It's never too late to make a second impression.

    By jasonmillerdc on Wed, 05/25/2011 - 7:04am |

    I have no love for the GOP.  I voted republican twice in my life, the same guy in 2006 and 2010 for local council positions.  The last democratic party votes I cast were a 2010 write-in for DC Mayor Adrian Fenty, President Obama in the 2008 general and Dennis Kucinich in the primary. 

    My transition from Kucinich to Obama brought with it a significant change in the way I view politics at just about every turn. My "liberal" impulses haven't changed one bit, however much I may now look for a "conservative" solution to the given problem.  The more republicans I speak with in my every day life and the more things like this happen, the more convinced I am that we can define a governing philosophy to help transform our country for the 21st century in ways a strong majority (70% or more) of Americans can support and defend.

    What gives me the slightest bit of pause in this assessment is the current state of each party's respective "true believers" and how their rhetoric makes the moderates on both sides cringe reflectively.  Cringe-worthy words tend to harden our lines rather than blur them.  It's why I have moderated my own words, even if I must rely on shorthand at times to get to the point quicker.  I try to stay away from charged language in an effort to craft consensus versions of reality between our left and right brains.

    I would love to find a way to help democrats speak of fixing the government in terms that could be supported by the more conservative half of the country they still can't reach.  I don't think the average member of the democratic party is all about BIG government, despite the fact that many of their current solutions lead to just that.  I think many "liberals" would be happy with a compromise position that didn't reek of capitulation.

    Take Medicare, for instance.  Clearly this is an important and widely-supported plan among Americans of all political hues.  Back during the health care debate, I continually suggested that all government health programs (Medicare/Medicaid, Tri-care, SCHIP, VA, local, state & federal health plans) be combined into a single program called Americare that any citizen could purchase.  This would have led to a widely varied population approaching 120 million subscribers.

    The private health insurance companies would be forced to compete with Americare, but would largely be left alone in this scenario to avoid significant and well-funded opposition.  Americare is the important victory in this equation, one that balances out the undue influence of corporate indifference on our health care system.  I have floated this idea by numerous republicans from the right fringes to the borderlands in the center and not once did I get anything but positive responses. 

    They understood how Medicare could be made whole by combining the sickest populations in the nation with the millions of healthy government workers.  They liked that it would lower total spending on health expenses incurred by the government while at the same time making private insurers more responsive to their remaining 200 million customers.  This is but one of a dozen policy discussion I have had with "conservatives" that led to solutions to both the left and right could support. 

    I can't help but believe it represents an opening of sorts.  One that Obama exploited in 2008 and the democratic party hasn't capitalized on in the two-and-a-half years since.  The narrow victory last night in one of New York's most conservative districts should make it plain that it is never too late to find solutions that all Americans can support. I believe the Medicare debate would be a great place to start, but Social Security might be another place or Farm Subsidies or any number of issues where consensus can and should be forged.

    It really comes down to each one of us as individuals.  Can we listen to each other long enough and closely enough to actually craft the governing majority that has led to so many of our most progressive advances.

    Comments

    Once long ago, health care reform was as much about containing costs as it was about extending coverage.

    Obama negotiated away any bargaining rights for prescription drug prices, et al., so we don't get those cost savings. Instead, we get a mandate to buy into ever more expensive health care.

    As Bob Somerby/Daily Howler has pointed out over and over again, we pay per capita about double for health care as all the other industrialized countries - and we're starting with a much larger population to reach greater scales of efficiency. Does. Not. Com. Pute.


    by Desider on Wed, 05/25/2011 - 8:27am

    Americare seems an awful lot like what we were calling "the public option." political opposition to it was intense because the private insurers realized that in a fair fight for customers in an open market, they would lose out to what would effectively be a public monopoly. Of course, in this case, a monopoly would actually be a good thing.

    by Michael Maiello on Wed, 05/25/2011 - 8:50am

    But if Americare wasn't optional, if I were ineligible from any of the sub-categories (e.g. not a vet, etc.), then the private insurance would be even more expensive.


