Another Excellent Article Arguing for Single Payer

I am rather lazy this weekend (I have Monday off), and so I am just going to introduce another great article on health care reform and an argument for single-payer. This from the web-magazine Swans, American Sick Care Vs. Wellnes by Gilles d'Aymery

And just a couple of my favorite exerpts:

"A recent study shows that the country is wasting about $700 billion, or about 30 percent of all sick care costs, in unnecessary procedures created by fee-for-service specialists who not only are paid to provide the services, but create the services in the first place. Not surprisingly, these specialists are by-and-large members of the American Medical Association, which has come out against any kind of public-financing system.

They, and the paid-for ideological whores in the commentariat, wail against public financing and finger out Canada as the evil incarnate lurching to bring socialism to our beloved freedom-loving country."

"Perhaps the biggest hogwash of all that needs to be swiftly dispelled is the argument made by the opponents of a single-payer system that it would significantly increase taxes. How people can repeat this humbug with a straight face is beyond comprehension. If you are self-employed and buy your own insurance or you get your insurance through your employer, premiums are paid to the for-profit insurance companies. With a single payer-system these premiums -- while about 30 percent lower -- would be paid to, say Medicare. They are not taxes, even if collected through Payroll. They are premiums -- with lower or no deductibles and co-pays, and much cheaper prescription drugs."

Read the piece in its entirety at: http://www.swans.com/library/art15/ga270.html

Several Good Articles and Blog Posts on Health Care Reform

Here are some links and exerpts from several good blog posts and articles I have read on the inter-tubes about health care reform (or not).

Here is a link to a video and partial transcript of Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) being interviewed by CNN's Wolf Blitzer at the Crooks and Liars web site. Problably only Bernie out of all the 100 senators has the cajones to say what needs to be said. Sanders is defending single payer, here are some good money shots:

Sanders: United Health Insurance. A couple of years ago the head of that company was a guy named William McGuire. He received $1.6 billion in stock options. Now, do you think that's a cost effective way of putting money into health care? We don't have enough primary health care doctors -- one guy has $1.6 billion.

SANDERS: All that we're changing -- we're not telling people they should go to a different doctor. We're not telling people they don't have a free choice --

BLITZER: But you're telling them they should go to a different health insurance company.

SANDERS: Do you think people are saying, Oh, my God. I want a freedom of choice of hundreds of health insurance companies? That's not what they're saying. They're saying, I want to go to the doctor that I want to go to. I want to go to the hospital --

First, Sanders draws attention to something that is rarely addressed in mainstream discourse, and that is the fact that for-profit insurance companies are parasitic on the system. You and your employer pay your insurance premium, part of which is paid out not for health services, but to stock dividends and corporate executive salaries. Also, notice how Blitzer simply adopts the anti-reform framing of confusing choice of insurance companys and choice of doctors. Sanders rightly clears up this obfuscation in arguing that a single-payer system would still allow people a choice of doctors.

Next article is from the web site Dissident Voice and Kevin Zeese. Here is the introduction:

"Thursday, as Senator Tom Harkin (D-IO) left the health care hearing room he leaned over to me and said:

I used to sell insurance. The basic rule is the larger the pool the less expensive the health care. Today we have 1,300 separate pools – separate health care plans – and that is why health care is so expensive; 700 pools would be more efficient and less expensive and one pool would be the least expensive. That’s why single payer is the answer.

Nothing like common sense."

Finally, I picked up this link from Louis Proyect on the Marxmail list to a Pappadablogger, who spills the beans on how so many prominent Democrats are in the monied pockets of the health for profit industry, either through campaign contributions, personal ties, or as actual share holders. Here is a small excerpt:

"A key House committee member, Rep. Jane Harman from California, is not only married to one of the richest men in the country, she personally has – are you still sitting down? – Congresswoman Harman personally owns $3.2 million of healthcare industry corporate investments.

In fact, the 11 key members of the House and Senate have a total of $27 million in healthcare corporate investments. And they will write the bill? Are you feeling sick yet?"

Yep!

Leo Panitch on The Relevancy of Marx, Climate Change and the Need for Financial and Industrial Planning

Leo Panitch has been the editor of an excellent series of yearly edited volumes known as the Socialist Register, each organized around a particular theme.

