Stop Bitching...

...Do something! Call/email your senators & representatives! It's easy and it really makes a difference.

Find them here:
White House: 202-456-1111 http://www.whitehouse.gov/CONTACT/
House of Reps: (202) 224-3121 https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml
Senate: (202) 224-3121 http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/general/one_item_and_teasers/contacting.htm

I just emailed them all urging them not to support health care legislation without a public option. Contacting them really makes a difference, but only if a lot of us do it.

Unless of course you want to keep letting those blowhards on Capitol Hill sell you out. Remember, we pay their salary, and that includes their sweet health insurance coverage. They work for us!!!! Let them know who's boss.

Thanks ~

Rethinking Iran

My last post was very pessimistic about the situation in Iran. I guess I still doubt we will see the election nullified or even recounted. But today I heard an Iranian diplomat speaking on the radio, who suggested that the UN could get involved in demanding a recount. I hope that international diplomatic efforts and national civic action are strong enough to initiate a recount. The more the Iranians demand accountabililty, and the more pressure we all apply through media and diplomacy, the more likely there are to be results. Maybe it's not impossible. And if not this time, next time for sure;)

Health Care

Okay, here's my two cents. Yes I am a progressive. Yes I want a public option. Yes I think single-payer is the best model. I do think there is room for a private competitive market, but ultimately I think all Americans should have a public option.

I work in Property Casualty Insurance. Insurance has a very specific role, to finance risk. We make money by insuring a lot of relatively safe exposures, and only paying out for the occasional accidental loss. Health insurance isn't like this. Health insurance funds wear & tear. It's more like an auto warranty, but that of course runs out after the car ages a bit. The point is, insurance is not a wise business model to fund healthcare, because we need it to pay for wear and tear and accidental loss. (Especially wear and tear because often medical costs associated with accidents are covered under property/casualty policies). Since there is also a profit motive, we end up paying exorbitant premiums, as if we were paying for wear & tear and accident insurance on our automobiles throughout the life of the car. We all feel this play out in our day to day lives. I am a healthy person, and I still see how my premiums are not enough to fund my basic care and why health insurance companies need deductibles, copays, higher premiums, limits and other mechanisms to limit their exposure; they simply cannot run their business otherwise. And that's to say nothing of exorbitant executive pay, marketing costs, administrative overhead, etc, many of which are eliminated or reduced in a public/not-for-profit model.

Of course, the average individual does not have the resources to cover medical costs anymore, nor do employers, nor does government. So we are in quite a pickle then. This is why politicians focus on cost reduction. It's an obvious first step, and one that seems like it would be generally less susceptible to political backlashes. The insurance companies like reform plans that focus on cost-reduction, because it's not a public competitor, and they can keep promising to cut costs, buy some time. The rest of us like cost-reduction because we can't afford this stuff anymore.

The insurance companies won't cut costs though, unless government forces them to. And I do mean force, as in Uncle Sam says to Blue Cross, "You must charge $x for y services." I'm not here to be a class warrior. As I've already stated, profit-driven health insurance business models are not sustainable nor lucrative. Also the profit model subverts public policy, because the field makes money off sick people, so the more sick people, the better. It's all about turnover, people. We can't expect businesspeople to be philanthropists. There is a time and a place to be profit driven, and that place just is not healthcare. It never was.

So here's my idea. Being that I am not at all qualified to evaluate responsible health policy in this country, I think I have as good a shot as most politicians.

I recently went to a little meet and greet breakfast at Worcester Temple Beth Am to meet my local candidates for state senate. I ran into an old fellow, Gerard, and we got to chatting politics. Gerard told me that Taiwan recently moved to a public health care model. According to my new friend, the Taiwanese travelled around the world to find the most efficient model of administrating health care. And they chose Medicaid. In the interest of full disclosure, I have not confirmed this fact.