    by Desider on Wed, 05/25/2011 - 9:15am

    He said it would be something "that any citizen could purchase."  So you wouldn't have to be a Vet or senior citizen or anything, you'd just have to prefer the government package to what the private insurers are offering in order to sign up.  Which seems to me to be... the public option, right?


    by Michael Maiello on Wed, 05/25/2011 - 9:59am

    Ayup. 


    by Desider on Wed, 05/25/2011 - 11:09am

    Maybe a Jumbo Public Option...or an Optional Single Payer plan.


    by Peter Schwartz on Wed, 05/25/2011 - 1:10pm

    Re: Fair fight. It was also pointed that FEDEX and UPS do pretty well against the USPS. They do serve somewhat different markets, but both deliver packages and overnight letters.

    In fact, as I understand it, the USPS is held back from doing certain things because it is a monopoly, e.g., owning their own airplanes which, to some destinations at least, prevents them from absolutely positively guaranteeing next-day delivery.

    And FEDEX can't deliver 1st class mail.

    The USPS ends up contracting out certain delivery jobs, which means that, as usual, the private sector feeds off the public sector in certain ways.

    Also, it's my feeling that competition from FEDEX and email has forced the USPS to sharpen their game with innovations like "if it fits it ships" pricing.

    The political opposition to the PO was intense, I agree, but was probably unfair, even in so-called "free market" terms. That is, private enterprise CAN compete against the big bad government.


    by Peter Schwartz on Wed, 05/25/2011 - 10:08am

    I agree with you and UPS/Fedex are great examples.  But it doesn't look like the health care company execs were able to muster the courage to try.  That's partly because the private insurers have a collective monopoly that they rather like.  Few individuals actually choose their insurers, after all and that's the way the insurance companies like it -- all they have to do is convince your employer that they're a good deal.  With a public option available to everyone, that dynamic changes.  I could go with my employer plan or opt out and go to the public sector and that really frightens the insurers who like to be able to count on getting a large percentage of any company workforce to sign up because the workers have no other choice.


    by Michael Maiello on Wed, 05/25/2011 - 10:28am

    Nothing that was offered in the democratic proposals resembles the solution I have outlined.  The entire package was predicated on using the private health care system and mandates, something sure to be hated by both sides.

    That is kind of the main point of my blog.  No one in either party was being truly innovative in constructing a health care plan that would take advantage of our strengths, mitigate our weaknesses and plan for future opportunities.


    by jasonmillerdc on Wed, 05/25/2011 - 3:40pm

    How is what you're offering any different than a single payer plan that simply allows private insurance companies to remain and compete against the government?


    by Peter Schwartz on Wed, 05/25/2011 - 4:05pm

    There is no difference.  The point being that the democratic party failed to find a positioning for "single payer" that would resonate with a majority of the country, on the left or right. That is a spectacular failure whatever individual merits may be found in the bill that eventually limped out of Congress to the president's desk.  I believe all the comments here demonstrate that a majority of the country was looking for solutions that neither party delivered.


    by jasonmillerdc on Wed, 05/25/2011 - 8:04pm

    I congratulate you on a FABULOUS name: AmeriCare. It is PERFECT. I agree with you on positioning. I also believe that Medicare For All would have had the advantage of being...easy to understand. That was one of the bill's big faults: It was hard to hold on to.

    But given what happened, you may be being a bit--how to put it? disingenuous or naive?--in thinking that a single payer system would have gone down smoothly. MAYBE if it had been sold right.

    I mean, would it not have brought out the deficit hawks in even greater numbers and with even greater fury? In their heart of hearts, almost all Democrats would go for a single payer. It's just that they don't believe it could ever be passed.


    by Peter Schwartz on Thu, 05/26/2011 - 2:22pm

    I do think a better marketing job would have yielded better results.  The idea of reforming government-run health coverage into a "public option" was always inherently the best initial solution. 

    That money is being spent every year across multiple plans and populations.  Of course combining them would save money immediately, whatever growing pains might have been encountered along the way.  I bet a package of common sense private insurance reforms could have passed with a super majority as well. 

