Moneyed Politicians

Wisconsin should take the lead…

By Jack E. Lohman

It is amazing that good health care reform has so many opponents.

In a day that we have so many people without jobs or employer health coverage, and virtually every employer being pushed to the wall, you’d think that pragmatism would trump idealism. At least during these dire times.

But it hasn’t.

Insurance interests are making heavy campaign contributions to keep themselves in the loop, which they have accomplished even though they drain 31% of today’s health care costs without ever laying hands on the patient. And ideologues are right with them, though in many cases they are also employed in the industry. Even so-called “think tanks” are paid to push the for-profit agenda.

Importantly, nobody is looking at where we’ll be in ten years if we don’t fix the system. Corporations like Motorola have already started to bring their own medical services on-premises. That means that for-profit CEOs will eventually be calling the shots rather than your doctor. Some employers have formed co-operative health care systems where — guess what? — for-profit CEOs will again be calling the shots over your doctor.

This is not a pretty picture. Doctors will hate it, nurses will hate it, hospitals will hate it, and eventually even the insurance industry will hate it.

So why would anybody support it? Short term gains.

The best, simplest, least costly, most effective thing we could do is expand what has been working so well for years, Medicare. You get sick, you get care, and the caregiver gets paid. Nothing could be simpler.

And Medicare-for-all would save every corporation in Wisconsin and the United States $6000 per employee per year, and they’d be hiring rather than firing people. Our economy would come alive even without the bailout for the bankers.

Medicare isn’t free healthcare. We’d just pay for it with taxes rather than through employers and job losses and welfare. The cost would be the same as we are paying today, and it’d cover everybody. It has a 20% deductible and it doesn’t cover everything, but it covers enough and you can buy the rest on the outside. You know; with cash dollars in the free market.

Our state legislature and governor should beat the Feds to the punch. An expanded BadgerCare-for-all system would attract businesses to the state and keep alive the ones that are already here.

Tidbits:

Speculating is and was 100% our problem…

By Jack E. Lohman

“Speculating” is where financial vulchers buy up the inventory of, say, petroleum, and hang on to it, thus driving the price of gas to $4.00 per gallon. While they can’t control demand, they can hoard supply and accomplish their goals.

When they sense they’ve drained from the public as much as they can get away with, they back off, sell their oil back into the market, and walk away with all of the cash the middle-class otherwise would have spent on clothing for their kids. When you control the supply of a vital commodity, you have control of the desperate buyers.

And when gas gets back down to $2 per gallon, we idiots breathe a sigh of relief and wait until the speculators decide they can get away with it again! And the politicians that we re-elect repeatedly, let them get away with it because they share in the spoils.

In May 2008, German leaders proposed a worldwide ban on oil trading by speculators, blaming the 2008 oil price rises on manipulation by hedge funds. They were absolutely correct to do so, and if our politicians weren’t on the speculators payroll, they’d get behind it. Note that the top 10 hedge fund managers make salaries averaging $250 million per year, obviously thanks to $4.00 gas prices and diverting wealth from the middle class.

But our trusted politicians once again are paid handsomely by the special interests to sit back and watch it all happen. And they do this job well.

Both of these market manipulations are a major threat to the security and sovereignty of our nation. They have forced us to sell U.S. assets to other countries, who will soon own more of our country than we do. Should there be a war and we need parts from China, don’t even think about getting them.

But worse, our state and federal politicians are complicit in all of the things wrong with America. They have put their pocketbook ahead of the public.  It is their thirst for campaign contributions that stand before the good of the taxpayers for whom they work. With friends like these, we don’t need enemies.

Tidbits:

It’s a great idea, but that’s also its problem.

By Jack E. Lohman

Nothing that really makes sense can get past our politicians, because their cash constituents want exactly the opposite.  They’re just too smart for us.

But because the insurance companies can’t make money on the poor, which they would otherwise share with those politicians, maybe this proposal has a chance. Political money won’t be changing hands.

Question:  

Why are we supporting so many health care systems and their duplicated administration costs? BadgerCare, Medicaid, SCHIP, VA, Tricare, Medicare, private insurers, etc. This is an absolute waste of taxpayer money and is a major factor in our outlandish health care costs.

Other countries have just one system, why can’t we? Provide just one level of care, total, and have different levels of co-pays, deductibles, or subsidies! But there is just one level of care justified.

This writer  proposes merging health care for the poor into the VA system. Of course, even as it is, funding for the VA should be increased sharply to compensate for the GI’s coming home from Iraq. We are doing a terrible job on this front already, and adding the poor could make it worse. Unless we fund it properly, which would also help pay for the added jobs that would be needed.

But there are two problems with using VA Medical Centers: (1) there are too few of them by comparison, and they are usually located closer to metropolitan areas, and (2) the taxpayer money is needed for pork to reward campaign contributors elsewhere. Aren’t our priorities great?

Alternatively, we could care for the Vets and the poor through our Medicare system. Get rid of BadgerCare, Medicaid, SCHIP and the VA system, and have them all use the same local doctors and hospitals that everybody else uses. The problem here is that Vets prefer their system to ours, which should send a clue to those opposing “socialized medicine.”

Our current system is shameful. Why do we put more time and money into avoiding the right thing, when we could just fix the system and move on to saving our country? Obviously insurance industry money is driving this issue, but how long is it going to let the country crumble before giving in.

As more people lose their jobs and health insurance, this problem will get worse, not better. We must fix it sooner, not later. And our business community direly needs to be relieved of its insurance expenses so it can compete internationally.

Tidbits:

It’s time to put GAB to work!

