The Victimization of Graeme Frost

The national debate about health care is reaching new lows with each heart-wrenching chapter, the latest is the Graeme Frost Tragedy. Graeme is a hero, no question. He has endured more than any 12 year-old should. He appears to be a smart kid who is articulate and by all accounts hard-working. He sustained life-threatening injuries and was hospitalized and still undergoes therapy. Now he has has been subjected to the circus of our pop culture punditocracy. It's an atrocious spectacle by any measure.

Paul Krugman, with whom I agree on nearly every issue, has taken the opportunity to pen a column on the “Sliming of Graeme Frost.” When I saw the title I fantasized that Krugman was taking his sharp aim at the true culprits in this crime, but alas, he has instead emptied is revolver on the easier, albeit improper, target. Instead of holding our congressional leaders to task, he spent precious ink blasting the right wing noise machine.

Graeme Frost bravely and with the precious naivete of a good kid went before the nation to represent the Democrats in the Saturday radio address last week. He was also trotted out in front of the TV cameras with Uncle Harry and Aunt Nancy for a photo op in support of the expansion of the S-Chip grant to provide health care for the working poor. To the feigned surprise of all, the vile right wing misanthropes stalked the Frost family and found all the dirt they could, true or not, that could be printed and screamed over the airwaves. Harpies like Michelle Malkin and blowhards like Rush Limbaugh have sold ad time with their baseless campaign to smear the Frost family. Hmmm, who could have predicted that?

Unfortunately, economist commentators such as Krugman have made this debate as much about the sliming of Graeme Frost as about the true debate, which is the unsustainability of the current health care system and ways to fix it. He should know better, and more importantly our Democratic leadership should know better-- and do better. And we rely on writers like Krugman to provide comment about our political leaders, not about the misbehavior of Limbaugh and Malkin.

If Pelosi and Reid would spend more time noodling the health care crisis and crafting legislation to provide a comprehensive program for all Americans and less time pandering to their constituents and subjecting kids like Graeme to the venom of right wing morons, then maybe we could actually accomplish a sustainable fix to the problems we have. And why doesn't Krugman recognize this?

Graeme said, "Most kids my age probably haven't heard of CHIP, the Children's Health Insurance Program, but I know all about it, because if it weren't for CHIP, I might not be here today." While this kid may believe this, it isn't exactly true. Emergency care is always provided regardless of the patient's ability to pay. Without S-Chip, Graeme's father Halsey may have been sent a bill, he may have had to sell some of his assets, he may have had to even file for bankruptcy but the fact is that Graeme would hve gotten the care he needed with or without S-Chip. The drama may get votes for Democratic candidates, but it moves us not one inch closer to a solution.

As the New York Times points out: Under the Maryland child health program, a family of six must earn less than $55,220 a year for children to qualify. The program does not require applicants to list their assets, which do not affect eligibility. The TIME coverage points out: “In short, just as the radio spot claimed, the Frosts are precisely the kind of people that the SCHIP program was intended to help.” Exactly. The Frosts qualified for the old version of S-Chip. The expansion of coverage into the middle class is not necessary to provide for working poor families like the Frosts. The Congressional plan which was vetoed by George W. Bush is an expansion of the grant program to give benefits to more middle class folks, so why is this family's plight even relevant?

Hasn't Graeme Frost been through enough already, and shouldn't his parents know this? Halsey Frost is a father who cannot provide for the basic needs of his large family-- fine; but the least he could do is protect his kids from the cruel vagaries of our grotesquely partisan political system.

Halsey Frost, Graeme's father, bemoans his family's situation, “We work hard, we’re honest, we pay our taxes. There are hard-working families that really need affordable health insurance.” First of all, let's be honest: Mr. Frost does not pay taxes, or at least not a significant amount of federal taxes, which is the pool that covers this grant program. By my estimate, assuming a standard deduction, the very most the Frosts' pay in federal income tax is $1300 per year, but most likely they pay nothing. Halsey is correct that working families need affordable insurance; S-Chip is not the answer mainly because it is not insurance, it's welfare.

Certainly through no fault of their own, the Frosts were not asked to pay anything for their health care coverage. The federal legislation is based on self-reported income and does not require premiums or co-pays (although states have some latitude) or listing of his assets. How much did the Frosts pay for their S-Chip coverage? My guess is very little, if anything. Now we are going to expand this program to middle class families with no requirement to pay tax or premiums? Suppose Frost's business takes off and he enjoys more success in the years ahead. Would he have incentive build more equity in his business in lieu of salary, thus perpetuating his welfare status? Would other more prosperous families who are close to the S-Chip income cut-off be tempted to work less in order to get these benefits?

In short, this debate has been side-tracked by the completely predictable sliming of Graeme Frost, and the counter-sliming of the right wing idiocracy by the Democrats. What this country needs is a comprehensive health care policy, as every other developed nation has, and the debate needs to be managed by the adults in our congressional leadership and not some well-meaning kid who would be better off in school. The current health care patchwork with it's creeping reliance on welfare and now pandering to the middle class and the glorification of victimization is simply not sustainable.

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My next post will attempt to flesh out the requirements of a national health care policy. Be patient, there are no easy answers. A note to Anonymous: this is not about me. I'm not a pediatrician or even a primary care doctor, but I do recognize the obvious, and the obvious is that in real dollars primary care doctors' salaries have dropped, residency programs cannot convince medical students to pursue these careers and a shortage of these physicians is worsening.

S-Chip is Not Insurance-- it's Welfare

(If you want to cut to the chase, then skip to the last bullet point at the end.)

I'm all for providing health care for kids. Everyone's kids. As long as we're at it, let's get health care for everyone. Period. Even the adults. Old people, vets, the indigent, the disabled and now kids are all included, which leaves only adults being uncovered by government programs. So why not cover all adults as well? Universal health care is certainly a worthwhile endeavor, and before I'm asked to pay for able-bodied middle class parents' kids, I'll ask to be included myself. Short of that, I'll vote no on middle class kids' being on the dole, because that is definitely what the expansion of S-Chip is when it includes those families living at 300% of the poverty level.

Seniors have paid their Medicare payroll taxes so they deserve the benefits as contracted. Likewise for vets. The indigent and disabled need care as part of our social moral imperative. But families living at 300% of the poverty level should be responsible for their own kids' health care expenses. That's my opinion. If we want to expand the program to middle class kids, then let's just go to Nationalized Health Care altogether, for everyone.

I know the responses:

1. The Practical Approach. “The cigarette tax pays for it.” The proposed increase of $35 billion dollars over five years in this S-Chip entitlement is designed to come from a cigarette tax. Tax those dirty smokers and our kids will get free health care! It's a win-win! Yeah! But if we have resolve to tax smokers, and maybe we should, then why give the revenue to middle class families, many of whom already have insurance? The phenomenon of “crowd out” is when the initiation or expansion of a government benefit leads to the substitution of private payers for the said government program. Additionally, sin taxes such as this often result in lower than expected revenues as the sinners change their behaviors and engage in bootlegging untaxed contraband. Furthermore the increased need for law enforcement against bootleggers adds external costs thus depleting net revenue available. (I realize this was accounted for in the CBO Report.)

