“Let’s Work The Problem People”: Houston, We’ve Had A Health Care Problem For A Long Time
One of my favorite scenes in a movie is Ed Harris playing NASA ace Gene Kranz at mission control when Apollo 13 was about to burn up. He walks into a room full of engineers and scientists responsible for the mission as they are arguing and screaming at one another. He slams his fist down, quiets the crowd and says, “Let’s work the problem, people.”
That is how I feel about the launch of Obamacare. Fix it. Solve it. Make it work.
The other famous quote from that movie was Tom Hanks as Commander Jim Lovell when he said, “Houston, we have a problem.” The actual quote from Lovell was, “Houston we’ve had a problem.” Now that seems more appropriate for the herculean task of solving America’s health care problems.
We’ve had a problem, all right, for generations. We’ve failed to tackle the critical issue of health care in our country ever since Teddy Roosevelt. How can we justify more than 45 million Americans without health insurance? How can we rationalize a system that charges women twice as much as men? How can we not strike back against a system that would deny people health insurance because they had a pre-existing condition or that kicked them off because they hit a cap or got sick?
How can we possibly not recognize “we’ve had a problem” when costs have risen from $1,000 per person in the United States in 1980 to more than $8,000 in 2010? Costs going up 15 to 20 percent a year and eating up one-sixth of our economy are not sustainable.
The Republicans don’t want to work the problem, they want to sweep it back under the rug. Their goal is to turn this into a political football they can kick around between now and November. Five hearings in three days, more votes to destroy the Affordable Care Act. Not one suggested “fix” coming out of the Republicans in the House of Representatives.
I suggest House Speaker John Boehner and Rep. Darrell Issa watch the scene from Apollo 13 where the scientists react to Ed Harris. They put everything on the table that they have to work with in the space capsule and figure out how to bring the astronauts back safely to earth. They worked the problem; it is time for all concerned to do the same on health care. Mend it, don’t end it.
By: Peter Fenn, U. S. News and World Report, November 15, @013
“It’s My New Heart”: Dick Cheney, An Even Bigger Monster Than You Thought
You’ve probably heard that Dick Cheney agrees with Bill Clinton about letting people who are losing private insurance keep their old plans, as President Obama repeatedly seemed to promise they could. That’s not surprising: Cheney is a troll who maligns the president whenever he can, and piling on with Clinton is a special kind of fun. Yes, it’s outrageous that a man who has enjoyed many millions of dollars of taxpayer-funded medical care doesn’t give a damn about the uninsured in our society, but that’s Dick Cheney.
Still, I was a little startled to hear the former vice president express total indifference to questions about his heart donor in a revealing interview with Larry King (it airs Thursday night; here’s a clip). It’s a window into his utter entitlement and self-absorption, and he comes off as an even bigger monster than I’d thought. Most people would at least feign interest in the donor; Cheney can’t manage it.
When King asks if he knows the identity of the person whose heart keeps him alive, Cheney, who is promoting a book about his transplant experience, says no, and adds, “it hadn’t been a priority for me.” Then he goes on:
When I came out from under the anesthetic after the transplant, I was euphoric. I’d had–I’d been given the gift of additional lives, additional years of life. For the family of the donor, they’d just been [through] some terrible tragedy, they’d lost a family member. Can’t tell why, obviously, when you don’t know the details, but the way I think of it from a psychological standpoint is that it’s my new heart, not someone else’s old heart. And I always thank the donor, generically thank donors for the gift that I’ve been given, but I don’t spend time wondering who had it, what they’d done, what kind of person.
“It’s my new heart, not someone else’s old heart.” Consider the complete self-centeredness of that statement, and the utter lack of empathy. I shouldn’t be surprised at that — war criminals and torture-promoters aren’t known for their empathy — but I was. Cheney’s so absorbed in his great good luck that he can’t help sharing: “My cardiologist told me at one point, ‘You know, Dick, the transplant is a spiritual experience, not just for the patient, but also for the team.’” What a generous guy, sharing that “spiritual experience” with his cardiology team! So: Cheney is happy to have a new heart, but doesn’t bother to “spend time wondering who had it, what they’d done, what kind of person.”
And his statement that it wasn’t a “priority” to learn about his heart donor revealingly echoes his explanation for getting five deferments from the Vietnam War: The notorious war hawk famously told the Washington Post: “I had other priorities in the ’60s than military service.” Now he has other priorities than learning about his heart donor.
