What has happened with regards to the deepening health care crisis is a symptom of what is deeply wrong with governance in America. Politicians of only two political parties occupy virtually all elected offices in state and national government. And corporations, with their PACs, simultaneously flood both major parties, and elected officials (regardless of which party) with massive campaign “donations” and, on top of that, hundreds of millions, annually, for lobbying “access” and pressure on just 535 members of Congress.

The problem with that is that the two major political parties in the United States are in thrall to huge corporations and the super-rich, and have decided to depend, first and foremost, on their money and support.
In return, the corporations and the super-rich expect BOTH parties to defend and advance corporate interests.
And they understand and expect that the two parties will jockey for political advantage while doing so.

The two parties squabble and fight each other tooth and nail for incumbency and dominance over one another in electoral politics.
The two parties often appear to play “good cop/bad cop” roles, but neither party truly fights against corporate interests for the needs or the rights of the people when there is such a conflict.
And both parties cooperate in making laws, regulations, and procedures that prevent the emergence of any political representation of the people other than from within the two-party discipline and structure.

The two parties take any position that they think will give them political advantage on issues deemed irrelevant or unimportant to corporate and oligarchic power and profit. (For example, abortion rights, race relations, immigration law, voter fraud, the death penalty, definition of marriage, criminal justice, or womens rights are types of issues that the two parties have free rein to manipulate and exploit as they wish, for the political advantage of the party.)

Corporate interests expect that issues important to them be handled quietly. If legislative action becomes necessary, corporations prefer that it be unexamined by public hearings or the media. At rare instances, these issues rise to a crisis status and public attention and controversy may ensue. (For example, the health care crisis, the TARP bailout, climate change, and the worldwide war to end “terrorism”.)

The two parties then both carefully stake out certain opposing positions on those issues. But none of those positions threatens corporate interests. And the two parties exercise discipline over party members to prevent the conflict between people’s needs and corporate interests from being publicly examined, much less resolved in favor of the people.

The two parties appear to argue and fight with each other, and in fact they often do fight viciously and tenaciously. But what they fight for is the political advantage of their party. They never fight for the people when that means fighting against the corporations and the super-rich. Any struggle that pits the rights and needs of the people against the power and profits of the corporations and the super-rich is “off-the-table”. Both parties do it because each party believes it is in the best interest of the party and of their well-heeled, highly valued sponsors.

So dramatic struggles between the two parties over issues and arguments are really jousting matches between them for temporary political advantage. Corporate interests are never actually placed at risk in those matches. Subjects that are framed to be highly controversial and divisive, but do not involve issues of any inherent importance to corporate interests or the super-rich (such as abortion rights, for example) become “wedge issues”, which are deployed by corporate strategists to derail and distract from reforms and initiatives that rise from the true grassroots and would serve needs of the people at the expense of corporate and oligarchic power, privilege, and profits. Those set-piece jousting matches serve two additional important functions.

With the cooperation of the corporate mass media, these jousts serve to distract attention from the roots of troubling and dangerous crises, and from important problems and solutions that would establish that government exists to serve people and not corporations.
And, with full cooperation of the corporate mass media, these jousting matches serve to divisively exaggerate, exacerbate, and exploit the natural diversity that exists in America with respect to nationality, background, culture, psychological makeup, and beliefs.

This is why virtually the entire Congress and Administration of the national government (acting with astounding collegiality on this particular matter, despite their fierce party allegiances, and with the complete cooperation of the mass media) immediately and swiftly placed the simple, workable, and only solution to the health care crisis that looms ever larger in America, “off-the-table” and out of sight and public consideration, before hearings were held, before articles were written, before media programs, interviews, and commentaries were even scheduled. This decision by both parties was merely (and quietly) announced publicly by majority party leaders. The decision itself was never the subject of public discussion or hearings or debate. The one simple, easy, money saving, and obvious solution to the health care crisis that has been carefully researched, proposed, and reviewed for years, and long advocated by serious, caring, non-partisan health care professionals and citizens alike, was not even examined openly by the politicians of both major political parties. It was shunned, disdained, and ignored.

The proposal to simply strengthen and enhance Medicare, and phase in its coverage to all Americans, was derailed at the outset, by both political parties, at the insistence of their corporate sponsors. Virtually every family knows that Medicare has served the difficult population of the elderly and the disabled well and efficiently since it was enacted and implemented over the strenuous opposition of the same corporate forces that now oppose the truly effective and significant health care reform that America so badly needs.

The two party system, controlled by corporate and oligarchical power, is, inherently and invariably, ‘a divider not a uniter’, and cannot serve the people. The current legal interpretations (that corporations have the same constitutional rights as human beings, and that distributing money is protected as though it were free speech) are destroying democracy and human rights. Therefore, the American people must bring those ways of doing things to an end, and get our government to serve the people, instead of serving the corporations and the super-rich. We must do that in order to secure the health care system that American families need. The trashing of human needs and rights caused by corporate control of a two-party system extends far beyond “just” the health care reform America needs. We cannot wimp out, drop out, and opt out of our responsibility to gain and defend democracy. It’s up to us to leave a decent legacy for the future. We may not be the “greatest generation”, but we are here now, and it must be done now.

Postscript: See an excellent summary of the current status of the health insurance reform measure(s) currently before the Congress, with links to articles examining the proposals and recommending how we should respond, in sections 1 and 2 of Jack Lohman’s latest eNewsletter #110.
Don’t miss this summary analysis of the current proposed bills by Rose Ann DeMoro, RN.

References: analyses of the SIX current health care reform measures before Congress, and background of the health care crisis.

www.healthcare-now “Healthcare – Now!”
www.pnhp.org “Physicians for a National Health Program“
www.throwtherascalsout.org “Moneyed Politicans” and Jack Lohman’s eNewsletters
guaranteedhealthcareforall.org “Single Payer Alliance“
www.1payer.net “Single Payer Action“
mobilizeforhealthcare.org “Mobilize for Health Care for All“
The health care crisis, and the “enhanced Medicare for All” solution, spotlighted over the past seven years by Clyde Winter

All of the grassroots efforts for the substantive, effective health care reform that is so needed by American families, have been attacked – for months, for years, and for decades – by insurance corporations, by their corporate allies, and now by crass strategists within both major political parties. Much of the lavishly funded incessant attack has been stealthy and subliminal. A health care crisis has thus materialized and been getting worse fast.

The words “public option”, have received overwhelming public support in national polls (be sure to see this article analyzing those polls) this year when contrasted with the status quo in health care. However, the proposed public option plan(s) proved vulnerable to certain attacks from the professional spin-meisters who are working to derail any substantive health care reform. Here are three of the most effective PR attacks recently made on “public option” health care reform efforts. The response that is necessary concludes this essay.

1. The public option would mean a government takeover of health care. They ask, “Do you want the government getting between you, your doctor, and your health care?”

2. The public option, and the bills currently being talked about by politicians and talking heads, will cost lots more than what is currently being spent on health care in America, and that would make the already horrendous deficit even worse. They ask, “Who’s going to pay for this?”.

3. The public option and the bills currently talked about in the newspapers and TV and radio, will cause Medicare to be robbed, and health care for elders to be curtailed. They ask, “Do you want these reformers to establish death panels and pull the plug on Granny?”

What should be our answers to these PR attacks on the health care reform needed in America? These attacks on the public option plan have clearly shown a major mistake was made in allowing the Medicare for All solution to the health care crisis (HR 676) to be taken “off the table” before there was even a public discussion of it. Eliminating the Medicare for All solution from the public discussion for meaningful health care reform has (so far) marginalized and isolated those with the most knowledge about the health care crisis and those who have been longest and most deeply committed to the struggle. Eliminating the Medicare for All solution from the public discussion abandoned the clearest analysis and the strongest arguments, and kept us from neutralizing those attacks. It is plain stupid (or a sinister betrayal) to leave one confusing, flip-flopping proposal for an undefined “public option” on the table to be attacked from all directions. The people can’t fight the odds against true reform with one hand tied behind our back and the other hand unable or unwilling to hit hard.

