As a small business, we spend 20-60 hours per hear dealing with health insurance. Why does this burden fall on our business? I don’t mind the financial responsibility if that falls on all citizens according to their means.

You can read more about my thoughts on my blog at:

http://greencpa.blogspot.com/2009/12/health-insurance-burden-on-business.html

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-april-18-2012/exclusive—robert-reich-extended-interview-pt–3

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-april-18-2012/exclusive—robert-reich-extended-interview-pt–1

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-april-18-2012/exclusive—robert-reich-extended-interview-pt–2

The world is still on the edge of a whirlpool that it has only just begun to climb out of, & it is not yet clear whether we will be falling back in, to kill, torture & exploit each other to the end of time, not having a second perfectly timed New World to save us again, be that descent by overpopulation, high-tech dictatorship, literalist or gangsterist contretemps (OR economic, environmental or tectonic collapse). Ranked Ballot (“RB”, voters ranking candidates in order of preference) will save us from this. A biggest source of all the world’s problems, & thus ours to fix, is the horse & buggy two-party system, whether king-of-the-hill presidential, biggest-gang-on-the-block proportional or only semi-democracist democratic-centralist. RB is the solution. Because RB gives an equal chance of winning to not just all parties, but all combinations of programs, we could, for instance, go with a “PROGRESSIVE MINIMUM WAGE” where Congress would set a small % by which the wage for each hour beyond the first hour’s agreed upon rate would be increased. Employers would still have the right to fire for laziness of incompetence, & hire for less than the maximum work week, but sharing the work in this way might, especially with a little talk & advertising, cause workers to see that their greatest good was to be found in putting in a good day’s work, especially once they knew they’d not only always be able to find work, but also end up with shorter hours & greater productivity & hence wealth. Even such a thing as would suddenly become possible once there was RB (should the people so decide).While certainly ALL POWERS TO THE INDIVISIBLE INDIVIDUAL, the great unifying effect of Ranked Ballot (aka IRV, Preferential, Australian or Choice Voting) will give us the answer to ALL things, whether desired or feared, even if not necessarily in the form imagined, & that virtually instantaneously, even all the while recognizing, in word & deed, that Justice is the redress of past violence, Freedom its current absence & Non-Violence the basis of all morality, be that violence by individuals, groups or the state.
The “ADDITIVE” FORM OF RB is counting the first choices & if no-one has 50%, the next choices are added in, & so on ’til someone finally does. Because this gives an equal chance of winning to not just all parties, but all combinations of programs, RB has brakes, reverse, 3D, hyper-drive, subtlety, light-footedness, objectivity, & so is the only thing that’s truly simultaneously BOTH MOST JUST & MOST FREE, & will give us instant, TRUE Democracy for ALL the world, no matter what ladders they pull up to prevent it. Because it always picks the one most exactly in the middle, & because of the shining example of that great equality to all of the world’s poor, RB is more top-dead-center counter-extremist than all the many recent retrenchments combined. Both more Freedom & Justice (free market & community) can be found in RB than in any ideology. Brakes & Reverse mean NO MORE NEED TO SUPPRESS POPULAR MOVEMENTS around the world. Light-footedness means that the concerns of BOTH passions, (both Justice AND Freedom) will have input & be given consideration at every point in time. RB is to the horse & buggy two-party system as shopping at the Mall of America is to shopping in Soviet Russia.
ALL THAT’S NEEDED IS FOR PEOPLE TO RUN on the SINGLE ISSUE of RB, promising a citizens’ advisory board, based on ORGANIZED COMMUNICATIONS (”OC”), to guide us in the rest. OC is small randomly assigned discussion groups electing reps to higher & higher randomly assigned levels, by means of RB, till one small group, exactly in the middle of all participating, remains. Within the movement for RB, a committee chosen by OC would, by its mere invite to speak, indicate the next winner of the next election. (They’ll be falling all over themselves before we even get organized.) This is the INSTANTANEOUS part. RB would be equally useful for all systems, parliamentary or presidential (the parliaments by picking their Prime Ministers by RB (from among their members) so as to prevent the rise of yet another extremist monster) coops, collective leaderships, tribal groupings, religious confessions, political parties, associations, or even cabals. RB is the sole unchangeable plank and bylaw of the PREFERENTIAL BALLOT PARTY, the only PRACTICABLE third party. Of course, it’d mean lots of folks having to let go of their nut (to get their fist back out of the knot hole) resting in the knowledge of RB’s sure aim, as if anyone could then care. Or, we might just go with satellite solar collectors to fulfill everyone’s dreams, but then, we’ll only boil the atmosphere away before we’re done. Putting any program before needed reforms to the system means you’ll get neither, but RB will give us both.
