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George Bush, Secret Socialist
Nearing the end of a catastrophic presidency George Bush seeks redemption in odd ways. Having wrecked Iraq he takes aim at Iran. Having denied global warming, he asks others to fix it. Having waged war on a credit card, he mimics fiscal prudence in symbolic budget battles with Congress.
It's all too little and too late; sort of like Britney Spears staying home a night a week in hopes of being named mother of the year. But for Bush, it's never too late to do some damage, which brings us to a tough topic for Britney and Bush: the health of children
In a saner world, Bush's veto of the State Children's Health Insurance Program bill would be unexplainable. The basic facts:
SCHIP insures 6.5 million kids in families earning less than 200% of the federal poverty level, or $41, 300 a year for a family of four. States can set lower limits and many do. The bill Bush vetoed raised eligibility to 300% of poverty, extending coverage to 4 million children. The cost: 35 billion over 5 years. Bush makes two arguments: we can't afford it and even if we could, it's creeping socialism.
Bush's math is as fuzzy as ever. He says his budget strengthened SCHIP. Read the fine print. The $5 billion he'd add over five years is only a third of the inflation rate. That means a substantial cut, not an increase, in the number of children covered.
He says the bill he vetoed covers families of four earning as much as $83,000 a year. It's true, but only in one state, New York, which somehow brokered an eligibility limit of 400% of the FPL. He could have pared New York back had he not shunned negotiations sought by the bill's cosponsor, Republican Charles Grassley of Iowa.
The real eligibility limit for a family of four would be $62,000, qualifying it not for free insurance, but only a cap on its annual medical expenses set at about $3,000. Bush says it would rob them of "initiative."
Before agreeing, do something he never does. Imagine it's your family living on $62,000, shelling out $1,000 a month or more for health insurance. Now add $10,000 in bills, an 'adjustable' mortgage, a daughter looking at colleges and $3 a gallon gas.
Behold: A middle class family, circa 2007. Poor? No. Living the American Dream? Not even close. In need of a hand? You bet, and the sooner the better.
Most eligible families earn far less than $62,000. If a family member has a preexisting medical condition they pay far more in premiums--if they have insurance at all. For the children, millions of them, health care that ought to be a right is out of reach.
After seven years of war, gluttonous pork barrel spending and massive tax cuts, Bush saying we can't afford health care for our children is like a father coming home to say there's no money for groceries because he spent it all on drink or at the track. Thus the need for a second argument, that the bill is 'European' or 'socialist.'
If this were a movie it would be funny. Until Bush held them up at the border, seniors flocked to Canada for lower drug prices. They'd have swum to Europe if it weren't so far.
As for socialism, we have it now. Government pays the lion's share of health care costs and gets less for it every year because it can't tame the insurance industrial complex. Bush cries 'free market' but his pork fest of a Medicare drug bill stifled competition and guaranteed industry profits. It's called corporate socialism and Bush is its Lenin.
Amazingly enough, Republican presidential candidates stumble over one another in a rush to back him up. As a wise man said, never underestimate the capacity of an entire social order to commit suicide.
Republicans in Congress may have keener survival instincts. Their choice: to feel the gratitude of the children or the wrath of the adults. Democrats gave them time to mull it over while they batter them with negative TV ads. In one, a droll child threatens to stop having his picture taken with Republicans until they get him some health care.
The ads follow up a Democratic radio pitch featuring young Graeme Foster, who thanked SCHIP for footing his hospital bills after an automobile accident. Republicans answered in their usual style, peddling false charges that the family defrauded the program.
Yes, it has come to this--Republicans swift-boating twelve year olds. You must admire the chutzpa it takes for the folks who gave us Harry and Louise to question a young coma survivor gamely facing life with a paralyzed vocal chord.
One wonders how Harry and Louise are doing 14 years after fretting over Hillary-Care. Do they still worry about high prices and big bureaucracies or did they reach Medicare eligibility? No doubt they could teach the Fosters a thing or two about waiting one's turn.
Republicans look both slimy and clueless. It doesn't matter if the Frosts are secretly middle class; middle class families can't pay their health care bills either. To help them government must play a bigger, smarter role, as in every other developed nation.