It is easy for anyone to explain or quickly understand the Medicare for All solution to the health care crisis. It proposes to strengthen and enhance Medicare, and expand it to provide comprehensive health care to ALL Americans, throughout life, with no co-pays and no deductibles. The Congressional Budget Office has reported that the amount of money that would be saved by changing the administration of the existing health care system from for-profit insurance corporations to Medicare would be more than enough to provide universal coverage for everyone. Medicare for All is supported by a wide majority of nurses and physicians that provide primary health care, and by a majority of American families (despite the powerful efforts to put it “off the table” and keep it out of view). Medicare for All (HR 676) clearly defines the health care crisis, identifies the primary reason for it, and presents a simple, understandable, proven workable solution, in a 15-page bill that anyone can read. So here are (or should be) our answers to the PR attacks directed against the public option and health care reform:

First, the government did not “take over” and harm the health care of those over 65, or the disabled, when Medicare was established in 1965, or the health care of those who now serve or have served in the armed forces, or the excellent health care provided by these military facilities to our Presidents, members of Congress, and their families. Caregivers providing health care today are faced with intervention and interference from insurance corporations, but not from Medicare. Where would American families be today, and where would elders and the disabled be, if the insurance corporations had continued to administer and be the gatekeepers of their health care, instead of Medicare, which has done so for almost half a century? Where would your family be today if Medicare had not been established? How many elders would have lived and died uninsured, under-insured, and without needed care, and how many more families would have gone bankrupt trying to help their elder or disabled members get the health care they need? Everyone needs to be reminded that health insurance corporations and their allies interfere with families’ choice of providers, and with needed treatment plans and prescriptions. The excellent active duty military family medical care system (which IS a completely government owned and operated system of “socialized medicine”) and Medicare (which is NOT) do not let administrators get between the doctors and their patients, like the for-profit insurance corporations do, who insist it is their right. We should loudly and clearly say that, “American families have a right to get health care we need without insurance corporations getting anywhere between health care providers and the people”. Families don’t need health insurance – families just need health care. Comprehensive guaranteed health care for all. And that means, everybody in, nobody out.

Second, with regards to projected financial costs, we should simply and clearly say, “Hey, if you don’t like the up front cost of the ‘public option’ then look at Medicare for All! HR 676 would save four hundred billion dollars annually in unnecessary, wasted expenditures, easily providing universal comprehensive health care with no deductibles or co-payments, and no increased outlay. Enhanced Medicare for All is clearly the most fiscally conservative solution to the health care crisis, from both the standpoint of individual American families, and from the standpoint of the American economy (to say nothing of providing the best health care outcomes).” If you insist on keeping the insurance corporations in the role of health care gatekeeper, then America will be forced to pay a costly premium. And for what? So that American families can continue to play Russian roulette with health care treatment and costs? Let American families (not behind-the-scenes corrupt and greedy power brokers) make the choice between Medicare for All and the new, compromise public option proposals, which retain insurance corporations as gatekeepers, and do nothing to end the hugely costly, complicated billing procedures and eligibility determinations, the gross profits, and the outrageous pay and benefits to executives.

Third, orchestrated astroturf opposition surged this summer against the changing, confusing varieties of the thousand-plus page HR 3200, or the unspecified “President’s plan”, or the “Kennedy memorial” plan, or the “Baucus/lobbyists plan”. This opposition to health care reform planted and exploited fear that Medicare would be fleeced, health care for elders pinched, and “the plug would be pulled on Granny” to pay for the costs of whatever plan might emerge from the confusion. This understandable but misplaced fear is obviously and easily countered by HR 676, Medicare for All, which simply proposes to enhance and strengthen Medicare, and extend it to all Americans of all ages. That would both make Medicare stronger, and protect health care for seniors against future possible attempts to impose budget cuts on it. (And Medicare cuts will continue to be promoted if Medicare continues to be only for the elderly and the disabled.) True health care reformers need to say, “So you think the ‘public option’ proposal threatens health care for seniors? Then check out Medicare for All. If you really want to protect Medicare and health care for seniors and the disabled, then adopt Enhanced Medicare for All. Nobody is going to get away with cutting Medicare for elders if Medicare covers every member of the family.”

Can leaving the insurance corporations in place as gatekeepers in charge of the health care system in America, while even further increasing their massive power and wealth by mandating everyone in America to purchase their flawed products (with their profits further enhanced by taxpayer funded subsidies) be anything other than a sham and a fraud and a broken promise? The insurance corporations and their lobbyists and allies would like that kind of “reform”. A very small percentage of the public that is best described as woefully uninformed might be fooled and accept it.

Deciding that Medicare for All (HR 676) should be marginalized and dismissed because some talking heads and bosses say it does “not have the votes in Congress to pass” is a self-fulfilling prophecy, an abject surrender to corruption of our government by corporate power and money, and a losers way to play a winning hand. It is understandable why the sickness business corporate strategists insisted that Medicare for All (HR 676) be shoved off-the-table before the public discussion even began. It is intolerable that anyone masquerading as a friend of health care reform needed by Americans helped them get HR 676 off the agenda and out of the media.

It should now be clear to all that discarding the trump card of Medicare for All before the hand was even played is such an obvious and continuing mistake, that the old maxim, “follow the money”, provides the only possible explanation. And a sad and sorry one it is, implying pervasive corruption in both major political parties and unwillingness by both parties to reject government that is by and for the corporations and the lobbyists, and replace it with a government that is of, by, and for the people. Over a million dollars is being spent every single day by corporate vested interests just in lobbying the 535 members of Congress to prevent the people from getting the health care reform all America so badly needs. And this is on top of the billions in campaign and PAC “contributions” that have greased elected officials, candidates, and strategists of both major parties, and the billions more to come. We can’t kid ourselves. We, the people, pay every dollar of that. And we pay for all the consequences of that legalized bribery, as well. That is just part of the huge hidden cost of compromised health care and of corrupted government that American families will have to keep paying – until we ourselves put an end to it. It won’t be easy, but it must be done.

The people should have a choice between (1) a strong public option that is available to all Americans (regardless of what their employer and the employer’s choice of insurance policy may provide them) and (2) enhanced Medicare for All (HR 676), and should be provided accurate, understandable information about each. Such information about the Medicare for All, solution to the health care crisis has long been available, but has been taken “off-the-table” by corporate lobbyists, by the mass media and by corrupted strategists running both major parties. (And by the way, in case you didn’t know, a truly strong public option as indicated above in choice #1, does NOT exist in ANY of the “public option” proposals currently before either the Senate or the House.) American families don’t need a choice in health insurance plans and policies. (Most people don’t really have one now, anyway, and will not have one with any public option proposal that emerges.) We want choice of health care providers. We need lower costs, more financial and health security, better health care outcomes, and a stronger economy for the people. And we will get it, with Enhanced Medicare for All (HR 676).

If we truly want to get the health care America needs, we will also need to get a government that is of, by, and for the people, instead of government that is by and for the corporations, the lobbyists, and the super-rich. Contact your choice of the following national organizations now to see what you can do to help the grassroots effort to get the health care America needs.

National grassroots organizations for the single payer solution -
“Healthcare-Now!” www.healthcare-now.org
“Physicians for a National Health Program” www.pnhp.org
“Single Payer Alliance” guaranteedhealthcare4all.org
“Healthcare not Warfare” pdamerica.org
“National Nurses Organizing Committee” www.calnurses.org
“Unions for Single-Payer Healthcare” unionsforsinglepayerhr676.org
Single Payer Action www.1payer.net
“Mobilization for Health Care for All” mobilizeforhealthcare.org

A few locally produced or related websites
“Business Coalition for Single-Payer Healthcare” SinglePayer.info
“Defend Your Health Care Rights – Three Principles and Five Myths“
“Center for Media and Democracy” www.PRWatch.org
“Wisconsin Democracy Campaign” www.wisdc.org

Three latest reviews of the “health insurance reform” now being considered in Congress
“The Public Option in Congress is Now a Sham“
“Public Bailout of Private Insurance Corporations“
Sue J’s comment at the end of this item-by-item critique is brief, poignant and right on target.
“Top Ten Enemies of the Single-Payer Solution” by Russell Mokhiber

The President made an excellent and moving speech to the people and a joint session of Congress on September 9. However, following the money appears to be the only way to find an explanation for certain failures, omissions, and commissions in the President’s otherwise inspiring speech, in the speech and actions of the great majority of “our” legislators of both major parties, and in the news “coverage” by the mass media.

The President equated advocates of the single payer solution to the health care crisis with laissez-fairyland knuckleheads who propose ending employment based health insurance coverage, and leaving all Americans to individually find and purchase whatever private health insurance policy is offered that they are able to choose and afford. That was a gratuitous and undeserved slam. After all, the single payer solution does solve the health care crisis (and in conformance with the President’s own standards enunciated last spring), and is widely supported by nurses, physicians, and American families. The extreme individualistic marketplace-driven proposal would drastically exacerbate all aspects of the health care crisis and does not have widespread support or credibility. These are not two sides of the same coin.

Attacks from the insurance corporations and Republican strategists on the “public option” have clearly demonstrated the major mistake in taking the single payer solution to the health care crisis off the table before there was even a public discussion of it.

The Republican rebuttal to the President’s speech asserted that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has reported that the President’s plan would cost a lot more money than is currently being spent, and that would make the horrendous deficit even worse. Marginalizing and eliminating the single payer solution from consideration in the President’s plan and strategy has eliminated a progressive reply that would entirely neutralize that rebuttal. “Hey, if you don’t like the cost of the “public option” proposal, then look here at our single payer solution! The CBO has reported that it would save hundreds of billions annually in health care costs. The single payer solution is far and away the most fiscally conservative solution to the health care crisis, from both the standpoint of individual American families, and from the standpoint of the American economy.”

