We are all aware that tumors, even if they are benign, are an impediment to individual well being. Growths are anti-social. And yet, in recent decades we've been persuaded that growth is good.

Now the results are out and, in at least three areas, there's no question that growth is an sign of social failure. The first indicator, only because we've been aware of it the longest, is the growth of landfills. More and more of what we Americans produce and purchase ends up at the dump; some of it even before it's used. Indeed, much of our production is aimed to be disposed of--disposable. As if the mountains of waste weren't already high enough. And I won't even go into "storage facilities," replicating like mushrooms all over the countryside -- way stations to the dump for the stuff we think we might eventually actually want.

The nation is drowning in stuff. The question is why? Why have we been persuaded to accumulate more and more stuff we don't actually want, and certainly don't need? My ancient house guest tells me it's because stuff, unlike people, doesn't disappoint. Stuff doesn't run off with your best friend. Stuff isn't fickle. On the other hand, the old curmudgeon is even now discovering that when people have people, they don't need stuff. That's something the tea party people seem to be discovering, as well. While that does not bode well for the resurgence of our supposedly consumer-driven economy, consumption is not a healthy condition. So, the tea parties may actually be a sign of healing.

For Immediate Release

Gov. Lynch Statement Regarding Legislation to Decriminalize Marijuana

“Marijuana is a controlled drug that remains illegal under federal law. I share the law enforcement community’s concerns about proliferation of this drug.

“In addition, New Hampshire parents are struggling to keep their kids away from marijuana and other drugs. We should not make the jobs of parents – or law enforcement – harder by sending a false message that some marijuana use is acceptable.

“That is why if legislation to decriminalize marijuana were to reach my desk, I would veto it.”

# # #

I don't, typically, hog the front page with blog posts. However, Gregg prompts me to make an exception and use the tools that will provide exposure of his posturing for the longest period of time.

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SOURCE:Senator Jeanne Shaheen

Press Release:

February 24, 2010

(Washington, D.C.)-U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen today called on WellPoint CEO Angela Braly to explain the increase in New Hampshire health insurance rates despite the company's substantial profits. According to a report released today by the Center for American Progress, WellPoint, under the banner of Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, intends to increase individual insurance rates in New Hampshire by 12 percent to 13 percent and has already increased premiums in the small group market by 17 percent. Meanwhile, the company posted a 700 percent increase in profits in the fourth quarter of 2009 compared to the same time period the previous year.

Whitehouse.gov

Weekly Address: Premiums, Profits, and the Need for Health Reform
Posted by Jesse Lee on February 20, 2010 at 06:00 AM EST

The President points to outrageous premium hikes from health insurance companies, especially those already making massive profits, as further proof of the need for reform. Looking ahead to the coming bipartisan meeting on reform, the President urges members of Congress to come to the table in good faith to address the issue.

Watch the video address here

Everyone that's been following the health insurance reform agenda has become aware that monetary awards to the victims of medical malpractice are a burr under the Republican saddle. Partly, I'd wager, that's because one of the primary objectives of the party of 'NO' is to say "no" to social responsibilities of all kinds. So, to their way of thinking, if a person chooses wrongly and ends up with a negligent doctor or nurse, it's his/her own fault. After all, that's what personal responsibility is about. Whatever the fates impose (flood, drought, asphyxiation or drowning on a board) is the individual's own fault.

SOURCE: OpEdNews

January 6, 2010

Maggie Mahar Untangles Health Care Legislation For OpEdNews

By Joan Brunwasser

Maggie Mahar is a Century Foundation fellow and expert on American health care. She is the author of the ground-breaking book, Money-Driven Medicine: The Real Reason Health Care Costs So Much. Welcome to OpEdNews, Maggie. Well, the Senate finally managed to pass a health care bill on Christmas Eve. How should we regard it? Is it a holiday gift or another boondoggle masquerading as meaningful, far-reaching reform?

This bill is a start. Over the next three years, there will be amendements and more legislation. This is not the final word on reform. For low-income people and people suffering from pre-existing conditions, this legislation offers much-needed help. This is important. But healthcare will remain too expensive for most of us unless the Independent Medicare Advisory Board (formerly called the Independent Medicare Advisory Council -- or IMAC) is given the power to change what Medicare (and other payers) pay for, and how they pay for it.