We pay twice what any other country pays for overhead, as much as 30 cents of every health care dollar. "Socialist" Canada is second at about 16 cents. Until voters find out that Aetna charges 20 cents to do what Medicare does for a nickel and that federal law guarantees their right to go right on doing it, real change will elude us.
The Clinton, Obama and Edwards plans all include options to buy insurance through government. In quality and price, their public plans will blow private plans out of the water. They spend their time reassuring us we can keep current coverage. They should also explain why so few of us will.
Republicans are better than Democrats at debate because they still look to think tanks for policy while Democrats look to pollsters for themes: Republicans say SCHIP costs too much and sends us down a slippery slope to statism. Democrats say Bush hates kids.
The voices of children should be enough to win this round but to get universal care through Congress Democrats must explain why we need government not only to expand access but to bring down costs. That mean adults getting on the radio and telling us what they know about the cost of corporate socialism.
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Medicare is costly per recipient, because it only covers the elderly and the disabled. That makes sense, that those would have more health problems. If every employer and every employee, and don't let the self-employed opt out and then use the system when they get sick, were to pay a tax which would work out to far less than what we pay in premiums currently, then every person in the United States could be covered, if we used a system like Medicare, rather than the private insurers, who spend 20 to 30 cents of every dollar in administrative costs and then want profit on top of that. Medicare spends a nickel for their 20 to 30 cents.
Medicare does need an updated billing software which flags things and patterns for fraud, which it currently lacks believe it or not, because of special interests who don't want it there. They want to be able to steal.
I had the chance to work as a medical professional in the French system, where all employers and individuals pay a tax which works out to far less than what we spend, and it is the finest in the world. Efficient, responsive, and very, very good, and they pay half what we pay for pharmaceuticals and half for much of the very same technology. AMERICANS ARE PATSIES.
I equate it to something which Americans wouldn't even think of doing, such as paying $160 for a barrel of oil, while the rest of the industrialized world pays $100 or less, because the OIL COMPANIES want more profit, and we are the only ones stupid enough to pay that. That is what we do for health care, and the American public wouldn't stand still for it in oil, but they do for health care.
Agreed.
Even Brazil has universal health care.
The US is more like a banana republic.
Ruled by Banana Republicans.
The fact is that poor households in the US (those earning fewer that $25,000) have a lot of "stuff" that would probably surprise most. From Bergstrom and Gidehag we see families earning less than $25K/year:
72.8% have a car, 76.6% have AC, 33% have a dishwasher, 73% have a microwave, 55% have 2 or more TVs, 63% have cable, 26% have a widescreen TV, 25% have 2 or more DVD players, 25% have a PC, and 18% have internet.
The poor in the US own cars, computers, clothes dryers, microwaves, autos and clothes washing machines at a rate higher than the general population of Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy and Sweden.
That's is an incredible statistic when you think about it.
It says that the poor in teh US have overwhelmingly opted to not purchase insurance in favor of other things that even middle-class Europeans don't have.
Weird, eh?
That's because people in the US are called CONSUMERS, not citizens. They're only doing what shrubya said to do after he started his war of aggression.
And 100% of the "Haves" in this country have ALL that stuff, plus a whole whole lot more, and you can be sure they didn't buy it at the used car lot, the thrift store, and the yard sale. And they have insurance to cover the "best healthcare in the world!"
So what's your point, Seattle34? Let them eat cake?
The act of being "well to do" is not a crime to be punished. The act of being "poor" is not a virtue to be rewarded.
Let them do what it takes to succeed, I like to say. Let them be responsible for their own well being as well as the THINGS that they want to have.
Wants are not needs. Take care of the needs, then the wants. That's what I do.
Yes! That is soooo weird! Now, but when I lived in The Netherlands, oh, you did not mention that country. It is right above Belgium, below Denmark and to the left of Germany, I had sidewalks everywhere to walk where I needed to go, and there was also excellent public transportation. By the way, I had a car as well, but that was an unneeded luxury, AND I had excellent healthcare insurance at a price I could afford, which paid for the excellent medical care I received. Is that weird too, or ...What? In the U.S. one must have a car to go to work. I had a television too, sweetheart, and a washer and dryer, oh, that one came in one package: you put your dirty laundry in and it came out clean and dry - more than 40 years ago, by the way. All the people I know in Europe also have internet, and everything else you mention. Now, what exactly are you babbling about again? The poor should not have a car to go to work? And no internet to do the homework? Eh, I am starting to sing a lullaby, time to let you go to sleep.
