Deja Vu All Over Again ... Again
September 4, 2009 - 9:33am ET
Sometimes you think you've lived before
All that you live today
Things you do come back to you
As though they knew the way
Oh, the tricks your mind can play!"Where or When," Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart
"It seems we've stood and talked like this before," goes the Rodgers and Hart lyric above, finally ending with a question: "But who knows where or when?"
When it comes to health care reform, it does seem we've "stood and talked like this before," because we have — many times. And there's no question as to where or when.
The pitfall of the "compromise" being discussed by the White House and Sen. Olympia Snowe seems so obvious that it almost pains me to point it out.
President Obama and top aides have quietly stepped up talks with moderate Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine on a scaled-back health care bill, according to two sources familiar with the negotiations.
The compromise plan would lack a government-run public health insurance option favored by Obama, but would leave the door open to adding that provision down the road under an idea proposed by Snowe, the sources said.
...The modified proposal would include insurance reforms, such as preventing insurance companies from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, according to the source.
The potential deal would give insurance companies a defined period to make such changes in order to help cover more people and drive down long-term costs. But if those changes failed to occur within the defined period, a so-called "trigger" would provide for creating a public option to force change on the insurance companies, the source said.
"Some things that happened for the first time, seem to be happening again," the song goes. (Yes, I'm humming Rodgers and Hart even as I type this.) Well, yeah. But some things that happened for the "first time" don't just seem to be happening again. They are happening again.
The situation here is so excruciatingly obvious that any number of cliches — so many that I could fit them all in without ending up with a blog post that would rival War & Peace. So I'll just pick a few.
Albert Einstein once defined insanity as "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." It shouldn't take an Einstein to see that giving insurance companies "a defined period to make changes" — basically, to reform themselves — isn't the way to achieve reform that will "cover more people" and "drive down costs." After all, we just did it and it didn't work.
Except, it was the credit card industry we were trying to "reform" back in May, when Congress passed and the president signed a credit card "reform bill" that would restrict credit card industry practices like arbitrary rate increases, unannounced rate increases, "universal default," "over the limit" charges, and exorbitant fees.
That is, it would prevent them eventually. You see, the credit reform bill had a few holes in it. One of the more gaping holes was the credit card industries a "defined period of time" before the "reforms" take effect.
Most of the provisions take effect nine months after the bill is signed into law — so likely in February 2010 — giving credit card issuers ample time to raise rates or fees.
"This is a strong package, but it's a disappointment" that the protections won't take effect until next year, says Gail Hillebrand, attorney at Consumers Union
Actually, a "strong" package would have taken place immediately, or a lot faster than nine months. What we did instead was tell credit card companies that they don't have to clean up their acts right now. We weren't going to pull the "trigger" on reform for a whole nine months.
So, given plenty of time, they pulled their trigger first. As a result, consumers got splattered with those increased rates and fees we were warned about before. Citibank jacked up rates on 15 million accounts just a month after the "reform" bill was signed. The same month, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Capitol One pulled their triggers raised their rates too.
In August, they came back for more.
Since Congress approved the landmark credit card overhaul legislation last spring, many issuers of plastic have jacked up interest rates, switched accounts from fixed to variable rates, and raised annual fees and penalties for late payments. The actions are helping banks lock in revenue ahead of the new restrictions under the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act.
SinceApril, the average variable rate on new cards has risen steadily to 11.22% as of this week from 10.69%, according to Bankrate.com, a consumer finance website. This comes even though the prime rate, the index to which card rates are generally pegged, hasn't moved in that period.
"It seems [banks] are getting their shots in while they can," said Greg McBride, senior financial analyst at Bankrate. The sweeping actions by banks -- which must now give customers at least 45 days' notice when making a significant change -- signal a profound shift in the way banks and consumers deal with plastic. Bankers and others have argued that the new law will further crimp consumer spending by leading to reduced access to credit and higher interest rates for cardholders, thus hurting an economic recovery.
Consumers say they are already feeling the pinch of higher credit card fees.
If interest rates rates and annual fees were automatic rifles, consumers would be shot full of more holes than the "reform" that's supposed protect them. Because fewer and fewer people are working anymore, at the same time more and more of the same people face higher credit card rates and fees, credit cards defaults are climbing. They reached record levels in May — the highest since 1980.
When they're not raising rates and fees,credit card companies are figuring out new ways to squeeze consumers who are all but economically bled dry by now. And they still have plenty of time to do so between now and when "reform" kicks in.
