Uppity Wisconsin

Since I'm one of the crazy people who watched almost all of the health care-a-palooza yesterday, I thing Obama deserves some sort of award for putting up with what  happened and not hitting anyone.  Ditto anyone else in the room with any actual connection to reality. I award them a pair of boots:

toothpastefordinner.com

I guess it's national News Day.  As a warm-up for tomorrow's health-care-a-palooza, I thought this was an interesting video for a number of reasons.  I only wish it was only the Republicans who were wholly-owned subsidiaries of the health care industry.  Still, point taken (though apparently not written down).

Every year about this time, citizens from all across the state come to the Capitol to inform and educate their Legislators. These citizen lobbyists are so critical to our democratic process. They provide insight necessary to make wise public policy decisions. As Marcia Avner puts it, “Public policy is the set of decisions that we make as a society about how we will care for one another, our communities and the land.”

A couple weeks ago, farmers filled the Capitol halls. Last Wednesday was Nursing Home Advocacy Day. If ever we need to make wise policy decisions about the way we care for one another, it is how we care for our elderly and disabled.

I had the opportunity to meet with Nursing Home Administrators from around the state including our Senate District. They talked about being paid well below their costs by the state’s Medicaid program and, as a result, about wanting to improve buildings and upgrade facilities and not being able; about wanting to pay their workers more and not being able.

Despite all appearances a few days ago, there is increasing support for putting the public option back in the health care bill in the senate.  Harry Reid is professing to at least nominal support for the idea, and it looks like if this is ever going to happen, this is the week. 

We're working with Change.org on a new set of on-line actions, and you can be one of the first to participate by clicking on the widget to your right, which will let you send a personal message to our Wisconsin senators.  It's free, it's fast, it's easy.  Go to it.

Health care is back on the state’s agenda. The Governor announced a new public insurance program called Badger Basic. This new program is targeted to those individuals who are on a waiting list for the most recent expansion of the state’s health program for low-income families – BadgerCare.

Last year, the existing BadgerCare program was expanded to cover low-income individuals with no dependent children. Within months, the expansion of BadgerCare went over budget and was closed to new applicants. The state Department of Health Services (DHS) reported last week they were adding hundreds of names a week to the waiting list of about 25,000 people without insurance.

A few weeks ago the Governor announced his solution to the problem. He created another new program - Badger Basic - a public insurance program for people on the waiting list for $130 a month premium.

Lest you think this is too good to be true - it probably is

Sometimes a little distance from the capitol -- state or national -- improves your perspective. Case in point: A look at Rep. Paul Ryan's Roadmap.

The Tomah Journal:

Memo to Wisconsin U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Janesville):

Stop whining.

After months of relentless, vicious and often false attacks from Republicans on proposed health care legislation -- a bill that would still leave America’s system the most privatized in the western world -- Ryan is shocked that anyone would scrutinize his own health care plan. He told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: “The Democratic attack machine is in full throttle. It’s sad but predictable.”

The editorial concludes:

Ryan’s plan does reduce the deficit, but it does so by brutally slashing benefits and exacerbating the growing income and wealth gaps between the extremely rich and everyone else. Is it an honest plan with honest numbers? Yes. But Congressman, please don’t whine when your critics identify the deep cuts in Medicare.

I was supposed to begin the long-delayed series of PTSD stories I’ve been planning, but before we begin, I need to tell y’all about something that just happened in my house.

For us it wasn’t a matter of life or death, but it is the kind of story that explains, perfectly, why we need to reform the health care system we have today—and for that matter, it’s also a great explanation of why a single-payer system would be a giant step forward for everyone in this country, whether you’re insured today or not.

It’s also hilarious and sad and frustrating, all at the same time—which makes today’s story a pretty good allegory for the current American way of doing health care.

So follow along, have a good laugh…and at the same time, take a minute to consider what could be, and how much less irritating things should be.

Erik Gunn of Milwaukee Magazine asks in his Pressroom Buzz column whether the Wisconsin media will do any serious critique of Rep. Paul Ryan's "Roadmap for America's Future."

The Economist, published in London, actually has commented on the content of Ryan's proposal, rather than simply writing about how much attention Ryan's getting or wondering whether he is running for president, which is about the depth the Wisconsin media has reached.

The Economist article is devastating. "It's easy to bring down medical costs," it says. "Just stop paying them."

As Congress moves toward a final vote on health care reform, people worry whatever happens in Washington will make things worse in Western Wisconsin. Not much of what folks hear makes them feel Washington might actually help solve problems.

So much focus has been on deal-making and compromise. Little attention is given to what really happens after the bill passes. While not perfect, Congress may provide the building blocks on which the solution to high priced health insurance can be built.