Recently, Leo Panitch was asked to author an article for Foreign Policy magazine on the relevancy of Marx to understanding modern capitalism. This was the event that led the Real News to interview Leo. I have embedded Part II below, but you can find Part I on You Tube.

In summary of Part II, Panitch discusses the financial-economic crisis, the collapse of Detroit's auto industry, and the problems of addressing climate change under capitalism.

Panitch points out that the "cap and trade" schemes currently being devised are a lot like the complex financial products of derivatives, mortgage securities, and credit default swaps that played a role in the speculative housing bubble that lead us into the current financial crisis. And of course there is the more obvious problem that these schemes only create incentives for industries to voluntarily reduce carbon dioxide emissions it it is profitable. They don't directly create policies that drastically cut emissions, which is really what is needed.

This is basically all that the present liberal wing of the ruling class establishment has to offer. Basically they are afraid to consider the more rational alternatives like economic planning. Instead of massive bank bail-outs, Panitch argues that a socialist response would be the nationalization of the banking and auto industries to be run as a public utilities. With those financial and industrial assets in hand they could be directed towards re-orientating production into green technologies.

Panitch points out that the collapse of the auto industry is a great loss of human skill and know-how. There is no reason that those people could be put back to work building solar panels.

Another key point of the interview is that Marx was not in the business of giving advice to capitalist states. He was under no illusion that those who control the state and economic institutions of capitalism would implement rational solutions to problems if it was contrary to their class interests. As always, what is needed is a working-class movement from below.

Sometimes Capitalists Can Be Such Fucking Pricks!

Somewhere in Capital, Marx is famous for arguing that the evils of capitalism are not due to some inherent moral depravity of the owners of the means of production. Instead the dehumanizing conditions of workers are the result of capitalists responding to the structural imperatives of the system. They must make decisions with the goal of maximizing profits, and the interests and well-being of working people are a casualty of this drive to maximize profits.

However, sometimes in an effort to protect their assets and interests, capitalists can stoop to new lows in callousness and disregard for the workers they employ. Here is an example from the BBC web site, "Spain to Punish Barbaric Bakery"

...The statement comes amid shock over the case of a Bolivian worker whose arm was cut off in an accident at work. Bosses at the bakery in Valencia are accused of dumping him 100m (330 feet) from the hospital entrance and throwing the severed limb in a rubbish bin.

A Spanish trade union has lodged a complaint against the bakery. The union - the Workers Commissions (CCOO) - claims that in the early hours of 28 May, the arm of Franns Rilles was severed in a kneading machine while he was working. It was allegedly dumped in a rubbish bin and only discovered by police the following day, by which time it was too late to reattach it.

Investigation

Mr Rilles was allegedly warned by the son of the bakery owner not to tell doctors where his accident had taken place, and was left a distance of some 100m from the hospital entrance, while bleeding heavily. Mr Rilles, 33, worked 12-hour days at the bakery, earning 23 euros a day (£20; $32) under no contract, for about a year and a half, the union says.

He is recovering in hospital, reported Spanish news agency Efe. Police are investigating allegations of mistreatment. The case has made national headlines, and on Thursday Work and Immigration Minister Celestino Corbacho vowed that "the weight of the law" would come down on the bakery if the allegations are substantiated. Mr Corbacho said abusive practices were on the rise as workers' vulnerability jobs increased amid the economic downturn.The bakery has reportedly been shut down and two bosses detained.

Chomsky, An Honest Equal Opportunity Criticizer

I happpened upon this recent interview with Chomsky. Of course righty-idiots assume that Chomsky is so obsessed with hating America that he rarely could ever spare a breath to criticize other countries, like those "socialist" bastards (actually capitalism with a safety net) over in France and and Sweden. But that is just not so.

"And in Europe, there are severe restrictions on what you can write. If a book or article is published in England, it has to be vetted by lawyers to make sure that no problem is posed by England's utterly disgraceful libel laws, which are a severe infringement of freedom of speech. France is much worse. French intellectuals hardly even have a concept of freedom of speech, and material is often banned. I know of a case in Sweden where a book was withdrawn by the one major left publisher because it challenged doctrines of fundamentalist religion among European intellectuals about their nobility in bombing Serbia."