The upsurge in orchestrated astroturf opposition this summer to the amorphous “President’s plan” (HR 3200), fearing Medicare would be robbed, and health care for elders pinched, and “the plug would be pulled on Granny”, to pay for the huge costs of HR 3200, is easily countered by the single payer solution which simply proposes to enhance and strengthen Medicare and extend it to all people of all ages. That would obviously make Medicare stronger, and would buttress health care for seniors against future possible attempts to impose budget cuts on Medicare, which will continue to be promoted if it continues to be only for the elderly and the disabled. “So you think the ‘public option’ proposal threatens health care for seniors? Nobody with a mind that functions as more than an ear warmer, a mouth flapper, and fly bait would think that extending Medicare to become a national health care system for all would threaten health care for seniors. If you really want to protect Medicare and health care for seniors, then adopt enhanced Medicare for All.”

The people should have a choice between a strong public option or the single payer solution, and should be provided accurate, understandable information about each. Such information about the single-payer solution to the health care crisis has long been available, but has been taken “off-the-table” by the mass media and by strategists running both major parties.

The Republican professional politicians and their media toadies would be confounded by this potent and powerful tag team of the single payer solution and the public option, both “on-the-table” for the people to see and consider. And the people would clearly see that team as the one with all the cards, and the corporate shills (with their irrelevant band aids, palliatives, and placebos) would be seen as indefensible and out for the count. Then the people could weigh the advantages and disadvantages of a complicated, costly, and less efficient ’strong public option’, versus the simple, proven, cost cutting, single payer solution of ‘Enhanced Medicare for All’. Both seek to address what virtually all American families know is the core problem causing the health care crisis – the method of administering our existing health care system. Both retain, intact, the existing system of actual providers of health care. Only the single payer solution (Enhanced Medicare for All) eliminates the insurance corporations from the role of health care gatekeeper, substantially reduces costs, and provides actual full choice of health care providers to people.

Discarding the trump card of the single payer solution from the hand to be played on behalf of the people is such an obvious and continuing mistake, that “following the money” provides the only possible explanation. And a sad and sorry one it is, implying pervasive corruption in both major political parties and an unwillingness by both parties to reject government that is by and for the corporations and the lobbyists. 1.4 million dollars is being spent every single day, right now, by corporate vested interests in lobbying the 535 members of Congress to prevent the people from getting the health care reform all America so badly needs – to say nothing of the billions in campaign “contributions” that have greased the elected officials and candidates and the strategists of both major parties, and the billions more to come – a huge hidden cost that American families have to keep paying – until we ourselves put an end to it.

It is now up to the people to demand the health care we need, and a government that is of, by, and for the people.
You can be sure that no powerful vested interests will do it for us.

It’s clear that the Democratic strategists have been throwing this fixed fight, while the Republicans have been blatantly shilling for the corporations and the super-rich all along. The Democrats will need to put some points on the board that they have cajoled out of their corporate keepers, thrown to them as a bone is thrown a dog, and that they will, in turn, throw to us. Those points will help the Democratic Party keep the Republican hounds at bay, if they play it cagey. But throwing the real fight – the one the people are in with the corporations – is keeping the Democratic Party in good graces with their corporate benefactors, while keeping American families at the mercy of the insurance corporations and in a continuing health care crisis.

Both party strategists figure that the people have very short attention spans, and no memory to speak of. On the other hand, they know that the corporations never stop watching, and have very long memories. The party strategists also know that all the other major corporations are watching this particular issue very closely, and will simply not allow either political party to jump ship and successfully serve the health care needs of the people, instead of the corporations. In other words, it isn’t just the sickness business corporations that will wreak revenge on either party that does not protect their particular power and interests. Corporations (and the super-rich) that have no seeming connection to the sickness business see the danger that threatens them if a party successfully goes genuinely populist on this health care crisis. It’s disgusting and embarrassing that the party strategists fear the corporations more than they fear or respect or care for the people.

That is what we are up against, if we truly want to get the health care we need, and a government that is of, by, and for the people, instead of by and for the corporations and the lobbyists.

One interesting side note the President made was that the Bull Moose Party, headed by Teddy Roosevelt, was the first party in a national election campaign to introduce and endorse the establishment of a national health care system. Finally one of the two major parties has publicly credited a third party for this important political breakthrough, and it was President Obama himself who finally made that historical truth explicit. (The Bull Moose Party also, simultaneously, about a century ago, endorsed public financing of elections, to end the legalized bribery of massive “contributions” provided by corporations and the super-rich. The connection of that continuing and worsening legalized bribery to the current deepening health care crisis couldn’t be more obvious.) President Obama’s concluding passionate moral appeal to all of us, to honor and be worthy of the character of America, and to set aside partisan bickering and ideology for the good of the country and for the people, was an appeal worthy of the very best in us, and the very best in our history. Let’s answer that appeal and live up to that promise.

Be sure to watch carefully the critically important Supreme Court decision this September, ruling on what little protection now exists in law that attempts to partially rein in the legalized bribery of corporate campaign “contributions”. We need to reverse the faulty Supreme Court precedents that have built and enshrined corporate rule over the people the last 125 years, not extend and consolidate that rule, as I suspect the Roberts court of today will do.

Probably the same sort of person who is not certain what the future holds for her family, or who worries at times about the fine print in whatever health insurance policy currently “covers” them.

There are 3 serious consequences of the huge mistake or betrayal made by “public option” spokespersons, exemplified locally by Wisconsin Citizen Action, and nationally by Move-On, among others, when they declared that the single-payer solution was “off-the-table”.

1. Labeling the single-payer solution a “non-starter” before the public discussion even started meant that the concise, uncomplicated analysis available to the people by advocates of the single-payer solution was and is largely out of sight. Prior to the outset of this public discussion, the overwhelming majority of people of all economic strata rightly focused blame for the health care crisis on the health insurance corporations. Failing to present an analysis and a solution that clearly and unambiguously recognized the truth of that public perception squanders a critically important political and educational opportunity. That is why the sickness business corporations made clearing the decks of the single payer solution their number one agenda item before the public discussion of reform even began. (This consequence is the most serious of the three.)

2. Declaring the single payer solution off the table” left the “public option” to be characterized by corporate lobbyists, the politicians in their pockets, and the mass media, as a “far out radical” proposal, and it immediately became the next and much easier target of the corporations, their bought and paid for legislators, and the money-hungry strategists of both major parties.

3. Throwing in the towel on the single-payer solution by the “public option” spokespersons seems to have occurred in concert, very early, and without any concession from, or even negotiation with, the vested corporate interests. This is troubling because it makes no sense to unilaterally throw away your trump card before the hand has even begun to be played, and without getting an equivalent value discard, or trade-in-kind from the opposition.

The question that should occur to us is, “Are we dealing with massive deceit and betrayal, or with incomprehensible incompetence, or some of both?”

The current stymied effort to win health care for people, instead of sickness business for corporations, is directly a result of the incredibly outrageous distortion of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution by the Supreme Court at the onset of the Gilded Age, well over a century ago.

The 14th Amendment was ratified after the Civil War was over, right after the 13th Amendment was ratified (which abolished slavery in the United States of America). The 14th Amendment required that all states (not just the United States federal government) were bound to protect the right of every person to due process, and to equal protection of the law. In other words, individual states could no longer violate, or fail to protect those rights (including the Bill of Rights), which now belonged to everyone, in every state of the Union.

An assertion, made by a Supreme Court Justice (but with no recorded vote), as reported by a clerk of the Court in the ruling in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad (1886), stated that no testimony would be heard by the Court regarding whether corporations were “persons” in the meaning of the 14th Amendment. The clerk wrote that the Court assumed that corporations indeed had all the rights of actual living, human “persons” under the Constitution.

This was unjustified, but it has become the cornerstone of modern corporate law and led to the rise of mega-corporations, trans-national corporations, corporations and corporate officers virtually untouchable by the law, and the domination of “our” government by corporations. (The adverse effect of this assertion was notoriously extended by the Supreme Court ruling 90 years later, in 1976 that the use of money was equivalent to “speech” and thus legalized the bribery of elected officials and political parties through the hypocrisy of huge campaign “contributions”.) And that is why “our” legislators have not even considered the single payer solution (HR 676), and are even moving to eliminate any “public option” from further consideration.

Besides being unjustifiable, it was also unbelievably ironic, because that grotesque “corporations are persons” distortion of legislative intent occurred just a brief decade after the shameful, tragic renunciation of Reconstruction following the Civil War and the passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. Consequently, for the next century at least, the basic human and civil rights of generations upon generations of people of color in the United States, and the promise of the 14th Amendment to them (and to every one of us), were neither enforced nor honored (except by empty words) in America.

As long as the gross injustice precipitated by Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific RR is allowed to persist, we will find it very difficult to win government that is of, by, and for the people, rather than by and for the corporations and the lobbyists. And without government that is of, by, and for the people (instead of by and for the corporations and lobbyists) we will find it very difficult to win guaranteed comprehensive health care for the people (instead of more profits for sickness business corporations).

The litmus test question that must be asked of each and every nominee for the Supreme Court, until this nightmare is ended, would focus on whether corporations should have or retain the same rights under our Constitution as living, breathing human beings. But we cannot wait for the Supreme Court to correct its own mistakes in order to get the health care we need now.