Isn't it great to live in a country so dependent on cars to get everywhere? Most people live so far from a store they have to drive to get to it, and even then the closest one is probably a quick-stop - the WORST place to shop.
And even if you wanted to walk, the housing developers didn't put in any sidewalks!
If we ever do get wise to the idea of saving energy by tightening up our communities, scattering good little shopping centers everywhere, and locating housing close to our workplaces, we'll have to redesign whole cities to make it work.
Oh, and another little detail: Our just-in-time temp/mobile work paradigm is not at all suited to small close-to-work communities. Republicans wanted us to be a mobile workforce, remember, so they could fire us easily, and avoid paying for benefits and retirement. Unless the housing paradigm were also to change dramatically, it would be prohibitive to buy/sell a house every time we changed jobs.
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Kill your TV, and free your mind.
Seattle34 ; Have you ever heard of credit.?
Thank you.
And there was a time when it was against the law to charge more than a 10% interest rate.
Imagine that!
Well Seattle,
You are in need of some serious math review.
If you add up all the items in your little tirade it will not total one years worth of health insurance for the average family of four, Much less the deductibles that would easily add up to between $200 and $1000 per person. If I could pay the $3000 (being VERY generous) for the items you have illustrated and get seven years of health care out of them as I would for the durable goods you list, health care would be in the grasp of most of America. Sadly your illustration is deeply flawed and short-sighted. Back to the drawing board, and this time use a calculator and a grip on reality.
This close to abandoning an antiquated corporate dominated health care system, we'll need someone to expand the squashing of Republican self-serving logic that says only big corporations deserve the privilege of rationing access to modern medicine!
With the right leadership, the Democrats could give the American people a new New Deal and wrest enough of our money back from the big insurance interests to spur investment of their huge cash reserves in something that could help our competitive advantage in the world rather than retard it.
What a nightmare if this country ignores the clear wisdom of Curry's position, or if they manage to get elected, Democrats lose the nerve to purge our health care system of the blood sucking parasites. They can move on to some other enterprise/piracy. With all due respect.
I hear that Lou Dobbs advises registration as Independent. But you want to check if that is true on his website.
Registering as an independent only means you cannot vote in the primaries. Register for a major party-to cull the herd of politicians as you see fit. Vote in the general election as you see fit.
It is badly needed but I think the are all under the control of the lobbies. If we don't clean out washington it will be hard to fix things.
That legislators and administration officials have full medical, dental, prescription & vision benefits at tax-payer's expense is itself socialist. They each earn well over $62,000 and even $83,000. Therefore, they should have the freedom and right to purchase their own health, dental, prescription and vision plans (with their own money), so as not to be burden on others.
At least 1/2 of all bankruptcy filings in the US are due to extraordinary (catastrophic) medical costs, not covered by insurance, forcing families to liquidate their assets to pay hospitals, doctors, for treatment and drugs.
Of course, Bush led Congress into placing more stringent rules on bankruptcy filings, so little people with huge medical bills will lose equity in their homes, life- savings and work the remainder of their lives as indentured servants with garnishments up to 25% of their disposable income.
Cuba, a much poorer country than the US, provides cradle-to-grave health and medical care for all citizens.
Not to worry. People who have had huge and catastrophic medical bills and illness can not get health insurance OR work in the U.S. There will not be any wages to garnish, and almost certainly there will be no disposable income either. Without work and income you also lose your home and can not get a new one. But, you know, there IS a socialist solution to their plight: they just become wards of the State. Government pays everything, Medicaid, housing, Foodstamps, whatever. I hear that does not cost any taxpayer money; is is all free! :) :) :)!!!
i would like you mommamiamommamia to try to get welfare anywhere in the US, that was a program that was gutted in the 90's by Clinton and the rightwing, Now the new WELFARE is for the Bush Corporations Millions for their CEO'S, the poor and have nothing and they get to sleep outside and eat at The Church Site's that the Right Wing has set up or and once a year they have a great big Party at The Convention Center and they get to have a hair cut and a shower, maybe they're teeth looked at...America is Great for the poor and even better for the Rich, but they middle class is in for a rude awakening when they really find out there is only Two BOATS in this COUNTRY ..HAVE MORE'S AND HAVE WHATEVER you can scrounge up...