It’s certainly not compulsory to find out about the person who died so that you could live – who gave what Cheney called “the gift of life itself.” There may be valid psychological reasons not to. I don’t judge that decision. But I can’t get over the coldness required to express complete indifference to knowing about that person, and their family’s suffering.
Or could it be compassion? For a lot of people, the tragedy of a family member dying would be compounded, not lessened, by learning that their heart went to Cheney. Nah, there’s neither compassion nor self-awareness in the way Cheney talks about receiving “the gift of life,” from American taxpayers or from his mystery heart donor.
By: Joan Walsh, Editor at Large, Salon, November 14, 2013
“Poverty In America Is Mainstream”: It’s An Issue Of Us, Rather Than An Issue Of Them
Few topics in American society have more myths and stereotypes surrounding them than poverty, misconceptions that distort both our politics and our domestic policy making.
They include the notion that poverty affects a relatively small number of Americans, that the poor are impoverished for years at a time, that most of those in poverty live in inner cities, that too much welfare assistance is provided and that poverty is ultimately a result of not working hard enough. Although pervasive, each assumption is flat-out wrong.
Contrary to popular belief, the percentage of the population that directly encounters poverty is exceedingly high. My research indicates that nearly 40 percent of Americans between the ages of 25 and 60 will experience at least one year below the official poverty line during that period ($23,492 for a family of four), and 54 percent will spend a year in poverty or near poverty (below 150 percent of the poverty line).
Even more astounding, if we add in related conditions like welfare use, near-poverty and unemployment, four out of five Americans will encounter one or more of these events.
In addition, half of all American children will at some point during their childhood reside in a household that uses food stamps for a period of time.
Put simply, poverty is a mainstream event experienced by a majority of Americans. For most of us, the question is not whether we will experience poverty, but when.
But while poverty strikes a majority of the population, the average time most people spend in poverty is relatively short. The standard image of the poor has been that of an entrenched underclass, impoverished for years at a time. While this captures a small and important slice of poverty, it is also a highly misleading picture of its more widespread and dynamic nature.
The typical pattern is for an individual to experience poverty for a year or two, get above the poverty line for an extended period of time, and then perhaps encounter another spell at some later point. Events like losing a job, having work hours cut back, experiencing a family split or developing a serious medical problem all have the potential to throw households into poverty.
Just as poverty is widely dispersed with respect to time, it is also widely dispersed with respect to place. Only approximately 10 percent of those in poverty live in extremely poor urban neighborhoods. Households in poverty can be found throughout a variety of urban and suburban landscapes, as well as in small towns and communities across rural America. This dispersion of poverty has been increasing over the past 20 years, particularly within suburban areas.
Along with the image of inner-city poverty, there is also a widespread perception that most individuals in poverty are nonwhite. This is another myth: According to the latest Census Bureau numbers, two-thirds of those below the poverty line identified themselves as white — a number that has held rather steady over the past several decades.
What about the generous assistance we provide to the poor? Contrary to political rhetoric, the American social safety net is extremely weak and filled with gaping holes. Furthermore, it has become even weaker over the past 40 years because of various welfare reform and budget cutting measures.
We currently expend among the fewest resources within the industrialized countries in terms of pulling families out of poverty and protecting them from falling into it. And the United States is one of the few developed nations that does not provide universal health care, affordable child care, or reasonably priced low-income housing. As a result, our poverty rate is approximately twice the European average.
Whether we examine childhood poverty, poverty among working-age adults, poverty within single-parent families or overall rates of poverty, the story is much the same — the United States has exceedingly high levels of impoverishment. The many who find themselves in poverty are often shocked at how little assistance the government actually provides to help them through tough times.
Finally, the common explanation for poverty has emphasized a lack of motivation, the failure to work hard enough and poor decision making in life.
Yet my research and that of others has consistently found that the behaviors and attitudes of those in poverty basically mirror those of mainstream America. Likewise, a vast majority of the poor have worked extensively and will do so again. Poverty is ultimately a result of failings at economic and political levels rather than individual shortcomings.
The solutions to poverty are to be found in what is important for the health of any family — having a job that pays a decent wage, having the support of good health and child care and having access to a first-rate education. Yet these policies will become a reality only when we begin to truly understand that poverty is an issue of us, rather than an issue of them.
By: Mark R. Rank, The New York Times, November 2, 2013
“Being Crazy Isn’t Enough”: The Greedy Once-Ler Gets All The Way To The End Of “Green Eggs And Ham”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who’s still talking to hear himself talk, raised a few eyebrows last night by reading, among other things, from Dr. Seuss. Watch on YouTube
For those who can’t watch clips online, the far-right Texan read “Green Eggs and Ham” with great earnestness from the Senate floor. (He can’t hold a candle to the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s version, but let’s put that aside for now.) Cruz continued to reference the book after having put it down, insisting it “has some applicability, as curious as it may sound, to the Obamacare debate.”