To Fight For the Middle Class Or the Working Class?

The other day I was watching progressive talk show host Thom Hartmann on the "Real News"I generally like Hartmann (unless he brings up atheism, but that is another story), and regard him as a well meaning, left-leaning, reformist, progressive Democrat. He is certainly no radical. But if the majority of elected Democratic Party officials had his politics, it might be worth a shit.

Anyway, Hartmann's most recent book is titled: Screwed, The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class and What We Can Do About It. Which raises an issue that annoys the hell out of me about mainstream Democratic political discourse. The term "middle class" is often emphasized, as in a Democrat politician promising to "fight for America's middle-class".

The fact is that the nature of this phrase is one of exclusion. It excludes that sector of the population whose income is lower than what is required to be "middle-class". Think about it a second. To have "a middle-class" one must have a "lower-class". To emphasize the rhetoric of "fighting for the middle class" suggests that one is content to have a "lower-class", and to not "fight for them".

Yes,the term "middle-class" does reflect an aspect of social reality in the distribution of income in the United States. There is a sector of the working-class that has higher income and health benefits than the lower income sector of the working class, and the "working-poor". And the issue isn't necessarily one between white vs. blue collar or professional vs. skilled trades occupations. Within either of those categories one can be part of the "middle-class". At least that used to be true.

In a story I heard on public radio this past weekend about how the economic crisis is hurting both the "middle-class" and the "lower-class" or "working poor" , a sociologist defined the "middle-class" as those who have a stable job, health and other benefits, a pension plan, and sufficient income to buy a home and possibly save for their children's education.

So why shouldn't employment, health care, adequate housing, an old-age pension, and education be extended to all people in this wealthy country? Come on Democrats, why just fight for the "middle-class" in America?

The term "middle-class" is a phrase that reinforces the mystification of social-relations in this country and under capitalism. The term relies on gradations of income, thus blurring distinctions between classes. As a linguistic device it appeals to peoples' sense of hierarchy, giving them comfort in identifying their position as above the so-called "lower-class" rif-raf below them. It intentionally is meant to avoid a more dreaded and dangerous term socio-economic classification, that of the "working class".

On the other hand, the phrase "working-class", through a Marxist perspective, sharpens and clarifies the social relations of capitalism. To survive, to bring in an income, does one sell their labor-power to a business owner or corporation? Must one work for a wage? If yes, then that person is a member of the working-class.

One may work in cubicle, dress in a white shirt and tie, type away at a computer, doing a job that requires a college education. One may have a decent home, a car, a plasma screen television, and make 40 to 70 grand or more a year. If one must sell their labor, then one is of the working class. Just as the the maid, janitor, or factory worker, who may make considerably less.

And for the relatively well paid sector of the working class, they should never forget, that the material benefits of being "middle-class" can be taken all away, as is happening now with the massive job losses and foreclosures. And this it is not just a phenomena of the recession. The employing class continually pushes to impose lower wages, offer fewer benefits, and cajole workers for more hours of work. In fact for the professional sectors of the working class, such as those in lower level management positions, the expectation of working more many more hours beyond the normal 40 for a salaried position is the norm. And although the "middle-class" of the working-class may enjoy more materially, they still often don't escape the experience of alienation that comes with production for profit.

So the term "middle-class" helps to undermine the potential solidarity of the working class. It tacitly accepts that some people will be left in the lower class, despite societies' material capacity to eliminate the conditions that people of the "lower-class" must endure.

Ironically, this acceptance of this two tiered division of the working class is also a betrayal of some of the professed values of American capitalism, such as equal opportunity, and hard work. Of course the working poor work hard, yet so many are denied the conditions of health care, adequate housing, equal opportunities to education and personal development.

So why? Why do allegedly left-leaning Democrats accept and perpetuate these terms? I would argue its because they truly lack any solid political principles to stand on, and thus are only committed to serving any constituents that can assist them in getting elected, and even then they are still willing to stab them in the back.