Some hospitals are overpaid -- they are being rewarded for being inefficient. In hospitals where more patients contract infections or fall victim to medical errors, they stay longer and undergo more procedures. As a result, Medicare winds up paying those hospitals more. Medicare needs to begin using financial sticks to encourage hospitals to pay more attention to patient safety. Medicare can also use financial carrots to reward hospitals with good safety records.

I've long held the opinion that when it comes to environmental degradation our public agencies are some of the worst offenders. Much slip-shod waste disposal and contamination has been tolerated in the name of "balancing the public interest." Not to mention that some of our public servants consider it a benefit of their employment to impose, rather than follow regulations.

And our military agencies have been among the worst offenders, as evidenced by the fact that every site they vacate is in need of environmental cleanup and remediation. So, it's not surprising that eight years of occupation have left Iraq in a mess. Some of which our own Congresswoman has tried to address by outlawing burn pits and insisting on proper waste disposal. But, who's going to pay for it?

SOURCE: www.realclearpolitics.com/

December 20, 2009

David Axelrod & Howard Dean on "Meet the Press" By Meet the Press

MR. GREGORY: What's next? And what is the political impact of this legislation in 2010 and beyond? Joining us, the president's senior adviser, David Axelrod; and then the man who helped ignite a debate over health care within his party, former DNC chairman and 2004 Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean. Our roundtable weighs in as well on the politics of health care and the huge political challenges facing this White House in the new year as it tackles high unemployment and a sour mood in the country. With us: MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, the Daily Kos' Markos Moulitsas, former RNC chair Ed Gillespie and PBS' Tavis Smiley.

SOURCE: washingtonpost.com

Health-reform legislation would accomplish more than critics admit

By Henry J. Aaron
Friday, December 18, 2009; A31 

In recent columns, Robert J. Samuelson has argued that extending health insurance to 25 million to 35 million uninsured Americans is undesirable unless and until health spending is controlled ["Obamacare: Buy now, pay later," Nov. 16; "A savings mirage on health care," Dec. 14].

The simple fact is that insuring tens of millions must initially raise health-care spending. How else could the previously uninsured enjoy an increase in health-care services? It is, however, fair to ask whether the bills under consideration pay for those added costs and promise credibly to slow the long-term growth of health-care spending.

SOURCE: NYT

December 18, 2009
OP-ED COLUMNIST

Pass the Bill
By PAUL KRUGMAN

A message to progressives: By all means, hang Senator Joe Lieberman in effigy. Declare that you’re disappointed in and/or disgusted with President Obama. Demand a change in Senate rules that, combined with the Republican strategy of total obstructionism, are in the process of making America ungovernable.

But meanwhile, pass the health care bill.

Yes, the filibuster-imposed need to get votes from “centrist” senators has led to a bill that falls a long way short of ideal. Worse, some of those senators seem motivated largely by a desire to protect the interests of insurance companies — with the possible exception of Mr. Lieberman, who seems motivated by sheer spite.

But let’s all take a deep breath, and consider just how much good this bill would do, if passed — and how much better it would be than anything that seemed possible just a few years ago. With all its flaws, the Senate health bill would be the biggest expansion of the social safety net since Medicare, greatly improving the lives of millions. Getting this bill would be much, much better than watching health care reform fail.

SOURCE: OpEdNews

December 17, 2009

Healthcare: First They Came for the Banksters

By Thom Hartmann

With apologies to Pastor Niemoeller:

First they came for the banksters, and showered them with money and put them in the Administration in a way that was not change we could believe in.

Then they came for the military industrial complex, and sent more and more of our children to die in faraway lands that had never attacked us in a way that was not change we could believe in.

And now they've sold out our hope for a national health care system not run by millionaire gangsters in suits. And who is left to speak for us?

President Obama is playing the Bill Clinton game of throwing people a bone and telling them it's steak. Perhaps he's doing it because he thinks it's his only choice; perhaps it's because he's surrounded himself with Bill Clinton advisors (and Hillary as Secretary of State); whatever the reason, while it worked for Clinton, it won't work for Obama.