2. The Emotional Plea. “Yea but, it's fer da kidz.” The problem I see with S-Chip as designed is that it provides no limits to the number of kids covered. Ten kids, no problem. Sure, it's not the kids' fault and they shouldn't suffer. The current S-Chip grant covers “da kidz”, all of them, up to 200% of poverty. That's enough. If private donors want to cover middle class families, then go for it.

3. The Fiscal Responsibility Appeal. “Covering kids' health is cost-effective.” Providing routine care for kids saves society money in the long run. I would point out that the same argument is used for people in every age group: health maintenance is cost effective for all of us, so why give kids preferential treatment over adults? Especially kids whose parents are able to provide the insurance themselves.
   
   

Peter Drucker, the venerable economist and management expert, spent his life dissecting all manner of industries and determining the market forces involved. Macro forces as well as micro forces, labor issues, corporate governance, government interventions-- nothing was not examined. He was the author of 38 books, including many textbooks, was a contributor to and editor of numerous economic journals as well as the Wall Street Journal. In other words, he knew his shit. When asked about medical economics, however, Drucker was at a loss. The allocation of medical resources is made difficult by competing market forces and incentives (will a surgeon always recommend surgery?) and compounded by the asymmetry of market information (but the ads on CBS News say I need treatment for Restless Leg Syndrome and Toenail Fungus Disorder), the difficulty of assessing quality and the economic stresses of the employer-based insurance model (“I'll give you a raise if you opt out of the costly health insurance benefit.”) None of these problems have simple solutions.

As an anonymous commenter to the last entry has pointed out (although they failed to provide references), other economists such as Ken Arrow and more recently Uwe Reinhardt have also attempted to understand the health care morass. Reinhardt, with whose work I am quite familiar, has written extensively on the single-payer system and has written a Primer which compared the two Presidential candidates' plans in 2004. European nations and Canada have a greater percentage of health costs paid by the government versus the US, and a greater number of citizens covered by either governmental or private health insurance, and the Institute of Medicine has intimated that US quality of care is poor even though we pay a much greater percentage of our GDP on health care. Many folks much smarter than I am have devoted their careers to medical economics and I certainly don't pretend to know the answers.

Health care will be the defining issue of the next few election cycles. The consciousness being raised over the S-Chip expansion and the subsequent Bush veto is the beginning of a long overdue national discussion about health care coverage. My aspiration is that this leads to some type of universal health coverage and not just some lousy expansion of Medicaid, which is really what S-Chip is. My random observations about the current system:

1. Means-testing needs to be revamped. Why do we only look at income? Conceivably an individual or family that has considerable property wealth but has a median income could qualify for welfare type benefits. This is not as much a problem when using 100% or 200% of the poverty level for income, but at an income of 60-70K, such as engendered in the proposed S-Chip expansion, the abuse potential increases since many of these families may have earned significant incomes and accumulated uncounted wealth. As I mentioned in the previous post, MiChild in Michigan relies on self-reported income, which is inadequate. Also, father's and even grandparents' income should be included in any means calculation, regardless of marital or co-habitation status.

2. The risk pool needs to be expanded. Of the 44 million Americans who are not covered by health insurance at any given time, many of them are working and some are quite well-off. Often, healthy individuals will opt out of coverage to save money and then opt in when they are older or acquire an illness. This defeats the idea of a risk pool. Health insurance should be mandatory just like auto insurance. Doctors and Emergency Departments cannot “opt out” of treating a sick or injured person depending on their odds of getting paid, so every member of society has a moral obligation to be covered for such a liability. Even the poorer folks who are under-employed and have no employer benefits should be compelled to pay something-- either in the form of a payroll tax and/or a consumption tax-- and then be covered by a basic, government subsidized policy, or even better, with a universal health care plan. Nationalized health in some form, however unlikely to be popular among Bushies, would fulfill all these requirements.

3. We are a rich country. Most people on Medicaid and S-Chip benefit greatly from these programs and deserve coverage. It's a very generous program. I don't mean to sound shrill about “kicking all the bums off welfare” and such because these programs are very necessary. I do find it odd, however, the numbers of folks I see who have hundreds of dollars of tattoos and nicer cell phones than I do, while they assume little of the responsibility for their necessities. We live in a very wealthy society and the dividends of such wealth and excess are obviously enjoyed by all socio-economic strata. One could argue that the poorest person in 21^st Century America is better off than the English nobility of a mere century or two ago. We live longer, drink cleaner water, have vaccines and lower infant mortality, etc. This enormous wealth could be used much more effectively to provide for even more people.

4. S-Chip pays Medicaid wages. Let's be clear on this. S-Chip is NOT insurance. Of the 35 Ob/Gyns in this county, only a handful accept Medicaid and S-Chip coverage. Why? Because the reimbursement is about 18 cents on the dollar-- not enough to cover overhead expenses. Medicaid and S-Chip may be called “insurance”, but they are actually welfare programs and health care providers only agree to see such patients as a service to the community. Physicians literally lose money for every Medicaid patient they see in the office, and if that patient number increases significantly and detracts from the numbers of privately insured patients, ie, "crowd out", then the pressures on primary care providers will mount. Even Uwe Reinhardt, the proponent for a single payer system, has recognized that such draconian discrepancies in reimbursement are unwarranted and harmful to the health of the system. Dr. Reinhardt (page 16) says:

My own reservation about these two public programs has been that the fees they pay providers tend to be unreasonably low, often not even covering the providers' costs. Not surprisingly, many physicians simply refuse to accept Medicaid patients, an option, however, that is not practical for hospitals.

I would agree with the erudite Dr. Reinhardt and I would go one step further. I feel that physicians taking care of the indigent should be paid more, like combat pay, than those taking care of the more wealthy. (Yeah, I'm a dreamer.) If we want to raise an additional cigarette tax, or any other consumption tax, then why not put that revenue toward proper reimbursement for providers who currently care for the truly indigent?

So the next time someone refers to S-Chip and its proposed expansion as insurance, please feel free to correct them of their delusion. And then ask yourself if a family at 300% of the poverty level and untold other assets should qualify.

Bush, for once, is right!

However reluctant I am to do this, I have to give Bush some credit when it's due. I bust his chops on such a regular basis that it is only proper to back him when he does the correct thing, even when it's for the wrong reasons. Pay attention, this doesn't happen very often.