Americans really only have debt to Blacks, Native Americans, & now, subsistence farmers (because of the dislocations resulting from dumping of high-tech corn). NO WOMAN EVER GOT PREGNANT TO HAVE AN ABORTION, but RB would create the sort of world in which the question was moot. Some of the PRACTICABLE, POINTED, PERTINENT & complex things that might result from RB would be a perhaps more PRACTICABLE SOLUTION FOR HEALTH CARE than the current Rube Goldberg, contraption with single payer for generics & free market for all else. Single payer for generic & Wild West(!) for all else. The single payer side of the coin because of eliminating the wheel spinning middle man, & convenience, like that of the interstate highway system, another NATURAL MONOPOLY. Likewise, tolls are really just spinning wheels & electronic tolls, so anti-freedomist as to make the Libertarians look autistic. Full employment is an economic fiction not corresponding to the real lives of actual people. As long as health insurance is tied to employment, there will always be those between jobs & so without insurance &/or healthcare. Also, single payer will yield the greatest worker (& thus economic) mobility & undercut the last excuse for all-too-often-conspiring-in-restraint-of-trade-parochial-&-extortionistic big labor. We could start with the biggest health care users, & curing them, learn as we go how to prevent these conditions. All anyone should need is proof of identity & the location of the nearest preventive care clinic. Electronic records would prevent any doctor from claiming more patients than is humanly possible. The Free Market side would be because of the great innovation that that provides, & as a message to the world to not do away, or interfere with, the right of individuals to make agreements with each other. Or else maybe two part, or even coop, health care, so that those with moral qualms could have rules that suited themselves. In HOUSING, while landlords (& others) need to be forbidden from charging late fees that amount more than hundreds % per year, we need to lay the housing shortage, & hence ethnic conflict, as well as the gutting of America’s industrial might, at the feet of the unions (who bid themselves out of existence). Letting the poor use food stamps at soup kitchens, to so self organize, double up & take care of their own housing needs cooperatively. Subsidize food storage, not production, & likewise educational infrastructure, 24/7 INFINITELY REITERATIVE TEACHING MACHINES, broadband, distance learning, standardization of rote subjects & classrooms, not tuition. Everyone works hardest when they work for themselves, so the greatest good is to be found in the greatest # working for themselves, even if we will still need an adequate, howsoever minimalist, safety net, till we finally work out the up & downs of free markets. Thus a greatly expanded & targeted Small Business Administration, not to mention cooperativism, is the way to go for the statists among us, but the burden of proof lies with them for any new programs they’d propose.
A GEOTHERMAL HEAT PUMP BAN to prevent greater tectonic activity. Committee Chairs chosen by members of committees, not seniority, & random committee assignments. Let those with special interest testify, not rule. CABLE CHOICE, so we can all walk among each other without fear & anger, blissfully ignorant of our divisions, ’til that choice brings us all to laughter. HALF OF ALL LEGISLATURES WOMEN, ie: two seats per district, since gender is the only permanent affirmative category. Unless all the world’s women have total control over their own bodies (not yet necessarily permanently assured anywhere) no program or condition will ever amount to anything because over-population will just eat it up. A NO STRIKE FOR WAGES PLEDGE by all unions, especially if card check passes & everyone gets unionized, & because it’s just chasing your tail to be constantly trying to get one up on the other guy. Paying for DEFENSE with an IMPORT TAX, on oil, & all other imports as well, gradually, over a generation. They’ll long since have got the point before we get to too high a barrier. Treat boo like beer & save billions a year, to totally end the unnecessary & wasteful POLICE-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX & turn three whole generations, since WWII, from cop haters to warriors against the truly dangerous drugs. But the fast acting aphrodisiac will never be defeated. PRIORITIZING BILLS in all legislatures by the #/cosigners, & not dictatorial, deal making leaderships. A RANDOM PRIMARY PROCESS, one state eleven months before the next election & one more than the previous month, each successive month, till the remainder votes in the month before the actual election. TAX CONSUMPTION, NOT INVESTMENT, so as to spread the productivity around. SOCIAL SECURITY should not be done away with short of making all invested income tax free 100%. A SUPERMAJORITY for major appointments, like the Supreme Court, Defense & Law Enforcement.
WE COULD GO SILENT, shut out the lights & disappear into the cosmos. It’s not like we’re going anywhere soon. In any event, the fiercer the history of the planet, the sooner it would have arrived at a state of ethnic homogeneity, & been blissed out behind Democracy. How can we ask it of others if we do not have it ourselves? It must be in somebody’s interest. Ten to the power of ten (ten levels of groups of ten) would be sufficient to include, organize & UNITE ALL INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS OF HUMANITY, not just elites. If you’re paranoid, do the same, from the most local on up, wherever you are. Good enough for New Zealand, Australia, Kerala India(?), Iraq (if not quite instantaneously, for the selection of its President, by a 2/3 vote of the parliament, not the people& then only in the first round, with a contest between the top two in the second, ie: a regular run-off), London, Ireland for the selection of its President, Cambridge Mass, Burlington & 95% of the townships of Vermont, Pierce County Washington, the Twin Cities, the Utah Republican Party for the selection of statewide candidates (even if only once upon a time) the platforms of both the Green & Libertarian Parties & MANY college student bodies across the US, with more coming every year, but not good enough for the rest of us?
