Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Davis makes worst person again, twice in one week

This was on countdown this evening. Our St. Charles princess is yet again awarded the worst person in the world award. Cynthia Davis is doing St. Charles, Missouri proud in national eyes. There are some real bozos in Missouri's state house.

Note: this is a copyrighted clip and I shall withdraw if objections made. Even Marie Antoinette had a better answer to hungry folks. Not feeding hungry folks seems a bit "UnChristian" if you know what I mean.

Yes, hunger is a real motivator in third world nations. Seems some of our fearless leaders wish Missouri to be in the "third world" catagory. Look at the fine work done in Missouri on healthcare or poverty and more and more.



Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Cynthia L Davis, Missouri princess

Cynthia Davis made Countdown's worst person in the world yesterday. She earned that by her remarks. Perhaps some of the voters need to contact this "princess". Even Marie-Antoinette had better sense than this. Below are bio, Countdown snip and Post Dispatch article. Most is copyrighted material and I shall withdraw if objections made.
------------- from her Wikipedia bio: Cynthia L. Davis (born November 23, 1959) is a Republican currently serving in the Missouri House of Representatives. She lives in O'Fallon, Missouri, and is married to Bernie Davis, with whom she has seven children: John, Benjamin, Cathryn, Matthew, Amanda, Susanna, and Philip.

She was born in Chicago, Illinois, and graduated from Needham High School in Needham, Massachusetts. She majored in music at Nyack College of Nyack, New York before marrying Bernie in 1980. After moving to Missouri Christmas Eve of 1984, she with her husband opened the Back to Basics Christian Bookstore in O'Fallon in 1989. In 1992 she was appointed to chair the legislative committee for the O'Fallon Business Association. She was first elected to the O'Fallon Board of Aldermen in 1994, served as its president in 1995, and was thereafter elected to five consecutive terms.

She was elected to the Missouri House of Representatives in 2002, 2004 and 2006. Davis suggested in one of her district newsletters that she opposed summer feeding programs for poor children because child hunger could be a "positive motivator."[1] The St. Louis Post-Dispatch blasted her in an editorial, saying that she didn't know the needs of the state's children.[2] Other elected offices: Republican Committeewoman for Dardenne Township Secretary of Women Legislators of Missouri Vice-President of the First Capitol Federation of Republican Women She currently serves on the following committees: Vice-Chair Family Services Committee, Vice-Chair Healthcare Policy Committee, and the Elections Committee

---------------------------- Post Dispatch article: http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/the-platform/published-editorials/2009/06/oblivious-to-the-needs-of-missouris-hungry-children/

06.15.2009 9:00 pm Oblivious to the needs of Missouri’s hungry children
By: Editorial Board State Rep. Cynthia Davis offers a tip to hungry families.

State Rep. Cynthia Davis, R-O’Fallon, is staking out a strong position on child hunger: She’s for it. “Hunger can be a positive motivator,” she notes in the latest edition of her newsletter. More precisely, Ms. Davis is against summer feeding programs for poor kids.

They are an excuse “to create an expansion of a government program,” she says. Ms. Davis chairs the House Special Standing Committee on Children and Families. In that position, she might be expected to have insight into child hunger in our state. She might know, for instance, that about one in five Missouri children lives with hunger. That ties us with Louisiana for the nation’s seventh-highest rate, according to a report released last month by the hunger-relief charity Feeding America. Or that the recession has pushed the number of poor Missouri kids who qualify for free or reduced-price school lunches by 8.3 percent this year, well above the national average. Apparently not. ”While I have not seen this as a problem in my district, it is entirely possible that the (summer feeding) program is designed to address problems that exist in other parts of Missouri,” Ms. Davis says in her newsletter. “The right way to solve this is with more education. If parents … don’t know how to serve nutritious meals, let’s help them learn to do that.” In that spirit, she offers some helpful hints: •