The appalling distortion of the 14th Amendment throws bright light on assertions of “public option” spokespersons’ that it was not Abolitionists acting on principle that ended slavery, but that the compromisers who were guided by “where the votes were in Congress”, who (according to them) should really be credited with ending slavery. They think this history shows why we should all support the “public option” compromise (whatever that is or is not) rather than the simple, proven, cost cutting (instead of cost increasing) principled single payer solution, H.R. 676.

The truth is that those who compromised with slavery cannot claim to have headed off or mitigated the brutality of the Civil War, which happened anyway. And it was the compromisers, caving in repeatedly to the brutally racist oppressors of human rights, who countenanced and effectively approved both the notorious Fugitive Slave Law (before the war) and the renunciation of Restoration which was followed by the horrible cruelty and injustice of Jim Crow, and the terrorism of lynch mobs, White Citizen’s Councils, and the KKK for another hundred years.

The Civil Rights Movement (with which those of us working for health care for people compare our movement) did not begin in the 1960’s. It began long, long before then, and certainly well before even the 1860s in the USA. Had the 14th and 15th Amendments been honored and enforced (for human beings, not for corporations) when they were ratified and thereafter, the tragic wholesale denial of basic human rights to generations upon generations of people of color in the United States would not have occurred. That denial was too heavy a price to pay in order to be guided by an appraisal of “the votes” of politicians instead of the principles of justice. By the same token, a serious mistake is being made now by people who are fascinated with conjectures about what’s going on behind closed doors in Washington, D.C. and are repeatedly and pessimistically counting the supposed votes in Congress in order to determine what they stand for.

If the simple health care (insurance) reform we need now cannot get enough votes in this Congress, we must spotlight that appalling fact, and the reason for it. And the reason is corruption of government by legalized bribery from corporations.

The single-payer solution to the health care crisis (HR 676 and S 703) provides educational and organizational opportunities that are incomparable and should not be squandered talking about what politicians and lobbyists are doing in D.C., and whipping up public enthusiasm, hostility, or ennui for proposals that haven’t been made explicit, and are being shaped and written by the lobbyists. Incredibly complex proposals (like the one the Clintons presented in 1992, and the similar nebulous, constantly changing proposals that are currently center-stage) only provide opportunities for confusing the issue and distracting the people. The reform we need won’t occur overnight, by magic. If this is the civil rights struggle of the 21st century, how could anyone think we could prevail if we weren’t in it for the duration? … whatever it takes.

These sickness business corporations have long known public outrage was building. The insurance corporations have expected that a grassroots demand to end corporate control of the health care that families need was coming for a long time. They have been preparing and implementing their strategy for years. It’s a big mistake to fail to clearly identify health insurance corporations, along with the pharmaceutical corporations and the mega-corporations that have “acquired” what once were community based and charitable non-profit hospitals and locally based physician owned private practice clinics, as the force standing between the American people and reasonable human-centered health care, administered for people’s health care needs, provided by America’s superior, caring medical professionals.

It was and is the epitome of unrealistic dreaming to think that we could win against those forces with a couple of months of house parties and public forums, and an unbelievably complex proposed “solution” that still has not emerged, and which will likely lock in even more “market share” and corporate control that distorts and continues to deny the health care American families need so badly. If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.

http://clydewinter.wordpress.com/category/health-care-crisis/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHVwrCzRUX0&feature=email
http://moneyedpoliticians.net/
http://paulettegarin.blogspot.com/

P.S. Our gratitude and respect is due to Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, who acted on the street last weekend as an everyday person who is a genuine leader and a true hero. Those who would not have had the guts or will to act themselves will please forebear from supercilious second-guessing. Thanks for his example. May all citizens be inspired by his courage and by his sense of justice and civic responsibility.

The healthcare your family needs is based on medical necessity, as determined by health professionals chosen by you, without interference from health care system administrators.
The healthcare your family member deserves (in today’s lingo) is based on the fine print in a contract with an insurance corporation, the business decisions made by an employer, and the money, status, and family assets remaining that are available to the person needing health care.
The question facing us is, “Should America’s health care system provide health care to families that they need, or should it provide health care that individuals deserve?”

Administration and management of our health care system by insurance corporations, based on business decisions made by employers, is irrational, inefficient, wasteful, and costly. It results in unnecessary suffering and loss of life. The irresponsible and failed administration of health care by insurance corporations has resulted in a consistent decline in health care outcomes for American families since the mid-twentieth century, when compared to the health care outcomes performance of some three dozen other nations of the world. Despite this, Americans now pay twice as much per capita as the health care costs in those same countries. And all those countries provide guaranteed comprehensive health care for all, without the threat of personal bankruptcy accompanying serious illness or injury in the family that confronts American families.

Health care in the United States has become a cruel game of Russian roulette, administered by insurance corporations. Under this corporate control of health care, the employer gets to choose what health care “plan” (if any) to offer your family, and the insurance company gets to choose the fine print, loopholes, exemptions, annual and lifetime limits, pre-existing conditions, pre-treatment approval, acceptable doctors and facilities, acceptable treatment plans, and deductible and co-pay amounts, that may or may not result in your family getting the health care you need, and may result in your family sinking beneath the surface financially.

The irresponsible, failed, and rapidly deteriorating performance of the entire health insurance industry in administering our health care (measured against the yardstick of the best interests of the people), while rolling in record profits, makes one thing crystal clear:

People need health care, but … people do not need health insurance.
Corporations need health insurance, but … corporations do not need health care.

More explicitly:
We do not need “affordable health insurance (mandated) for everybody”.
Only the health insurance corporations, their major stockholders and top executives, and the politicians and political parties who get massive campaign “contributions” from them, need that.
What we do need is “comprehensive health care guaranteed for all”, administered in the best interests of the people, and the doctors and nurses and professionals who provide it with integrity.

The stark simple truth (proven here and around the world) is that comprehensive health care guaranteed for all, administered by an American government that is of, by, and for the people (instead of by and for the corporations and the lobbyists) costs less, and provides better health care outcomes, than does a system administered by corporations entirely for their own profit.

That’s right. Experience in America and around the world over the last four generations has proven that providing health care that is “needed” by you (and by everyone in your family, and by everyone in the nation), as determined by you and the doctors chosen by you, on the basis of medical assessment, is LESS costly, just in terms of total dollars spent, than is providing only the health care that is “deserved”, as determined by contract fine-print and by what’s left of what your family owns..

Those who insist that health care should be provided to people on the basis of what a corporate gatekeeper decides they “deserve” must be willing to have the people in America PAY MORE, SACRIFICE MORE, and SUFFER MORE, than we would have to pay, sacrifice, and suffer for a health care system administered to deliver comprehensive health care to all based on medical assessment by your chosen medical professionals. Hundreds of billions more dollars per year!

Why have “our” elected representatives been unwilling to even talk about, much less seriously consider, the one reasonable, relatively uncomplicated proposed solution to the health care crisis – the only one which can and will provide better health care outcomes, true choice of doctor and treatment, guaranteed comprehensive health care for all, better employment opportunities for Americans, AND lower overall financial cost?

The lack of sponsors for HR 676, Enhanced Medicare for All, and S 703 is due to the legalized bribery of campaign “contributions” to members of Congress (113 million dollars last year alone), together with the over 125 million dollars spent by for-profit health care corporations (more than ANY other industry) in lobbying 535 members of Congress in just the first 3 months of this year. They are currently spending 1.4 million dollars A DAY to get and keep the single-payer solution (and now the public option) off the reform agenda. To them, a good health care reform would be to mandate that everyone in the country must buy one of their contracts, while leaving them in charge as the gatekeepers of health care, and the intermediaries between the people and the doctors. That power produces big profits.

Enhanced Medicare for All, “Nobody out, Everybody in”, will, in contrast, end the stranglehold the insurance corporations have on health care. It will end the terrible life-long game of Russian roulette all American families play with the insurance gatekeepers. It will end the shameful waste of massive resources that has made health care costs in America rise to double the average of all three dozen other modern industrial countries that have better health care outcomes than we do now in the U.S.A. It will end the suffering of people who now continue to delay medical intervention and early detection, and who avoid and decline treatment, because of the cost, inability to pay, and fear of destitution.

The HR 676 single-payer solution to the health care crisis simply replaces the very complex administration of our existing health care system by many health insurance corporations, with a single-payer Medicare style administration. We’d have the same doctors and nurses, working for the same clinics and hospitals. One big difference is that with Enhanced Medicare for All, you would actually get your choice of health care providers, instead of the insurance and HMO corporations getting to preselect your choices for you. But that would also end the incessant lobbying and the continuous flow of hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign “contributions” distributed widely, if unequally, among the elected legislators of the United States, and the two major political parties, by the sickness business corporations.