Sotamayor, Not So Empathetic After All, Sticks to the Letter of Bourgeios Law

As is well known, President Obama has said that one of the qualities, among many, he would like in his supreme court nominees is that of "empathy". And of course the mainstream idiot-right that so dominates American political discourse seized upon this one word to criticize Obama and his nominee Sotamayor. They have of course also seized upon the words of a speech by Sotamayor, saying that the "rich experiences of a wise Latina woman" might lead a judge to make better decisions than a white-male judge. Never mind that much of the noise by the idiot-right is without substance.

On the other hand, their has been some substantive talk about Sotomayor and her judicial record. Republican Senator John Kyle would at least seem to be a little more reasonable, but of course within the boundaries of Bourgeois Democracy. From CBS News:

Kyl on the other hand said she will definitely have to assure members
of the Judiciary Committee that she will live by the oath of the Supreme Court.

The Republican Senator took out a piece of paper and read the oath which reads, "'I will administer justice without respect to persons and do equal right to the poor and to the rich.'"

Kyl said that oath means that she will have "not bring in her empathy for the poor person, for example. If the law is on the side of the rich person, then she has to rule
in favor of the rich person. If she will do that, then I think she'll have no trouble in her confirmation hearing."

I don't think law makers such as Kyle, whether Democrats or Republicans, who make laws that favor the rich and corporate interests in the first place have anything to worry about.

Former attorney and famous Salon.com blogger Glen Greenwald has written about the idiot-right's silly noise about the Sotomayor nomination, and he has also brought to light facts about Sotomayor's actual judicial record. I highly recommend these articles.

As it so happens, Greenwald was actually the attorney for a plaintiff that lost a race and age discrimination lawsuit against a hospital. I have copied and pasted the parts I want to emphasize here below, and I snipped a bunch, so do read the original if interested.

Thursday May 28, 2009 07:29 EDT A Revealing Anecdote About Sonia Sotomayor

(snipped intro)

My writing about this issue from the start has not been based on my
view that Sotomayor is the best choice for the Court. There is still too
much unknown about her to reach a conclusion in that regard (though see this
encouraging snippet of her at Oral Argument in a critical case). My
interest has been due to the fact that the smears against her were both totally
unrecognizable, driven by very ugly sentiments and enabled by reckless
"reporting" methods. Along those lines, I want to recount the facts behind
a case I had before Judge Sotomayor because it helps to demonstrate just how
false and baseless are the attacks thus far against her:

That case, Norville v. Staten Island University Hospital, involved one
of the most sympathetic plaintiffs I had in my legal career. The
plaintiff, Wendy Norville, was a black woman who grew up in poverty in the
Caribbean, moved to the U.S., and put herself through nursing school while
working as a maid and raising her children as a single mother. After
graduating at the age of 44, she went to work at SIU hospital as an R.N. in the
neurology unit, where, for the next 12 years, she compiled an exemplary record
of uniformly excellent performance reviews.

During her 13th year as an R.N., while working in the neurology
unit, a very tall male patient had a seizure while lying on a table.
Norville attempted to restrain the patient to prevent him from injuring himself
or falling on the floor, and when doing so, she sustained a very severe back
injury. She was unable to work for a full year, but after extensive
rehabilitation, she told the hospital she wanted to return to work, but her
back injury imposed some mild physical restrictions -- such as limitations on
her ability to lift heavy objects -- and she requested that they find a nursing
position for her where heavy lifting was not required.

The hospital claimed that the only positions they could offer her
were ones that were part-time or would require her to lose all of her union
seniority and benefits, and after a couple of months of pretending to search
more, the hospital notified her that there were no comparable positions for her
and they thus fired her. Because she was 56 years old and disabled by
then, she was unable to get hired by another hospital. So after working
for 12 years as an R.N., she was left fired and unemployed -- all because of an
injury she sustained on the job, while helping a patient. She then
sued the hospital (which was large and fully insured) for failing to
accommodate her disability under the ADA and for race and age
discrimination (they had accommodated white nurses far more injured than
she and also rejected her for the one open nursing position in favor of a much
younger nurse).

If ever there was a case where one's "emotions" for "the
downtrodden, the powerless and the voiceless" would be strong, it was this
one. This was a poor, black and highly admirable woman who -- through
no fault of her own -- was left jobless and impoverished at the age of 56, suing
a large and fully insured corporation. And her case was not only
emotionally compelling, but legally strong as well: the federal judge
presiding over the case from the start refused to dismiss any of her claims at
the close of discovery, holding that there was ample evidence to support all of
her claims and to enable a jury to decide in her favor.

