A Measured Step Towards Health Care For All

Well, it’s finally happened. Congress has passed health care reform. Now what will happen? Truthfully, no one knows for sure. But that hasn’t stopped the right wing crazies and their enablers Fox News and Rush Limbaugh from telling us. They say that the passage of this socialist takeover of healthcare means we are on an inevitable path to communism. Uncle Sam will choose your doctor for you. The IRS will hunt you down and bankrupt you if you don’t sign up for health insurance. The American public will rise up in anger and throw out the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate.

Has Armageddon arrived? Hardly. The dirty little secret is that many on the left are as dissatisfied with this bill as the right. This legislation is nothing like the single payer programs that Canada and Britain have. Healthcare in this country will still be mostly provided by employers, and through private health insurance carriers. The major change is that most people who now don’t have access to health insurance will be able to get it. Folks will no longer be denied coverage due to having a preexisting medical condition. Young adults will be able to stay on their parents’ insurance until they get their own coverage. As for the penalties for not getting health insurance, many worry that the penalties in the bill are so SMALL that many will simply pay them rather than comply.

The Obama health care bill is a compromise first step in making sure everyone has access to affordable health care. This law is actually very similar to the Republican proposal offered as the alternative to “Hillarycare” in the 90s. The process of passing it was ugly and sometimes distasteful. But it is a tremendous step forward in providing a higher quality of life for all Americans. The same criticisms made of this process were made of other dramatic improvements like Medicare, Medicaid, Civil Rights and Womens Suffrage. Many of the legislators who voted against those landmarks later wished they hadn’t. I applaud the 219 brave souls who put their careers on the line to vote in favor of real progress. Some of them may suffer at the polls this fall. But history will see them as visionaries.

Supreme Court Ruling on Campaign Spending by Corporations

In my view the recent Supreme Court decision on campaign spending by corporations is based on two false premises. One is that corporations are entitled to the same first amendment rights as actual persons. The second is that money equals speech. One cannot find support for either proposition in the Constitution or its Amendments. Can you possibly imagine Jefferson or Madison supporting giving artificial constucts like corporations full First Amendment rights? Any argument that the current majority are strict constructionists has gone out the window with this recent decision. Instead, we saw a wholesale abrogation of precedents in favor of one set of interests over others. Elections DO matter, for they result in this kind of outrageous miscarriage of justice. That whirring sound you hear are the founding fathers spinning in their graves. One day this decision will be overturned. May it be soon.

There's been a lot of theoretical talk about the impact this Supreme Court ruling may have. But, if you want a real life, actual example of how the system can be abused by this ruling, look at how the CEO of Massey Coal put $3 million into the race for a seat on the West Virginia Supreme Court. His candidate was elected and shortly afterwards voted in favor of Massey in an important case. Read all about it in Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co.

Free speech is something we should all support. But that doesn't mean that everyone's opinion is entitled to equal weight. Brian Bolig's Jan. 17 letter to the Harrisburg Patriot-News says that climate change is a hoax. He cites as his proof the fact that Hannibal used a pass in the Alps that is snow covered today. He doesn't name any scientists who support this "proof" of a hoax.

As far as I know, there are none. According to Bolig, everything in this world is politicized.

It seems that way, if all you watch is Fox News Channel and MSNBC. If Mr. Bolig would widen his search a bit, he will discover that the overwhelming scientific consensus supports the position that man is responsible for a substantial portion of our gradually warming climate.

According to the World Meteorological Organization, seven of the warmest years on record have occurred in the last 10 years. The consensus prediction is that the Arctic Ocean will become navigable in about 30 years. The snows of Kilimanjaro will be gone in less than a decade.

Mr. Bolig and others such as Rush Limbaugh can always find a lone gadfly scientist who will support their silly position. Meanwhile our earth continues to warm and our window of time to act continues to close.

The Harrisburg Patriot-News just ran an article stating that eighty-three employees connected to the state legislature pulled in six-figure salaries last year.

I think some of in the media are being somewhat irresponsible in covering this issue. I spent my entire career in the private sector working for large corporations. When analyzing how much a particular position should be paid, we looked at industry studies. Why aren't you comparing what, say, an accounting manager in the private sector is making as compared to state government. That is the only fair comparison. When the media doesn't look at the issue this way, they are playing into the hands of the anti-government firebrands who, I guess, think that there shouldn't be any government employees at all.