Whether or not we “deserve” the health care we need, no one else will get it for us. Certainly not the corporations and the lobbyists. And very few politicians of the two major parties will step out of line and stand foursquare for truth and the people. American families must now demand the health care we need, and not allow the lies and propaganda to fool us again. Here are eight excellent sources for more information to help us win:

“Health Care – Now!”
“Physicians for a National Health Program”
“Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care”
“Health Care not Warfare”
“National Nurses Organizing Committee”
“Unions for Single-Payer Healthcare”
“Business Coalition for Single-Payer Healthcare”
“Five Myths and Three Principles”

“This ongoing experience of startling significant inequities in our society, particularly brought to my attention in the field of health care, but also evident in education, employment, criminal justice, finance, and other areas, has revealed to me a society and its leaders pathologically unable to face their responsibilities and take effective action, and who instead persistently seek to deny responsibility, hide problems, and blame the victim.” – Glenn Winter, M.D., from: “Caring for the Uninsured and Underinsured – A Communication from the Front Lines”

There are 5 prevalent myths we need to overcome, and 3 basic principles on which we can agree, in order to stand solidly on the high ground while defending our health care rights. It’s now up to you and me. No one else will do it for us. We owe it to our family, our country, and ourselves. (My other articles present more information concerning myths, the principles, and the prescription for health care. The devastating effect that the legalized bribery known as campaign “contributions” is having right now on the discovery and adoption of an effective solution to the health care crisis by “our” elected legislators is examined in this series of articles, and especially in this entertaining and easily read one.)

_______________________________________________

THREE PRINCIPLES to uphold in protecting and strengthening your health care:

(1) The quality and security of your family’s health care is threatened and compromised because health insurance corporations administer the U.S.A. health care system. The people and technology providing America’s health care are among the very best in the world. Your family may need that quality and proficiency at any time. In order for you to have the health care you need, when you need it, the health care system needs to be efficiently and properly managed and administered. But the health insurance industry has had that responsibility for generations, and has been badly and increasingly failing in their responsibility. That’s because they have no responsibility or accountability to the people or to the health and well-being of the nation. They only have a responsibility to generate profits for themselves.

As far as running a good health care system, the insurance corporations have failed by driving total health care costs through the roof, while falling far behind other modern nations in terms of health care outcomes. Our per-capita health care costs are double what three-dozen countries are paying which have health care outcomes that are now better than in the United States. The insurance corporations have failed by arbitrarily denying patient choice and critically needed health care, causing needless suffering, personal bankruptcy, and death. They have failed while reaping exorbitant profits. We cannot allow health insurance corporations to continue to administer health care to the increasing detriment of families and our country.

We must have a rational health care administration that is answerable only to the people and to the doctors and nurses. We must have an administration which will allow every family to choose and retain their own health care provider, and will allow the provider to freely recommend and provide the health care that is medically indicated and appropriate for you and your family. That is not what we have today.

Currently, employers get to select what policy (if any) they will make available, and to provide information about you and your family to the insurance corporation and their “affiliates”. The insurance company gets to impose loopholes and conditions on your policy, with profit-taking fine-print restrictions like “preferred or in-plan provider” and “excluded treatment options” and “pre-existing condition” and “annual, lifetime, or incident limits” and “pre-approval required” and “co-pays and deductibles”. And, of course, your employer or the insurance company can change their relationship with you or each other pretty much at will. These conditions limit and block what should be your family’s health care choice and security. These employer and insurance industry prerogatives must be eliminated for your family to be assured of getting the health care it needs, and of not being driven to the poorhouse by them. Responsible, ethical health care providers must no longer be forced to consult the fine print of a particular insurance policy, or a corporate gatekeeper without medical training, responsibility, or accountability, before deciding what health care to provide your family.

(2) You (and all families) need comprehensive health care throughout life, but you don’t need health insurance to provide it. We shouldn’t have to (and frankly, we can’t) choose one of some 1500 different insurance policies offered now, with all the fine print and complicated clauses. We just need to be able to choose our professional health care providers, and (with the help of these providers) our treatment plan, (without interference from health care system administrators). We need “comprehensive health care guaranteed for all”, administered for the people, and for the doctors and other professionals who provide it with integrity.

(3) Your family has a basic right to comprehensive quality health care. That right can no longer be subject to the business decisions of your employer, the fine print in a complicated insurance contract, or the efforts of corporations to improve their bottom line that jeopardizes your family’s health. Recognizing your basic right “promotes the general welfare”, as our nation’s founding fathers defined the sacred responsibility of the government they fashioned.

Not only is it morally and ethically “the right thing to do”, it is the practical and wise “right thing to do”. One of every three health care dollars is now wasted in the United States because of the unnecessary cost of running a multitude of bureaucracies administering a health care system that is empowered to decide what health care you and your family “deserves”, as determined by your employer, the insurance policy fine print, what assets you have left, and the fickle finger of fate. It is much less costly, and far more effective, to have a health care system that simply provides the comprehensive health care you and your family actually needs.

______________________________________________________

The FIVE HEALTH CARE MYTHS blocking your families right to comprehensive health care security:

Myth 1: “The United States has the best health care system in the world.”
Truth: We could have the best health care system in the world … if only it weren’t for the way it is administered. If you have unlimited wealth, or are among the very small percentage who have an ironclad lifetime guarantee of no-strings-attached top-drawer insurance, as many politicians have, you can get the finest health care here in the U.S. But for the rest of us, the United States has steadily fallen from the best in the world to the back of the pack of industrialized nations. The World Health Organization once ranked the USA at the top. But we are now ranked behind more than three dozen other countries around the world in objectively measured health care outcomes. That means that your family, any American family, is more likely to experience unfortunate outcomes.

Myth 2: “Guaranteed comprehensive health care for all sounds like a nice idea, but where are we going to get the money to pay for it?”
Truth: We are already spending more money on health care in America than comprehensive health care for all would cost. The truth is that the United States now spends twice as much per capita on health care related costs as all other modern nations in the world spend – countries that all provide guaranteed comprehensive health care for all, with better health care outcomes. We don’t have to spend more, we have to waste less.

Myth 3: “Universal health care is socialized medicine, which eliminates patient choice of physician and care options, and would prevent us from getting health care when we need it. We don’t have to scrap the whole health care system to fix a few problems.”
Truth: First, not a single bill in the House or the Senate proposes socialized medicine. HR 676 and S 703 propose socialized insurance with medical care provided by the current national network of privately employed doctors, clinics, and hospitals. It’s like the insurance provided by Medicare and by the Social Security system.

Item, the United States does already provide some actual socialized medicine. Military hospitals and clinics, and the V.A. Medical Centers are owned and operated by the government, supported by taxes, and staffed by government employees. Bethesda Medical Center is an example of long existing “socialized medicine” in the United States. Bethesda provides perhaps the best, most cost effective health care and medical research available anywhere in the world. Our Presidents and Senators and their families enjoy the “socialized medicine” provided by Bethesda Medical Center. Tell me, why is that not good enough for us?

Item, HR 676 and S 703 do not propose socialized medicine. But even existing socialized medicine systems, and comprehensive national health programs around the world, as well as HR 676 and S 703, provide full patient choice of physician and care options. By contrast, in the current U.S. employer-based system, supervised by private insurance corporations, it’s not the patient and her doctor; it’s the employer and the insurance company who have the real choices. The arbitrary rationing that is imposed by insurance corporations, and which is based on increasing profits, harms way more patients than are harmed by necessary triage that is based on purely medical assessment of treatment urgency by doctors.

Item, HR 676 and S 703 would change only the administration of the system, while leaving the health care itself, including the doctors and nurses, the clinics, the hospitals, the medical schools, the labs, all unchanged. Nobody is proposing scrapping the whole health care system and starting over. HR 676 and S 703 both propose to keep your health care system intact, while replacing the administration by insurance corporations, which has utterly failed in its responsibility to the people, with an expanded Medicare administration that is responsible and accountable to the people.

Myth 4: “Everyone needs to have access to affordable health insurance.”
Truth: The truth is that “everyone needs health care”. But health insurance is not health care.
Only private insurance corporations, their top executives, major stockholders, and the government officials and major party strategists they have in their pocket, need health insurance.

Myth 5: “Government isn’t the solution to our problem. Government IS the problem.”
Truth: This is more than just a myth that should have died when it was born. This is a despicable and discouraging lie that slanders the principles that justified our American Revolution and form the bedrock of our democratic republic and our carefully fashioned and honed constitutional government, which is still a work in progress. This infamous cynical philosophy disparages the sacrifices and lives lost by every generation of Americans who worked and fought, were wounded and died in combat, to establish, defend, and strengthen the United States of America.

For what do soldiers, sailors, marines, and men and women of the air force and coast guard fight and die, if not for their government? What is the United States of America if not the government, and what is the government if not the people? Government is not “the problem” because government in America is the people. Or it damn well should be. When government is not working right and not serving the people, then we need to work together to fix it (like we need to fix ourselves, at times).

Fixing government does not mean “shrinking it down to a size where we can drown it in the bathtub”, as a nutcase political consultant once proclaimed more than a generation ago. When you or your family makes a mistake or needs fixing, do you fix it by forever berating the family that made it, and weakening your family as much as possible? Or do you try to heal and strengthen it? Government in America is designed to fairly represent the people, and to protect all our rights. But it should only represent living, breathing people – and corporations are not people. Each person possesses one vote, and each person has the Constitution, as well. That means we can fix our government. Government will never be perfect, but what else comes close? Corporations? Not hardly.