    The president forgot all about what makes him and every other iconic president famous in the first place:  Talking sense to the American people directly and then making us force Congress to act in all of our best interests in percentages that ensure the nation knows what our collective mind is on an issue and then support it moving forward.

    Like Social Security and Medicare and Civil Rights and Suffrage and Prohibition. 

    The jury has long been in on their desire to have public health and retirement programs, despite any rhetoric to the contrary or possible improvement could be made to the existing paradigm on how those public services are delivered.  Plus, old people are the ones who vote in primary elections, where all candidates are promoted or broken.


    by jasonmillerdc on Wed, 06/01/2011 - 2:33pm

    Ah, well that's true.  No proposal of the sort you've outlined was ever seriously debated as legislation.  But tons of people had an idea like yours -- a public option that was just that, an option where you get to choose between Blue Cross and Americare.

    So, why wasn't it debated legislatively? I blame... health company lobbyists!


    by Michael Maiello on Wed, 05/25/2011 - 5:27pm

    I blame voters and their failed representatives.


    by jasonmillerdc on Wed, 05/25/2011 - 8:01pm

    Yes; please don't blame the President; some folks might get riled.


    by we are stardust on Wed, 05/25/2011 - 9:20pm

    The president doesn't (and shouldn't) legislate.  Obama may have been naive to think the parties could come together for the good of the nation, but he wasn't wrong to try.


    by jasonmillerdc on Thu, 05/26/2011 - 9:35am

    Of course. And one of the BIG reasons he set our principles, but let Congress work out the details is the critique of the Clintons. They, it was claimed, did all the legislating (in private) and then tried to foist a plan on Congress. Obama went the other way. Maybe he needed to find a middle ground between the two approaches...or something.


    by Peter Schwartz on Thu, 05/26/2011 - 2:25pm

    Interesting point.  I hadn't considered the previous democratic administration in that equation.  Bush Jr. had the same problem.  I appreciated the president's instincts in wanting to bring the parties toward smarter, non-idealogical solutions. 

    Not sure how he ended up with Clinton Cabinet Part Deux, but I am willing to chalk it up to the learning curve any president will face.  I would love to see a way for him to bring back the coalition of voters in every state in the union that helped him make it to the general election in the first place.


    by jasonmillerdc on Wed, 06/01/2011 - 2:22pm

    The message from NY last night appears to be that the GOP runs a risk of losing even in some conservative areas if they stick to the Ryan budget plan with health care vouchers. From a political standpoint, the Democrats can let the GOP twist in the wind by hanging on to the Ryan plan, or the Democrats can pick off low lying fruit like Scott Brown of Mass. who has decided to vote against a plan like Ryan's in the Senate.

    The Democrats can stand still and let the Republicans move forward with the Ryan plan, then do a judo move where you let your opponents forwad motion carry them in the direction you want them to go, into the brick wall of American voters.

    All the Democrats have to do is say that they will "Save Madicare".


    by rmrd0000 on Wed, 05/25/2011 - 10:06am

    Well no shit a public option is popular!

    As I recall it, the people generally labeled the "loony left" spent most of the HCR debate pointing to evidence that the public option had something like 70% support in the general electorate and should be part of the package. Meanwhile Obama supporters were tut-tutting, saying shut up, we can do that later, when it's got some popular support. And some republican called Jason Miller was saying the whole HCR effort was madness and should be whittled down to some minor insurance regulation reform - because that was what real progress looked like.

    I like this new crazy left Jason Miller better.


    by Obey on Wed, 05/25/2011 - 10:21am

    Just went to find a link. And I was wrong. It wasn't 70%, it was ... 76% support.

    "On the issue that has been perhaps the most pronounced flash point in the national debate, 57 percent of all Americans now favor a public insurance option, while 40 percent oppose it. Support has risen since mid-August, when a bare majority, 52 percent, said they favored it. (In a June Post-ABC poll, support was 62 percent.)

    If a public plan were run by the states and available only to those who lack affordable private options, support for it jumps to 76 percent. Under those circumstances, even a majority of Republicans, 56 percent, would be in favor of it, about double their level of support without such a limitation."