By Jack E. Lohman

Scott Walker, Milwaukee County’s executive, is correct. Taking federal bailout money will only encourage wasteful political spending.

But what else would you expect? Special interests and the politicians they feed are going for the gold, and he knows it. He’s been there.

While new money must be spent wisely, Wisconsin politicians have never been accused of having the trait. To suddenly drop tons of money on those whose campaigns are funded by special interests — expecting them to spend it in the best interest of the public that doesn’t give them money — is wishful thinking. Pure fantasy.

Independent oversight is needed, and the Government Accountability Board (GAB) should appoint a panel of retired economists and business leaders to sort it all out. If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right, and even our politicians should want this one done correctly.

What we have today that we didn’t have in 1929, is globalization. Today’s solution cannot be the same, and going further into debt makes sense only if the jobs created are local and permanent.

Who’s originally to blame? How did all of this happen? The economy, stock market crash, unemployment, foreclosures, etc?

There is but one answer: the politicians who sought re-election and were willing to eliminate regulations to get the cash needed for their campaigns.

The contributors wanted a free-for-all market, and the politicians gave it to them. It is said that total freedom works only when total honesty exists at all levels. But in life it doesn’t, so reasonable regulation and laws are needed and our politicians sold us out.

Live with it, or fix it.

Tidbits:

The solution hasn’t changed, but the politics must…

By Jack E. Lohman

Can you imagine a chart so offensive? THIS in America!!!

 Chart source

This is absolutely disgraceful for the most advanced nation in the world!

Not because our health care is bad, because it’s not. We have the best doctors and nurses in the world. But we have the most atrocious way of rationing it. Over 15% are without, 85% of us have it, but 5o million of those are with restrictions.

If we have health care, we love it. The young, indestructible bucks don’t need it, though some day they may. Hopefully it won’t be a surprise, like one of their kids being diagnosed with diabetes, autism or other serious disease they have no control over. Then the costs accumulate fast and you can’t upgrade at that point.

Today over 47 million Americans are without health care and it’s getting worse as more employers opt out to keep their companies afloat, and more people are losing their jobs in the recession. One sixth of our nation is without medical insurance.

And it’s all because the “for-profit system” is protected by cash dollars (”bribes”) being transferred from the insurance industry to your trusted politicians, all to retain the status quo.

Get that! Our politicians have refused to fix health care because the insurance industry has paid them not to!!!  Do not think for a moment that politicians make stupid decisions for free. Even the Dems are being paid off.

Our per-capita costs are twice those in other countries. HALF of our expenditures are total waste, 31% consumed by our insurance bureaucracy and 20% by overuse, abuse and fraud. If the political will were there we could eliminate this 51% of waste and extend care to 100% of our people for the same dollars we are paying today!

We don’t need Kennedy or Baucus or Wyden.
Or any new system, for that matter.

The proposal already exists: HR676 Medicare-for-all by US Rep. John Conyers. Instead of throwing $700 billion at a few poorly-run companies, we should spend it on a health care system that will save every employer in the U.S. $6000 per year per employee. Bail out all employers, not just a few high-rollers.

With a Medicare-for-all system, you get sick, you get care, and the caregiver gets paid. You keep your same doctor and hospital, and there’s a 20% co-pay to reduce patient over-use. And if you want to go outside the system and pay for something not covered, you can. How’s that for free-market medicine?

The savings to the public would be $400 billion per year, and fewer companies will outsource their jobs to other countries once they are relieved of these costs. Doctors and hospitals will no longer have to cost-shift because of bad debt, and we’d eliminate bankruptcies due to unpaid medical bills.

Even without the $700B bailout, the proposed system pays for itself. It’s a zero-sum option.

Winston Churchill once said “America will always do the right thing, but only after everything else fails.”  Sadly, we are proving him right.

And, yes, Canada has wait times, but we aren’t Canada and ours isn’t a Canadian system. We’ll properly fund it with twice the dollars, and we’ll not have wait times.

We are currently paying for all health care anyway, if only when employers add their costs to products and we reimburse them at the cash register. Plus the costs of job losses due to outsourcing.

And no, this isn’t free care, we’d just pay for it differently and more efficiently than we are now. Our current system is funded through employer insurance premiums, cost shifting, bad debt, bankruptcy costs and higher priced consumer products. This includes high insurance CEO wages, shareholder profits, broker sales commissions, marketing costs, actuarial and legal costs, and much more. They even pass along their lobbying and campaign contributions.  We’ll eliminate this waste.

Other countries simply pay via taxes, a more efficient system that reduces costs by the 31% above. But this offends insurance CEOs, because it bypasses their industry and reduces their salaries. They like things just as they are.

Reducing the ”per-procedure medical costs” is not an option! Doctors and nurses and hospital personnel are not overpaid, nor is technology over-priced.

The only option is eliminating the waste — the insurance bureaucracy and over-utilization — and that can only be done with a single-payer system and better oversight. 

Curtail “excessive” technology upgrades, but not the technology itself. Prohibit the “for profit” status of hospitals that causes inappropriate staff and nursing reductions, and prohibit the bias that results when hospitals buy up their referring physician practices.

It’s a no-brainer, but politicians don’t think of no-brainers. They think campaign contributions, and the health care industry is more than willing to share its profits with the guys that make the rules.

With lower costs and greater coverage, we can’t afford not to fix the system! Our economy demands it.

If Wisconsin were smart it would beat the Feds to the punch with a BadgerCare-for-all system that would attract businesses to our state.

Okay, for you right-wingers that don’t seem to get the math, we’ll turn it over to Halliburton to manage! But keep in mind that your families are getting [bleeped] in this process too.