Corporations are mandated to serve their shareholder interests only, and those interests are determined not on the basis of “one person – one vote”, but on the basis of so many dollars per vote. Corporations didn’t give the people our “bill of rights”. Corporations don’t die in wars – they thrive in wars. Corporations cannot and never will represent the people, nor concern themselves with the health and well-being of our families. Fixing government means continuing struggle to ensure that we have a government that is of, by, and for the people, all the people, and nothing but the people.

A U.S. government like that would be, by far, the best, most accountable, most responsible and responsive administrator of America’s health care system. That doesn’t mean it would interfere with your doctor or your health care. The administrator has no business interfering at all with the relationship between the provider and the receiver of comprehensive health care services. Even with the current state of corruption, our government would be far superior to the myriad insurance corporations which are merely targeting ever higher profits, without a care for the health of American families, without a care about the overall cost of the system, the impact of their failed management on the rest of the economy, or the personal tragedies left in their wake. Our government already does a far better and more efficient job administering the U.S. military medical service and what’s left of Medicare and the Veteran’s Administration medical service, than the insurance corporations do administering the part of the health care system that they currently control, and which has almost all of us playing lifelong health care Russian roulette with them.

______________________________________

We can and should gladly and gratefully stick with the fine doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals that currently provide health care in America. We can easily continue with the current hospitals and clinics and other private providers of health care. But if we honestly and clearly discuss the intractable problems causing our growing health care crisis, we cannot possibly endorse a reform that retains insurance industry corporations as administrators and managers of our health care. It is irrational, costly, and tragic to have private, for-profit insurance corporations, and private employers, administering our health care. It is as simple as that. No other modern country in the world today does it that way, and they all have much lower costs and better health care outcomes, with guaranteed comprehensive health care for all. Besides that, businesses employing their citizens are more competitive in the international market. And families in those countries do not suffer bankruptcies as a consequence of medical expenses.

We need HR 676 or S 703 – the single-payer solution to the health care crisis. We need to end the cruel game of Russian roulette, with worsening and tragic outcomes, that has emerged with the mismanagement and consistently poor administration of the health care our families need by health insurance corporations. And to do that, we need to also end the stranglehold that corporations and the lobbyists have right now on our elected government officials and on our families health care. Where, when, and how do we start? We start by talking about health care security with our friends, extended family, neighbors, co-workers, and about how to get our families health care security and our government in our own hands, for a change.

Here are ten solid sources of useful, accurate information. Please contact them.
Learn and see how you can help. Do what you can – now – for your family and for your country.

http://www.healthcare-now.org/ “Health Care – Now!”
http://www.pnhp.org/ “Physicians for a National Health Program”
http://guaranteedhealthcare4all.org/ “Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care”
http://www.freshaircleanpolitics.net “Campaign for Fresh Air and Clean Politics“
http://www.singlepayeraction.org/ “Single Payer Action“
http://pdamerica.org/policy/priorities.php “Health Care not Warfare”
http://www.calnurses.org/media-center/press-releases/2009/april/america-s-rn-union-targets-congressional-healthcare-leaders-in-new-ad-drive.html “National Nurses Organizing Committee”
http://unionsforsinglepayerhr676.org/ “Unions for Single-Payer Healthcare”
http://www.businesscoalition.net/ “Business Coalition for Single-Payer Healthcare”
http://www.wisdc.org/blog/2009/06/113-million-reasons-why-not.html Wisconsin Democracy Campaign
http://moneyedpoliticians.net/ Ending legalized bribery

Gung Ho (means: work together) America

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
- Mark Twain

Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) issued its 2008 Congressional Report Card, and the Disabled American Veterans (DAV) issued percentage ratings, on how U.S. Senators and Representatives voted regarding issues of direct importance to disabled veterans and recent combat veterans (and their families). Perhaps, like me, you are interested in how the legislators who represent you in Washington, D.C. and the two Senators who ran last year for President, were rated by the IAVA and the DAV.

______________________________

Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) issued report cards last year to every U.S. Senator and Representative.

Over half of all U.S. Senators got an “A” report card from IAVA. Senator Herb Kohl (WI) received an “A”.
Senators Russ Feingold (WI) and Barack Obama (IL) received “B” report cards.
Out of 100 U.S. Senators, IAVA issued only four “D” or “F” report cards.
Senator John McCain (AZ), son of an admiral, was one of those four.

Not one Republican Representative from Wisconsin received an “A” from IAVA.
Every Democratic Representative from Wisconsin received an “A” from IAVA.
F.J. Sensenbrenner got the lowest report card issued last year to any Representative from Wisconsin.

See the full IAVA report card on their web site.
http://www.veteranreportcard.org/

______________________________

Disabled American Veterans (DAV) gave only five U.S. Senators a 100 percent rating on their “key votes” for the 2nd session of the 109th Congress. All five 100 percent ratings were earned by Democratic Senators. All ratings 50 percent and lower were earned by Republican Senators.

Senators Barack Obama, Russ Feingold, and Herb Kohl each got 80 percent ratings.
John McCain was one of only three Senators to earn a 20% rating. No one got lower than 20%.

214 (out of 435 total) members of the U.S. House of Representatives during the 109th Congress received 100% ratings from the Disabled American Veterans. Only 13 Republican Representatives in the entire country were among those 214 legislators who were rated 100 percent by Disabled American Veterans.

All Democratic Representatives from Wisconsin in both the 109th and 110th Congress received 100% ratings from the DAV and were re-elected in both 2006 and 2008.
No Republican Representatives from Wisconsin in the 109th Congress received a 100% rating.
Three Wisconsin Republicans (Sensenbrenner, Ryan, and Petri) received a 75% rating from DAV and were re-elected in 2006.
One Wisconsin Republican (Green) received a 66% rating and was not re-elected in 2006.
All Wisconsin Representatives (both Democratic and Republican) in the 110th Congress received a 100% rating from DAV.
All Wisconsin Representatives (five Democrats and 3 Republicans) were re-elected in 2008. Learn and survive, I guess.

Here is the DAV StandUp4Vets rating of all US Senators and Members of Congress.
Find how your Representative and Senators rated by selecting at the bottom of the “Key Votes” page.
http://capwiz.com/dav/issues/
______________________________

Disclaimer: I do not represent or speak for IAVA or DAV. I have never been a member of either of the two current major political parties. I suggest that you visit the web sites of DAV (www.dav.org) and IAVA (www.iava.org) to learn more about these fine organizations, and the issues they assess as being of importance to veterans and their families. My summary above extracted simple facts that focused on Wisconsin’s Congressional delegation and the two major party ‘08 Presidential candidates, from the studies and legislative tracking undertaken by those veterans organizations.

Here’s a clue – the IAVA and DAV studies of legislative action were objective, and did not include counting lapel pins, photo ops, the opinions of popular talk show hosts, a popularity poll, or the quantity of cheap PR platitudes issued by the politicians. Across the entire country, some Democrats scored high and some scored low. Similarly, some Republicans scored high and some scored low. But you’d best not assume who scored high and who scored low based on whether they are a Republican or a Democrat. See the issues the DAV and the IAVA tracked, and how your Representative and Senators rated by going to the web sites above.

You may be surprised – even startled and disbelieving. One Marine vet (a factory worker all his working life) who I spoke with at a local American Legion Hall in Wisconsin read the above summary with a gathering frown, pronounced it “a pack of lies”, and actually set fire to the paper itself with his cigarette lighter. Another time and place, a Navy vet, obviously unfamiliar with both the Disabled American Veterans and the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, declared that they must be anti-war organizations. On the other hand, another vet I gave an earlier version of the paper to, later removed the sign he had posted in his front yard that declared, “Veterans for McCain”. (I had suggested that he place the letter “A” before the letter “V”, and remove the letter “s” from the word “veterans”.) And two American combat infantry veterans helped me hand out copies of this leaflet. The most disappointing and disturbing reaction I encountered was from persons who said they weren’t veterans and said they weren’t interested in issues important to veterans.

Some people will hear the truth and consider good evidence.
Some won’t. Some don’t care.
Myths can only be dispelled, and propaganda disarmed, if we are willing and able to recognize truth.
Only truth (not lies) can help us attain and maintain freedom and government that is of, by, and for the people.
And freedom (as well as government of, by, and for the people) isn’t free. We have to work and fight for it.

CLYDE WINTER
INDEPENDENT – A CHOICE for A CHA

In the United States, one in every six citizens has no health insurance, and at least as many more have inadequate insurance, and don’t know it. The lack of adequate insurance closes doors to proper health care here. Many of those that have insurance only discover how inadequate it is, when they really need health care. That’s when they find out (from clerks with little or no medical training) about exclusionary clauses, unavailable treatment, pre-existing conditions, bankrupting deductibles and co-payments, and lifetime, annual, or incident limits. There is finally something we can do about this crippling and too-costly system.