“Families may economize by choosing not to waste hard earned dollars on potato chips, ice cream or Twinkies.” • “Laid-off parents could adapt by preparing more home cooked meals rather than going out to eat.” • “Tip: If you work for McDonald’s, they will feed you for free during your break.” About 100,000 more people are unemployed in Missouri today than were jobless in 2007. Food pantries across the state are struggling to meet increased demand. The United Way of St. Louis and more than 100 area companies are participating in a food drive this week. And the plain, tragic fact is some children have parents who aren’t particularly interested in caring for them. Ward Cleaver and Cliff Huxtable are off the television airways. But Ms. Davis is skeptical about the need to feed poor children during the summer when schools are closed. If — if — there really is one, she says, “churches and non-profits can do this at no cost to the taxpayer.” Or maybe not. “Most of our 18 (summer feeding program) sites are churches,” explains Rosemary Terranova, who oversees the program for St. Louis County. “We’re trying to support churches that want to offer some kind of summer recreation program for kids,” she says. “They supply the staff, we supply the food.” The program “has been a real blessing to us,” says Caroline Crenshaw of Bethesda Temple in Normandy, where 40 children attended day care last week while their parents worked. The summer feeding program’s cost is funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which pays about $1.81 for each breakfast served and $3.18 for each lunch. Last year, 3.7 million meals were served by the summer feeding program at a total cost of less than $9.5 million. That’s a pretty good use of federal money. In the same generous spirit as Ms. Davis, we’d like to offer a suggestion. • Tip: When you chair a state special committee on children and families, you probably ought to learn something about the needs of children and families.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Article printed from The Platform: http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/the-platform URL to article: http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/the-platform/published-editorials

------------- Countdown article snip:

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

USW has endorsed Trumka for AFL-CIO president


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The USW has endorsed Trumka for AFL-Cio president: PITTSBURGH – The United Steelworkers (USW) International Executive Board has unanimously endorsed Richard Trumka as the next president of the AFL-CIO.

Trumka, the federation’s current secretary-treasurer, is looking to succeed retiring AFL-CIO President John Sweeney at its convention in Pittsburgh this September. Trumka was first elected AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer in 1995.

“Not only does Richard have the experience and the intellectual capacity to do the job, he brings great heart and passion to the fight for issues that matter to America’s working families,” said USW International President Leo W. Gerard.

“We believe his life-long passion for helping workers, sparked by his own experiences as a third-generation coal miner, makes him the right person for the job.”

Steelworkers know Trumka for his willingness to support them and their issues on the picket lines across the country as well as in the halls of power in Washington, D.C.
http://www.usw.org/media_center/releases_advisories?id=0173
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This is his bio from AFL-Cio:

Richard L. Trumka was re-elected for a fourth term to the office of Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO in July 2005. He was first elected in 1995, the youngest secretary-treasurer in AFL-CIO history, as part of an insurgent campaign to reinvigorate the American labor movement. In 2009, President Barack Obama named Trumka to the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, chaired by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul A. Volcker.

Trumka led the creation of the AFL-CIO Capital Stewardship Program in 1997 to promote the retirement security of America’s working families. AFL-CIO member unions sponsor pension and benefit plans with more than $400 billion in assets and are a major force in the global capital markets. Under Trumka’s leadership, the AFL-CIO Capital Stewardship Program promotes corporate governance reform, investment manager accountability, pro-worker investment strategies, international pension fund cooperation and trustee education and support.

As a member of the AFL-CIO Executive Council, Trumka is chairman of the Strategic Approaches Committee, charged with assisting affiliated unions that seek assistance in achieving their strategic goals through collective bargaining. He also chairs the AFL-CIO Finance Committee and the AFL-CIO Capital Stewardship Committee, which works to ensure workers’ deferred wages are wisely invested to provide the best long-term benefits to America’s working families.

At the time of his 1995 election, Trumka was serving his third term as president of the United Mine Workers of America. During his tenure as UMWA president, Trumka led the union in two major strikes against the nation’s coal companies—actions that resulted in significant advances in employer-employee cooperation and enhanced mine workers’ job security, pensions and benefits.

A member of the AFL-CIO Executive Council since 1989, Trumka was instrumental in developing tactics to rally the support of international labor on behalf of U.S. workers struggling for workplace justice against multinational conglomerates. He also served on the executive boards of the International Miners’ Federation and the ICFTU and played a key role in organizing a new global coalition of coal miners’ unions in five countries.

Trumka, a third-generation coal miner from Nemacolin, Penn., began working in the mines at age 19. As a member of UMWA Local 6290, he served as chairman of the safety committee. He soon became an activist in the Miners for Democracy reform movement.

He is a graduate of Pennsylvania State University and holds a law degree from Villanova University Law School. He served four years on the legal staff of the UMWA during the reform administration of Arnold Miller, returning to work in the mines in 1978. Subsequently, he was elected to the union’s executive board in 1981 and first elected international president in 1982. Since 1995, he has served as President Emeritus of the United Mine Workers of America.