The latest controversy is about the S-Chip program (State Child Health Insurance Program). The bipartisan bill that came out of the House and passed by the Senate provides for health insurance through the federally funded Medicaid type program for lower income kids whose parents make too much money to be considered destitute. In fact, the cut-off as written in the bill provides for children living at 300% of the poverty line, in other words a family of four can have an adjusted gross income ( NOT gross income) of $61,950 for their kids to qualify for free health care. Bush is right, this is an outrageous use of a welfare program, but Bush is wrong to lie about the numbers and the express purpose of S-Chip. Why lie? The correct numbers are bad enough.

Let's run the tax bill, and since I'm not a tax accountant feel free to correct me. If a family of four has one wage-earner, say a father, earning $100,000 per year in gross income, he can put $15,000 into an employer sponsored 401(k) and other deductions, which leaves $85,000 in taxable income. Subtract the standard deduction for him and his family, according to this calculator, and he pays 15% of the adjusted gross income of $60,700, or $8,323. This guy with two kids and a six figure income pays less than 9% of his income in tax and gets health insurance for his kids. Is this not outrageous? Even if I'm off by 20%, which I'm sure I'm not, it's still outrageous. (In Michigan, the MiChild version of S-Chip relies on self-reported monthly income, which seems like an extremely lax eligibility test for such a generous benefit.)

A guy drags down $100K and a mere 8 Grand fulfills his entire obligation to our nation? This $8,300 supposedly covers his full share and that of his three dependents for necessities like national defense; federal regulatory agencies such as the SEC, FTC, FDA, FAA, etc; highways and aviation maintenance; national parks and monuments; enforcement of borders and interstate commerce; -- and he gets free health insurance for his kids to boot?

Whoa... I don't think so...

Is this even sustainable? I know that the program will supposedly be funded by murky ideas like a cigarette tax, and we all know how this will work. More families and employers will jigger their incomes in order to qualify for this unbelievably generous government benefit. My employer tells me it costs approximately $20,000 to provide health insurance for a family of four so the incentive to eliminate this cost is overwhelming. Less families will choose to have a second wage earners in order to stay under the income limit to qualify for S-Chip. More politicians will pander and demagogue the program to expand it, such as is done with all government programs, such as is exactly what this current expansion proposal is, thus leading to certainly increasing costs. And voila, we have a backdoor national health insurance for almost everyone's kids! Furthermore, less people will smoke, or at least less people will smoke taxable cigarettes as the gray market develops (Did you know a big bag of loose-leaf “roll your own” tobacco is not taxed?), so the projected funding will surely dry up for this ever-increasing, non-discretionary entitlement.

I'm all for nationalized health care; I am one of the few physicians I know who thinks that the time is way overdue to provide comprehensive care for all citizens. My objection to this specific expansion of S-Chip is that it is not comprehensive enough-- because it excludes folks like me-- and, more importantly, it has inadequate funding. I mean, come on, break me off a piece of this "free" health care plan stuff. Between Medicare, Medicaid and now S-Chip, the only schmucks actually paying premiums into the system appears to be dwindling. And let's be honest about how to pay for S-Chip expansion, or any expansion of government health coverage. The only appropriate plan would include a large payroll tax or, even better, a huge consumption tax on meat, fatty food, SUV's, ATV's, cigarettes, alcohol, women's make-up, baby food and formula, plastic surgery, men's hard-on drugs, hair coloring products, boats, leisure air travel, cell-phones, soft drinks, fast food, restaurants, diapers, and other dangerous or unnecessary indulgences to fund such an entitlement. This current plan only covers kids and then it lays none of the burden on the parents who are having these kids which they apparently cannot afford. The S-Chip program mandates no co-pays, no premiums, no limits to the number of kids covered. Do you want ten kids? Fine, we'll pay their health insurance for you! Furthermore, it's providing welfare-type benefits to families who hardly should qualify for welfare. The nanny state gone berserk.

Now I'll start my personal rant. My wife and I don't have kids-- by choice. We both work, and without dependent deductions (I wonder who made that rule), we pay gobs of income tax-- nearly ten times what my fictional father pays-- and we also willingly fork over a full share of property tax that educates all the urchins in the neighborhood and throughout the city. We patiently wait for the school buses every morning on our way to work, to which we go for the privilege of paying 40% of our gross income in tax, and cheerily support fund drives for basketball camps and drama clubs when the kids knock on our door to disturb our dinner hour. We tip the paper boy. We endure the screaming and hollering all summer, we surrender our city parks for boys baseball and girls soccer, and we clean up our yard from their dogs and cats. Tell me, do we really have to pay for their health insurance, too? Even the middle class kids?

Don't get me wrong, I think health care is great, and necessary, and very cost effective. I'm a firm believer in the ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure maxim. In fact, I've devoted my life and a couple decades of training to this principle. But if you either cannot or will not provide basic sustenance for your progeny, then how about this for a novel idea: use birth control. And if you're a legislator who wants to be big daddy doling out my hard-earned tax dollars, then be truthful as to how much it will cost and who will pay, and how you will push to expand it in the years ahead. Everyone has their breaking point and for families making six figure incomes getting S-Chip bennies, well, for me, that's a bridge too far. I can also tell you anecdotes of folks I know who make oodles of cash, but their kids have children on S-Chip in its current iteration. Grandchildren of millionaires on the dole. Although true, I realize that's just an uncorroborated anecdote, so I'll leave it at that.

In closing, while Bush was right to veto the S-Chip expansion bill, he is still a doofus. A president should lay arguments like these out in a coherent form and engage all the congress critters behind the scenes to tone down such entitlements into a workable form. That's his job. That will defuse the furor that is growing now about this vetoed program. Unfortunately, Bush has spent all his political capital on a criminal war and pay-offs to his industry cronies, and all but his most strident co-conspirators or delusional base have abandoned him.

Bush is the architect of one of the largest and most egregious expansions of entitlements in world history when he designed Medicare Part D boondoggle for big pharma, so he's not one to talk. Furthermore, Bush has flushed down three quarters of a trillion dollars and counting into the Iraq rat hole which has funded his buddies in the oil and war contracting industries, so he's definitely not one to talk. Where have all the real conservatives gone?

I see a tsunami of anti-Bush Democrats demagoging this S-Chip issue into office in 2008, and then we'll have to see what manner of entitlement expansion takes place. And it's entirely Bush's fault. As a presumed conservative, Bush has been responsible for the most massive waste of tax dollars in our history, and that is not what conservatives are elected to do. Not co-incidentally he is now likely ushering in a whole passel of non-compromisers who will eventually get this crappy S-Chip pandering bill either signed by a Democratic president or passed with a veto over-ride. In the grand drama, that's what liberals do-- and they will.

After I rant and spew electrons all over the internets, I realize that a choice has to be made. Do I side with the starry-eyed liberals who want to provide health care for only a select few, or do I side with Bush who has no idea why he vetoed the bill? Given the choices available, I guess I'll have to take the starry-eyed pandering liberals over the criminal idiocy of the murderous and delusional Republicans.

Hi ho. It's off to work I go.