If you’re one of 100 million Americans without adequate or any insurance, whether by choice or not, you are playing a cruel game of Russian roulette with stakes the likes of which you better hope and pray you never learn about the hard way. Most of us play that game during our lives, like it or not. Half the personal bankruptcies in the United States result from medical costs and emergencies. And many, many people suffer and die from not getting needed preventive health care and treatment in time, from inability or reluctance to pay deductibles and co-pays.

Regardless of how good you think your “coverage” is now, you confront the crisis when:
• An employer changes or eliminates benefits to cut costs and improve profitability or just by mistake, or because insurance is no longer offered; or an insurance company changes its policy or its list of acceptable doctors, clinics, or treatment options; or it decides not to provide insurance any longer; or cost of self-insurance becomes prohibitive.
• Marital status, age, health, or employment of you or a family member changes, and insurance coverage ends or changes as a result.
We all encounter the crisis, every day, as American business and industry down-sizes, out-sources, relocates, or ceases operations due to inability to compete with companies that do not have to shoulder the exorbitant costs of private health insurance that unfairly burden American business. This health care crisis is costing us jobs and commerce, as well as lives and health.

The four most outrageous health care myths we must overcome are:

Myth 1: “The United States has the best health care system in the world.”
Truth: We could have the best health care system in the world … if it weren’t for the way it is administered. If you (like any deposed, exiled dictator on good terms with the State Department) have unlimited wealth, or (like any member of Congress) are among the very small percentage who have an ironclad lifetime guarantee of no-strings-attached top-drawer insurance, you can get the finest health care here in the U.S. But for most all the rest of us, measured by all basic health care outcomes, from infant mortality rates to life expectancy, the United States has steadily fallen from number one in the world to the back of the pack of industrialized nations. The World Health Organization now ranks the U.S. health care system in 42nd place compared to all other countries.

Myth 2: “Universal comprehensive health care sounds like a nice idea, but where are we going to get the money to pay for it?”
Truth: We are already spending more money on health care in America than comprehensive health care for all would cost – but we are not getting it. The truth is that the United States now spends twice as much per capita on health care related costs as all other modern nations in the world spend, and these other nations provide comprehensive health care for all, with no gate-keepers and better outcomes, at much less cost.

Myth 3: “Universal single payer health care is socialized medicine, which would eliminate patient choice of physician and care options, and we wouldn’t get health care when we need it.”
Truth: First, there is not a single bill in the House or the Senate proposing socialized medicine. HR 676 and SB 703 propose socialized insurance with medical care provided by the current national network of privately employed doctors, clinics, and hospitals. It’s like the insurance provided by Medicare and by the Social Security system. Second, the United States does actually provide some socialized medicine already, and has done so for a very long time. It is the network of hospitals and clinics owned and operated by the government for the military and the Veterans Administration. Bethesda and Walter Reed Medical Centers are examples of actual “socialized medicine” in the United States. Our active duty and veterans of military service, of all ranks, and their families, use socialized medicine. Our President and Members of Congress, and their families, enjoy the excellent socialized health care provided by these government owned and operated facilities. Third, other modern nations provide comprehensive universal health care where people have full choice of physicians, and where treatment is determined by the medical condition. HR 676 and SB 703 do not propose socialized medicine. But even existing socialized medicine systems around the world provide patient choice of physician and care options. By contrast, in the current U.S. employer-based system, supervised by private insurance corporations, it’s not the patient and her doctor, it’s the employer and the insurance company who have the real choices.

Myth 4: “Everyone should have affordable health insurance.”
Truth: The truth is that everyone needs health care. Private health insurance is not health care. Only private insurance companies, their executives and major stockholders need health insurance.

A third of the dollars spent in the U.S. on “health care” do not actually provide health care. It is spent on “administration” – by, for, and because of the private insurance industry. This includes the costs of overlapping corporate bureaucracies, marketing, administration, many different policies, complex billing for each individual item for each patient, profit-taking, extravagant executive “compensation”, lobbying, and campaign “contributions”. Eliminating these unnecessary costs will reduce overall annual health care costs by 350 billion dollars. We can solve the health care crisis in America, provide comprehensive health care to everyone, produce better health care outcomes, and simultaneously reduce the overall cost of health care. Other nations have done it. We can’t afford to ignore the truth about Canada and the rest of the world, as well as the truth about how our own health care system is being administered.

According to free-market theory, the for-profit providers and the 1500 private health insurance plans in the U.S. were supposed to control costs. They clearly have not done so. Instead of restraining costs they are restricting care and increasing profits. And they are crippling U.S. business in a global marketplace, while running good work and jobs right out of the country. The Health Care Crisis in America continues to worsen, and the legislators that should represent us stand, instead, for the corporations, and against the health care America needs.

Single-payer comprehensive universal health care is the only way we can solve the health care crisis. And solving the health care crisis is essential to extricating us from the current drastic economic crisis caused by unbridled greed managed and facilitated by huge corporations and by government officials enthralled and beholden to them.

The trump card is in the hands of the American people, and we need to play it now.
Talk about it with your friends, neighbors, co-workers, and family. Take action.
Tell everyone that we need our elected legislators to sponsor H.R. 676 and S.B. 703 now.

Here are ten uncompromised, solid sources of useful, accurate information. Please contact them.
See how you can help. Do what you can – now – for your family and for your country.

http://www.healthcare-now.org/ “Health Care – Now!”
http://www.pnhp.org/ “Physicians for a National Health Program”
http://guaranteedhealthcare4all.org/ “Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care”
http://www.freshaircleanpolitics.net “Campaign for Fresh Air and Clean Politics“
http://www.singlepayeraction.org/ “Single Payer Action“
http://pdamerica.org/policy/priorities.php “Health Care not Warfare”
http://www.calnurses.org/media-center/press-releases/2009/april/america-s-rn-union-targets-congressional-healthcare-leaders-in-new-ad-drive.html “National Nurses Organizing Committee”
http://unionsforsinglepayerhr676.org/ “Unions for Single-Payer Healthcare”
http://www.businesscoalition.net/ “Business Coalition for Single-Payer Healthcare”
http://clydewinter.wordpress.com/category/health-care-crisis/ examining the health care crisis

“This ongoing experience of startling significant inequities in our society, particularly brought to my attention in the field of health care, but also evident in education, employment, criminal justice, finance, and other areas, has revealed to me a society and its leaders pathologically unable to face their responsibilities and take effective action, and who instead persistently seek to deny responsibility, hide problems, and blame the victim.” – Glenn Winter, M.D. “Caring for the Uninsured and Underinsured – A Communication from the Front Lines”

In Ozaukee County, Darcy McManus got 44 percent of the votes from the 23 percent of those registered who voted. Therefore, long-time District Attorney Sandy Williams will be the new Branch 3 Circuit Court Judge here. Ozaukee residents might be interested to learn about an earlier but unsuccessful candidate for election to be the Ozaukee/Washington County District Attorney, one Leland Stanford. Name sound familiar? After losing the election for D.A., Mr. Stanford lost his library in a fire, was reported by the news media as “failed in winning most of his cases” in Washington/Ozaukee county, became disgusted with “this neck of the woods”, and hightailed it for California. Mr. Stanford soon returned to the Midwest to nominate Abraham Lincoln for President in 1860 in Chicago, was elected Governor of California in 1861, drove the last spike in the railroad at Promontory Point, and in 1885, was elected to the U.S. Senate from California. Stanford University was built and named after him.

Coincidentally, only 44 percent of those who voted in Ozaukee County selected Shirley Abrahamson over Randy Koschnick for Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice. In contrast, a comfortable majority of 59 percent of those who voted throughout the entire state decided to re-elect the first woman to ever sit on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, so Chief Justice Abrahamson will continue to serve.

In Ozaukee County, a minority of 40 percent of those who voted selected current Deputy Superintendent Tony Evers over Rose Fernandez for Superintendent of Public Instruction. In contrast, 57 percent of those who voted throughout Wisconsin decided to elect Tony Evers.

This election dissonance is only the latest echo of how Ozaukee and Washington counties have often voted entirely out of synch with the state as a whole. The first example to consider is from the Civil War years. From 1855 through 1871, Republican candidates won every election for Governor in Wisconsin. From 1856 through 1888, Republican candidates for President (including Abe Lincoln) won the popular vote in Wisconsin, usually by very wide margins. However, none of those Republican victors in Wisconsin during those years ever won in Ozaukee and Washington counties, which was a hard-core, persistent base of the “Copperhead” Democrats, and the only Wisconsin county in which an armed violent insurrection against the U.S. government ever occurred during war time. (The Republican Party was founded principally to arrest the spread of, and then abolish, slavery in the USA.) After the Civil War was won (at a cost of over twelve thousand Wisconsin lives lost in combat) Wisconsin ratified the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Those historic, landmark amendments abolished slavery in America, extended due process and equal protection of the law to all persons in every state, and guaranteed the right to vote everywhere in America regardless of race or color. Those were three very important milestones in the development of American democracy and the evolution of the U.S. Constitution towards freedom, justice, and human rights for all. It’s shocking to realize that not a single legislator representing Ozaukee or Washington counties voted in favor of the 13th, 14th, or 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. That’s a stark and startling example, for starters, of exactly where Ozaukee and Washington counties have stood in the past, in relation to the arc of history, freedom, and human rights.

