Parlor Wit

Favorite Republican Dances

1. The GOP Two-Step: Don't allow the other party to move, then accuse them of doing nothing;
   
2. The Elephant Waltz: object to a motion, vote against the motion, then take credit for the motion in your district or State;
3. The Republican Fox-Trot: object to a motion, trot it out on FOX News, vote against the motion, trot it out on FOX News.
   

Alex Budarin

Kudos to Sanders, Clyburn and Wyden!

The more I read about the Sanders-Clyburn-Wyden Amendment to the health care reform bill, the more hopeful I become regarding the future of the U.S. healthcare system.

Apparently a system of "Federally Qualified Health Centers" already exists, based on legislation initiated long ago by the late Senator Ted Kennedy. Such health centers reportedly provide "primary health care, dental care, mental health counseling and low-cost prescription drugs for about 20 million Americans...basic services like prenatal care, childhood immunizations and cancer screenings...for patients covered by Medicaid, Medicare and private insurance as well as those who have no insurance."

Senator Sanders' initial amendment was to include $10 billion for community health centers around the country, which he projected would bring primary health care to 25 million more Americans and serve 10,000 more communities. It is also said to include provisions for loan repayments and scholarships, to "create an additional 20,000 primary care doctors, dentists, nurse practitioners, physician assistants and mental health professionals." Representative James Clyburn intends to increase the proposed funding to $14 billion, and Senator Ron Wyden is said to be editing the bill to provide waivers for states that want to provide more health care to their citizens.

There are financial benefits to this plan, in addition to the physical benefits. Senator Sanders said that a university study concluded that this amendment would save Medicaid $23 billion over five years by reducing emergency room use and hospital costs. Furthermore, services cost substantially less at community health centers than elsewhere.

This amendment actually exceeds what I contemplated in an earlier post, and I hope it survives and flowers during the Congressional reconciliation process. For me, this would be change I could believe in: a resource I could count on in the event I lost my job or start that export business I am thinking about. I would call it a "public option" and be happy with it. And I will be grateful to all of the legislators who make it a reality.

Alex Budarin

Deficit Spending

Republicans are suddenly alarmed by deficit spending. That was not the case when George W. Bush was President and Republicans controlled Congress, and they know it. According to an Associated Press report, Republican senators say their change of mind is due to the fact that the economy is in worse shape now and the American public is anxious. I suppose Republican senators previously believed it was okay to engage in deficit spending because the economy was in good shape and people were not worried about it.

That provokes two thoughts:

1. Government leaders should concern themselves about deficit spending also in good times; and
2. Their concern about deficit spending should not depend on the public mood.

A government should live within its means. But its management should be pragmatic: questions of economic policy should be determined with reference to experience, current insights of scientific inquiry, and current realities. It seemed to me, back in 2006, that the policies of our Republican-dominated government would lead us to ruin, because they were pretty much unconcerned with past experience, economic realities, and the opinions of economists.

According to the AP report, the Obama administration is engaging in deficit spending only to "pull the economy from the severe recession of 2008-09." As far as I know, the majority of economists support the Obama administration's economic policy. The AP report also mentions that Obama and other Democrats have vowed to return to the Clinton "pay as you go" restrictions for government spending, whereby "most tax cuts or program expansions [have] to be offset elsewhere with tax increases and spending cuts." But we can only return to that standard when it is pragmatically feasible.

Alex Budarin

Another Basis for a Public Option

If some sort of "public option" does not survive in the U.S. national health care reform bill, it will not be the end of the dream. The idea will live on, the need will continue, and ways will be found to achieve it.

Seeds for some form of national public option already exist. We have Medicare and Medicaid. We have a national system of government-run clinics providing health care to our veterans. And we have a national program of government-administered health care coverage for Federal employees, in which private health insurers negotiate with the U.S. government regarding costs and benefits.

There is another potential seed for national health care coverage, at least where I live. In my county we have a public health department which performs many medical services [soon to include dental], and we also have a not-for-profit health care provider serving rural areas. Perhaps such state, county, and rural public health care providers could be subsidized, improved and integrated into a national plan to ensure that adequate and complete health coverage is accessible to all U.S. citizens.