    Though note that the most popular version of the Public Option differs importantly from Miller's Americare proposal in that it is limited to those who can't afford private options, i.e. everyone who Obama will now force to take those low-quality high-cost private options, rendered affordable thanks to subsidies paid for by taxing health care for unionized workers.

    Look, Obama didn't do the more unpopular thing because he's dumb. He did it because he cares more about health care lobbyists than he does about the general electorate.


    by Obey on Wed, 05/25/2011 - 10:34am

    Uh oh, stirring the hornet's nest again?


    by Desider on Wed, 05/25/2011 - 11:11am

    But from the same article

    But if there is clear majority support for the public option and the mandate, there is broad opposition to one of the major mechanisms proposed to pay for the bill. The Senate Finance Committee suggested taxing the most costly private insurance plans to help offset the costs of extending coverage to millions more people. Sixty-one percent oppose the idea, while 35 percent favor it.

    Nearly seven in 10 say they think that any health-care measure would increase the federal budget deficit, a possible concern for Obama. But nearly half of those who see the legislation as growing the deficit also say the increase would be "worth it."

    Financing becomes the problem 35% approve of taxing costly private insurance plans and 35% are in favor of increasing the deficit to pay for the plan( 50% of 70%).


    by rmrd0000 on Wed, 05/25/2011 - 11:28am

    No, financing isn't the problem. Taxing health care plans of unionized workers is the problem. Financing it through a tax surcharge on the wealthy is very popular: it's favored 57% - 36%. (see here p. 13).

    So with a more popular, and cheaper, public plan (at 75% of the cost, say) the subsidized portion (2/3 of the total cost) would amount to 50% of the cost of Obama's private insurance exchange plan. And that more popular, and cheaper, plan could be covered by a more popular tax on the rich.

    Wow, memories are short around here...


    by Obey on Wed, 05/25/2011 - 12:19pm

    Simply adding millions of healthy government employees to a Medicare population now dominated by the sickest Americans will change the math dramatically.

    Concentrating on community health programs and prevention across that widely varied and diverse population could have led to a health care system covering more people at less cost almost immediately.  Add in how we currently subsidize the very food that is killing us so slowly and expensively and the red ink really starts to turn around quickly.

    That's what I love about numbers.  They don't lie.  The underlying cause and effect of our current health system is well document, yet no one in Washington offers anything resembling a solution.


    by jasonmillerdc on Wed, 05/25/2011 - 8:16pm

    Yawn.  Get back to me when these people actually express their preference by, um, voting for the candidates that run on a promise of establishing "socialized medicine."  Even if those candidates call it "Medicare for All" or "Americare" or "Seventy Two Virgins and a Pony." 


    by brewmn on Wed, 05/25/2011 - 11:18pm

    Any Americare plan would have to exclude family planning, fertility counseling, end of life counseling, birth control pills, morning after pills, abortions to save the mothers life, abortion after incest, abortion after rape, health care for gay couples, 'gay' diseases which are God's punishment, no dental for poor kids, no free rape kits for rape victims, and of course, there would be no health care at all for jail inmates, 'illegals', their kids, even if they had contagious diseases and worked in hospitals or fast food joints.


    by NCD on Thu, 05/26/2011 - 12:42am

    The current public heath plans don't exclude those services, so there is no reason why a system that combines all of them into a single entity would restrict access.  Despite whatever power the religious fringe has with regards to the national dialog, they rarely get their rhetoric passed into law at the federal level.


    by jasonmillerdc on Thu, 05/26/2011 - 9:38am

    Publicly funded--meaning federally funded--public health plans don't exclude abortion? Are you Mr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde?


    by Peter Schwartz on Thu, 05/26/2011 - 2:27pm

    I've yet to figure out whether you centrist/moderate rhetoric, or policies, or both.  On the former, absolutely--I've been trying to make that case.  On the latter, not on a number of big economic and environmental issues.  The approaches that are labeled substantively "centrist" or "moderate" are weak and entirely inadequate tea on a whole raft of issues--climate change, health care, financial reform, budget policy to name just four.  They are in most cases not worth fighting for because they just kick cans down the road while reducing public pressure to deal with them adequately.

