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Health care on 'The Stump': It's single payer, stupid!

You've heard all the stories about how Medicare and Medicaid are on the ropes, that doctors refuse to see patients from Medicaid because its reimbursements are so paltry, that both programs are essentially being SUBSIDIZED by the private insurers because they spend far more money than they take in, and so on and on and on.

Bottom line, say the critics, is that government-funded health care, a public option or single payer, would give us more of the same --a massive government bureaucracy that would collapse under the weight of its obligations.

Pure and utter baloney. 

There are only two problems with the existing public health programs:

• They're underfunded.

• They serve the poor and the elderly, not the young and the healthy.

That will change --dramatically-- once the for-profit insurers are pushed aside by a far more efficient public entity --think Medicare with a 3% administrative overhead (and NO profits)--  where all Americans, the healthy and the frail, are in the same insurance pool.

How can the cost of health care not go down?  The for-profit health industry skims $350 billion off the top for its investors before any health care at all is delivered!

Dr. Peter Mahr, over at 'The Stump', asks:

"So what do we do with a health care non-system that is a big money maker for insurers, some hospitals and the pharmaceutical industry but leaves one in seven people lacking insurance and most with insurance that is too costly and inadequate? How do we repair a delivery system that is expensive, focuses on moneymaking services rather than primary and preventative care and has little emphasis on evidence-based medicine?"

The answer is simple and straightforward:  Single payer, stupid!

And a few days ago on 'The Stump', Stephen Gregg, a self-described "free marketer", called Medicare a "very sweet deal":

" ...the initial Medicare signals seem favorable, bordering on a breath of fresh air:

--Stable premium increases.
--Ubiquitous access to almost any provider in the country.
...

--Ability to switch carriers, no questions asked, once a year.
--So far, decent public-private customer service throughout.
--Very little uncertainty as to whether I am covered for all the possibilities.

"It's a challenge to argue that Medicare is an inferior alternative to a more responsive and dynamic private sector."

So there you have it.  Both 'Stump' posts, needless to say, brought out the anti-government critics.  But national polls indicate that single payer, or at the very least a public option, have the support of a majority of the American public.

Now its up to the the pols --and Obama-- to see it through.

A shout out to Pink Martini

In the spirit of the O's ex-movie critic, Ted Mahar, who used to say, "And now for something completely different," here's Barry Johnson on the multiple virtues of Portland's own Pink Martini:

"I've always admired this band -- for its rhythm, classical music virtuosity, party spirit and deep knowledge of seldom-walked paths of pop music history. But for me, they were one more pleasant diversion in an Age of Excess, with its billionaires, luxury goods, gigantic corporate expense accounts, casual greed, corruption and conspicuous consumption. ...
"But in the wash of sound and beat Tuesday, I realized that Pink Martini meant something new to me now. It offered a ticket for a couple of hours to an imaginary place where everyone looked great, knew how to dance, understood several languages and worked together harmoniously."

That's right, Barry. 

It doesn't hurt that Thomas Lauderdale and China Forbes write some really good songs, too.  Like this one:

Why speaking six languages is NOT an indicator of the quality of one's education

Now that yesterday's non-election* of school officials is in the books, let's turn to another pressing educational issue --Why American schools suck.

The author, Blue Oregon semi-regular contributor Jenson Hagen, may have "studied six languages," but in this post he speaks a language he probably hasn't studied, at least not formally --gibberish!

See if you can make any sense of what he's saying:

• American schools suck.

• We need to change our system.

• But we ignore the European and Asian formats.  "Wholeheartedly."

Hagen doesn't bother to explain just exactly what those "formats" consist of.  One can only infer that languages in Europe are taught earlier.  But what's this about shoving

"...general math and English at kids and expect[ing] them to acquire a capacity for business, engineering or journalism[?]"

As I said, gibberish!

*(The voter turnout in Multnomah County was a whopping 15%!)

UPDATE:  Here's a comment from the always reliable Darrell Plant on Hagen's post:

"Budget cuts over the past 40 years are really what cut into language instruction, not some fantasy about the demands of public school teachers unions."