All that Glitters is Not Gold: Sometimes it's Oil, too

Occasionally a light bulb flashes on and for a split second I see the miles of landscape in all its tortuous detail. Everyone gets this from time to time, it's called insight or inspiration or intuition.

Gold hit a 27 year high this week before pulling back today to about $730 per ounce. Oil likewise has been on a tear, now at $80 per barrel, due to geopolitical tension and increasing demand from developing economies. Also, agricultural grains and livestock have seen higher demand worldwide as more people move into the middle class. So while the prices of many essential items have been increasing, the official US inflation rate is reported as low, mainly because the government chooses to exclude food and energy from their statistics.

Here's the deal, and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.. The Consumer Price Index, as a measure of inflation, is a balance between various commodities, assets and products that the government sets in order to measure the stresses and strains on the economy. At any given time, some assets are deflating while others are inflating in value, and monetary policy is supposedly set to keep these in line.

The problem is that the assets most of us working folks are not increasing in value, while the costs of those commodities on which we rely are increasing in cost. We get paid in US dollars, and the US dollar has decreased in value against every major currency and is now at an all time low in the dollar index. Our houses have likewise decreased in value, or at least have not increased in value commensurate with inflation. US stocks, while they may have increased in dollar terms, the gains have been mitigated by the continued decrease in the dollar index, so in real terms the gains versus commodities and foreign currencies have been negligible or negative.

This devaluation of our homes and our paychecks has occurred at the same time our real world cost of living has increased. The government tells us that the CPI is 2.3%. Bullshit. Gas has increased 45% in two years and food has increased at least 20% depending on what your family eats. Food and energy are a proportionally larger part of the living costs for a middle class family. When the government uses a decrease in home prices to offset the increase in gas and food, then the numbers are skewed and they are not reflecting the true cost of living for the average American. Barry Ritholtz at The Big Picture has been a stalwart voice expounding on the inflation numbers coming out of the federal government.

Recently we have seen a ripple go through the credit markets due to a large increase in the numbers of subprime mortgages that have been made. With interest rates at historic lows, the housing market has been booming, but apparently that growth was not enough for the mortgage lenders who took liberties to loan money to people who had no assets or job, and what ho!, they can't pay their mortgages. Imagine that.

The federal reserve chairman, Ben Bernanke, has acted to bail out the economy by adding liquidity, i.e. lowering short term interest rates that the fed charges banks. The immediate effect of this move is to assuage the fear that homeowners will default on their mortgages by keeping interest rates low enough for many marginal mortgage holders to hang on for a while longer. The other immediate effect is to remove the moral hazard that would normally have been felt by lenders who made such ill-advised loans. It's a bail out. The ultimate effect for the rest of us, however, is a further devaluation of the dollar, i.e. our paychecks are worth less.

Which brings us back to gold and its 27 year high. I'm not some wingnut goldbug who has stashes of Krugerrands in my mattress. Most of my retirement funds are in diversified stock mutual funds and I do very little trading of these retirement funds other than an occasional re-balance.* Lately, however, I've been a little leery. The rise in gold and other commodities has me spooked. How long can we devalue the US dollar and not feel some pinch in the overall US economy? When will foreign investors lose confidence in holding US dollars? The current rise in gold, silver, platinum and copper prices is evidence that the US dollar may be losing its cache as the haven of safety in a tempestuous world. As geopolitical tension rises, US treasuries and dollars should become more sought after, and that's not happening.

Historically, the last time such dollar devaluation had occurred was the early 1970's. Nixon took the US dollar off the gold standard, we had huge war debt from an unwinnable and unpopular war and inflation tore up the value of the greenback. Sound familiar? As we rattle sabres against Iran, where do you think the price of oil and gold will go, or is it all baked in already? If you think the price of gold will stop short of an all time high now after rising this far, please let me know your rationale. If you think that some technological breakthrough will make the fossil fuel internal combustion engine obsolete before the Chinese hit he highways, please let me know.

Sure, economic slowdowns will occur and financial cataclysms will happen from time to time, but the macroeconomic tendencies all point to a continued increase in the use of commodities and the continued decrease in the value of the US dollar versus gold and other hard assets.

These are not merely rhetorical observations. If you had $100,000 to invest, where would you put it? Would you buy US real estate? Ha! Would you buy US dollar denominated stocks like Starbucks and General Electric? Perhaps the latter. Or would you play into the global growth story and invest in areas that are a lock to grow over the next 10 or 20 years? The two dominant themes, as I see it (and have seen it for a while now), are 1) Asia, and 2) commodities. And get rid of your dollars.

No?

* My retirement funds are sacrosanct and are invested in staid Fidelity funds of various stripe. However, I do have a stash in a discount brokerage account that is traded actively, and fortuitously has been a source of fun, adventure, intellectual challenge and significant wealth generation lo these many years. I make a point not to comment on individual trades, but perhaps I'll alter this policy in the future.

McCain: Constitution Establishes A "Christian Nation"

(this item is stolen verbatim from Georgia10 at Dailykos. Disclosure: I voted for Sen. McCain in the 2000 Republican primary in an overwhelming sentiment of Anyone But Bush, which is allowed by Michigan law, and I stand by that vote- Grodge.)

Sat Sep 29, 2007 at 05:55:29 PM PDT

Republican John McCain in an interview with Beliefnet:

Q: A recent poll found that 55 percent of Americans believe the U.S. Constitution establishes a Christian nation. What do you think?

A: I would probably have to say yes, that the Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation. But I say that in the broadest sense. The lady that holds her lamp beside the golden door doesn't say, "I only welcome Christians." We welcome the poor, the tired, the huddled masses. But when they come here they know that they are in a nation founded on Christian principles.

Just for giggles, let's actually look at the text of the Constitution, shall we?

Article VI:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

The First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

See? Obviously, the Constitution establishes a Christian nation. God & Jesus are all over that document. Or hidden in its fibers. Or something. Because when the founders wrote "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification" for public office, they meant there's no need to test all the good Christians who are elevated to public office. After all, Americans wouldn't vote for someone that didn't already know the Bible chapter and verse, right?

And of course, since America is a Christian nation, Muslims will have to work extra hard to get McCain's vote:

Q: Has the candidates’ personal faith become too big an issue in the presidential race?

A: Questions about that are very legitimate.... And it's also appropriate for me at certain points in the conversation to say, look, that's sort of a private matter between me and my Creator.... But I think the number one issue people should make [in the] selection of the President of the United States is, 'Will this person carry on in the Judeo Christian principled tradition that has made this nation the greatest experiment in the history of mankind?'"

Q: It doesn't seem like a Muslim candidate would do very well, according to that standard.

