Canada’s system has been unfairly attacked by our insurance interests, mainly because it poses the biggest threat. It works. And they don’t want it to work and are lobbying their parliament to undo it. Tough job, but somebody’s got to do it. ;-)

Canada isn’t perfect…

… because they spend only 10% of GDP versus our 16.5%. If they increased their spending by another 2% of GDP they’d eliminate their wait times by expanding their number of hospital beds, diagnostic testing systems (MRIs, etc), and healthcare personnel.

Alternatively they could remove 1/6th of their population from the system, as we’ve done in the United States. That’s what we call “rationing,” and for 47 million of our friends and family members it is all too real.

Our Medicare is expensive on a per patient basis, but only because 70% of our health care costs are consumed in end-of-life. So Medicare gets the brunt of the criticism.

But expand Medicare to 100% of our population, upgrade the under-insured by eliminating pre-existings, replace Medicaid and SCHIP, eliminate co-pays, add vision and dental and mental parity, and the per-capita costs are still less than the $2.7 trillion we are paying today.

That’s what happens when you eliminate the waste and spend it on health care instead.

And as a current Medicare patient and former “private” patient, I’ll take Medicare any day. I see the same (private) doctor and go to the same (private) hospital I’ve enjoyed for years. They just send their bill to a different payer… the Medicare contractor in my state. A “private” contractor, incidentally, with local employees.

What’s wrong with this picture? Mainly it’s that it bypasses the private insurance bureaucracy, which unnecessarily consumes 31% of our private healthcare costs. These are the middlemen who need the cash to offset their high costs for CEO salaries, bonuses, stock options, marketing and legal costs (to facilitate their denials and rescissions), broker commissions, shareholder profits, and even their political contributions that are passed on to the patient.

Yes, you should be mad as hell that your politicians are getting a piece of the healthcare dollars, $125 million in 2008 alone. But that’s an issue to be taken up at the voting booth. And yes, this is corruption, not too different from organized crime.

But it’s ours. Our own, home-grown political system, perpetuated by the politicians we’ve elected to be our nation’s board of directors.

Tidbits

So what’s wrong with the proposed systems?

– For one, they mandate that every American buy an insurance policy (yea, from the same companies that give campaign contributions).

– Can’t afford it? They’ll tell you what you can afford and what you can’t. And if you don’t agree you’ll be fined by the IRS, and if you don’t pay you’ll go to jail. This is Romney’s Massachusetts plan, and that state’s costs have increased since it was implemented.

– The public “option” will cover only 2% of the public, the sickest and most expensive, and even then will be more costly and not a strong competitor. It’ll be run by a private insurance company and subsidized by the taxpayers.

– It will restrict denials for pre-existing diseases but not limit how much the insurance company can gouge you for them. (It’s sort of like the government holding you down while the insurer kicks you in the gut.)

– If this bill passes we will constantly hear “Well, let’s see how our new law works. Call me in five years.” We cannot let it get passed.

– What’s mostly wrong with this bill is its creators — 535 members of congress, most of whom are in the pockets of insurance, pharma, physician and hospital interests. The people are not being represented, and only a 100% turnover in 2010 will correct it.


Walker has some of it right, but not enough!

November 16, 2009

Some four-letter words are welcome

By Jack E. Lohman

Like… Jobs!!!

Gubernatorial candidate Scott Walker would provide incentives to companies who manufacture their products in Wisconsin, and he is absolutely correct with that strategy. Only corporate favors will bring jobs back to Wisconsin.

Where he has it wrong is believing that he can balance the state’s budget and run it in the black. It just can’t happen, at least not under our current moneyed political system.

Taxpayers want politicians to reduce spending and the Fat Cats that fund the elections want the opposite. The latter will win it every time. It does no good to be a fiscal hawk when your legislature is being paid to spend money, and it does no good to try to attract companies and jobs to a high-tax state. Solve the political problems first and then go after the growth.

The only solution is public funding of campaigns, which Walker has opposed in the past and opposes today.

If the Dems were smart they’d make this happen and lock their party into power for years to come, but they have shown little inclination to do so. For sure it will not happen under a Walker administration.

Walker has made it clear that he does not support “government-run” health care, so that leaves the current privatized insurance system in place. Which, incidentally, also keeps the campaign cash rolling in.

And if congress does pass a health care bill that gives states the option to implement their own single payer, I’d count on a Walker veto here too. His brand of compassionate conservatism doesn’t reach that far.

Bothersome is Walker’s penchant for “privatizing” things; namely, at the moment, Milwaukee’s Mitchell Airport. To believe that the added corporate wastes (executive salaries, bonuses, profits and political contributions) would somehow not be passed onto the taxpayers is wishful thinking.

Outsourcing does not decrease government spending, it ultimately increases it. Chicago (and Milwaukee) are now looking at privatizing their water systems, which will surely come back to bite them. If the state politicians were smart — and nobody has ever accused them of being that — they’d buy back the power companies throughout the state. The ratepayers of WE Energies alone are forking out an extra $9.9 million for its CEO’s salary, a bit much for this neck of the woods.

The only benefit of privatization (to the politicians, anyway) is that government can’t give campaign contributions but private industry can. And that’s what we want to eliminate, not expand.