That's the problem with the "defined period of time" and the "trigger," regardless of how either is ultimately defined. The outcome is that the very entities desperately in need of regulating for the sake of consumers — the working men and women who make up the real economy that supplies financial entities with fees and interest to invest in whatever they cook up next — get more time to cook up a new way around new regulations, and with more than enough holes in the newly passed "reform" to light their way.
The law, which the House of Representatives passed and sent to Obama on Wednesday, will impose far-reaching restrictions on everything from interest rate increases — which have become common even though interest rates in general have fallen — to when and how issuers impose over-limit and late fees.
But experts say it doesn't go far enough in tackling some of the practices that have mired consumers in a never-ending cycle of debt.
"I'm torn because the legislation has its heart in the right place," says Adam Levitin, Georgetown University law professor. The problem is, "It just doesn't address the hydraulic nature of the market. If you block one avenue, the market's going to circumvent it."
And they will, if you give them plenty of time to do it.
Like I said, it doesn't take an Einstein. The lawmakers who are devising a "defined period of time" for the health insurance industry to reform itself have to know that they're doing the same thing they did before and expecting different results. Or, at least, they're telling us to expect different results.
Either that, or they're not paying attention. We essentially did the same thing with the bailout. And now we're still debating bonuses and begging banks to modify mortgages, while bankruptcies and Business |
The Guardian" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/aug/13/us-home-repossessions-rise">foreclosures skyrocket. This is after essentially trusting them to reform themselves.
Anybody who doesn't see the obvious parallels to health care reform either doesn't want to or doesn't care to. But if you think the comparisons above aren't not apt, consider that we've done the same thing with health insurers before.
Negotiations and concessions, whether over health care reform or homework, come down to how much one party can still get away with. And the insurance industry has gotten away with a lot in the long, long history of health care reform in this country, which goes all the way back to the inclusion of health care in the Progressive Party platform.
You can see, at various points along the timeline above, insurance companies opposed from the beginning any efforts to provide Americans with affordable, quality health insurance. Though the Clinton plan was the last attempt at universal health care in the U.S., what’s happening now bears more resemblance to 1977 than 1994.
That’s the last time the health insurance industry made a “voluntary effort” to control costs, after President Carter proposed tougher cost controls. The result was the Hospital Cost Containment Act of 1977, passed without cost controls, and a “voluntary effort” that didn’t last very long.
More than a decade before the Clinton experience, then-President Jimmy Carter called for legislation to impose cost controls on hospitals as a way to rein in rising medical expenses. The industry came forward and said don’t bother with legislation, we will cut costs voluntarily. “Congress never passed cost controls and six months later there was no sign of voluntary cost controls,” recalled Robert Blendon, professor of health policy and political analysis at Harvard.
Health care spending soon surged again, and kept rising until 1993-1994 when — again threatened with real change in policy — the industry behaved itself just until the threat passed, and went back to business as usual.
The health care industry had more thirty years, and at least two obvious changes to change practices and policies that served profits more than patients, and put the health and lives of many Americans at risk. In 1977 and in 1994, they engaged in the kind of obfuscation a child does when he moves his vegetables around on his plate, and claims he’s eating them.
And, just to refresh, they gave us more behavior like this.
And more stories like these.
So, here we are. Some Americans are finding out that their health insurance premiums are going up s much as 29%. Some Americans are finding out how little the insurance they have — or the insurance they have left — actually covers, and how much more they're stuck with in medical bills. And some Americans are moving south of the border for cheaper medical care.
And we still think that they're going to change voluntarily? Given how much money they've invested in not having to change? (Those insurance industry salaries, after all, can turn into a lot of campaign contribution checks.) Does anyone really think that if we give them plenty of time, and pretty much everything they want, they'll decide to change their ways? (Because not changing isn't paying off?)
Anyone who pretends otherwise doesn't know what any six-year-old who's read If You Give A Mouse A Cookie, or had it read to them (as read below by First Lady Michelle Obama, with help from her mother and daughters) already knows.
We'll do all of this, and ultimately find ourselves right back here again. It'll be deja vu all over again ... again.
McClatchy Washington Bureau
Posted on Fri, Sep. 04, 2009
Commentary: Anger over health care should be directed at broken system
Mike Hendricks | The Kansas City Star
last updated: September 04, 2009 09:08:50 AM
What is it, something like two-thirds of us are supposedly happy with our health coverage?
A few years ago, you could have counted Mary Casey in that number. But then she contracted a rare form of cancer.
Her insurance company wouldn't pay for the drug that her doctor said might save her life. Corporate bureaucrats were the ones rationing health care then — and still are.
And when Casey appealed the decision, she learned of the existence of death panels long before Sarah Palin started mouthing off about the mythical ones in the House proposal.
