Health Care and $$$

OK, well here is my first "real" blog posting, as I promised in my last dispatch. When I first typed this up Friday night, it was waaayyy too long for one post, so I have split it in half, and will post part 2 tomorrow sometime. Enjoy!


BLUE DOG DEMOCRATS AND HEALTH CARE

I have been following the development of a government health-care plan very closely the last few weeks, as I am sure many people have. I am a strong supporter of the public option, but not at the expense of private options also. While a single-payer plan would be great, chances are that isn't going to happen anytime soon. So we will have to settle for a simple public option provided by the government. I don't think a public plan will drive private providers out of business, as some would have you believe. A public plan would actually drive down prices across the board. Both private insurers and doctors would be forced to lower prices to stay competitive. The public, in turn, would have the option of choosing a cheaper plan if they wanted, which is the main idea behind a capitalist system. You can compare the public plan to Medicare. The same argument was made against it as conservatives are now making against public health insurance. Not only does Medicare cost less than private plans, but consistently records higher satisfaction ratings than the private options. Chances are, a public option would do the same. Another huge point of contention is the idea of the government getting between you and your health care. But this is different from private insurance how? With the way things are now, instead of a government bureaucrat, you deal with insurance bureaucrats, who aren't exactly known for their big hearts or understanding attitudes. The key point is, a public plan will not drive insurance out of business. It will simply make them scale down and rethink how they do things. Most likely, if we pass a public plan, health care in America will resemble that of France, which has the top-rated plan in the world, according to the World Health Organization. In France, a government-run health care system provides for everyone, while private companies provide supplemental insurance that covers the items that fall through the cracks. The Republicans will do everything they can to quash this, not for any logical reasons, but ideological and partisan ones (big government evils, free market system, etc.; the usual stuff.) With all this said, Blue Dog Democrats in Congress have decided to pull their support from a public option for now, with 46 members issuing a letter stating their intent. And many other Dems, President Obama included, have said that a public plan isn't crucial to getting health care reform passed. This a typical show of spinelessness by the Democrats on Capital Hill, who can't seem to get anything constructive done without first making us all worry about whether or not it will even make it to committee. Nevermind that 72% of Americans support a public option. That doesn't seem to matter to Blue Dogs, who appear by cowed by tough Republican rhetoric. Many liberals, myself included, wish Democrats would forget this nonsense about a bi-partisan bill. Look, Democrats: you have a filibuster proof majority in the Senate with the addition of Al Franken. You also seem to forget that, if the tables were turned, the Republicans wouldn't hesitate to pass this bill with just 60 votes, and no support from Dems. So screw bi-partisanship and get something done already! The people have spoken, and want this public option. Blue Dogs say they have pulled their support because they want an affordable option, and will give support to a reasonable, and affordable, plan. The rest of the Democrats seem cautiously supportive of the public option, and promise to get it included. We can only hope.

THE DEFICIT

This brings me to a quick tangent. A lot has been talked about with the amount of money the government has been spending. Conservatives are upset, saying the deficit is way to high now, that the President needs to cut back on spending. This makes me angry. Historically, Republicans have presented themselves as the party of fiscal responsibility, and the Democrats as wild spenders. However, lets look at the facts. In the last fifty years, only two presidents had a surplus spending situation: Carter and Clinton. The party of both those presidents? Democrat. In fact, since 1900, the top top two presidential spenders, based on amount spent per citizen, were Bush 43 and Bush 41, and Ronald Reagan, long held up as a paragon of spending virtue, is number four on the list. Ford and Nixon, also Republicans, were sixth and seventh, respectively. (Clinton was third and Carter was fifth, but as I already mentioned, they were spending from a surplus.) The short story? Five of the seven top presidential spenders have been Republicans, and only Dems on this list were spending money that actually had. So before Republicans start screaming about spending, just remember, you have your own skeletons.

GOLDMAN SACHS

In related news, Rolling Stone has a great article tracing investment bank Goldman Sachs' tentacles throughout our government. Turns out Goldman has been a major player behind the Great Depression, the dot com bust, the housing bubble, soaring gas prices, and the allocation of government bailout funds. The part dealing with gas prices was definitely the most interesting for me. It's something I've been asking about for a couple years: How can we have record gas prices when demand is falling and supply is rising? Turns out it had to do with speculative commodities trading on Wall Street. Basically, that means investors, as the urging of Goldman, were trading more oil futures(a promise to pay a fixed amount for a commodity on a future date) than there was actual oil in the world. This speculation caused many barrels of gas to change hands numerous times before finally being sold, which drove the prices up. My favorite quote from the article: "...in a society governed passively by free markets and free elections, organized greed always defeats disorganized democracy." This quote sums the last eight years very efficiently, I believe. All the major financial crises in the last 100 years were caused by deregulation supported by large corporations. Remember,regulation is not always a bad things, especially when it comes to large corporations that apparently have no collective conscience. For more info, and a great read, check the article, titled "The Great American Bubble Machine," out for yourself.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/28816321/the_great_american_bubble_machine


OK, well that's all I will give you for tonight. Tomorrow will be part two of this extra long post. It mostly concerns Sarah Palin, and various stories concerning the CIA that came out the last few days, as well as what I'm planning for Monday. See you tomorrow.