Ed Schultz steps up for single payer

Many consider Big Eddie a rube from the hinterlands, but in this segment at least, he outdoes either of his progressive MSNBC stablemates--Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow-- by demanding of the President,

"President Obama: Do you support excluding people from the [health care] discussion?"

Here's the video:

The object of Ed Schultz' ire, Senate Finance Committee chair Max Baucus, has taken plenty of money from the health care industry. Here's the breakdown:

From the insurance industry: $1,170,313;
health professionals: $1,016,276;
pharmaceuticals/health-products industry: $734,605
hospitals/nursing homes: $541,891;
health services/HMOs: $439,700.

Friedman pulls a Broder

Insufferable columnist Tom Friedman agrees with the insufferable David Broder that sanctioning torture should NOT be prosecuted as the crime that it clearly is under both international and domestic law.  He therefore applauds Obama for saying that the torture policy crafted by the Bush administration was a "mistake", not a crime warranting investigation and prosecution.

In short, Obama is doing precisely the right thing.  Friedman's reasons?  Prosecuting Bush would "rip the country apart."  Friedman also argues that Al Qaeda is such "a unique enemy" that it remains "undeterred by normal means."

What does that mean?  As near as I can tell, it means that any detainee associated with Al Qaeda deserved to be tortured, and to hell with the laws and international treaties that prohibit it.

Glenn Greenwald begs to differ: 

"Obama is currently and simultaneously advocating these positions:

* Bush officials ordered torture.

* Torture is a crime.

* Nobody is above the law.

"Unless you're David Broder, Fred Hiatt, Peggy Noonan or Tom Friedman, those premises of Obama's, as a matter of logical reasoning, all necessarily lead to one conclusion (hint:  it's not:  'This is a time for reflection, not retribution')."

I prefer Greenwald's logic to Friedman's 'tortured' reasoning. 

The most consistent critic of Obama's refusal to acknowledge torture as a crime has been Rachel Maddow regular and George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley.  Turley has said that not only is torture a crime, but that there is no option but to investigate and then, if evidence warrants, to prosecute those responsible for initiating the torture policy. 

Willamette Week gets it wrong --again!

Not to put too crude an spin on Willamette Week's latest school board endorsements, but when it comes to local educational politics, Portland's 'progressive' weekly needs to pull its head out of the sand, or an even darker place "where the sun don't shine."

Take the decision to support Portland Business Alliance honcho Pam Knowles over Scott Bailey.  Why?  Because Bailey may have a conflict of interest (his wife is a teacher at Lincoln) and --get this-- Baliey is "in love with his own voice."

Therefore, in a close race, Knowles gets the nod as the more "appropriate" replacement for Sonja Henning.

Say what?  The most "appropriate" candidate is the one who most closely resembles the board member whose seat is being contested, even if that departing board member, Henning, was wrong --dead wrong!-- on serious policy issues?  Like supporting Bill Sizemore's teacher merit pay initiative? 

If cloning departing board members is the standard by which we are to judge school board candidates, how the hell will the board ever change for the better?

Of course, Willamette Week has been wrong, laughably so, on many of its past education endorsements.  In 1990, WWeek endorsed Measure 5, the property tax limitation which effectively gutted public school funding.   And in 2003, when I ran for the board, the paper endorsed an anti-tax, anti-government charter school proponent for the Zone 1 seat eventually won by Doug Morgan and now held by Ruth Adkins.

(I finished second to Morgan then, well ahead of the WW endorsee, Ron Liljegren.)

In the other contested Portland board race, Martin Gonzales was preferred to either Rita Moore or Steve Buel.  Why?  Because Gonzales has "shown an independence" and a "willingness to dissent."

Well, maybe so.  But I'm still waiting for Gonzales to "dissent" on an issue of real importance, like school choice and the transfer policy that enables it.

 

Today's worst person in the world: Stephen Kafoury

Back in 2003, Steve Kafoury was instrumental in recruiting the successful slate of Portland School Board candidates who went on to hire Vicki Phillips as district superintendent --big mistake-- and to shut down several more neighborhood schools.