The company's denial of her appeal left Casey and her family to count the months she had left or slowly go bankrupt because, naturally, the drug that her doctor felt gave her the best chance of survival was also expensive.
I told you about Casey's battle against her disease and a broken system back in 2007. She eventually got coverage for the drug she needed, but only after her story went national and because her husband's employer switched insurance carriers.
Her thoughts about today's rancorous debate:
"People have no idea, unless they have a chronic illness, what happens if they have to go above and beyond going for a physical or needing anything more than a prescription for their high blood pressure."
No, I think we all know what can happen. It's just that some of us would rather fool ourselves into thinking it could never happen to us. Like the shouters at the town hall meetings.
You wonder if they'd like the current system so much if they or someone in their family came down with a deadly or debilitating disease, only to have their insurer dump them.
Three Republican senators came to town this week to rail against government health care at an invitation-only forum. Meaning it was a friendly crowd. Nobody asked Kit Bond, Mitch McConnell or John McCain if they've done without regular medical screenings since becoming members of Congress.
Yet millions of Americans do go without. Faced with shelling out hundreds of dollars in co-pays for a routine colonoscopy, people choose to buy groceries instead.
The shouters rail about "socialized medicine," even the ones on Medicare, ironically enough.
They pop off about rationing, when rationing already exists, as Mary Casey and others know.
But what Americans ought to be hollering about is the fact that, in a country with supposedly the best health care in the world, some of our friends and neighbors are holding bake sales and raffles so sick relatives can get the treatment they need.
If in this health care debate you feel anger rising within you, direct it at that disgrace — and at those who would leave a broken system unchanged.
Taking Pride In Being Ignorant
Well the reviews are already in on Obama's big speech on "the importance of education", and they aren't pretty. The descriptions range from "brainwashing" and "indoctrination of your children" to accusations that Obama's speech shows that he is actually Mao, Hitler, Mussolini, and of course, a terrorist.
Right now you might be asking yourself, what speech on education? I didn't see any speech. Did the media not cover it? Why didn't I see any tweets??
Relax, relax, you didn't miss anything, I'm talking about the speech Obama hasn't even given yet, the one he is due to deliver on September 8th, a little less than a week from now. Now you might be asking yourself, but you just said there were damning reviews of the speech already, how is that possible??
Silly reader, didn't you know that conservatives have time machines? They don't need to wait for an event to actually happen to lambaste it with outlandish attacks of tinfoil hat lunacy. They have seen the future!
Yes, a week out from Obama's speech on education, in which he is expected to impart upon students the importance of education, as well as to challenge students to do such abhorrent things as "work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning", conservatives are already in a frenzy over his possible words. And of course the President's anti-American sacrilege doesn't stop there. Oh no, he also brings the war-against-all-that-is-good to parents and teachers, according to a letter from the Secretary of Education [1]:
He will also call for a shared responsibility and commitment on the part of students, parents and educators to ensure that every child in every school receives the best education possible so they can compete in the global economy for good jobs and live rewarding and productive lives as American citizens.
If that isn't a sign of the impending Red takeover of our society I just don't know what is.
So the speech probably isn't even written yet, but that hasn't stopped conservative opinion leaders from writing their damning rebukes of the President's future speech.
On his radio show Glenn Beck told listeners that "your republic is under attack" and warned them that the public school system, under the direction of President Obama, "is capturing your kids" and "indoctrinating your children." Beck later compared the President to Mussolini.
NewsBuster's contributing editor Mark Finkelstein, attacked "Chairman Barack" alongside a picture of the book, Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong. He warned that teachers "will be sure to imbue every student with correct thinking in the wisdom of the president before he or she is freed, um, graduates." He also suggested there was an "interesting parallel between our president's plan for our children and the approach of another Great Leader from the past."
Michelle Malkin, in a post with a picture of a sign saying "School Indoctrination" warned that President Obama's emphasis on academic achievement is "Downplaying academic achievement in favor of left-wing radical activism in the public schools" and attempted to tie Obama's future speech on education to the philosophy of "old neighborhood pal and Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers." Malkin also accused teachers of coercing children into "pro-illegal immigration protests, gay marriage ceremonies, environmental propaganda stunts, and anti-war events."
Lauri Regan with the American Thinker (how ironic) suggested that Obama and his "team of brainwashers" was committed to "indoctrinating America's youth."