A: I admire the Islam. There's a lot of good principles in it. I think one of the great tragedies of the 21st century is that these forces of evil have perverted what's basically an honorable religion. But, no, I just have to say in all candor that since this nation was founded primarily on Christian principles.... personally, I prefer someone who I know who has a solid grounding in my faith. But that doesn't mean that I'm sure that someone who is Muslim would not make a good president. I don't say that we would rule out under any circumstances someone of a different faith. I just would--I just feel that that's an important part of our qualifications to lead.*

See that little asterisk? When McCain's campaign saw his shocking words in print, they contacted Beliefnet to "clarify" his statements:

*McCain contacted Beliefnet after the interview to clarify his remarks: "I would vote for a Muslim if he or she was the candidate best able to lead the country and defend our political values."

So, McCain would vote for someone who follows "the Islam," as long as they, by his own words, "carry on the Judeo-Christian principles" that McCain believes this nation was founded upon.

Well then. That settles it.

Onward, Christian warriors! There's a primary to be won! Just hope that no one points out the pandering along the way:

Beliefnet columnist David Kuo said McCain was "pandering to what he thinks the Christian conservative community wants to hear" and predicted he "will have a lot of explaining to do about this interview."

(from Georgia10 at Dailykos)

The End is Nigh; Bees to Quasars

Bush's speechifying last night got my inner cynic all juiced up. I came up with some great plots for disaster novels. The Top Ten best ways for the extinction of humanity.

10. Imported Australian virus and genetically modified crops contribute to colony collapse disorder of US honeybees, which brings crop failures and hemispheric shortages of food with half a billion people starving to death, leading to worldwide economic collapse.

9. The Pope makes a special mission of reducing elective abortions and contraceptive use in predominantly Catholic countries in Mexico and Central and South America (which currently have the highest abortion rates in the world), thus causing a massive increase in the birth rate, which stresses their medical systems and food supplies, leading to increase attempts to migrate to the developed world, stimulating military action by the US and Canada as well as Brazil and Argentina, leading to hemispheric economic collapse.

8. The subprime mortgage defaults in the US and Great Britain cause deterioration of the US dollar and British Pound, massive unemployment and loss of capital liquidity which triggers interest rate decreases, currency devaluation, episodic hyperinflation, and worldwide economic collapse. (This could be marketed as a non-fiction investment book which recommends burying silver dimes in a vault in your backyard next to your guns, MRE's and ammo.)

7. The Chinese are unable to improve the quality of their exported food and consumer products, which leads to a western embargo of Chinese goods, triggering gunboat diplomacy by the Maoist oligarchs, massive unrest, spiking gold and oil prices, nuclear threats and worldwide economic collapse. (Foreword would be written by Lou Dobbs.)

6. Dirty bombs in NYC, London, Berlin and Paris set off an allied military assault on the Muslim world, killing half a billion people total, leading to asymmetric terrorist retaliation and global urban guerrilla warfare, destabilizing the oil supply, leading to worldwide economic collapse. (“You can't fight in here, this is the war room.”)

5. Global warming causes the temperature of the earth to rise 4.5 degrees in the next three years, causing melting of the polar icecaps and Greenland and inundation of coastal areas, displacing half a billion people, leading to worldwide economic collapse. (Foreword by Al Gore.)

4. God decides that humans are too imperfect as beings and He is tired of us showing so little respect for each other, other living organism and the planet. He sends His Son down on a cloud in Judgment as, the earth ends as we know it, gnashing of teeth, Rapture occurs leading to the 1000 year Reign. (Already fictionalized by John of Patmos 1900 years ago in his tome Revelation.)

3. Vladimir Putin calls for dissolution of his cabinet and the Politburo, imprisons political enemies and declares martial law before invading Ukraine and Belarus under cover of the night. This leads to a shooting war among former Soviet republics, a nuclear showdown with the West, possible miscalculation of the threat levels and a significant risk of nuclear war, nuclear winter, destruction of higher life forms on the planet and 10 million years of a rising Reptilian Era. (Would need Tom Clancy as co-author for technical advice.)

2. A meteorite crashes into Southern Asia or the Indian Ocean causing the immediate death of two billion people, an ashen sky for 50 years allowing no sunlight leading to death of nearly all terrestrial plant life along with higher life forms, and the advent of 10 millions years of the Insect Era.

And my favorite:

1. A supernova remnant collides with the Sun causing a split-second solar flare, a huge tongue of 4000 degree Kelvin hydrogen scorches the earth's atmosphere which leads to the immediate vaporization of every living thing on the planet as well as the top 50 miles of the earth's crust, rendering the planet a permanently barren molten rock. (This would be just a short story.)

Six Years On

This morning MSNBC was broadcasting a real-time repeat of the coverage from September 11, 2001. At 11:36 am, approximately two hours after the attacks, Tim Russert was interviewing a congressman who said:

“This does not look like state-sponsored terrorism, but rather some loose network of terrorists who are able to co-ordinate the attack. Terrorists hope this leads to confusion and disrupts our priorities and our way of life.

The most important things at this point are to-- number one-- catch the people who did this and-- number two-- do not do anything that will provoke another attack.” 9-11-01

That congressman was none other than Rep. Porter Goss (R-FL), pictured at right, who at the time was Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and a former CIA agent. Later he was appointed CIA Director by President Bush in September 2004.

I find it interesting that the first two things that Mr. Goss felt were immediate priorities have not been accomplished to this date. Osama bin Laden still entertains us with periodic videos and, according to the co-Chairmen of the 9-11 Report Committee, Muslim extremist groups have been apparently recruiting young men in record numbers. Both of these unfortunate circumstances are directly due to the terribly counter-productive and incompetent policies of the current administration.

To truly respect the deaths of those who were slaughtered in NYC 6 years ago, I would think capturing bin Laden and simultaneously fomenting peace in the world would have been a good start...

...and very possible.

Bring 'Em Home Now

It's a sad day for the US and for the world.

Today General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker testified before Congress about the progress in Iraq. And now it's official: there has been no progress in Iraq. We've used up our last Friedman Unit and it is over.

Gen. Petraeus used suspect data about the violence in Iraq in order to justify further military intervention. Ambassador Crocker admitted that the diplomatic efforts were not tried and Iraqi political avenues were not traveled. Atrocious.

Mr. Bush had nine months of a military surge to get this right and it looks like they didn't even try. The patience of the American people is spent and the war is over. Aside from a few phone calls, how much pressure was put on the Iraqis by our Commander-in-Chief?

It's over and the soldiers need to be redeployed now. As outlined last winter on this blog. I was in favor of a surge in January. I thought a larger surge with a complete national mobilization here in the US and in Iraq was in order. Nothing short would have sufficed. The administration had nine months to get this right, and unfortunately they did not.

Bring these men and women home now where they belong, and fight this war on terror the way it should have been fought in 2001.