Among the many awards Trumka has received are the Gompers-Murray-Meany Award from the Massachusetts AFL-CIO and the Labor Responsibility Award from the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in 1990. In 1996 he received The Jewish National Fund Tree of Life Award for his outstanding commitment to the American labor movement, the nation and to the State of Israel. He was also honored by The Sons of Italy Foundation with its 2003 Humanitarian Award.

http://www.aflcio.org/aboutus/thisistheaflcio/leaders/officers_trumka.cfm
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this is the wiki bio: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Trumka

Richard Louis Trumka (July 24, 1949)[1] is an organized labor leader in the United States. He currently serves as the Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO, a post to which he was elected in 1995. He previously was president of the United Mine Workers from 1982 to December 22, 1995.

Trumka was born in Nemacolin, Pennsylvania, a third-generation coal miner and son of Frank Richard and Eola Elizabeth (Bertugli) Trumka.[1] He went to work in the mines at age 19. He received a bachelor of science degree from Pennsylvania State University in 1971 and a law degree from Villanova University in 1974.[1][2] He married the former Barbara Vidovich in 1982, and they have one son.[1]

From 1974 to 1979, Trumka was a staff attorney with the United Mine Workers at their headquarters in Washington, D.C.[1] He was elected to the board of directors of UMWA District 4 in 1981, and president of the United Mine Workers in 1982.[1]

While president of the UMWA, Trumka led the successful nine-month strike against the Pittston Coal Company, which has been called a rallying symbol for the entire labor movement.[3] A major issue in the dispute was Pittston's refusal to pay into the industrywide health and retirement fund created in 1950. Mr. Trumka encouraged non-violent civil disobedience to confront the company and relied on a sophisticated corporate campaign involving Wall Street investors.

Besides his domestic labor activities, then-President Trumka established an office that raised U.S. mineworker solidarity with the mineworkers of South Africa while they were fighting racial apartheid.[4] He further served as the U.S. Shell boycott chairman, which challenged the multinational Royal Dutch/Shell Group for its continued business dealings in South Africa. For these steps, Trumka received the 1990 Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award.

Upon joining the AFL-CIO, Trumka has focused on creating investment programs for the pension and benefit funds of the labor movement and fighting what he believes to be excessive corporate profits. He chairs the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council, a consortium of manufacturing unions focusing on key issues in trade, health care and labor law reform. He co-chairs the China Currency Coalition, an alliance of industry, agriculture, services, and worker organizations whose stated mission is to support U.S. manufacturing.

On July 1, 2008, Trumka delivered a speech attacking racism in the 2008 presidential election.[5] A video [6] with an excerpt of the speech attracted more than 525,000 hits on YouTube, with Trumka becoming the first labor speaker to reach such a broad audience in cyberspace.[citation needed]


[edit] Notes
1.^ a b c d e f Who's Who in America. 62nd ed. New Providence, N.J.: Marquis Who's Who, 2007. ISBN 0083797011
2.^ Jim McKay, "From Mines to Summit of Unionism," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, October 23, 1995.
3.^ Frank Swoboda, "Coal Miner Strike Was Symbol for Labor Movement," Washington Post, January 2, 1990.
4.^ Hill, Sylvia. "Presentation: The Free South African Movement." African National Congress. October 10- 13, 2004.
5.^ John Nichols, "AFL's Trumka: Labor Must Battle Racism to Elect Obama," Capital Times, July 3, 2008.
6.^ AFL-CIO's Richard Trumka on Racism and Obama

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Veba for UAW takes hit

The following is from Charlie's blog and deals with the injustice that some UAW folks will face:


http://www.charlieaverill.blogspot.com/

Tuesday, June 16, 2009
U.S. Treasury Department Screws GM Retirees and Actives


U.S. Treasury Department treats USW/IUE-CWA/IAM/ and
Teamster retirees differently then UAW retirees. General
Motors and the UAW agreed to fund current and future retiree
health care through a Voluntary Employee Benefit Association
Trust (VEBA) fund. As part of the bankruptcy process the
Trust was partially funded with cash and the balance through
GM stock of the new company.