    Health care is one issue that is being raised to ground the discussion in this thread. 

    I'll put financial reform, one aspect of it, out as another.  

    You stated in your "Where the Democratic Party Went Wrong" post your continuing concerns about the health of our financial system, without yet elaborating on what you think would be adequate to restore stability and a competitive playing field for banks that are not huge. 

    Simon Johnson and James Kwak make what I think is a compelling case in their book 13 Bankers that we need to break up the big banks, or we are going to be right back, coming soon to a neighborhood near us, facing the Hobson's choice between making the taxpayers bend over to bail out the big boy fuckups or else let the global economy collapse.  Greenspan himself came around to the view that too big to fail means too big, which he stated publicly. 

    So let's look at who among our elected officials was trying to act on this.

    Specifically let's look at the Kaufman-Brown amendment to put strict size limits on the size of our banks.  It failed in the Senate 33-61 on May 6, 2010: http://www.opencongress.org/articles/view/1865-A-Failed-Vote-on-Breaking-up-Banks

    The White House was opposed.  

    Looking at the 33 ayes, 29 were Democrats.  3 Republicans--Coburn, Ensign and Shelby also voted yes, as did Independent Sanders.  Looking at the Dem ayes, I think it's fair to say that taken as a whole, with some exceptions, this list includes most of the most left/liberal/progressive members of the caucus, generally speaking: Boxer, Sherrod Brown, Murray, Leahy, Levin, Merkley, Harkin, Franken, Feingold, Durbin among them.  Cantwell, who has been heroic on financial reform, voted aye.  Reid voted aye. 

    Dodd, Chair of the key Senate Committee, voted no.  Kerry voted no.  I'd love to know why Tester, who ran as a populist in Montana, voted no.  Baucus and Bayh--probably the two Democratic senators who come first to mind, along with Lieberman, as singing your song, Jason, making a point of openly dissing the Democratic party's supposed extreme liberalism and partisanship, voted no. 

    Five of the six senators who abstained were Republicans, the exception being the ailing Robert Byrd. 

    The big banks were at this point on the run, in the wake of a couple of reports that came out at that time putting them even further on the defensive.  That an amendment of this sort, a really big amendment, could get 33 votes in the Senate despite being opposed by a Democratic President, is remarkable.

    So when the s*** hits the fan and we're looking at another bailout or complete meltdown, think back to this discussion.  Ask yourself who were the people--what part of the political spectrum did they come from for the most part--who were pushing the hardest and most courageously to deal with the grave systemic problems that remain in the wake of our now even more hyperconcentrated financial system.  Even as, as a reward for their efforts, they get to be regularly bashed publicly by some members of their own caucus who know they can get on the Sunday talking head shows any time by decrying the party's supposed extremism

    If I have to hear the same argument that Senators from more purple or red-leaning states had to vote to keep the megabanks huge in order to win re-election, I'm going to have to ask a few follow up questions to try to find out why. 

    Because I had thought that the big banks are actually not so politically popular in areas where they don't exist, and where, on account of the huge advantage they are granted in the interest rates they borrow money at compared to all other banks, they are actually killing local community-based banks who are a key source of financing for small and medium-sized job-creating businesses.  This is something I really don't get. 


    by AmericanDreamer on Wed, 05/25/2011 - 11:10am

    Pretty damning. I haven't read Johnson's book yet, but Shaw's article is pretty damning. A couple of points and questions:

    • I guess the implication is that those folks voted no to preserve their access to campaign funds from the investment bankers, yes? With exception of Dodd who, perhaps, will find a comfortable perch at some insurance company or bank, yes?

    • I wonder if the protections built in to the bill (e.g., capital requirements) are sufficient to protect us from another meltdown.

