A Creative Idea for Health Care

I just heard about a compromise to the health care debate being worked out at the urging of conservative Republicans in both the Senate and the House. When people show up at a town hall meeting sponsored by a senator or a Congressman (of either party), they will be given a card. If they check the box indicating their opposition to socialized medicine, they will then be asked to provide their social security number. The cards will be sent to the government, and they will be permanently excluded from the Medicare system, because it is, after all, socialized medicine. If they're already on it, they will be terminated from the system. If they're not yet on it, they will be permanently ineligible.

The way it will be administered fairly is that all moneys that a person has paid into Medicare will be refunded to them (unless they are very elderly and they have received more in benefits than they have paid in), so they can then use the money to try to find equivalent insurance or whatever insurance they want. But they will be free of the problem of socialized medicine forever.

Save the Sanctimonious Blather about the Backbone of America

I will be the first to admit that knowing what to do about universal health insurance is not only far above my pay grade, but above my ability to comprehend, similar to my inadequacy in “getting” descriptions of the origins of the universe and the phenomenal popularity of Jon and Kate Plus Eight.

One thing I am certain of, however, is that the arguments one hears in certain media outlets, including Rush, Sean, and Human Events, that mandating employer health insurance coverage somehow infringes on a sacred freedom, are specious. These arguments are remarkably similar to the arguments in the early part of the last century that minimum-wage laws and worker-safety regulations violated the sanctity of contract. The Supreme Court, during the New Deal, happened to notice that the Constitution nowhere recognizes the “freedom of contract,” and state and federal laws and regulations requiring employers to pay at least a set minimum to hourly workers, or to pay overtime to those who work more than a set number of hours per week, were perfectly valid.

So too with Social Security and Medicare payments. For every dollar of wage paid to an employee, approximately 7.6 cents is withheld from the employee. Likewise, the employer must remit 7.6 cents to the federal government for its portion. It isn’t cheap, and both employers and employees look at the burden created and wonder whether they are getting equivalent value for the money paid into the system. Yet society determined, in the 1930s for Social Security, and in the 1960s for Medicare, that basic notions of human dignity required that the elderly be covered by these programs. Medicare, for all its faults, provides first-rate health care to senior citizens, and it is probably fair to say that no political candidate could be elected today who seriously espoused eliminating Medicare.

There is nothing wrong with now mandating that any employer over a certain size who wants to operate a business must either provide insurance or pay into a health care plan for its workers. The “backbone of America” argument that posits that this is a socialistic attack on small business owners would not fly if the topic were Medicare or Social Security. In those cases, the employer who doesn’t pay into those programs isn’t an American hero, he or she is a criminal.

Society would not countenance an employer who whined that the only way he could stay in business would be to pay his employees five dollars an hour instead of the minimum wage. Instead, society – acting through the government – would say, all right, then you cannot remain in business and it’s no big loss. If the business owner were the true entrepreneur and rugged individual the myth says he is, he’d simply pull up his socks, apply American ingenuity to his business, and squeeze some efficiencies out of his business from some source other than the hides of his workers.

We, as a society, have determined that basic human dignity requires a minimum wage. We have determined that basic human dignity requires Social Security and Medicare. Each of those is paid for first by the employer and, in the latter two cases, the employee, but ultimately the costs are passed on to society in the form of higher costs of goods and services.

Frankly, it would level the competitive playing field to require all employers to provide health insurance. We would understand the squeals of indignation from a company paying at least minimum wage and Social Security and Medicare if a competitor were permitted to skip those expenses. Here in the Southwest, that perceived unfairness has led to laws imposing severe sanctions against employers who hire illegal immigrants. If our representatives in Washington now want to say ALL employers must add health insurance to the list of requirements they must meet in order to operate, then there is nothing wrong with that. So let’s save the sanctimonious blather about the attack on small business. Small business deals with regulation all the time. Let’s show some respect for the low-wage employee whose ability to lead a dignified existence can be destroyed in a flash by a sudden accident or illness. Business – large or small – isn’t the backbone of America; her people are.

What Outrages the Public?

Today we have the report on the Justice Department's hiring practices for its staff Honors Program and its Summer Internship Program. We learned that hiring decisions for these programs, which historically had been made by staff, career lawyers, were taken over by political appointees. The result? Rhodes Scholars, Ivy League graduates, law review editors, and other top candidates were routinely rejected if they had affiliations with Democratic or "left-leaning" organizations such as the Nature Conservancy and Greenpeace. Their places were filled with applicants whose major qualification seemed to be fealty to the Bush administration and conservative causes. Never mind whether the taxpayers were served by the best public employees available, or whether cases involving the Justice Department were staffed by competent lawyers.

This is nothing less than a full, frontal assault on the integrity and independence of the legal system by the completely politicized Bush Administration. It's another example of the breathtaking arrogance and disregard of democratic institutions engineered by the dunce-in-chief and his puppetmaster Karl Rove.

It will be interesting to see whether there is any sense of outrage from the public over this report. I expect there won't be a peep, as the public saves its anger for things that really matter, like whether Barack Obama wears a flag lapel pin or has a wild-eyed minister.