1. Reduce funding regimes with oil money by achieving oil independence.

2. Pressure Arab allies to respect human rights, build schools not medrassas.

3. Work on a peaceful US foreign policy that promotes the health and safety of everyone.

4. Strengthen our diplomatic ties with our allies.

5. Prepare for a southern Asia with a stronger Iranian influence, thanks to George W. Bush.

Our current policies and incursions have been mismanaged from the first summer of this administration's tenure and it will take a generation to correct the bad policies and poor execution that the world has endured. Nothing has been done well in Iraq and now the time is up. Millions more will die, oil prices will rise and the world will be less stable, thanks to George W. Bush. And thanks to the civically illiterate voters who elected him.

Atrocious.

BREAKING NEWS: Sen. Larry Craig is Still NOT Gay

Go get 'em, Larry.

Senator Larry Craig is reconsidering his resignation from the Senate! Good for him. While I may not be a fan of Senator Craig's policies and Senate votes, I have to add my support for him on this issue. I thought it weird how quickly his “friends” threw him under the bus over a misdemeanor charge. Seeming to breathe a sigh of relief, the Republican leadership welcomed the apparent end to this mess, and seemed happy to let Idaho's Republican governor appoint Craig's replacement, never mind the cavalier disenfranchisement of the Idahoan voters. Now, Craig is reconsidering.

Meanwhile, the Louisiana Republican Senator, David Vitter, who admitted to whoremongering which started the minute his plane first touched down in Washington several years ago, is welcomed back into the Republican party to serve out his term. Not wanting the Democratic governor of Louisiana to have a hand in picking Vitter's replacement, the GOP leadership has circled the wagons, citing the expiration of the statute of limitations on the charges. As usual, the Rude Pundit puts the finer point on the issue, and explains why Vitter needs to be destroyed and how it should be done.

Never mind the double standard, Senator Craig, you should fight this thing. Never mind your plaintive cry of “No!” when you saw the officer's badge, obviously understanding the consequences of your behavior-- you should fight this thing. Never mind your guilty plea, which can only be explained by your guilt. Never mind the “ick factor” of having to explain in court, with all your blue-haired constituents listening, how you didn't get fellated in other bathrooms around the country when men are willing to testify otherwise. You fight these charges, Senator Craig, because you know you're not gay.

Good luck with that.

You're being conned. So What?

Sure, we're being conned. I can feel the frustration from many anti-war Democratic voters who feel that their legislators should be doing more to end the Iraq war. As much as I hate this war and know that it's been a con job from day one, I believe that the Reid-Pelosi tactic is the proper one.

Steve Benen at TPM has a scathing assessment of the current events in Iraq. As he says:

The GAO prepared a "strikingly negative" assessment of conditions on the ground, with no political progress (the intended point of the "surge") and little evidence of reduced violence. Of the 18 Iraqi benchmarks, Bush's policy has come up short on 15. An independent federal commission believes Iraq's 26,000-member national police force is beyond repair and might need to be disbanded altogether. A working draft of a secret document prepared by the U.S. embassy in Baghdad shows that the Maliki government is rotten to the core. Iraqi civilian deaths are getting worse, not better. The latest data shows U.S. troop fatalities worse every month this year compared to the same months last year. A smidgeon of evidence pointing to at least marginal political progress late last week turned out to be smoke and mirrors.

Read the links if you want your blood to boil. The administration, full of snarky chickenhawks who seemingly spend more mental energy pranking their colleagues with Saran Wrap than strategizing a war effort, is going to the wall with the Iraq war. The Democrats have only a few choices to make.

1. While the Democrats have a nominal lead in both Congressional Houses, their majorities are too small to override vetoes.

2. Any war funding bill with benchmarks will be vetoed by the President, thus giving the impression of the Democrats de-funding the war.

3. If the war is de-funded, then the President will say, correctly, that his hands are tied and the war is no longer his responsibility.

4. The last thing Reid and Pelosi want is to buy this war.

Yeah, it sucks. Believe me, nobody is as upset as I am at the mayhem committed with my federal tax dollars. unfortunately, we are destined to watch this play out for at least 15 more months with a slow-motion train wreck of sectarian violence and lies from our leaders about progress. Honestly, there is no way for plebes like us to know what is actually going on in Iraq, but I'm pretty confident that Bush's appraisal is too optimistic, just like it has always been.

The Democrats are on the verge of a real victory in 2008. Chances are, if they don't roll over, that they will hold the White House and have substantive, veto-proof, majorities in both the Senate and the House. To upset the apple cart now with creative war funding bills and demagoguery has the potential of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Change takes time and certainly more time than what our current “right now” culture is accustomed to.

Bush is the President, elected as fairly as the system allows. Reid and Pelosi didn't elect Bush Commander-in-Chief, I guarantee it. If the anti-war lefties want to point fingers, then they should look around their neighborhoods and family gatherings for the real culprits. Democracy can get pretty ugly, especially when the electorate is asleep.

If you want to conduct a thought experiment, then do the “then what” challenge. If the the Democrats de-fund the war, then what? Bush, in all his petulant glory, will certainly continue to mismanage the war and the withdrawal. Diplomacy will not occur where it has not all these years. The Sunnis and Shia will not suddenly become friends. The Iranians will not become brokers for peace. Little George would not suddenly become an arbiter of restraint and reason in the world. NATO, the UN and regional allies like Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Jordan would not be any more willing to sign onto the sinking ship of a withdrawing US.

The Iraq situation under Bush's scorned leadership will certainly devolve faster and further than it is now. We would see bodies floating in the Tigris and Euphrates, Iran laying claim to southern Iraqi oil fields, Sunnis killing Kurds, and vice versa, in the north. Refugee crises could further destabilizing neighboring countries as Iraqis flee genocidal marauders. The Straits of Hormuz could become a war zone thus spiking the price of oil and leading to worldwide economic strife. The potential for a worse situation is certainly out there. And Reid and Pelosi would be the proud owners of the debacle, all the blame and none of the control.

Be patient, grasshoppers. Change takes time. Change always comes. And if you're in Iraq, keep your head down.

Bye, Larry

Senator Craig's persona is that of an anti-gay warrior and as far as I can tell that is a major reason he is so well liked by his constituents. He was also an outspoken critic of that “nasty, naughty boy” Bill Clinton which won him kudos from the Idahoan voters. He wore his family status proudly and just as proudly voted against gay marriage rights and the rights of gay soldiers in the military. Senator Craig made a career of his homophobia.

I'm not going to go into some analytic rant about Senator Craig's apparent self-loathing as a closeted homosexual, frankly because I really really don't give a damn about Senator Craig. He should simply just go away. He is a hypocrite who supports prejudicial policies that run counter to the best interests of this nation and for that we should look for any valid reason to get him out of the Senate.

My guess is that his constituents will have little rationale for supporting him now that he has obviously engaged in activities for which they do not approve. He was a trophy Senator elected only for his superficial bigotry and not for his intellect nor his critical thinking skills. He has failed as a man and even as a bigot. The Idaho voters have failed by concerning themselves with such arcane issues as theology and sexual practices instead of more valid things such as ill-conceived military intervention and fiscal irresponsibility.