    • I think, in general, the Dems tend to lose the spin game. They have the advantage with public opinion and fail to press forward with it. It's almost as if they believe their opponents more than they believe themselves. Then public opinion in fact turns against them.


    by Peter Schwartz on Wed, 05/25/2011 - 1:07pm

    I guess the implication is that those folks voted no to preserve their access to campaign funds from the investment bankers, yes?

    Not the only factor, but a factor.  I think one would have to be pretty naive to discount that factor in light of documented campaign contribution facts.  There is the revolving door factor, wherein public officials are disinclined to want to close doors to potential future employment.  Some of them by background come from worlds, such as the practice of law, where they may have had occasion to become well acquainted with pro big-finance points of view, or to know and socialize with and think well of people who hold such views.  Unless they've made a point of looking into it they may be less familiar with differing views on these matters.

    But part of the ugly truth also seems to be that, as Johnson and Kwak write, the Wall Street ideology--the view that America needs megabanks to have a strong economy and that the kind of complex financial "innovation" that magnified the impact of specific failures is an uncomplicatedly, unambiguously good thing--dies hard, with policy elites especially. 

    For that matter I would say that knee-jerk, anti-government market fundamentalism dies hard, notwithstanding the (most recent) financial meltdown, the Gulf oil spill debacle, the disastrous Katrina response, major quality and financial integrity problems with many charter schools that have been opened up in weakly monitored and regulated policy settings, Blackwater problems, massive inefficiency and inequity in our weakly regulated, primarily for-profit healthcare system, etc.

     I wonder if the protections built in to the bill (e.g., capital requirements) are sufficient to protect us from another meltdown.

    Johnson and Kwak acknowledge a number of positive, or at least promising, aspects of last year's legislation.  Mostly, they make the overriding point that a great deal depends on whether regulators use the authority they have had, or now have, and use it in the broader public interest, or whether we see more regulatory capture by big finance.  They seem to think that even under relatively favorable political circumstances, relying on consistently strong, effective, enforced regulation is a big if--a view amply supported by the record of the past 15 years or so.  They think we need to break up the big banks to mitigate the massive damage that will likely again result if we don't get consistently A+/A regulatory performance through inevitably shifting political winds.  Which makes a lot of sense to me--it seems like a prudential, dare I say, conservative-as-cautious stance.  

    Johnson and Kwak are fair in acknowledging, without setting up strawmen, the arguments that were offered against the amendment, while also seeking to largely refute them.  Folks here can access and assess their arguments--not difficult to follow at all--easily enough and make up their own minds about whether we are likely to get the kind of financial stability and competitive fairness we need if we don't break up the big banks. 

    I don't claim to be an expert by any means--I have tried to read up and understand as much as I can.  I think they make a very strong common sense case that we need to do that.  Stiglitz I believe has also said publicly that he thinks the big banks need to be broken up.  As well as, implicitly, Greenspan, of course.

    I think, in general, the Dems tend to lose the spin game. They have the advantage with public opinion and fail to press forward with it. It's almost as if they believe their opponents more than they believe themselves. Then public opinion in fact turns against them.

    I agree that the party as a whole has had a defensive mindset about making the case for activist government for a long time now, since around 1980.  There were specific events, as well as a very well executed long-term campaign to promote it, that facilitated the greater popularity of the market fundamentalist ideology in policy circles.  With all of the huge setbacks to that worldview in recent years, I would think those who see its severe flaws and limitations would have made more headway pushing back than seems to have been the case so far. 

    Part of that is what I think may be an overly fatalistic view that arguments against free-market fundamentalism and for sensible regulation are more complex than the arguments for it and the public won't understand.  I think it's true that it's a tougher case, culturally as well as intellectually, to make.  But to me the conclusion should be to make a point of working at it and getting continually better at making the arguments.  That's what the GOP has done.  That's a challenging task.  Hardly an impossible one.  And most necessary.        


    by AmericanDreamer on Wed, 05/25/2011 - 2:32pm

    Dreamer, Washingtonsblog keeps a list of both economists who believe that the TBTF banks must be broken up, (googleing I found his guest-post at Yves' place), and also a list of tope economists who say that until the financial fraud and accounting control fraud that were at the core of the meltdown, consumer spending and trust will never be restored.