He added, “The difference with green eggs and ham — when Americans tried it, they discovered they did not like green eggs and ham, and they did not like Obamacare, either. They did not like Obamacare in a box, with a fox, in a house, or with a mouse.”
There is, however, a small problem with Cruz’s choice of literary references: he apparently didn’t understand the story.
In “Green Eggs and Ham,” our protagonist thinks he dislikes food he hasn’t tried. By the end, the character discovers green eggs and ham really aren’t so bad after all. Indeed, he comes to regret criticizing something he didn’t fully understand, and ends up celebrating the very thing he’d complained about so bitterly.
Cruz thinks this “has some applicability, as curious as it may sound, to the Obamacare debate”? What a coincidence; I think it has some applicability, too.
Indeed, the larger point helps underscore why the right is fighting so furiously to defund, delay, sabotage, impair, malign, and otherwise undermine the federal health care law right now, before it’s too late. Unhinged Republicans aren’t worried Obamacare will fail; they’re worried it will work and Americans will discover they quite like green eggs and ham after all.
Eugene Robinson had a good piece on this yesterday, published well ahead of the theatrics on the Senate floor.
Republicans scream that Obamacare is sure to fail. But what they really fear is that it will succeed.
That’s the reason for all the desperation. Republicans are afraid that Obamacare will not prove to be a bureaucratic nightmare — that Americans, in fact, will find they actually like it.
Similarly, Josh Marshall referenced one of my favorite health care stories yesterday. Bill Kristol wrote a strategy memo as the Clinton-era health care fight was getting underway, urging Republicans to destroy reform at all costs. The conservative pundit said at the time that if Clinton succeeded, Democrats would be seen as the “protector of middle-class interests,” and it would be politically impossible to take away the health care benefits once they were in place.
What the GOP had to do, Kristol said, was put the party’s interests over the country’s needs, stopping the reform effort before Americans discovered they like it. Republicans, of course, agreed.
Nearly two decades later, the script hasn’t changed much, except now the green eggs and ham are on the plate and the public is poised to discover how much they like the very thing they’ve been told to complain about.
Why Ted Cruz thinks this story is helpful to his cause is a bit of a mystery, but maybe later today, one of his friends from Harvard or Princeton can have a chat with him about literary interpretation and the potency of metaphors.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, September 25, 2013
“More Than A Value For Birth”: A Right-Wing Agenda Can Be Defeated
Pope Francis is stirring up all Catholics and the ways that we are involved in the world — including in politics. For too long the leaders of our church were either firmly committed to a narrow view of the Gospel or were timid about speaking of the full message of Jesus. Politicians have been for not toeing the line on the narrow message.
Now we have a breath of fresh air. This fresh air is disturbing to those who have engineered the narrow message. I can only imagine that those who have been focused on abortion and same sex marriage are angry at the sea change. Their crafty plans of using faith for a right-wing political agenda are crashing down around their ears. Pope Francis is saying that the Gospel cannot be used to benefit one political party.
In 2012 U.S. Catholic sisters and my organization, Network, were criticized by the Vatican for not holding their narrow focus. Now we see that our pope knows that no one political party has control of the Gospel message.
The faith value of life is more than a value for birth. Gospel values that mandate a care for the poor are at the heart of our faith and Pope Francis is speaking of that message. I don’t believe that our pope (or God) would be pleased with the Republican effort to eliminate food stamps for hungry people, end housing benefits for struggling workers, deny healthcare for those with no access and to refuse to consider comprehensive immigration reform.
Pope Francis spoke of his own change and conversion to a more compassionate leadership. He is speaking to the heart of those who have been in control with fear and judgment. The test is to see if they can embrace the more challenging role of struggling together to create the common good.
Catholic Democrats also have a test in front of them. They have struggled for years to be faithful in the face of a narrow right-wing agenda. Now the challenge will be for them not to retaliate. The conversion for the Democrats will be to continue to work for the full message of the Gospel and not be arrogant or judgmental themselves.
On the bus we learned that we need the 100 percent to embody our faith. We need the 100 percent to make the Gospel live. And in our pluralistic country I pray that this renewed message will help the 100 percent live our communal and Constitutional mandate to “form a more perfect union.”
By: Sister Simone Campbell, Executive Director of Network, Opinion Pages, The New York Times, September 22, 2013
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