General Motors agreed in principal to fund a VEBA for the
other unions that represent workers in their facilities but
the Treasury Department intervened and halted the process.
This intervention prevents about 50,000 current and future
retirees from receiving health care coverage they were
promised by General Motors. Rather than receiving the
benefits they deserve the workers represented by these other
unions are thrown into the bankruptcy process as unsecured
creditors. This essentially wipes out any chance of these
current and future retirees of ever receiving health care
benefits from General Motors.

The unions referenced above are fighting this injustice. We
need your help!

please contact your elected representatives and demand that
all GM current and future retirees be treated the same as
the UAW retirees.
Posted by Charlie Averill at 10:09 AM

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some steelworkers back to work on eastside

This is some good news for the folks on the eastside.

----------------------------
Posted on Tue, Jun. 16, 2009
Workers return to U.S. Steel's Granite City mill to restart plant
BY WILL BUSS
News-Democrat


About 100 maintenance workers will return to U.S. Steel's Granite City mill this week to began preparing the plant to restart production.



United Steelworkers District 7 Sub District 2 Director Dave Dowling said more details about more jobs returning to Granite City Works may become known before the end of the week.



"In terms of production, when that might ramp up and start recalling workers, it's still unknown," Dowling said.



Jeff Evans, who as president of the Local 68 represents 140 electricians at the mill, said that 41 of his members are returning to work this week, and he anticipates the rest will be called back in two weeks. Evans also estimated that as many as 600 steel workers who work in the plant's blast furnace could be back in three to four weeks.



"I was told others would return soon, but they didn't give me a time frame," Evans said.



He has also heard that workers could be converting hot liquid steel strip into slabs in four weeks.



"It take a couple weeks to warm up the blast furnace," he said. "If they don't warm them up, that could cause damage."



Mike Fultz is one of 57 steel workers laid off from Stein Steel Mill Services, which is located adjacent to U.S. Steel mill, the week after 1,600 U.S. Steel workers were furloughed in December.



"We do not know, yet, but what Stein tells us is that welders are the first that will be called back," Fultz said. "You can't pour hot steel into cold pots."



U.S. Steel Corp. announced Monday that the Pittsburgh-based company plans to recall about 800 laid-off workers at a plant in Canada this summer. The Hamilton, Ontario, plant will restart production at its coke ovens to produce coke that will be shipped to Granite City Works.



The Canadian mill employed about 1,700 people when it was idled in October. About 700 workers elected to retire early. and more than 800 were laid off in waves starting in November.



Dowling said the reopening of the Granite City Steel mill represents a "glimmer of hope," though "we don't know how prolonged this increase will be. We're certainly hopeful that it's a sign of a more general recovery in manufacturing."



Even so, American steel producers and their employees face a big threat from imports of Chinese-made steel, including Chinese pipe.



On Monday morning, Steelworkers Local 1899 President Dan Simmons spoke before steel workers in Granite City before leaving to travel to Washington, D.C., where he will testify before the Congressional Steel Caucus. Simmons said he will discuss further action Congress can take to stabilize the steel industry. He said he will talk about the impact the six-month shutdown has had on the Granite City plant and will call on Congress to look "at policies that need to be in place that support manufacturing in the U.S. and support steel making in the U.S."



"The key thing to remember is for Congress to have the 'political will' to support manufacturing in the U.S.," Simmons said. "We've got laws on the books that support the vital importance of being able to make goods in this country. There just hasn't been the will there politically to enforce that."



"I will describe the outrage we felt as we went to the unemployment lines and watched miles and miles of steel pipe imported from India being unloaded in our backyard. Although a startup of steel making at Granite City later this summer has been announced, we don't yet know when all of our members may be called back to work. And certainly, the crisis in the steel industry and in American manufacturing is not over. Hopefully, the surge in orders that led to the announced start-up will be sustained by a real economic recovery."

Reporter Mike Fitzgerald contributed to this story. Contact reporter Will Buss at wbuss@bnd.com or 239-2526.


© 2007 Belleville News-Democrat and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved. http://www.belleville

healthcare yesterday MSNBC

Folks on MSNBC have been busy covering healthcare news and views. Most of these snips are from yesterday. I watch MSNBC all the time and recommend others to do likewise. Ed Show is good source of info on the topic.

Again, I ask the folks to do some critical thinking. Talking heads sometimes tend not to cover the issue in detail. It is those details that are important.