ALL THINGS BEING EQUAL, nothing should prevent individuals from entering into agreements with each other, or to engage in activities the collective does either. Dems (& Reps & 3rd Parties) need to start running their own primaries, using RB, Organized Communications & progressive party dues, in the case of leftwing parties, or, in the case of right wing parties, bidding for seats on the board, or buying partnerships or stock in the party. The form chosen will no doubt determine the result. This will save vast sums, as TV & RADIO ads will no longer be needed, especially once the candidates have been named. It would be impossible for big media to ignore one, no matter how much they want to hold the parties up for the coverage. No-one should be allowed to own stock in any type of broadcast station who doesn’t live within that station’s broadcast area, or no-one should be allowed to own more than one share in any station, or no-one should be allowed to be a partner in more than one, but public finance of culture is the same as that of religion, really unseemly. The percentage difference between a 40 hour week & a 35 hour one is greater than the current UNEMPLOYMENT rate. One the other hand, the economy only needs to be a little more free market than all the rest, NO SHOCK THERAPY REQUIRED. Greater global competition will not hurt anyone. We’ll just end up with better goods at lower prices. They’re investing in whatever they think is most productive, which just may not be locally. Do away with FREE TRADE & everything will cost way more. Companies buying other companies can result in economies of scale, in which case it is a good thing. One of those economies is the need for fewer of the hated managers & administrators per worker, but now that great computing power is available to all, the trend of consolidation should subside. There is a short list of things that will increase PRODUCTIVITY & hence wealth & employment, such as: man-hours, technology, skill levels, savings, efficiency & raw materials, energy, lack of corruption & predictability, not spending the wealth of our grand children. A golden opportunity is being missed to suggest a STRAIGHT LINE PROGRESSIVE INCOME TAX from zero, for some low point, where all the Congress can do is set the slope of the line, essentially producing an infinity of rates, not the two or three tiers they came up with, at the start of the computer age! Norman Thomas’s actual platform was to the right of the Democrats of today. Otherwise, TAXING CONSUMPTION, NOT INVESTMENT, &/or a simple property tax, based on the total square footage of all land and floors of each property, regardless of improvements, would be the most efficient & incorruptible way to go & encourage improvements. Good ole horse & buggy two-party system is only good in a crisis. A hundred years ago we had no cars, or indoor plumbing, land was cheaper, cobblestone streets, practically no one went to college, we had no third world competition & most folks worked way longer just to feed themselves, so that’s the best we could do then, but TIME TO UPGRADE TO RB. JUST CUT 5 OR MORE % across the board, don’t spend a cent more than you did the previous year, or go to % (of potential receipts) budgeting, as opposed to the current absolute dollar amount system, & work out the adjustments later. Just withdrawing from the world will only make us have to pay more down the road. Crucially now, with all the inevitable (US) talk about “independent” (read bi-partisan through duopolistic) REDISTRICTING commissions, a worthy yet apparently unmentionable possibility would be to limit the number of changes of direction of all legislative districts’ boundaries equally, & give the task to a computer to create them.
RB WILL GIVE US A PERFECT MARRIAGE OF FREEDOM & JUSTICE, Tradition & Modernity, Palestinian & Jew (as members of worldwide coops, instead of struggling with each other over a sliver of desert) Free Market & Communalism, all the fairness, payback & make-up one could wish for, clean back to the Cro-Magnons, a real solution to terror, ecologically sustainable politics, what’s best for all workers, instant global women’s liberation, world-wide luxury, a rationalization of the drug wars, human unity, ultimate retail politics, perfect compromise, “phantasmagoric subtlefaction”, real-time alternatives to all proposals, from wherever: market, coop or social, or tribal, theological or universal, an answer to infinitely more questions at a time than the two party system’s “who’s less bad”, an adequate safety net, no more need to suppress popular movements around the world, both more Liberty & Justice than can be found in any ideology, subtlety, responsivity, light-footedness, long-sightedness, economy, accountability, an end to all the various forms of hegemonism (whether up front, subterranean or unconscious, in exchange for the so great burden of leading the world to the light) no more need to fear self expression, politics as if a family discussion around the kitchen table, no more jumping back & forth between extremes, with its consequent absence of the economists’ requirement of predictability for growth, the Freedom of Justice & the Justice of Freedom & perhaps eventually, even more than inadequate global confederation (but with all powers to their lowest appropriate level). Perhaps it might result, at least economically, in some combination of THE WORLD’S WASTED WEALTH II: Save Our Wealth, Save Our Environment by J W Smith, Institute for Economic Democracy, Cambria, CA & GRAND NEW PARTY: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class & Save the American Dream by Ross Douthat & Reihan Salam, Doubleday, Planet Earth, but with all our other inputs as well. This is what is known as the formlessness of forms, aka what works, ie: puralism.
All human evil is due to the OUT OF PHASE FLUCTUATION OF POPULATION & FOOD SUPPLY, from the time the first hunter remembered the first fight over stray game in a bad year, so none alive is responsible except for what they do now. One would have hoped there’d have been an RB Caucus in the Democrat-ish party at least to start by now. Occupy the Universe, or at least the solar system. Help put this idea, in time, to as many as possible, before overpopulation, high-tech dictatorship, literalist contretemps, or economic, environmental or tectonic collapse. The cost of a full page US national ad, sufficient to put RB to virtually all the world, would be repaid in no time at (pre 9/11) US defense spending of ~$10,000 per family. Just go out & collect signatures to get on the ballot, asking those who sign to collect them for you as well. Consider that which is common in the sight of all men. Men do not light a light & set it under a bushel.
zoe morgan norman roman sydney christian z, preferentiality@gmail.com, preferentiality@yahoo.com, USA