Today Kafoury, a former school board member himself, is in the Oregonian flacking for a chain of "virtual" charter high schools.  In the process he bashes the trickery of the lobbying efforts of the state's big teachers union, the Oregon Education Association. 

The OEA opposes charter schools generally, and online schools particularly.  For good reason.

Insight Schools, Inc. is a subsidiary of the Apollo Group, Inc.  Apollo (which runs the Phoenix University chain) is a private for-profit organization, and aren't charter schools, virtual or otherwise, supposed to be "public" schools?  This slippery connection between the public and private sector in education both troubles and puzzles me.  As it probably does the OEA.

Apparently Kafoury, who sat on a public school board, has no problem with the partial privatization of public education. 

But wait!  The world's BEST person also showed up on the letters page of the O this morning.  Her name is Kris Alman, a parent, retired doctor, and candidate for the Beaverton School Board (she favors higher corporate taxes to increase school funding.)

Here's what she wrote regarding charters:

...

"Charter schools in Oregon have a higher closure rate than the national average (20 percent versus 11 percent). Conversely, popular charters, which resort to lotteries, can disenfranchise children who live nearby and they burden all families with transportation requirements. To remedy these inequities, school boards and administrators should foster innovation and flexible learning environments in each neighborhood school."

Sounds like something I would write.  In fact, it sounds a lot like what I have already written. 

Yay Kris!  (If you live in Beaverton, vote Kris Alman for School Board.)

More on the perils of Zionism

From a letter to Jimmy Carter written by a "Jew born in Palestine in 1941":

"As numerous Zionist leaders have openly expressed, they consider assimilation of Jews, such as mixed marriages, as the main threat to Judaism, comparable to the Holocaust: Both significantly reduce the number of Jews. To [equate] the love felt by a person of Jewish descent to another person of gentile descent with mass murder testifies to the pathologic nature of Zionist thinking. It also underlines the hysterical approach of Zionists to the phenomenon of assimilation."

                                                                        --Elias Davidsson
On the OpEdNews website, the voluble --and outspoken-- Stephen Lendman calls Zionism indefensible:

"Zionist ideology is extremist, undemocratic, and hateful. It claims Jewish supremacy, specialness, and uniqueness - God's 'chosen people.' It harms Jews and non-Jews alike."

Zionism by definition is "undemocratic".  I also fully agree that Zionism ultimately harms Jews.  Unless the Israelis want to remain in a perpetual state of war, they must eventually abandon the Zionist "ideal".

In a thoughtful article written for Tikkun, Joel Kovel asks a series of questions about the fruit of Zionism:

"What, then, is the real character of the Israeli state and the Zionism of which it is the fruit? What are we to call a project which, though it boasts of being a 'democracy,' reserves 92% of its land for Jewish people? Where one who converts to Judaism or has a Jewish great-grandmother is automatically given full rights to the land while those others whose families merely happened to have lived there for centuries are at best second-class and landless?"

He answers with another question:

"Is there any word for this except racism, institutionalized at the most fundamental level of the state?"

Of course, this post is all about the inevitability of a one state solution in Israel/Palestine, the only obstacles to which are entrenched Zionism and the continuing support of the United States for a two-state solution, which has no chance of acceptance by Palestinians given the current conditions in the West Bank. 

As the 2004 Olga Document puts it:

"Whoever has eyes to see and ears to hear knows that the choice is between another 'hundred years of conflict' ending in annihilation, and a partnership among all the inhabitants of this land. Only such a partnership is capable of turning us, the Jews of Israel, from foreigners in their country to its real inhabitants."

Peruse these articles for a better understanding of the one state solution.

Duin keeps the heat on Portland's "Million Dollar Baby"

Before I left for a week in Hawaii, I posted a piece about the golden retirement package of PGE's Peggy Fowler.  I was therefore happy to find on my return that the O's Steve Duin has kept the heat on Fowler. And PGE.