    I'll see if I can find the other list; I'd tucked it away into a file, but I can't find it just now.  To my mind, it's very important that this administration is allowing criminality to be the rule of the day in finance, and every body or group like the States Attorneys that hints it's about to make some moves in that direction but folds, makes it even more depressing and less likely.  Now we're down to the AG of NY, Schneiderman.

    Bill Black just had a piece up about some of the top econ writers giving a pass to Wall Street, but it was long and full of sarcastic twists that made hard reading for me.


    by we are stardust on Wed, 05/25/2011 - 5:50pm

    Here it is; though Andrew Ross Sorkin is mentioned, and he's one Bill Black was calling out for his recent column over easy passes.

    It is many of these same economists we read during the long, crappy process that might have lead to meaningful financial re-regulation who were simply jumping up and down at the White House and Geithner fighting most of it, then following the process on derivatives regulation and other regulatory changes that should have been included in the first place, IMO.  I haven't kept up like Obey and some others, but I got the impression that not much good was coming of it, and the ususal excuse was that the Big Banks were fighting it...and winning.    ;o)


    by we are stardust on Wed, 05/25/2011 - 6:01pm

    Thanks for the comments and links, stardust--I will check them out.


    by AmericanDreamer on Wed, 05/25/2011 - 6:11pm

    Welcome, Dreamer.  ;o)


    by we are stardust on Wed, 05/25/2011 - 9:22pm

    You are absolutely right.  The only way to get where we need to be is to fund our health care with "shared risk;"  old and young, sick and well.  Considering that Medicare does as well as it does, with its elderly (and therefore medically needy population) it is obvious that if the entire population was included (with reasonable parameters) it would be sustainable.  It would also promote a healthier population in every way.

    To those who say it is just too expensive, I must counter with the question:  "What ELSE is too expensive?  Wars that don't affect our nation's security in any way at all?  Why not object to those wars?"

     I would also ask:  "Are roads expensive to maintain?"  Answer:  "Yes"  But we do it because we need to. " Is the FAA expensive?"  Answer:  "Yes"  But who wants to fly in an airplane without someone monitoring planes.  

    "Isn't deodorant overpriced?"    Answer:  "Yes."  But it is necessary as are those who make sure airplanes don't have collision courses, and our population of citizens can get the health care they need.

    What IS Too Expensive?  Giving people tax breaks whose discretionary spending has nothing to do with food or shelter, but has everything to do with second, third, fourth, or fifth houses; jewelry (paid for with interest-free credit cards); and consolidating companies so that they can fire people.

    OK.  I'll stop here.

     

     


    by CVille Dem on Wed, 05/25/2011 - 8:33pm

    I sooooooo agree, CVille. If the very health of the citizens of our country is not worth paying for, what is?

    It needs a total overhaul, and we need to re-evaluate our commitment to healthy living as a part of the process, but it is one of the most important things our government can do. Universal Health Care for all!!!!!


    by stillidealistic on Thu, 05/26/2011 - 12:03am

    You highlight so many of the areas where a 70% or more majority could agree we need to publically manage and fund those operations, perhaps some with private support as needed.  A functional, technologically-advanced society costs a  lot of money to build and maintain.

    I would stay away from taxes to begin with, mostly because I am convinced the tax system would be plently equitable if we could find a way to spend our money more effectively.  Simply refocusing our military posture abroad would free up funds almost immediately.

    Given the varied voices in the commercial sector, it is easy to gain the support of one interest group even as you end the influence of others.


    by jasonmillerdc on Thu, 05/26/2011 - 9:50am

    Jason, have I mentioned how glad I am to see you here?


    by stillidealistic on Thu, 05/26/2011 - 12:05am

    You have. :O)  I am happy to contribute.


    by jasonmillerdc on Thu, 05/26/2011 - 9:51am

    Jason, nice to see you grazing in the pasture too.

    As usual, I'll taking a little time to digest your two posts before I ask a question or two.


    by Beetlejuice on Sun, 06/05/2011 - 3:24pm

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