Working Life

Of all the surrenders to corporate power health care has got to rank right up at the top of the list. Obamacare’s failures come down to an unwillingness to consign the insurance industry to the trash heap of history and a deal which guaranteed the drug companies billions of dollars in profits. Which makes the news about slowing health care costs even more infuriating.

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   In the list of really annoying habits of the bi-partisan obsession with the phony debt and deficit "crisis" is the inability, or the ideological desire to willfully refuse, to do simple math. Because if you did simple math, then, you cannot be FOR cheaper government without being FOR single-payer health care. Put another way, [...]

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    Yesterday, Bill Clinton foolishly called on the country to use the bank robber Willie Sutton’s maxim to address the debt "crisis" (which, in my opinion, is a phony crisis) by going where the money is. Foolish because Clinton pointed the finger at entitlements. But, the real place where the money is lies with [...]

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    Tomorrow, Peter Peterson is going to hold another one of his dumb national "fiscal summits" to further fan the flames of the phony debt and deficit "crisis"–a non-existent crisis that covers up the bigger problem of the widening divide between rich and poor. Since people want to talk about saving money, let’s start by [...]

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    Ha! You wonder, why I would praise one of the people most determined to destroy a decent government? Because he may have single-handidly cratered the idiotic "Gang of Six". So, for that, he deserves praise.    The whole premise of the "Gang of Six"–Democratic Sens. Mark Warner, Dick Durbin and Kent Conrad and Republican [...]

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I think it is important that we point out the obscenities that we see every day in life. The danger is that too many people begin to accept, out of resignation and a feeling of helplessness, stupendously immoral standards. Today it’s this one: insurance companies profit because Americans are too poor to go to the [...]

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Over the past three days, we’ve looked at the phony deficit crisis withe excerpts from my new book, "It’s Not Raining, We’re Getting Peed On: The Scam of the Deficit Crisis", here (from the introduction), here (a taste of the the very Stupid Statements made about the deficit and debt) and here (who is behind [...]

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   The healthcare bill is a mess–it won’t cover all Americans at affordable costs and it will hand insurance companies tens of billions of dollars in new profits, the hard-earned wages of working people who are already stressed out financially.    The only ray of light down the road to fix this, if you just [...]

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   In February 1960, Dr. Martin Luther King sent this to 11 jailed protestors: I HAVE JUST LEARNED OF YOUR COURAGEOUS WILLINGNESS TO GO TO JAIL INSTEAD OF PAYING FINES FOR YOUR RIGHTEOUS PROTEST AGAINST SEGREGATED EATING FACILITIES. THROUGH THIS DECISION YOU HAVE AGAIN PROVEN THAT THERE IS NOTHING MORE MAJESTIC AND SUBLIME THAN THE [...]

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While I do not agree with the way in which the president took on health care and the mess we ended up with, he was absolutely right to understand that health care reform was essential to ensure a strong (and, need I say, moral) economy AND job growth. I think it is unfortunate that too [...]

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There are lots of reasons to oppose the Senate bill in its current form, and hope that, if the Senate does pass a bill, that the final form of the bill is closer to the House version (I am leaving aside for the moment the argument, pro or con, that anything short of "Medicare For [...]

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   The drumbeat about the long-term debt is continuing. But, we are not having a serious debate about the origins of the debt or its solutions. If you want to address the long-term debt, the only solution is a "Medicare For All" system that kills the private health insurance industry.   The newest alarm is [...]

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   It is a tough reality that the chances are fairly slim that single-payer, "Medicare For All" will pass into law in the next few months–it is just not part of the debate on health care, despite being the best economic and moral option. It is obviously possible that the whole legislative process comes to [...]

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   The Wall Street Journal reports this morning that the president will push for the public option in his speech tonight before Congress–though there seems to be massive wiggle room in this comment: "White House officials say the president will detail what he wants in the health-care overhaul, as well as say he is open [...]

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   I can’t say I’m surprised, honestly. I believe I’ve pointed out before that we were screwed once there was an acceptance that the insurance industry was going to be at the table when the health and welfare of our families, neighbors and friends was at stake. It seemed to obvious to me–and, yet, one [...]

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A tried-and-true political tactic in this country to scuttle progressive progress is to explicitly or implicitly tar one’s opponent as "un-American". One can either do it in the darkest of ways–cue Sen. Joe McCarthy. Or, one can do it in a more subtle way by accusing one’s opponents of perhaps one of the worst transgressions–listening [...]

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