Democrats - Standing for Something, Anything

Over on Arianna Huffington's blog, there's a debate raging about the position of many Democratic senators, principally Hillary Clinton, on the flag-burning amendment. Hillary, as you may know, sponsored legislation that would criminalize flag-burning or other desecration of the American flag. But she opposed actually amending the Constitution to allow Congress to criminalize the conduct.

The debate amongst the blognoscenti has to do with whether the Democrats should strive for electoral success by adopting "nuanced" positions that will appeal to the center, or by more clearly differentiating themselves and their positions from the Republicans. In other words, the question is, which has the better chance of success -- trying to demonstrate that Democrats are really moderates, or trying to demonstrate that Democrats are liberal and progressive and, darn it all, they're proud of it.

I think the very debate demonstrates the real problem the Democrats have: what do they value? what do they stand for? The whole argument implies a deep distrust for the ability of the American electorate to understand what it is the Democrats would do if they got in control again. It seems to me they need to figure out a way to have a normal "conversation" with the public, one not influenced by focus groups and polls.

If they intend to raise taxes, say so, and say why it's important and what they'll be able to deliver with more money. If they don't like Iraq, what would they do differently and how would it work? Why is a woman's right to choose a value worth defending? And so on. If the Democrats can't trust the public to give them a fair hearing, it seems to me the public will sense that distrust and stay away from the Democratic standard as they have for the past few election cycles, viewing Kerry as an elitist masquerading as Joe Sixpack (on his way to a pheasant shoot), and Gore as a robot.

Bill Clinton, for his many flaws, had the uncanny ability to connect with ordinary people, and they felt like he was in their corner. They didn't feel like they were merely pawns in some game where the second the election was over the Democrats would start making broad social changes that were a slap at the core values of the very people who had elected them.

So Governor Dean, et al.: Just talk to us; tell us what is important to you, and why.

Pathetic Immigrants

We had over 200,000 demonstrators march in Phoenix today for immigrants' rights. It was completely peaceful and laid-back as this city always is, except for a few redneck counter-protestors who have nothing, but by God want to make sure that some Mexican doesn't come in and steal the job that the counter-protestors would never take in a million years.

I was struck by two things: first, the passion with which the marchers turned out by the thousands after living for years in the shadows, afraid to make a fuss because of the fear of being sent back.

Second, and more important, the earnestness with which people demonstrated for basic American and human rights. All they want, quite frankly, is the right to work...not the right to get welfare, not the right to have someone else pay for their care and feeding...but the right to work. They want their kids to be educated, and they want to be able to walk down the street in freedom, unafraid that they'll be rounded up and deported. It really strikes me as somewhat pathetic but extraordinarily touching...these people believe in the American dream far more intensely than the rest of us. I sometimes feel like shaking them and saying, "this country isn't that great! we're not that pure!" It reminded me of the civil rights marches of the 1960s, when black Americans finally began demanding such simple things as the right to vote, the right to a job, the right to buy a house without some racist trying to keep them out. But then it hit me: these folks, both the blacks of the 1960s and the hispanics today, still truly believe, and I feel some shame that I, who have so much and whose family has been here for 350 years, don't have the faith in this country...in this way of life...as these people who have nothing and who have risked everything to come here. I just wish the rednecks who have accomplished nothing, own nothing, contribute nothing, would get off their backs and stand out of their way. I'll take these folks on my team any day of the week.

Cheney and the Shotgun

Glad to hear the poor chap who caught a face full of bird shot courtesy of the Vice President is recovering, although (as others have said as well) the fact that he has suffered a heart attack apparently as a result of the accident takes much of the humor out of the situation.

What strikes me is the arrogance of this White House about everything. Cheney has finally made a public statement of remorse, but only after the hue and cry (a hunting expression which seems appropriate) became overwhelming...kind of like Queen Elizabeth deigning to pay respects to Princess Diana only after the din of public comment grew too loud to ignore. This really is an imperial presidency...this administration evidently believes it can ignore public opinion, Congress, the courts, world opinion, etc., with impunity. They need to remember that as powerful as they are, ultimately they are answerable to the people. And the people need to safeguard that right and demand that their elected leaders do more than pay lip service to this ideal.

Cleaning out the muck

Jack Abramoff, Tom DeLay, Bob Ney, Duke Cunningham, and plenty of others remind us of why we need to throw the current set of bums out of Congress and replace them with a new set. Too many of "our" "elected" "representatives" are selling their offices and their votes to the highest bidder. While the whole thing is wrong, think about how much money it costs the taxpayers to do things like build the bridge to nowhere; think also about how much important work isn't being done because the money is being wasted.

I was glad to see the Democrats tossed out in the 90s; I even voted for Bush in 2000 to clean out the Augean stables of corruption that the Clinton Administration had become. And it's time to do it again to this bunch. The political issues du jour are far less important than maintaining and restoring the integrity of our governmental institutions. Tossing these bums out may be a start.