Right before her trial was to begin, that judge got caught up in a
massive criminal trial, and as a result, a federal judge from Louisiana was
shipped to New York to preside over the trial. This visiting judge hated
the case and the plaintiff from the start. At trial, he excluded most of
her best evidence showing discrimination, then dismissed her race and age
discrimination claims before they even got to the jury, and then -- on her sole
remaining claim for violations of the ADA -- gave the jury patently
unfavorable and inaccurate instructions about the law that caused the jury to
decide against her.

That was the state of the case as it was appealed to a three-judge
panel of the Second Circuit. Judge Sotomayor was by far the most active
questioner at Oral Argument and it was she who wrote the opinion for the unanimous appellate court. Without a trace of sympathy or even interest in the plight of the plaintiff, Sotomayor methodically recounted the evidence of discrimination and, in as cold and legalistic a manner as possible, concluded that Norville "produced insufficient evidence at trial to show that the hospital"
discriminated against her. She thus affirmed the trial judge's
dismissal of Norville's claims of race and age discrimination.

So there you have it, evidence that Sotomayor isn't that empathetic at all. "In a cold and legalistic manner" she sided with the wealthy owners of the hospital and insurance companies. And that is how the system is set up, defend the interests of the wealthy, and dispose of people no longer useful to the profits-first capitalist system.

Shrill Alarmism From Morris, Forgets Who U.S. Allies Are

Why does anybody take this Dick Morris clown seriously? Just listen to the first few seconds of this video where Dick (very appropriate name) Morris just simply "forgets" well known obvious facts. He complains that:

"....he (Obama) is visiting Egypt and Saudi Arabia, but not visiting our one ally in the region, Israel."

Saudi Arabia and Egypt are not U.S. allies? Morris knows of course that they are, but he just says this kind of stuff for the ideological consumption of Fox News watchers. These people will say anything to criticize Obama, but never anything of substance. They are like adolescents mocking and dissing their peers on any straw that they can grasp.

More Children Being Murdered, Anti-Abortion Zealots Continue Not to Notice

A couple of week ago I posted on the fact that many children die of hunger and malnutrition, and anti-abortion zealots hardly seem to notice.

It was recently brought to my attention that there is another active killer of children. Left I on the News fills us in:

"One by one, the killer claims victims. The latest, a 12-month-old infant named Muhammad Rami Ibrahim Nofal. Just last week, another 1-year-old named Odai Samir Abu Azzoum and 10-year-old Ribhi Jindiyeh. The majority of victims of this serial killer have been children. Remarkably, though, virtually none of these murders have even been reported in the Western media. Much less has there been
an outcry to do something about the killer, even though the identity and location of the killer is well-known.

Of course this killer is Israel, but, sad to say, there plenty of accomplices. Active accomplices like the U.S., E.U., and Egypt, who actively help to promote and enforce the blockade which claimed these victims - the 337 Palestinians who have died because they were refused or delayed entry into Israel where they could have obtained medicine or medical care unavailable in Gaza - and many more - the unknown number who have died in Gaza, the victim of "natural" causes which were anything but natural.

Why do I call this murder? I don't know what the law states, but if someone is poisoned and you hold the antidote in your hand and refuse to give it to them, surely you're as much of a murderer as the person who administered the poison. It's not a perfect analogy, since the "poisoner" in at least some of these examples is actually genetics, although in others, it's even worse, since it may well be that the one with the antidote is also the "poisoner," that is, that Palestinians in Gaza are developing deadly medical conditions which never would have occurred in the first place had they been living under less squalid conditions. Continues.... "

Al Jazeera English has a specific story on how the Israeli blockade of Gaza caused the death of a two year old by denying him medical care in a timely manner. It should be noted that Israeli doctors wanted to treat him.

Like I had wondered before, why are there no demands by these so-called "pro-life" people to demand radical action to end this horrible oppression? Is it because only some babies are worthy of concern? Or that only in gestation babies are worth saving because it gives these zealots a moralistic finger to wag at "loose" women? Hmmmm?