It was during the Great War (WWI) when Ozaukee and Washington counties finally shook off the stubborn long and lonely adherence to the pro-slavery/anti-civil-rights Copperhead faction of the Democratic party. This was likely because of strong opposition to Democratic President Woodrow Wilson and U.S. participation against Germany in the Great (World) War. Ozaukee and Washington county legislators then switched and became “stalwart” Republicans. Subsequently, in 1919, Wisconsin became the first state to ratify the 19th Amendment which, at long last, guaranteed the right to vote to women throughout the United States. However, if it had been left to the now Republican legislators who represented Ozaukee and Washington counties, the amendment would not have been ratified, and women would not have gotten that right. Even the one legislator who did vote “Aye” at the final reading of the bill, after Wisconsin ratification became inevitable, voted (prior to the final vote) for all delaying procedures and killing amendments, along with the tiny minority who actually voted “No” for the record at the end. All other senators or assemblymen representing Ozaukee and Washington counties either voted “No” or were not present to vote. On April 7, 2009, a woman was elected for the first time ever to serve as a Judge in Ozaukee County, in the first contested election for circuit court in thirty years. (There was no chance for a man to win, since both candidates in the April 7, 2009 election were women.) So, on a couple of historical notes, Ozaukee County made noteworthy progress this spring.

As you may have surmised, neither Abrahamson, Evers, nor McManus were the choice of the current Ozaukee ruling party. But in recent decades, up until last fall, a candidate who is not the choice of the Ozaukee ruling party could hope for no more than a third of the vote in a general election. However, last November, Barack Obama got just shy of 40 percent of the vote in Ozaukee County, while winning quickly and decisively in Wisconsin and in the United States. So the bar was raised significantly in Ozaukee County last year. And this spring, the bar was raised further yet in the general election, when Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson and Circuit Court Judge candidate Darcy McManus each got 44 percent of the vote, running against the status quo prevailing wind that has blown in Ozaukee County, regardless of the name of the ruling party here, since statehood.

On Tuesday April 7, 2009 for the first time in thirty years, voters will have a choice in a contested election for judge for our Ozaukee County Circuit Court, which is the first stop in the judicial system for civil and criminal legal matters under state law. I urge that you help get out the vote for Darcy McManus. I have several reasons.

While both candidates have law degrees, and have practiced as attorneys, I believe Darcy (as a National Merit Scholar and graduate, with honors, from a state University law school) is the most intelligent candidate. She is also the only candidate with any actual judicial experience. Darcy has served 15 years on the bench as the Ozaukee County Court Commissioner. She has served as President of the Wisconsin Family Court Commissioner’s Association, and member of the Wisconsin Supreme Court Planning and Policy Advisory Committee. She also comes across, in person, as the least arrogant judicial candidate, and the one most sensitive to the essential fact that the law is meant, first and foremost, to serve and protect people. Darcy has a heart, and our Ozaukee County Circuit Court and Justice Center needs that.
See www.darcymcmanusforjudge.com for Darcy McManus’ profile of professional and community service and experience, and to offer your needed help and support.

In recent years, the Ozaukee County District Attorney has prosecuted several cases of teenagers or pre-teens for alleged “sexual assault” in Circuit Court, where the supposed “victims” have been close to the same age as the individual charged, and it is a stretch to describe the alleged conduct as either “sexual” or as an “assault”. The prosecution itself can be fairly characterized as over-zealous, and the consequences have been contrary to the interests of justice, and harmful to the people directly involved and the community. I believe Darcy McManus would take steps to ensure that criminal matters brought to a courtroom for which she is responsible would be carefully considered to protect the community and the people, and not just the sometimes imperfect letter of the law. I believe Judge McManus would help to make the Justice Center a more helpful and humane place than it is now. See the footnote at the end of this for more on prosecutions of this nature in Ozaukee County.

In the past thirty years, new judges taking office in the Ozaukee Circuit Court have been appointed after service in a District Attorney’s office. An appointment occurs (instead of an election) when a vacancy occurs mid-term, and that “just happens” to be how each vacancy has occurred and been filled for thirty years. When election time comes around, we voters have then been presented with a “fait accompli”, and an unopposed “incumbent” who easily wins “re-election”. This has been especially “convenient” in Ozaukee when vacancies occur while the sitting governor is a member of the local Party in power. In the past, the Governor has appointed a successor, pleasing to the local Party, right out of the partisan political office of District Attorney.

Darcy McManus’ opponent has long experience as a prosecutor, but that is Sandy Williams only professional legal experience. Darcy herself has 15 years judicial experience as Court Commissioner, besides previous professional experience as a prosecutor for the City of Port Washington, as a defense attorney, and in private practice.

Darcy’s opponent has been a campaigner and a very active member of a partisan political party. Darcy, in contrast, is not and has not been a member of any political party. A Judge can be expected to have personal opinions, including political points of view, but a Judge should certainly not be a partisan politician.

If Judge McCormack had resigned mid-term (like all predecessors did), and if the sitting Governor had been a Republican, you can safely bet that Sandy Williams would have been appointed to fill the vacancy, as in the past, and the people would again have had no choice in who would be the next judge, as has been the case for the last thirty years.

So I’m voting for Darcy McManus because I think she has the:
• most qualification (15 years on the bench as a Court Commissioner),
• most intelligence, combined with the most genuine humility,
• best melding of judicial firmness, discipline, temperament, compassion,
• least partisan political bias,
• will to bring proper judicial perspective to punitive, harsh criminal prosecution and punishment of Ozaukee County children who have perhaps been foolish, but are not (yet) dangerous or incorrigible, and who still have a future worth preserving.

Disclaimer: This letter was written at no expense, entirely and only by Clyde Winter of Cedarburg, unaffiliated with any candidate or political party or interest group, to express my concerns and opinions about the current and unique contested Ozaukee County Circuit Court non-partisan election.

FOOTNOTE:

While the teen-age sexual assault cases referred to above are not at all identical, there are a couple of things that leap to mind when learning about each and every one of them. First, there is the unavoidable question, “Where is the “assault”, here?” The alleged behavior may be, or border on, unwise, ill considered, and/or foolish. In some eyes, it may even be excessively so. The alleged behavior may require parental or societal guidance or correction, with the possible help of teachers, counselors, or spiritual advisers. But whether you are Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative, strict or permissive, the circumstances of these several cases do not call out for criminal prosecution for “sexual assault”, and all the life-long consequences.

Behavior identical or similar to that alleged in these cases has been very common in youthful behavior – and misbehavior – for many, many generations. Even if not fully accepted as ideal or even acceptable, it is extremely rare that such behavior is prosecuted under criminal law – at least in my lifetime and in America. But in Ozaukee County, we have been seeing a consistent pattern of such atypical prosecution and persecutions of working class youth by our Circuit Court.

Our current Circuit Court Judges, and the District Attorney’s office, have done nothing to arrest this trend and pattern. Instead there are expressions of denial, asserting that such prosecutions are merely following “the letter of the law”, and there is no room for discretion. But that is untrue. Prosecutions have been pressed on these strange cases despite the unanimous opposition of the supposed “victims” as well as parents of the “victim”. Excessive bail has been charged, out of proportion with much more serious, dangerous cases. Young people who have fully cooperated with investigators, and who have never been in trouble with the law before, have even been jailed, even without bail, and prosecuted as an adult, despite being a minor at the time of the alleged incident.

These are cases involving children of the same age, or nearly the same age, engaging in romance, games, or horse-play. But if the person named by the court as the “victim” is a minor under the law, the person named as the perpetrator (even if also a minor) can be charged with “sexual assault on a minor” (subject to the court and prosecutor’s discretion), which can carry a sentence on conviction, of 40 years in prison, and reporting requirements with public notice as a sex offender for the rest of ones life.

How is the Circuit Court learning of these “cases”. Are local doctors or clinics and hospitals reporting pregnancies they suspect to be out of wedlock to courts or the police? Are local teachers or school administrators or religious zealots directly informing the police, the D.A., or the courts when they suspect children are playing inappropriately?

These cases should never be prosecuted, unless there are accompanying seriously aggravating circumstances. But harsh injustice and unfairness results when teen-age romance and hi-jinks are prosecuted, like they are now in Ozaukee County, partly because the cases that surface are highly unlikely to ever involve prosecution (much less conviction) of children of very wealthy or well-connected families. And those kids can be just as unwise, and fool around just like all children can.

Inappropriate behavior of teenagers should be corrected, and punished, if appropriate, but that does not have to mean initiating a felony prosecution, affixing a “sex offender” label, and issuing draconian court orders.

Two of these cases are further discussed in the first two articles below:
http://www.levellers.org/jrp/orig/jrp.wiscjury.htm
http://wissup.blogspot.com/2008/12/14-year-old-arrested-mequon-sex.html
http://clydewinter.wordpress.com/2006/08/06/examining-an-inquest/