SOURCE: Borowitz Report

Senate Unveils CompromiseCare

Details of Healthcare Plan Revealed

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) - The United States Senate today unveiled details of its health care plan, tentatively called CompromiseCareTM:

-- Under CompromiseCareTM, people with no coverage will be allowed to keep their current plan.

-- Medicare will be extended to 55-year-olds as soon as they turn 65.

-- You will have access to cheap Canadian drugs if you live in Canada.

-- States whose names contain vowels will be allowed to opt out of the plan.

-- You get to choose which doctor you cannot afford to see.

SOURCE: Balkinization

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Barack Obama's Constitutional Moment

JB

My colleague Bruce Ackerman's theory of "constitutional moments" is designed to explain how large scale constitutional change occurs. This theory is actually a collection of different mechanisms, which, together, show how a mobilized public gives its support to constitutional change.

One of these components is the idea that politicians, in desperate political circumstances, engage in what Ackerman calls "unconventional adaptation" to political impasse, leading to a "switch in time" by a recalcitrant institution that is threatened by the unconventional adaptation. If the unconventional adaptation succeeds, if the recalcitrant institution backs down, and if the public supports reform in subsequent elections, a new set of constitutional customs and understandings is created.

We are at such a moment now. The political impasse is over health care reform. The institution is the United States Senate.

SOURCE: Flesh and Stone

by Michael Collins

Dr. Howard Dean, MD, just said pull the plug on the current health care reform effort. The cure is worse than the disease, according to the good doctor.

Why the surprise?

Last week the president announced that he's sending 30,000 troops to Afghanistan without a declaration of war by Congress and without Afghanistan posing a direct threat to the United States violating both the United States Constitution and international law at the same time.

"Throughout it all, not one member of Congress or the financial elite will miss a meal, worry about their health care, lose their house, or ever face prosecution for destroying the economy of the United States."

SOURCE: WaPo

Health-care bill wouldn't bring real reform

By Howard Dean
Thursday, December 17, 2009; A33

If I were a senator, I would not vote for the current health-care bill. Any measure that expands private insurers' monopoly over health care and transfers millions of taxpayer dollars to private corporations is not real health-care reform. Real reform would insert competition into insurance markets, force insurers to cut unnecessary administrative expenses and spend health-care dollars caring for people. Real reform would significantly lower costs, improve the delivery of health care and give all Americans a meaningful choice of coverage. The current Senate bill accomplishes none of these.

Real health-care reform is supposed to eliminate discrimination based on preexisting conditions. But the legislation allows insurance companies to charge older Americans up to three times as much as younger Americans, pricing them out of coverage. The bill was supposed to give Americans choices about what kind of system they wanted to enroll in. Instead, it fines Americans if they do not sign up with an insurance company, which may take up to 30 percent of your premium dollars and spend it on CEO salaries -- in the range of $20 million a year -- and on return on equity for the company's shareholders. Few Americans will see any benefit until 2014, by which time premiums are likely to have doubled. In short, the winners in this bill are insurance companies; the American taxpayer is about to be fleeced with a bailout in a situation that dwarfs even what happened at AIG.

THE KABUKI THEATER OF HEALTH REFORM (OR, KILL THE BILL)

SOURCE: Frankfurterschool.com

Senator Joe Lieberman has refused to support Healthcare reform in the Senate if it includes any provision that actually reforms healthcare. Cue the outpouring of liberal grief and then the
resigned helplessness of better-this-watered-down-bill-than-nothing that will inevitably follow.

Listen guys, I hate Joe Lieberman as much as the next guy but if you're upset about him, you're a dupe, and you're being manipulated by characters in a holiday pageant. He's not the problem; he's the designated villain.

His seat is perfectly safe, he can't be recalled, and you'll all forget about this in three years when he's up for re-election. It's much more fun to be angry at him than the real villains, because the truth is really depressing. President Obama and the Democratic leadership are handing billions of dollars to the insurance and pharmaceutical industries and have scripted a drama to carefully shape public opinion to believe that this was the best they could do.

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