Gary Bauer and other self-appointed moralists have decried the potential apathy of voters in future elections who are likely to stay home due to their "disgust" with instances like Craig's arrest. Personally, I don't see a problem with that. Candidates such as Mark Foley, David Vitter and Larry Craig have little to offer the national discourse and certainly should not be any position of power, and if their constituents stay home in November then it's all the better for the nation. If the Republican party continues to choose to appeal to the lowest common denominator instead of adding substance to the body politic, then they should suffer their just desserts and become marginalized. That's not cynical, that's natural selection.

Senator Craig, good riddance.

The Wrath of Mother Teresa?

Mother Teresa gave her personal letters to her archbishop with the dying wish that they be destroyed. So what did he do? He published the letters in a book! Great idea.

Moral of the story: don't trust the Catholic Church with your children or your dying wishes.

On further contemplation, it seems that the priest in charge of the letters is taking a daring gamble. If he really does believe in life after death, and he really does believe that Mother Teresa is saintly and can intercede in earthly affairs, then why the hell would he completely countermand her DYING wish?

Either he's a complete doofus, or he has no faith in the religious mumbo jumbo.

Michael Moore's SiCKO

A couple things in reference to Moore's latest smirky docuflick where he picks a fight with the health care industry. The system is broken, Moore contends, because too many people are denied access, and even those that have access are victims of an unwieldy profit-driven bureaucracy that is in constant antagonism with our best interests.

I find Michael Moore entertaining although frequently over the top. He does seem to tap into the "next big thing", whether it's school violence, the Bush debacle or, now, health care access and cost. If history is any judge, this movie will usher in a riveting consciousness for nationalized health... and maybe it's time.

SiCKO makes salient points, many of which I find compelling, but the movie definitely has its faults. Moore correctly points out that Canadians may wait in line for non-urgent services, but the queue is long only because all their citizens are in it. Here in the US we have less waiting time for MRI's and surgery partly because 20% of those within our borders are not plugged into the system and are thus not getting any non-urgent care.

One issue I had with Moore's movie was his use of young American expatriots living in France to get their opinion of a comparison of the health care systems in France and the US. Their stories of the French medical care were overwhelmingly positive (of course), but the care they received was predominantly for pregnancies and pediatric care, which by and large are positive experiences. Conversely, the US consumers of health care interviewed by Moore had progressive debilitating diseases, and such patients are often dissatisfied with their health care and its efficacy. He compares apples and oranges.

I did agree with his portrayal of the US system as an unwieldy bureaucracy which is nearly impossible to navigate. Having had some personal experience as a patient and family member of a patient, I can honestly say the bills from hospitals, doctors, labs and diagnostic centers make no sense and I thanked heaven every day that I had a comprehensive plan that only asked for my deductible.

Now I'll go on my rant:

Critics of Moore point out that his figure of 45 million Americans without health insurance is misleading. The proper breakdown shows that many of the uninsured are either illegal aliens, so they are not “Americans”, or are uninsured by choice with many making middle-class salaries.

"We hear a lot these days about 45 million Americans who don't have health insurance.
...According to the US Census Bureau, 17 million of those without health insurance live in households having over $50,000 in annual income. That's 38% of the uninsured in America.(2)
In fact, 9 million - 20% of the uninsured - reside in households pulling down more than $75K a year. (3)
...And then there are the young invincibles. Over 18 million of the uninsured are people between the ages of 18 and 34. (4) They spend more than four times as much on alcohol, tobacco, entertainment and dining out as they do for out-of-pocket spending on health care.(5) They represent 40% of the uninsured in America.
...14 million people without health insurance are eligible for government health care programs like Medicaid and S-CHIP but choose not to enroll. (7) They represent %31 - nearly one third - of the uninsured in America.
...The U.S. has 12 million illegal immigrants who don't buy health insurance but still get health care.
...So, how many are truly uninsured? Around eight million. Just 18% of the 45 million that we hear about so often."

So what? The fact remains, at any given time 45 million people in this country do not have insurance. It doesn't matter why they don't have insurance, the fact is that they are not paying premiums and if they get sick they will be a burden on the system. The system is required to absorb all comers-- we do not turn away critically ill people-- and as such all people should be compelled to pay into the system. The “invincibles” and the wealthy poker players need to be taxed in order to pay for the care of the infirm.

Sure many folks choose to deny themselves health coverage, but that does not mean they will not get health care, it just means that they will either struggle to pay for it if needed, or they will default on the bill to the doctors and hospitals. Or, they will be lucky and never pay premiums and never get sick. All of these scenarios are counter-productive. Yes, we should all have free will to make choice in our lives, and the free market should be left to decide our fates. If someone wants to plays roulette with his finances and eschew health insurance, let him. The problem with this reasoning is that the hospitals and doctors do not have the reciprocal freedom to refuse treatment. Not a minute goes by that a middle class uninsured citizen doesn't enter an ER with a potentially life-threatening condition. Nobody denies them treatment. If a specialist is needed, one is assigned and the patient is attended. This is the law. Some specialists may be reluctant to come in on a dreary night to manage someone who they know will never pay the bill, but they come because they are compelled to come and they are compelled to take their turn covering the ER for such patients in order to maintain their hospital privileges. The charter of every acute care hospital mandates that they have specialists available to care for “unassigned” (read: uninsured) patients who need their care, so the hospitals by necessity transfer that mandate onto their specialist staff.. That means some physician will be called in to evaluate and manage this patient, using their hard-earned expertise, taking the risk of a bad outcome, fretting over proper care and perhaps staying up all night only to go into the office for a full day the following morning. And will the doctor get paid? Who knows? Perhaps. But they certainly won't get paid in any kind of timely manner. That's not a way to run a health care system. And I won't even go into the value of health maintenance and the reluctance of uninsured to seek preventive care. How many of those ER visits would have been unnecessary if the person had a regular physician? 38% of the uninsured population chooses not to pay health insurance premiums, and that's okay? We're talking about the middle-class who conceivably should know better, and that's okay?. Furthermore, any insurance program relies on healthy participants paying into the system thereby paying for the care needed for the sick participants. If only sick people have insurance, the system fails.