One significant block of health care reform centers on the idea of a health insurance ‘exchange’. To help understand this concept, think about the Progressive Insurance commercial. You enter the ‘insurance store’ and depending on your circumstances, you can choose from several affordable options. Young, single? Choose a catastrophic plan. Not quite sixty and looking to retire? Here are plans to fit your needs. No one will deny you, not cover your diabetes or charge you more because of asthma.

When you buy insurance through the ‘exchange’, you choose among plans offering different levels of benefits, deductibles and co-pays. The plans are rated on cost and quality and fall into a few easily understandable categories.

No, I don't really believe the "aid and comfort to the enemy" part. That's how the Constitution defines treason.

It's what a guy named Cheney, no longer a veep but still a dick, accused President Obama of recently for deciding to try the accused 9-11 mastermind in a U.S, courtroom.

It's what conservatives always claim about war protesters or opponents of giving the Pentagon a blank check. If you ask any questions, you're helping the other side, whoever they are.  <

And it's what Republicans, their conservative base, and the right-wing radio talkers would be screaming if Democrats had tried to pull what the GOP tried this week.

Republicans in the Senate refused to give a single vote to a $636-billion Pentagon spending bill that the defense secretary said was necessary to protect "our foreign policy and national security priorities.”

 Instead, they threatened a filibuster and forced Democrats to come up with 60 votes to insure passage. That came only when Wisconsin's Sen. Russ Feingold, a Dem who opposed the bill,

There has been a great wailing and gnashing of teeth over the past day or so as those who follow the healthcare debate react to the Stupak/Some Creepy Republican Guy Amendment.

The Amendment, which is apparently intended to respond to conservative Democrats’ concerns that too many women were voting for the Party in recent elections, was attached to the House’s version of healthcare reform legislation that was voted out of the House this weekend.

The goal is to limit women’s access to reproductive medicine services, particularly abortions; this based on the concept that citizens of good conscience shouldn’t have their tax dollars used to fund activities they find morally repugnant.

At first blush, I was on the mild end of the wailing and gnashing spectrum myself…but having taken a day to mull the thing over, I’m starting to think that maybe we should take a look at the thinking behind this…and I’m also starting to think that, properly applied, Stupak’s logic deserves a more important place in our own vision of how a progressive government might work.

It’s Political Judo Day today, Gentle Reader, and by the time we’re done here it’s entirely possible that you’ll see Stupak’s logic in a whole new light.

It was a long hot August for those who would like to see health care reform, as rabid “Town Hall” protesters proffered visions of public options that would lead to death panels and socialism and government tax collectors with special alien mind control powers that would use sex education and child indoctrination and black helicopters as the means for gay people to impose their dangerous agenda on the innocent, God-fearing citizens of someplace in Mississippi that I’m not likely to ever visit.

Part of the reason that opposition was so rabid was because health care interests were spending millions upon millions of dollars doing...well, doing whatever the opposite of giving a distemper shot to the angry mob might be, anyway.

So wouldn’t it be great if all the CEOs of all those health care interests were to gather at one time and place so you could, shall we say, gently express your own thoughts regarding the issues of reform and public options?

By an amazing coincidence, that’s exactly what’s going to happen Thursday in Washington, DC, as the Patient Centered Primary Care Cooperative (PCPCC) holds its Annual Summit.

Follow along, and I’ll tell you everything you need to know.

So we are now finding out the answers to some of our questions about which members of Congress actually represent We, the People...and which ones represent, Them, the Corporate Masters.

We have seen a Democratic Senator propose a policy that would put people in jail for not buying health insurance and a Democratic President who has taken numerous public beatings from those on the left side of the fence for his inability to ram something through a group of people...and yes, folks, the entendre was intentional.

But most of all, we’ve been asking ourselves: “why would Democratic Members of Congress who will eventually want us to vote for them vote against something that nearly all voting Democrats are inclined to vote for?”

Today’s conversation attempts to answer that question by looking at exactly how money and influence flow through a key politician, Montana’s Senator Max Baucus—and in doing so, we examine some ugly political realities that have to be resolved before we can hope to convince certain Members of Congress to vote for what their constituents actually want when it really counts.

Those among us who are familiar with the Bible will recall that Jesus Christ himself was an active member of the health care community as he travelled about the Holy Land.

It is reported that he practiced within multiple medical specialties, and his works as both an ophthalmologist and a neurologist are recounted within the verses of the Gospels.

But what if Jesus had been practicing medicine in the therapeutic environment we’re familiar with today?

In today’s conversation we’ll be tagging along with Jesus as he takes a few calls at his HMO’s Customer Care Center—and by the time we get done you should be able to bring a whole new take to those discussions you‘ve been having about why reform matters.

“…a blind man, Bartimaeus…was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

…Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” So they called to the blind man, “Cheer up! On your feet! He’s calling you.”

Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus. “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked him.