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Why do I put MSNBC often on this site? They are covering the story in detail, unlike most of the national media. CNN has some and Fox does coverage of the GOP nonsense in this debate. Again, this stuff is copyrighted and I will withdraw if objections made.
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KC Emmerson healthcare

This is from KC television station about two months ago. Healthcare mentioned

June 10th, 2009 Conyers on single payer

This is the testimony of Mr. Conyers on June 10th:

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Mr. Blunt's healthcare comments

-------------------------


-----------------------
Roy Blunt has been a busy man. Above is his most recient clip on healthcare.

This is from wiki: Roy D. Blunt (born January 10, 1950) is a Republican politician from Missouri, representing Missouri's 7th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives. He was the House Republican whip for the 110th United States Congress, having announced after the 2008 general election that he would step down from the position.

After House Majority Leader Tom DeLay stepped down due to a criminal indictment in Texas, Blunt served as interim majority leader from September 29, 2005, to February 2, 2006, when John Boehner of Ohio was elected as DeLay's permanent replacement.

Blunt's son Matt Blunt is the former governor of Missouri.

On February 19, 2009, Blunt announced he would run for the Republican nomination for the United States Senate seat being vacated by Senator Kit Bond in 2010.
-------------------

Citizens for Ethics in September 2006 called Blunt "one of the 20 most corrupt members of Congress. at: http://www.citizensforethics.org/node/19081

from article: "Family connections have also helped Rep. Blunt’s son, Missouri Governor Matt Blunt, who received campaign contributions from nearly three dozen influential Missouri lobbyists and lawyers when he ran for governor in 2004, over half of whom had provided financial support to his father." We all know the story of Matt and his decision to not run for Missouri Governer last election

http://www.crewsmostcorrupt.org/ is the 2009 article and might be on interest to folks

Saturday, June 13, 2009

More healthcare news, June 12, 2009 from Bloomberg

This is an interesting story of how some of the insurance folks and their congressional buddies are in panic mode. The insurance companies are in the middle of a massive media blitz. Look for "anti healthcare reform" to be the major ad buyers in the coming months.

Also look for a less than objective media review healthcare reforms. After all, insurance companies, drug makers and the like are major players in the ad markets and they are major sources of revenue to radio, television and all outlets of media (except this one, who always has a hand out).

Also look for more than one congressfolk to side with these folks beyond the ones who already have announced "troubles" with upcoming proposed changes.

Time for those "multi-payer" folks to look for help from the single-payer folks if they wish change. a word of advice to those multi-payers: we single payer folks were not amused that you stacked the deck against proposals like HR676, not amused at all. In fact, the majority of the folks pushing for healthcare reform over the last few years were supporters of single-payer.

Good luck getting it thru congress without our active help.

link:

Bloomberg Printer-Friendly Page
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Friday, June 12, 2009

Russian Fuel imports to Missouri

Another chapter in the history of imports to the nation.
----------------------------------------
Nuclear fuel from Russia coming to Misouri
Thursday, June 11, 2009, 10:01 PM
By Bob Priddy
Missouri's only commercial nuclear plant is going to be getting fuel from a source that might have surprised many people just a few years ago.

Ameren UE and two other major utility companies that operate similar nuclear power plants have broken new ground by agreeing to buy nuclear fuel from Tenex, the state nuclear fuel exporter for Russia.

From 20-14 through 20-20, Ameren will get about 25 percent of its nuclear fuel from Tenex.

Until last year the only uranium Russia could sell to the United States came from dismantled nuclear weapons. But federal law has change to allow utilities to buy Russian enriched uranium.

Ameren spokesman Mike Cleary says Russia has opened up a lot since the Soviet era and is just selling on the open market a product it has.

The enriched uranium will be shipped to Columbia, South Carolina, where it will be turned into fuel rods before it is shipped to the Callaway plant.

The three companies will spend one-billion dollars in the deal that will provide fuel for nuclear plants in Missouri, Texas, and California.

http://www.missourinet.com/gestalt/go.cfm?objectid=D1B50115-5056-B82A-372EDCC3A810A6E4

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Sen Shelby and healthcare

In case you did not catch the remarks of Senator Shelby on Fox. Shelby is not an ally of folks trying to reform healthcare by the way nor is very pro-labor in his views.


The good senator opposed the auto-bailout and has a zero rating with the enviromental folks. Auto workers gave him in 07 a rating of 15% (Boilermakers game him a big 0). Afl-cio gave him a big 7% in 2006 of a possible 100% political rating on labor issues.