The second point is that fourteen million people are eligible for Medicaid but choose not to sign up. Again, those people are choosing to not provide an avenue to pay the providers of health care in the event it is needed. The ones who suffer are the providers who are compelled to care for the patients and can only hope that some paperwork is filled out in a timely manner so payment is forthcoming. The patients also suffer the consequences of denying themselves and their children preventive care. If someone is eligible for Medicaid, there's a reason. They are either unemployed by choice, unemployable or too young to have a job. Many of these folks do not have the wherewithal to seek help until it is needed, so to imply that they have access to care and their laziness is the main deterrent to such care is arrogant and counter-productive. The fact is they do not have insurance and that is all that is needed to know. I'll give a case study (named changed):

Carly is an 18 y/o female with a history of juvenile onset diabetes. Her family is dirt-poor, she was raised by a single mother, she just received her GED (government equivalency diploma) and her job pays $8.75 per hour. Fortunately, Carly has no kids (yet). She was told she was eligible for Medicaid, but since she has an income she must pay the first $800 of her health expenses. Before she was 18 her S-Chip Medicaid paid the entire amount. This means that all her diabetes tests strips, glucose monitor and insulin are paid out of pocket. If she has anything left over, she may pay for birth control. Maybe. Or she may decide to go to the beach. Who knows? When I saw her she did not have her Medicaid card, but I examined her and gave her birth control pill samples and told her that Planned Parenthood could provide birth control at a sliding scale cost. Who knows if she went. There are 34 ob/gyns in this town, but only a handful accept Medicaid as payment. Here are my questions:

Why do I have better health care coverage than Carly? Do I really deserve it more than she does? Why does Carly have to shop around to find a doctor to see her and then shop around to get her medicines and supplies at a reasonable cost? I don't. I just call any doctor in town, tell them which insurance I have and they welcome me into their practice. I take my prescription to any pharmacy and get it filled.

Let's assume that Carly really is just a lazy bum who fully understands the intricacies of the health care system, but just plain does not care about her responsibilities. Even though this is unlikely, let's make that assumption. Is it in society's best interest to put hurdles up for this young woman to get health care and birth control? From a pure self-interest standpoint, wouldn't it make more sense to lavish care on this person in order to keep her as healthy as possible and-- almost as important-- not pregnant?

In a perfect world, the perfect Carlies would all be self-reliant stalwarts who overcome their poor circumstances, pull themselves up by their boot-straps, finish college and go on to support their aging mothers and siblings. Unfortunately, the Carlies we all see everyday live in the real world. They don't understand Ayn Rand, Milton Freidman and the supposed free market (but then, who really does?) The real Carlies need their community to embrace them and look out for them. The real Carlies need their doctors and nurses who take care of them to be remunerated the same as the doctors and nurses who are taking care of me. I would argue that those providers caring for the indigent should be paid more. I know this may sound weird, but think about it for a second. Nobody would benefit more than Carly from an interaction with the health care system, and society would benefit immensely by keeping Carly healthy and unpregnant, so why not provide incentive for health care providers to seek these people out and welcome them into their practices? Why not pay Medicaid providers the same to care for Carly as for me? Or, how about this for a novel idea: Why not pay doctors and nurses more to care for Carly? Heresy.

The final group of people who have no insurance are the illegal immigrants, and hell, they don't deserve it, so screw 'em. The free market maniacs imply that this is a no-brainer. They're illegal, for chrissakes, you cannot actually expect that society-- taxpayers-- are responsible to pay their health insurance. NO way! We didn't invite these freeloaders in, and now we have to pay when they have the audacity to get sick? Come on, stop it now.

But hear me out on this. Illegals are here for a reason, and it isn't because they can live more lavishly in the barrios of LA or Chicago, comfortably sipping cervesas while watching the Cubs game on a plasma TV. No. Illegals are here for one thing and one thing only: to work. And for the most part they are underpaid and overworked and live in relative obscurity hoping to avoid the always looming potential deportation while their employers take payroll taxes out of their paycheck for benefits the illegal worker will never realize, or pay them in cash so as to avoid payroll taxes altogether. Every way you slice it, illegals earn their keep, in spades. What happens when a worker gets sick, say has appendicitis, and needs medical care? Well, they don't have insurance, they are afraid of deportation, and they only get paid if they go out into the field every day. Their employer may have a hunch that they are illegal, but heck, the paperwork looks legit and there's a profit margin to maintain here at the blueberry farm. If they get sick, well, they'll know what to do. We all know what they'll do when that appendix flares up: the worker will delay. They will delay because they are afraid and they are vulnerable. Even the most vibrant free marketer would agree that this person does not deserve to die, but nobody knows how to solve this dilemma. I know what not to do: don't put up a hurdle that will disincentivise this person from getting help. What if we had a system that would provide for all comers within our borders because we know that if they are on our soil there's a good chance they are contributing to our economic well-being? How 'bout that premise? Let's not assume these people are all free-loaders, because for the most part, they are not. Sure some engage in criminal activity, but most studies show it's at a much lower rate than natural born citizens. Illegals, for the most part, are the best bargain this economy has: they work hard, ask for nothing and keep quiet. Sure, once our compesano's appendix is yanked and thrown into the waste bucket, he's going back to Honduras or Belize or wherever, but at least he's alive to sneak back another day to pick cabbage or almonds or blueberries for our bountiful tables. Let's hope he makes it back ... we should only be so lucky.

And I won't even go into the weird rationale of expecting US physicians and hospitals to care for illegals while the federal government fails to adequately patrol our borders and looks the other way when business owners knowingly hire illegals and then don't provide insurance to pay for them.

Michael Moore is a showman who can spin a yarn and get your emotions bubbling. But he wouldn't be successful if there was not at least a kernel of truth in what he says. Bowling for Columbine showcased the gun culture that permeates our society; Moore didn't make it up. Fahrenheit 911 put a title to the cynical fearmongering by our administration which has led to an unraveling of our foreign and domestic policies and the American public has now realized six years too late. Likewise, SiCKO gives us a peak at the underbelly of our fatally flawed health care system. The US may have some of the best physicians, nurses, hospitals and technology to help patients, but the bureaucratic and business infrastructure, the system, fails to deliver the product in a fair and economical manner. That's the item for the next blog entry...

"An Oath to the President...?"

A high level advisor in the White House doesn't get it. Andrew Sullivan and Cunning Realist both make mention of this testimony, but I think more should be made of it. Sara Taylor's pseudo-testiony before the Senate not only falls far short of her Constitutional duty, but she has made it apparent that she has no clue what her job was at the White House.



Perhaps I'm drifting into the screech zone, but I don't think so. Taylor has been empowered and paid by the taxpayers of this nation-- we are her boss, not the president-- and she gets up before Congress, our representatives, only to obfuscate and avoid answering the question at hand. She doesn't even know what her oath of office was about!

If the president wants people to take oathes to him, then he needs to pay their salaries and provide their office and benefits. This is done all the time, by the way, in the form of personal counselors or lawyers, and Bush can certainly do that if he wishes. Sara Taylor and Harriet Miers do not fall into that category, however, and such, they have no immunity from answering questions from their ultimate employers-- US.

Send 'em both to jail for contempt of congress.

Whatchyou talkin' about?

Just a little fun with accents from the good ol' US of A. Take this quiz to see what kind of A-murkin' accent you have:

The American Accent Test



Here's my result:

What American accent do you have? (Best version so far) Northern You have a Northern accent. That could either be the Chicago/Detroit/Cleveland/Buffalo accent (easily recognizable) or the Western New England accent that news networks go for.

Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.