No crazy montage would be complete without WorldNetDaily, whose editor Bob Unruh cited a bunch of right-wingers claiming that Obama is "recruiting his civilian army. His 'Hitler' youth brigade" and warning that "we can learn a lot from the spread of propaganda in Europe that led to Hitler's power. A key ingredient in that spread of propaganda was through the youth." Another "concerned parent" warned that "Totalitarian regimes around the world have sought to spread their propaganda and entrench their power by brainwashing the children."
Meredith Jessup on Townhall.com wrote that "your kids are going to be made a captive audience to this forced nonsense" and suggested that the government was trying to force parents to "relinquish your rights and responsibilities as parents to the government." She also called Obama's future speech a "massive abuse of governmental power."
Newsmax.com contributor Pamela Geller raised the alarm that the "fascist in chief is taking his special brand of brainwashing to the classroom. Keep your kids home. I think this man is a threat to our basic unalienable rights. I don't want him indoctrinating my children." She also stated her belief that we should "Keep communists and their propagandists away from small children."
I'm sure it goes on and on (and a big thanks to Media Matters [2] for keeping track of these attacks), but you get the idea. All of this in response to a speech emphasizing the importance of education, that the President hasn't even given yet. And where were these people when, as Media Matters notes, Bush Sr. gave a nearly identical speech to children, or when Bush Jr. "posted a 'teacher's guide' on the White House website intended to help students understand the 'freedom timeline' and encouraged them to 'explor[e] the biographies of the President, Mrs. Bush, Vice President, and Mrs. Cheney.'"? What about when Reagan gave a speech directed at schoolchildren [3] that was almost certainly far more ideological in nature than President Obama's future speech will be?
It turns out it has absolutely nothing to do with the substance of the speech, and everything to do with who is giving it. Bush Sr. can give the same speech, and gets wild applause from these people. Bush Jr. distributes "teacher's guides", has the Pentagon engage in a media propaganda campaign [4], tortures people and holds them indefinitely without charge, starts wars based on lies, and engages in an unprecedented domestic spying campaign which violates federal privacy laws, and not a blink from this crowd that is so fond of crying "fascism". Yet when Obama's Secretary of Education announces that Obama will give a speech explaining the importance of a good education to kids--hardly a radical or partisan statement--they are instantly up in arms, raising the specter of Nazis, communists, government brainwashing, and terrorism.
This episode serves to highlight what has become one of the defining characteristics of conservatives when they are out of power. Some have suggested that they are part of a "Party of No [5]", since Republicans have essentially adopted of strategy of unanimous (or near-unanimous) blanket opposition to any legislation proposed by Democrats, no matter how many concessions they are able to gain to water it down.
Yet I would submit that it goes far beyond that. Legislatively, conservatives are indeed defined by a single word: NO; however when it comes to issues, it turns out they have a lot more to say. Now I don't want you to get the impression that they like to talk about issues, because they actually don't. In fact, almost completely absent in any right-wing commentary on serious issues like health insurance reform, the stimulus package, or global warming are facts, of any kind.
The "debate" coming from the Right is instead packed with lies, hyperbole, outlandish claims, and of course a heavy dose of hate, paranoia, violent rhetoric and racism. It used to be that we'd have to wait for Obama to actually say or do something to have them viciously attack it with lies, to have them call it Nazism or communism or terrorism or the end of the Republic. Now they have devolved to the point where they attack preemptive, reflexively, that is, they attack things that haven't even happened yet. They don't even need anything to attack, they just attack air (or their own straw men).
Conservatives have achieved a remarkable knee-jerk reflex for insanity. If the President so much as twitches a muscle they spring into action, mouths foaming, spewing out an uncontrollable torrent of epithets--"Nazi!" "Socialist!" "Muslim!" "Brainwasher!" "Terrorist!" "Murderer!"--like projectile hate-vomit. It doesn't matter what he says. It doesn't matter if he hasn't even said anything. They will reflexively attack it, and attack it in the most ridiculous, over-the-top invectives you have ever heard.
If Obama says he wants a Supreme Court Justice with, dare I say, empathy, conservatives jump to the attack saying that this shows Obama is against the rule of law, the Constitution, the principles of democracy, and is probably a fascist.
If Obama says he believes health care is a fundamental human right, conservatives attack him as a socialist who is trying to kill your grandma, and your babies. They'll also call him a Nazi and compare his policies to slavery.
If Obama announces he is planning on giving a speech about the importance of education, conservatives attack him as a Nazi, a communist, a brainwasher, a terrorist and Mao Zedong. Oh and he is going to take away your children.
If Obama orders a hamburger with "spicy mustard", conservatives attack him for being "elitist", some suggest he might just be a little gay. No, really. They actually attacked the President for wanting mustard on his hamburger [6] instead of "plain old ketchup." (Thankfully on this occasion they were able to restrain themselves from drawing the obvious comparison between mustard and Hitler...although this was a few months ago, when they were relatively "restrained".)