He is up for reelection in 2010 and watch how many things he will oppose. One hopes the folks in Alabama reflect on this fine gentleman and retire him.

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Update: Senator Baucus and single payer

The following is from the Daily Kos and deals with nurses and Senator Baucus. Baucus sits down with single payer folks:


Inside the Baucus Single-Payer Meeting--What Was Said, What's Next
by National Nurses Movement

title:'Inside the Baucus Single-Payer Meeting--What Was Said, What's Next',
url:'http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/6/3/738531/-Inside-the-Baucus-Single-Payer-MeetingWhat-Was-Said,-Whats-Next'},

Wed Jun 03, 2009 at 02:26:08 PM PDT
Today’s meeting of the nation’s leading single payer activists with Sen. Max Baucus was historic, and a recognition of the power of the tens of thousands of nurses, doctors, and grassroots activists across the country who have been turning up the heat on the policy makers in Washington.


Make no mistake – your voices are being heard. And, the protests and pressure will continue.
As Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, told Baucus, "there is a groundswell" across the country that will continue to press for single payer reform, and Baucus and other policy makers in Washington "are going to get to know us very well." In a later press conference, DeMoro blasted the conventional wisdom that single payer is not politically viable. "Is it politically viable to let people die and suffer from a lack of political will?" Noting the fight for women’s suffrage and the civil rights movement, she emphasized, "we’re going to have to turn up the heat. Women did not get the right to vote by voting on it."

-------------rest of the blog entry deals with more: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/6/3/171427/8822?new=true

--------------------------
this is part of the rest:
-------------------
Baucus talked about his own positive experiences in Canada where he inspected the Canadian healthcare system first hand, "I was very impressed," during the healthcare debate in the early 1990s, noting the contrast between a Montana hospital which has an "entire floor" of people devoted to billing, and other administrative paper work, and a nearby Canadian hospital which does it all "in one room."

He agreed to use the power of his office to have charges dropped against the Baucus 13, nurses, doctors, and activists arrested for raising their voices in the committee hearings.
While Baucus continued to aver that single payer can not pass the legislature, the nurses and doctors pressed him to: • Hold a hearing in which the merits of single payer can be contrasted with the plans now rapidly advancing in the Senate. While Baucus said the tight timeline made that very difficult, Sanders noted that Sen. Chris Dodd is considering a health committee hearing on single payer, which Baucus could co-sponsor. Baucus said, "let me think about it." • Have the Congressional Budget Office score, do a financial analysis, of single payer legislation in addition to other health bills it scores. • Support legislation to allow federal waivers for individual states to enact single payer systems as national role models (another Sanders bill). • Assist in arranging a similar meeting between single payer leaders and President Obama.

Ultimately, Baucus threw the ball back to the President, citing the demand of the President to Congress to have a bill on his desk by October. "He wants a big win on healthcare reform," Baucus said. But the rush to adopt a flawed bill would hardly serve the Senate or the President well, DeMoro noted. "The President would be putting himself in a very bad position. We don’t want that to happen."

One after one, the other participants made compelling cases for single payer. Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, noted that only single payer can achieve effective cost controls. The alternatives being considered are "all unaffordable and unsustainable. Why pour more money into a dysfunctional system."

PNHP co-founder Dr. David Himmelstein said "the decision should be made on what’s going to work." He cited the Massachusetts law, where he lives, which is considered a model for both the Baucus proposal and the pending Kennedy bill. The bill is rapidly "fraying," said Himmelstein. Some 28,000 state residents are about to be cut off of subsidized coverage because the state can’t afford it, and new studies show conditions for many state residents back to where they were before the bill was passed with inadequate or no coverage, and medical bills they can’t pay.
Geri Jenkins, RN, Co-President of CNA/NNOC, said "we need evidence based policy," and all the evidence shows that single payer is the best way to contain costs, improve quality, and achieve universality.

PNHP President Dr. Oliver Fein cited the study last year reported in the Annals of Internal Medicine that 59 percent of physicians support a single-payer type system, and a new study showing doctors waste three to four weeks a year on paperwork that could be spent caring for patients. Sanders later praised the efforts of nurses, doctors and activists who have made single payer an inescapable part of the public discourse. "When you have the nurses and physicians saying the current system is not working," scores of people saying health care is a right and single payer the most cost effective approach, we’re seeing this grassroots movement growing and gaining momentum.
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One wonders if a person should "trust" folks that publically side with the thieves of Wall Street. One wonders how honest a person can be that accepts millions from these folks.