If it proves to be politically impossible to get a public option now, let us seize what we can from this opportunity and prepare ourselves for the next one. Sic Semper Progressivatis!

Alex Budarin

Parlor Wit

A Canadian Solution to Car Pollution

Integrationism

There are few truly “Socialist”* economies left in the world, that is, economies in which the State owns and controls all of the means of production and distribution, such as capital, land, factories, etc. Most have failed to meet the needs and expectations of their citizens, and thus have been altered into other forms.

Similarly, there are few purely “Capitalist” economies in the world, that is, “Laissez-faire” economies in which private citizens and corporations own the means of production and distribution and are free of government restrictions. It is a fact of history that private individuals and corporations have brought upon their fellow citizens many financial panics and depressions, life-threatening working and living conditions, fraud, etc. In the words of a contemporary and respected economics professor, Nouriel Roubini, “Laissez-Faire Capitalism Has Failed.”

Because of these historical experiences, the majority of large social groups have discovered that it is best to have a mixture of private and government economic activity. Some services are best provided by governments, such as national defense and administration of justice. Some services may be better served by private undertakings, such as the production and distribution of food and household commodities. In still other cases it has proven necessary or expedient to combine government and private assets to obtain a desired economic benefit.

I have seen these economies referred to as “mixed” economies, but perhaps they deserve to be recognized as a distinct economic system: “Integrationist.” From this perspective, most nations of the world are practicing “Integrationism,” mixing private and public undertakings according to their desires and experiences. Of course, the nations may still be authoritarian or democratic in their political structure, with consequences I have discussed in previous posts.

In my view, the purpose of a democratic government with an Integrationist economic system is, or should be, to ensure that private and public economic activities are effectively and pragmatically regulated, supervised, and evaluated to ensure that all members of the social cooperative will benefit, not just the wealthiest or most powerful among them.

Alex Budarin

*Tea Partiers have bastardized the word “socialist” to refer to any country which has extensive government provisions for citizen well-being.

How Does Private Health Insurance Work?

Well, here is how it works in Manatee County, Florida:

"Manatee County's largest hospital system may stop taking a major insurance carrier, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida, forcing 23,000 policyholders in Manatee County alone to go elsewhere or pay high out-of-network prices.

The problem is that the hospitals, the jointly owned Manatee Memorial Hospital and Lakewood Ranch Medical Center, "want more money than we are willing to pay them," said Dr. Barry Schwartz, the insurance company's lead contract negotiator."

How did it come to this?

"The economy has also taken a toll on Florida's largest insurer. Blue Cross and Blue Shield expects to have lost 180,000 policies by the end of this year. Most of the losses have come from individuals dropping policies, and not the elimination of group plans, leading the company to believe the losses are primarily the effect of people becoming unemployed and losing health coverage."

But people would prefer that to any "public" option, would they not?

Alex Budarin

Parlor Wit

We are going to have to let one of you go.....

Back to the Capitalist Utopia!

There was indeed a time in the U.S.A. when there were few government regulations or restrictions on our markets -- the time from its founding until the early 1900's. It was a time that would have appealed to Glenn Beck. It was a time of “Capitalist Utopia.” In those days, U.S. citizens enjoyed wonders such as:

• Child Labor in Industry
• Polluted Water
• Polluted Air
• Polluted Land
• Impure Foods and Drugs
• 14-Hour Workdays
• Hazardous Working Conditions
• Accepted Discrimination on the basis of Age, Sex, Race and Ethnicity
• Monopoly and Cartel Pricing
• And, best of all, numerous economic Panics and Depressions!:
  

The Panic of 1819

The Panic and Depression of 1832
The Panic and Depression of 1836
The Panic of 1837
The Six Year Depression, 1837-1843
The Panic of 1857
The Panic of 1873
The Panic of 1893
The Panic of 1901
The Panic and Depression of 1929

For Glenn Beck, those were “the good old days.” The days when everyone was on their own, looked out for themselves, and only helped fellow Americans if they felt like it. The days before the U.S. government intervened and enacted laws to protect American children, our health, our livelihoods, and our resources. If you think those government interventions in our capitalist economy were a GOOD thing, then you are a fascist, a communist and a socialist. You are also displeasing unto God. The Lord rebuke you!