NotBlind, Why don't the Dems ever bring up the argument of all officials having full coverage yet not seeking their own coverage? What a great argument. Lets see some ads dragging that out.
I clean dorms at a State University because the job has good affordable health care. It can do this because it combines a large number of people and negotiates prices. I could choose a more socially acceptable job (and more back friendly) but those jobs can't provide health care that is affordable or not at all.
If you don't like socialism, get off my sidewalk.
Yes, and off the road as well. Or, did you pay for the highway all by yourself?
Yes. The 900 pound gorilla in the room is not health care though, it is FOOD! Everybody needs it! It's so expensive! There's so much junk food out there to entrap us! How can we allow something as important as food be provided by evil corporations? The horror.
It is not a right of yours to use the federal highway system...did you realize that?..even though you pay for it. Its a privelege, signed as such on your license.
Just take a moment to read the constitution and it clearly defines what role the federal government can and should do. infrastructure, sure, defense, sure, income tax, no, protect the privacy of its people, yes.
not much else people. the solution we've tried (today's corporate federally enabled program) and the proposed universal (federally mandated and governed) will not work. They will both bankcrupt us through inflation and lobby efforts. The very same lobbyists that are in charge of breastfeeding the House and Senate Dems and Repubs WANT universal healthcare....AND are lobbying for it. Doesn't that CONCERN anyone?
www.sopr.senate.gov
Get rid of insurance, get rid of bad tort, get rid of lobbying. Doctors will compete, costs will go down, and they will perform their hypocratic oath to the less fortunate.
Give me back all of the money I've put into Social Security and income tax (of which neither I will ever see) and I could even afford healthcare in the current system. If we could do as proposed, hell I could start a small hospital.
Perry; I do like socialism so you get off my sidewalk. A sidewalk is a great example of socialism. Everyone gets to walk on it and everyone contributes to building it and maintaining it.
Bill, thank you for voicing it so eloquently. It's high time Americans caught on to what's really happening with the insurance industry! My question is, When Will Congress Listen?!! This country is heading you know where in a hand basket and I for one am tired of watching fat-cats licking the cream off the top. It's time that middle class Americans get a real break and it turns out it's more cost effective too.
CAvoter; What about the people that earn only minimum wage. You know the ones that serve you at you favorite restaurant or wash the dishes that you eat off. Don't say medicaid because most of them do not qualify and doctors are not required to treat them. By law a doctor only has to see ONE Medicaid patient. Sure they can go to the emergency room at the hospital and get turned down because they have no insurance or get seen and when they can not pay be turned over to a collection agency and have what little credit that they have destroyed.
Right on:
"As for socialism, we have it now. Government pays the lion's share of health care costs and gets less for it every year because it can't tame the insurance industrial complex. Bush cries 'free market' but his pork fest of a Medicare drug bill stifled competition and guaranteed industry profits. It's called corporate socialism and Bush is its Lenin."
Corporations are really socialist entities and they are now incorporating the government. We should all wake up and exercise some political influence on the government. The whole right wing talk of freedom is a smoke screen for a socialist transformation that happens like a reorg in a company.
Agreed. Eliminate corporate socialism, and all other kinds as well. I can support that.
Indeed the very idea of what a corporation is, is a government construct, in fact a privelege, defined by a legally created charter. Government defined what a corporation is, government can redefine what it is.
The interstate highway system and the U.S. military are but two examples of socialism. They provide good or services that are not private they are social goods. (i.e. nonpayment cannot exclude any consumer from their respective utility).
Socialism is a scare phrase tossed around by Conservatives who fail to understand what it means. Any student of economics can tell you that sometimes a good is allocated more efficiently as a social good, compared to a private allocation. schools libraries roads clean air security etc.
Yes, the neocons constantly cry out that privatized services are "more efficient" than government-run services. NOT!