Give state legislators a public option!

November 9, 2009

By Jack E. Lohman

Let Wisconsin legislators choose between two options:

1) … to receive private campaign money as they do now, but with their state salary, benefits, office salaries and expenses also being paid out of their campaign war chest, or

2) … opt for public funding of campaigns and have these expenses paid by the taxpayers?

What the hell. If the special interests are to own our politicians, they ought to own them totally… 100% rather than having their political bribes and payola subsidized by the taxpayers.

I’m tired of paying politician’s salaries only to have them pretend to work for me but then give away taxpayer assets to the special interests that fund their re-election. Our state leaders have repeatedly demonstrated that we voters don’t matter but their campaign funders do.

Fine. Then let their funders also pay their salaries.

Besides, when I mark my ballot I want to know who my politician is employed by. They are either working for me or working for them. I’m tired of having to vote based on whether my politician is in bed with the corporations or the unions. That’s not how I want my government run.

Can you imagine the value of this system in congressional elections? We’d know which politicians are employed by the insurance and banking industries (most of them), and which are not (a handful).

We’d have a Sen. Anthem Lieberman, Rep. American Bankers Sensenbrenner, and Sen. Aetna Baucus. I love it! We’d finally know their real first names.

Importantly, with politicians owned by the taxpayers instead, we’d not have experienced the recent financial crash or the ongoing transfer of wealth. And we’d not have outsourced half our jobs to China and India.

Most of us lost half or all of our retirement accounts due solely to our corrupt political system, and now we don’t have the jobs necessary to get them back. It’s not just in Afghanistan, folks, the political corruption is not sustainable in the U.S. either. It is destroying our country and democracy.

So politicians, no more dodging and pretending. Choose a side: the public’s or the private. If you are going to sit on our board of directors, we do not want you taking money from the enemy.

And if they are not willing, folks, their job becomes the public option in 2010.


We are down but not out

October 31, 2009

Activists are blinded by ideology, when cash works better.

By Jack E. Lohman

We are losing the health care issue not because we failed to mobilize, but because we fought with logic rather than bribery.

We gave good arguments while the medical-industrial complex gave cash dollars. Over $125 million from insurance, hospital, pharma, and medical device manufacturers in 2008 alone. We were smart, they were smarter. We are now on the outside looking in, and no amount of head-scratching will alter the fact that we were simply outspent.

In this situation we were better off with no bill rather than a bad bill, but we didn’t give the cash to make that happen. Politicians prefer bribes, so the insurance CEOs give cash instead.

Logic is so “yesterday,” and the medical-complex bribes will now keep coming in as long as reform does not happen. Future cash motivates politicians better than historical cash, and that’s why they also prefer private over public services.

There are three critical messages to take from this:

  1. Don’t stop here. We must mobilize to throw the bastards out. Forced term limits is our next “public option.” Politicians must see an immediate response to their favoring money over matter; of selling the country to the highest bidder against the best interests of the nation. All politicians who vote for the current health care bill must be unelected in 2010!
             
  2. That doesn’t free the Republicans of blame, because they will vote against single-payer when it comes to the table. They are as corrupt; they just allowed the D’s to take this hit. But the R’s must also be replaced. We must rid our system of all miscreants.
                
  3. Recognize that this enemy — bribery — is deeply imbedded in our political culture. Over 80% of congressional decisions will favor money over people. It is behind the recent spiral of the nation’s economy. It will remain behind the massive transfer of wealth that eclipses our democracy and capitalism. Our country can no longer sustain political corruption or the massive wealth inequality that has resulted.

If activists can be faulted for anything it is for their naivety. There is only one solution to this quagmire, and that’s to get the private campaign dollars out of the public electoral system. Though in its extreme (forced) it does not pass Constitutional muster, a reasonable solution is available: Optional public funding of campaigns.

CALL TO ACTION: All activists and organizations must ask their congressional members to support the Fair Elections Now Act  (S. 752 and H.R. 1826). Healthcare activists must immediately take on this second issue, because it affects all others. We can no longer afford to lose issues because of bribery.

This bill provides for optional public funding of campaigns for any politician who prefers not to take private or special interest money. A politician who prefers private money can remain on the current system. It is funded by a surcharge on federal contracts. A candidate needs only to acquire a preset number of community signatures to qualify. In Arizona and Maine 70% of their legislators ran and won under public funding, and that included R’s and D’s and Libertarians alike. And it passes constitutional muster, so don’t accept otherwise from your congressman.

Tidbits

– The healthcare bill that passes will almost surely include individual mandates, which drives the insurance market from 85% to 100% of the people. Subsidies will go to the unemployed and low-wage workers, which provides a massive windfall for the insurance industry at taxpayer expense.

– The proposed “public option” will cover only 10% of the people and promises to serve as a massive dumping ground for those people the industry does not want.

– The best solution would have been a single-payer Medicare-for-all system, but cash dollars from the insurance industry kept it entirely off the table.  Had it been considered, with 70% public support, the pressure would have won the day. But the industry’s hogs opposed, and they help fund the elections.

– Had we had public funding of campaigns, solid healthcare reform would have occurred years ago.

– It simply doesn’t matter what political party you support, solid nation-oriented political decisions will occur if money is not changing hands.