I suspect a bit of "fence mending" was the object of this meeting, not real substantial fact finding and opinion sharing.

One also wonders that as the "single payer folks" get organized to fight for single payer; how many single payer folks will hold their leaders responsible for their stacking the deck in favor of big business?

Democrats note: if you like the majorities you hold in congress, one had better listen to the American people. Yes, only 60% of folks favor a "public" health insurance; there are many more that have never heard of program proposals like HR676. I know of hard core Republicans whom favor a HR676 type program in Missouri.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Rationed healthcare

This is a gem I waited to post. From our friend Dick and Dick believes rationing healthcare not an answer. Alas Dick, we are rationed already; from the insurance companies and HMOs.:

This is copyrighted and I shall withdraw if objections made:

May 14, 2009
Only Way to Reduce Costs is to Ration HealthcareBy Dick Morris

When all of America's top health insurers and providers met at the White House this week and pledged to save $2 trillion over the next decade in health costs, they were pledging to sabotage our medical care. The blunt truth, which everybody agreed to keep quiet, is that the only way to reduce these costs is to ration healthcare, thereby destroying our system.

Here's why:

• Essential to any cost reduction is a cut in doctors' fees. Congress is trying to cut Medicare fees by 21 percent. But cuts in fees and doctors' incomes will just discourage people from entering the profession and those already in it from practicing. The limited number of doctors and nurses in the United States is the key constraint on the availability of healthcare. Our national inventory of 800,000 doctors is growing at only about 1 percent a year (18,000 med school graduates annually minus retirements), while the nurse population is stagnant at 1.4 million. To stretch these limited resources so that they can treat 50 million more people is possible only through the most severe kind of rationing.

• As in Canada, the best way to cut medical costs is to refrain from using the best drugs to treat cancer and other illnesses, thereby economizing at the expense of patients' lives. Forty-four percent of the drugs approved by the Canadian health authorities for use in their country are not allowed by the healthcare system due to their high cost. As a result, death rates from cancer are 16 percent higher in Canada than in the United States. We will pay for the attempt to save $2 trillion with our lives. (And remember, one cannot opt out of the Canadian system and pay for the medications out of pocket.)

• The only real way to save money on the scale projected is to ration healthcare services. Optimists say that this can be achieved by increased use of preventive care. But the Canadian experience indicates that when government - or its satellite private insurance providers - ration healthcare, they cut preventive care first. In Canada, colonoscopies are so rationed that the colon cancer rate is 25 percent higher than in the U.S. (even though Canada has a much smaller proportion of poor people, whose frequently bad diets make them more prone to the disease).
Obama's pretension that nobody will find changes in his or her current health insurance plans except for a magical reduction in their cost by $2,500 a year is a fool's proposition. Private health insurers will be no more private than TARP-funded banks or government-subsidized car companies are in Obama's America. They will be controlled by government healthcare planners who will approve treatments, limit drug use, hold down medical incomes and bring their cost-cutting programs to bear. Inevitably, their ax will fall on the oldest and the sickest among us, those least "deserving" of our newly limited and, under Obama's program, diminishing healthcare resources.

The other radical changes Obama is bringing about in our nation can always be reversed. New taxes can be repealed or lowered. That which was nationalized can be privatized. Government which has grown can be cut. But once the healthcare system is extended to cover everyone, with no commensurate increase in the resources available, the change will be forever. The vicious cycle of cuts in medical resources and in the number of doctors and nurses will doom healthcare in this country. This wanton destruction will not be reversible by any bill or program. A crucial part of our quality of life - the best healthcare in the world - will be gone forever.

Politically, voters will feel the impact of these "reforms" very quickly. When they face rejection or limitation at the hands of the bureaucrats, they will quickly understand that their options have become limited. Just as in the 1990s, when HMOs first became universal, the patient outrage will create a political force all its own and those who foisted this brave new world on the American people will be in their crosshairs.

Morris, a former political adviser to Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and President Bill Clinton, is the author of "Outrage." To get all of Dick Morris’s and Eileen McGann’s columns for free by email, go to www.dickmorris.com.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/05/14/death_of_us_healthcare__96474.html
at June 01, 2009