And that highlights my point: What happens in reality has absolutely NO bearing on how they react. In fact they aren't "reacting" to anything, they just spew lies and hate reflexively--they don't need a reason.
Another thing that this "education speech = brainwashing" lunacy highlights is the general antipathy that conservatives have always had against education. The Right continually rails against so-called liberal bias in public schools and in universities. Why are they convinced there is an omnipresent liberal brainwashing conspiracy in academia, not just in the United States, but in every country? Well because they, like the rest of us, have noted an interesting phenomenon that is evident in pretty much every survey comparing education and political ideology--liberals are more educated than conservatives!
See?? SEE?!?! That proves that education brainwashes people into being libruls!! It couldn't be that *GASP!* maybe the act of gaining knowledge actually makes people more liberal because reality has a liberal bias! Or put another way, perhaps conservatism thrives on the darkness of ignorance and misinformation, and just maybe has a hard time surviving in its absence, under the harsh light of facts, education, and knowledge.
So it should be no surprise that conservatives have done nothing to make higher education more affordable and everything to make it less affordable (except by private loans, which are acceptable because they pump profit into banks and fill their campaign coffers). Nor should it be a surprise that conservatives routinely vote against increased funding for public schools and strongly support charter schools which aren't subject to the same quality standards that the public school system must meet.
Given the hysteria cited above, it should also come as no surprise that millions of conservative families have opted to cut out public education altogether [7] and instead home school their children so they can maintain absolute control over every piece of information or disinformation that comes into contact with them. Don't want your children exposed to "liberal brainwashing" like evolution or a less flattering interpretation of the Civil War? No problem, skip that chapter. Hell, don't even buy that book.
In the end it all comes down, not so much to taking pride in being ignorant [8]--as an flabbergasted Obama once observed during one of his first encounters with this right-wing misinformation during the presidential campaign--but to being utterly reliant on ignorance for political power. So while they engage in generalized anti-education rhetoric and policies, they also have to drown out intelligent debate on any issue, not just education, because if logic or facts (or even common sense) are heard above the frenzy, they will lose the battle.
That is where these insane, almost comical (if there wasn't so much at stake) knee-jerk reactions to anything the President or Democrats in Congress say or do, no matter how benign or uncontroversial, come into play. When in doubt, Obama is a Nazi, period. You have your marching orders, now go scream at a town hall meeting [9].
What this made me think of is a toy from my childhood, the one where you pull a string or a lever and an arrow spins around, lands on a barnyard animal, and says something like, "The Cow says 'Mooooo!'". That basically seems to be the new modus operandi of the right-wing. Wait, the President is about to speak, get ready pull the lever...
The teabagger says "HITLER!!"
(Post Scriptum: I have discovered that the See 'n Say doesn't quite work how I remembered it working and described above, but whatever, my way is better)
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Sept. 3, 2009
Advocacy Community To Obama: Live Up To The Rhetoric
The Obama administration's policy toward Sudan is headed in the wrong direction on both the Darfur peace process and implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement which ended the 22 year war between North and South Sudan. As the administration prepares to gather it's foreign policy principals for a decision on the Sudan Policy policy review, the time for change is now.Highlighting the urgency of this issue, CNN.com and ForeignPolicy.com have both run commentaries from the Enough Project's leadership.
CNN.com ran a piece by Co-founder John Prendergast and award winning author Dave Eggers asking: "Were Darfur Promises For Real?"
"But this isn't just a debate about policy towards one country. President Obama, like President Bush before him, has called Darfur an ongoing genocide. So the policy that will be unveiled soon on Sudan will have global ramifications, because it will be the president's first chance to articulate his policy on responding to genocide."In ForeignPolicy.com, Enough's Executive Director John Norris notes the simmering north-south issues could see Sudan self-destruct in two years.
"Imagine if we had enjoyed the luxury of knowing, two years before it happened, that Yugoslavia would disintegrate in 1991. Or just think if U.S. diplomats had been able to predict years earlier exactly when the Soviet Union was going to collapse. One certainly hopes the United States would have been better positioned to deal with these momentous events. But a current case gives one pause. Sudan might very well split in half in precisely two years, and policymakers have taken far too little notice."
To break down the complex policy issues, John Prendergast in the Ask The Expert series for the Center for American Progress, explains what the U.S. should be doing on Sudan.
To find out more about the ongoing crisis in Sudan, and the steps the Obama administration needs to take to address it, please visit our website at www.enoughproject.org
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