Threaten hoarders with jail; it’ll stop overnight. Start new legislation that prevents exporting our own oil to other countries.

Oil problem fixed.

In addition to fixing healthcare the right way we need a NewDeal. We need a permanent and updated FDR WPA (Works Progress Administration). A Full employment act requiring the government to provide a job for everyone able to work that wants to work at a living wage or better. At safe, meaningful work where they live. Guaranteed by the US government. With free or very affordable excellent healthcare and free or very affordable education and training for advancement or just personal enrichment.

( http://my.firedoglake.com/iflizwerequeen/2011/05/16/how-about-a-little-truth-about-what-the-majority-want-for-health-care/ )

( Gov. Peter Shumlin: Real Healthcare reform — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yFUbkVCsZ4 )

( Health Care Budget Deficit Calculator — http://www.cepr.net/calculators/hc/hc-calculator.html )

( Briefing: Dean Baker on Boosting the Economy by Saving Healthcare http://t.co/fmVz8nM )

START NOW!

As you all know. Had congress passed a single-payer or government-run robust Public Option CHOICE! available to everyone on day one, our economy and jobs would have taken off like a rocket. And still will. Single-payer would be best. But a government-run robust Public Option CHOICE! that can lead to a single-payer system is the least you can accept. It’s not about competing with for-profit healthcare and for-profit health insurance. It’s about replacing it with Universal Healthcare Assurance. Everyone knows this now.