Medicaid, as I understand, is a state-administrated health care provider for low-income people. It differs from Medicare, as Medicare is federally administrated, and available to the elderly. Hence, low income elderly people sometimes get stuck in the middle.

A state administrated program seems like a better approach to me than a federally adminstrated program. Many states already have some kind of public health, and the states could try different things and learn from each other. Also, state policies are closer to the consumer, and tend to be less bureaucratic and more accessible. I do believe the public health program should be federally subsidized, but I believe the states would be more effective administrators. According to Gerard, the Taiwanese agree.

Now, as progressives, we have to fight the urge to demonize private industry. These companies provide jobs and reasonable benefits and income to many Americans, and right now is not the time to be abruptly robbing the health insurance companies of market share. We need to acknowledge that a sudden shift in the economy can be extremely disruptive, and develop a long view to a single payer system. A lot of progressives disagree with me on this, and they can go pound sand. Nothing happens overnight. The suffragists worked for over a century!

So, my idea is annually raise the cap of income eligibility for Medicaid. Year one, kids under 12. Year two, income eligibility ceiling goes up $10,000. Or the next 1% of incomes. And on until everyone is covered. Each increase should be coupled with tax increases on the newly eligible classes. The idea is that you take your health insurance costs and pay them in income tax instead as you move away from your private company to a public provider. I'm sure the GAO would have a field day with these numbers, but you get the idea.

And that brings me to a little diatribe about one current plan. Robert Reich, whom I respect immensely, has suggested that we should tax employer benefits to fund a public model. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that self defeating? The more people move away from a private to a public market, the more money you need for the public market, the less money you have. Am I missing something?

Would love to continue discussion with anyone who cares.

Iranian Election Fallout

Ok, I'm throwing my hat in the ring here. Mostly because I want to discuss this stuff, but nobody in my life seems to care. Not that anyone will ever read this thing. 

I've read up a bit on this whole election debacle in Iran. I think the American inclination is to identify with the reformist, whom we have identified as Moussavi. And just look at all those Moussavi supporting Iranians in the streets protesting the election results. They obviously have a fire in their bellies, one that clearly trumps whatever suspicions Americans had in 2000 & 2004 elections. I feel a sort of patriotic identification with their rallies; if they were American, they'd be exercising their First Amendment freedom.

But they aren't American. I am seeing them through an opaque American lens. And I realize that. While I won't be traveling to Iran in the near future to get the insider's perspective, I do feel that the sheer level of political upheaval is indicative of election malfeasance. But there's not a damn thing I can do about it. Nor is there a damn thing I should do about it. The Iranians are working it out, and frankly, I think they're going to fail. It's good that there are rumblings of election recounts, but does any of us seriously thing that Ahmedinijad is going to be dethroned at this point? And would it really be appropriate for the US to get involved?  

But God bless them anyway for fighting for what they believe in, and may we all be inspired by it. They are facing far more violent government retaliation than we ever did in this country. And they are out there fighting nonetheless. These aren't Iranian leftist yuppies, as some bloggers have insinuated. They are patriots with conviction. And they are being murdered. 

Despite that, and despite weird accusations that the US is somehow inappropriately participating in this, I see no indication that our foreign policy is seeking involvement in this crisis. Obama has acknowledged the US's inappropriate meddlings in Iranian leadership in 1953. Obama has stated that he doesn't believe the outcome of the election matters much in terms of US foreign policy. While I find that statement highly debatable, the point is that we aren't involved in this thing. We can blog about it and cover it and watch footage on the news. But we are not getting involved politically. And as much as my heart goes out to the Iranian protesters, and especially to Iranian women, I don't see that any official involvement by the US at this point would be useful. But we do have the right to discuss it in our media, just as Iranians have the right to protest in the street.

And while I think we are all stuck with Ahmedinijad for the next four years, I pray that this uproar serves a more long term goal. Perhaps as in America, they will iron out some of the holes in their election system, and elect a reformist next time around.

Or maybe that's just my naive American lens again.