Why my concern with the woman I call Portland's "million dollar baby"?  I assure you it's  nothing personal.  It's just that I've long been in favor of public ownership of PGE, the state's largest electrical utility, whether by a Public Utility District or by the the City of Portland itself.  Unfortunately, local movers and shakers and two of the city's newspapers (and here) have effectively torpedoed any public effort to take control of the utility with bloated executive salaries and the highest electrical rates in the region.

So Peggy Fowler isn't the issue.  She's merely the symptom of a peculiarly American belief that private works better than public.  I disagree, which is why I wrote this tongue-in-cheek proposal for privatization of Portland's water supply.

In Duin's second column Sunday, he writes

"If you're a PGE customer, you're paying for the former chief executive's extravagant compensation package."

He then notes the Citizens Utility Board's Bob Jenks' calculation that Peggy Fowler's $4.5 million "going away present" ..."could have provided emergency heating assistance to 12,460 Oregon families."

But I was more interested in what Duin had to say in his column the week before:

" 'She's [Fowler] being rewarded for keeping PGE  private and keeping PGE rates high,' said Dan Meek, a Portland lawyer who has long argued for publicly owned utilities."

And:

"Since 2001, on Fowler's watch, PGE customers have seen their rates rise 46.2 percent, meaning those customers must pay 15 percent more for their electricity than PacifiCorp customers pay for theirs.

"Another point of comparison? In the same time frame, customers of Seattle City Light -- a municipal-owned utility half PGE's size -- saw their rates drop 8.4 percent.

"What does Seattle City Light pay chief exec Jorge Carrasco? $225,000."

That, in a nutshell, is why I prefer the public ownership option of regulated monopoly utilities like PGE.

Reactions to Obama's education speech

Harsh reactions, from people who know something about schools.

First up, via Education Notes Online, is San Franciscan Caroline Grannan:

"Boy, is President Obama confused. ...

"And what’s with the praise of charter schools, President Obama? Charter schools have been around for 16 years now. Some are great, some are disasters and the rest are all along the range in between – just like traditional public schools. As has been amply documented, charter schools overall do not outperform traditional public schools, despite having numerous advantages over them (including massive financial bounty from billionaire private philanthropists and the avid support of a series of public-school-disparaging presidents)."

NYC Educator has come to "despise" Obama, aka President "Merit Pay":

"I just finished grading 105 college essays written by my juniors. Can I tell you how many of those essays were about alcoholism, child abuse, sexual abuse, sickness, mental/emotional illness and other horrific things these kids have to endure every day? And now President Merit Pay wants to add another hour or two a day to their schedules because he thinks that will help them become better educated?"

And speaking of poverty, Tauna Rogers points to a report by Arizona State's David Berliner, who argues that

"... out-of-school factors related to poverty are the major cause of the achievement gap that exists between poor and minority students and the rest of the student population."

So why then is Obama scapegoating teachers and traditional public schools?  Maybe it's because, as Leonie Haimson writes, "Obama’s education advisers seem to be free-market nudniks."

(I don't know what a "nudnik" is, but I get the free market reference.  Well said Leonie!)

And that brings me to the most scathing criticism of Obama's education policy, from Tom Eley on the World Socialist Web Site.  (And what's with that?  I thought Obama was the "socialist'?)

Eley says:

"It was an ugly little speech, saturated with jingoism, free market boosterism, and moral hectoring. Obama offered not so much as a nod to the classical, universalistic, understanding of education—the cultivation of young minds in the arts and sciences toward a fuller, richer life in the service of society and humanity as a whole.

"Instead for Obama, 'the future belongs to the nation that best educates its citizens.' The purpose of education is to prepare a new generation of hyper-exploited, but patriotic, workers. According to Obama, the educational system needs 'to prepare every child, everywhere in America, to out-compete any worker, anywhere in the world.' "

Eley goes on to say:

"...the humanities—art, music, literature, and history—'don't' matter' in the competition with other nations. Indeed, by developing critical, cultured human beings, the arts tend to cut against the wretched labor competition Obama champions."

 

As I said, harsh criticism, indeed.  And from my perspective, well 'merited' criticism.