The message from the midterm elections was clear. The American people want real healthcare reform. They want that individual mandate requiring them to buy private health insurance abolished. And they want a government-run robust public option CHOICE! available to everyone on day one. And they want it now.

They want Drug re-importation, and abolishment, or strong restrictions on patents for biologic and prescription drugs. And government controlled and negotiated drug and medical cost. They want back control of their healthcare system from the Medical Industrial Complex. And they want it NOW!

THE AMERICAN PEOPLE WILL NOT, AND MUST NOT, ALLOW AN INDIVIDUAL MANDATE TO STAND WITHOUT A STRONG GOVERNMENT-RUN PUBLIC OPTION CHOICE! AVAILABLE TO EVERYONE.

For-profit health insurance is extremely unethical, and morally repugnant. It’s as morally repugnant as slavery was. And few if any decent Americans are going to allow them-self to be compelled to support such an unethical and immoral crime against humanity.

This is a matter of National and Global security. There can be NO MORE EXCUSES.

Further, we want that corrupt, undemocratic filibuster abolished. Whats the point of an election if one corrupt member of congress can block the will of the people, and any legislation the majority wants. And do it in secret. Give me a break people.

Also, unemployment healthcare benefits are critically needed. But they should be provided through the Medicare program at cost, less the 65% government premium subsidy provided now to private for profit health insurance.

Congress should stop wasting hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money on private for profit health insurance subsidies. Subsidies that cost the taxpayer 10x as much or more than Medicare does. Private for profit health insurance plans cost more. But provide dangerous and poorer quality patient care.

Republicans: GET RID OF THE INDIVIDUAL MANDATE.

Democrats: ADD A ROBUST GOVERNMENT-RUN PUBLIC OPTION TO HEALTHCARE REFORM.

This is what the American people are shouting at you. Both parties have just enough power now to do what the American people want. GET! IT! DONE! NOW!

If congress does not abolish the individual mandate. And establish a government-run public option CHOICE! before the end of 2011. EVERY! member of congress up for reelection in 2012 will face strong progressive pro public option, and anti-individual mandate replacement candidates.

Strong progressive pro “PUBLIC OPTION” CHOICE! and anti-individual mandate volunteer candidates should begin now. And start the process of replacing any and all members of congress that obstruct, or fail to add a government-run robust PUBLIC OPTION CHOICE! before the end of 2011.

We need two or three very strong progressive volunteer candidates for every member of congress that will be up for reelection in 2012. You should be fully prepared to politically EVISCERATE EVERY INCUMBENT that fails or obstructs “THE PUBLIC OPTION”. And you should be willing to step aside and support the strongest pro “PUBLIC OPTION” candidate if the need arises.

ASSUME CONGRESS WILL FAIL and SELLOUT again. So start preparing now to CUT THEIR POLITICAL THROATS. You can always step aside if they succeed. But only if they succeed. We didn’t have much time to prepare before these past midterm elections. So the American people had to use a political shotgun approach. But by 2012 you will have a scalpel.

Congress could have passed a robust government-run public option during it’s lame duck session. They knew what the American people wanted. They already had several bills on record. And the house had already passed a public option. Departing members could have left with a truly great accomplishment. And the rest of you could have solidified your job before the 2012 elections.

President Obama, you promised the American people a strong public option available to everyone. And the American people overwhelmingly supported you for it. Maybe it just wasn’t possible before. But it is now.

Knock heads. Threaten people. Or do whatever you have to. We will support you. But get us that robust public option CHOICE! available to everyone on day one before the end of 2011. Or We The People Of The United States will make the past midterm election look like a cake walk in 2012. And it will include you.

We still have a healthcare crisis in America. With hundreds of thousands dieing needlessly every year in America. And a for profit medical industrial complex that threatens the security and health of the entire world. They have already attacked the world with H1N1 killing thousands, and injuring millions. And more attacks are planned for profit, and to feed their greed.

Spread the word people.

Progressives, prepare the American peoples scalpels. It’s time to remove some politically diseased tissues.

God Bless You my fellow human beings. I’m proud to be one of you. You did good.

See you on the battle field.

Sincerely

jacksmith – WorkingClass