They say that competition "forces" companies to compete against each other, yet nearly every example of privatized government services lacks one thing: competition. Contracts are routinely awarded as a franchise to one company, and most often (certainly with this presidential administration) in a no-bid process.
Not only that, but most government contracts awarded to private companies seem to be cost-plus, which just rewards waste by picking up the tab. Certainly most Iraq contracts are cost-plus. This money comes out of YOUR pockets, and costs you MUCH more than if the government were doing it.
Basically, they've just been lying the whole time, starting with why they want to privatize (the real reason is to steal public money for private companies).
Watch Iraq For Sale, and buy Naomi Klein's new book, "Disaster Capitalism." She's got the whole dish on this.
You need to brush up on your Das Capital if you think having government supplied roads equates to socialism.
Overdog; you are amusing. Das Kapital is not related to much. Cetainly not communism as it has been practiced. Maybe Cuba. To each according to his need. From each according to his ability. Hard to argue with that. Anyway it ain't even remotely related to socialism. Honestly - have you ever wondered how the peope=le in the rest of the developed world manage to survive. Try going there. And the murder rate is almost zip compared to the US.
I love your appropriate frame, i.e. "corporate socialism".
As progressives we need to stop letting people say that republicans are pro "free market" while democrats are "anti-market" or "anti-capitalism".
It's simply not true that most republicans prefer that The Market sort itself out.
Rather, they simply set up the rules of the game (through government) in a way that benefits large corporations and the upper crust of America to the overall detriment of most everyone else.
By contrast, most progressives seek to set up the rules of the game (through government) in a way that benefits the majority of the population and the basic entrepreneur, realizing that the market should serve us and not the other way around.
So you have *both* parties seeking to control the market to serve certain interests, contrary to the idea that it's ONLY democrats that want to control the market.
Granted, with many of the watered down democrats we have today (aka, DLC democrats, etc) this distinction continues to shrink.
Good analysis/comment.
Investing in our children's health is like investing in our children's education - a minimal investment (compared with the $10 BILLION US taxpayers are paying for the ongoing Iraq disaster) will pay off dividends in the future... and by the same token, neglecting our children's education and healthcare will ensure an astronomical bill later.
Well, yes, but we are not investing in our children's education either. In some of those *socialist* countries all education, public, parochial, private, as well as higher education is all fully funded. Why, they EVEN pay for a select percentage of *fureigners* studying at their universities. Not only that, they EVEN give out living stipends to those students! I think they have heard or read, somewhere, that it is best for both men and women to have children at a reasonable young age - gives healthier offspring - or *somn* like *et*.
"We" don't have children. Unless you are my wife posting.
Ok, now you have me feeling sorry for you. You seem to claim to have no feelings for the children in your society. Sad. Reminds me of the R's trying to swift boat a 12 year old. I sincerely hope you can evolve into someone with a sense of belonging to those who are around you. A much richer life is available to you if you do.
Well at least your mean genes won't get passed on.
You need a lesson in writing and grammar Overdog.
We do have children. Check it out.
Some Republicans actually voted for SChip, suggesting a tipping point back to traditional American values.
Well, I think those Republicans have doctors in the family who are members of the AMA. The AMA is FOR SCHIP, I hear. But, check it out.
Nah, they just want to be re elected.
Thanks, Bill, for your cogent analysis of the sorry state of our political discourse as we near the end of Bush's destructive reign. If only the Democrats could out-maneuver the Republicans at the messaging game; it is INSANE that the Republicans have attempted to quell the universal coverage debate by casting aspersions on a 12 year-old.
Like the man said, "never underestimate the capacity of an entire social order to commit suicide."
Let's hope the Republicans take their greedy insurance company parasites with them.
Monsieur BonMot, I think it is up to the electorate to wrangle out a change. It is just inconceivable for an European, n'est-ce-pas?, that the whole American public just sits, and sits, and groans, sometimes complains, but does NOTHING to change matters. If no one takes out private insurance any longer, if new political parties are organized and get a chance to get elected, and IF the *good Christians* *repent* of their ongoing greed, without expecting Jesus to forgive them - does not say that he does in their Bible, and take responsibility we just might get a chance for some changes. And, if we are lucky, we have just seen a whole social order having committed suicide, and being voted out of office.
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