Good Corp, Bad Corp

Kudos to the Country Fresh Dairy in Grand Rapids for respecting the hard work of their employees.

On October 3, Local 386 members employed at Country Fresh Dairy in Grand Rapids, Michigan, ratified a new contract. The new agreement increases wages and pension benefits, while protecting health care coverage and increases sickness and accident and life insurance coverage. [...]

The five-year contract contains wage increases totaling 11 percent over the course of the agreement, and the company’s contributions to the employees’ RWDSU pension will increase by $2 per week each year. By the last year of the contract, the company will be contributing $80 per week to the plan.

I've always liked and bought Country Fresh products, and now I have another reason to remain a loyal customer. Not only do I help the company's profits, but I help the 156 employees who overwhelmingly voted to ratify the contract.

The polar opposite of Country Fresh is Boeing. The company decided to put a new assembly line for the 787 Dreamliner in South Carolina. Boeing claims they chose right-to-work South Carolina in part "because of frustration with labor strife in Seattle, where four strikes in the past 20 years by the machinists union delayed deliveries." However, according to the Seattle PI, the union offered a 10-year, no-strike contract and was willing to discuss a longer agreement to get Boeing to commit to locating the second 787 line in Everett, Washington.

And this little tidbit from the same article is infuriating:

Boeing already took billions in tax credits and handouts... Now, the company is taking the jobs promised by the 787 program and leaving Washington workers and taxpayers high and dry.

What's the company getting from South Carolina? A package that eliminates income and other taxes for a decade and the state will provide low-interest construction bonds.

The problem with all these incentives according to this journalist is that they're a downward spiral on our race to the bottom.

Of course the problem isn't a lack of "commitment" to the aerospace industry in a region where generations of workers have devoted their lives to making Boeing planes. The problem is that people in Washington just don't come as cheap. We have this bad habit of paying people a decent wage, and providing good unemployment pay and benefits for people who are injured on the job--all things that apparently must change if we're to be competitive.

But then, if you consult the advocacy groups trying to insure the "competitiveness" of South Carolina, they say the same thing. "South Carolina's workers' compensation costs are the highest in the Southeast for small business" frets the South Carolina Civil Justice Coalition, a group that works to improve the business climate in Boeing's new home. They won't be satisfied until South Carolina's "climate" has been made as cheap as Georgia's, Tennessee's, and Virginia's.

And on down it spirals. It's not a winnable game, not if we want to keep any allegiance to our own values. In a few years, Boeing will be playing S.C. off Mississippi.

Boeing could learn a few things about values from Country Fresh.


(Cross-posted at Blogging for MI.)

Health Care Debate Takes Compassionate Turn

What two words have been missing from the health care debate on the right? Compassion and religion. The party of compassionate conservatism has always been quick to use religion when it served their purpose in the past, but curiously, neither word has been mentioned often in relation to health care reform. There have been a few exceptions though. While conducting a town hall in Lebanon, PA, Sen. Arlen Specter was threatened with God's wrath by one protester.

"One day, God's gonna stand before you," he said. "And he's gonna judge you and the rest of your damn cronies up on the Hill, and then you can get your just desserts."

I wonder if that person was referring to the lies being told by some critics? As Jim Wallis of Sojourners recently said, "one important moral principle for the health-care debate is truth-telling."

The religious right may be keeping quiet about this issue, but a coalition of interfaith religious groups is backing health care reform. They've launched a 40 day campaign targeting 100 member of Congress and they'll participate in a telephone call-in event with President Obama on Aug 19.

Members of the group said Monday that they intend to fight back against what they say are lies being told about health reform.

“All of God’s children [have] got to be covered now,” said Rev. Jim Wallis, the CEO of Sojourners. “This is not a partisan political move. You are going to hear the moral drumbeat throughout this debate.”

The campaign is sponsored and organized by PICO National Network, Faith in Public Life, Faithful America, Sojourners and Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good.

Catholics in Alliance believe "health care is a basic human right, not a privilege," and Faithful America is letting Congress know people of faith support health care reform in a national TV ad.

Christians aren't alone in this effort. The coalition also includes Jewish and Muslim leaders. In fact, the National Democratic Jewish Council launched a "Rabbis for Health Insurance Reform" webpage urging Congress to get legislation passed for "Democrats, Republicans, Christians, Muslims, and Jews."

"Our tradition teaches us to pursue justice," the site reads. "Yet it is not a just society when families are forced to choose between paying their mortgages or paying for prescription drugs. It is not a just society when small businesses must choose between being profitable or providing coverage to their employees. It is not a just society when people are denied health insurance because they have a pre-existing condition for which they need medical care. Equal access to safe and affordable health care is an essential social justice issue of our time.

If ever there was a time to bring religion and compassion into the discussion, this is it. As one Indianapolis pastor who is part of the coalition said, this "effort addresses the suffering parishioners they [clergy] see each week who can’t afford treatments until their ailments reach emergency room levels. ... This is as much a crisis of faith as it is a crisis of health care.”


(Cross-posted at Blogging for MI.)

Mitch Albom defends the richest 1 percent

Did you catch Mitch Albom's column in the Free Press defending rich people from having to pay more in taxes in order to fund health care reform? Prepare yourself to gag:

In explaining why it was OK to sock a new 5.4% tax on the highest earners in this country — to pay for health care reform — President Obama’s press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said this:

“The president believes that the richest 1% of this country has had a pretty good run of it for many, many, many years.”

Ah. So that’s it. The old “You’ve had it good enough for long enough” policy. That’s why a family earning a million dollars a year should now cough up $54,000 of that — in addition to all the other taxes it pays...

It is not that the rich should not pay fair taxes. They should.

But to justify a grossly overweighted tax by saying “You people have had it good long enough” is to engage in the worst and most destructive form of politics: class warfare.

"Grossly overweighted tax" is not only incorrect (which I'll get to later), but Mitch seems to forget who his target audience is: Poor slobs like me who bought his books and helped make him rich. I won't make that mistake again.

Speaking of his books, David Sirota notes that Albom has "made millions of dollars writing books about sick people and death." He also assumed "that because his writing comes into contact with the most gut-wrenching parts of health care system, and because he portrays himself as a shining beacon of compassion and selflessness, that he is, in fact, a somewhat compassionate human being."

However, after reading Albom's column in what Sirota calls "quite literally the most economically devastated city in the United States," he changed his opinion of him. "Albom is a run-of-the-mill royalist and right-wing psychopath."

And yet, Albom -- the guy who has made his pile by trumpeting his alleged compassion for the plight of the sick and dying -- is spending the most crucial week in the health care debate insisting that the superwealthy pay too much in taxes and never avoid paying what they owe. And more importantly, Albom spends this week insisting the major problem facing America is a "class warfare" that would ask a Goldman Sachs executive making $1 million a year to devote just 9-tenths of one percent more of his taxpayer-subsidized income to a universal health care program. And he's doing all this in the flagship paper of the city that has been most devastated by the economy.

Not only is Albom not compassionate, he's also a fool when it comes to that "grossly overweighted tax" he mentioned. His math is not only wrong, it's considerably off, by a factor of six according to A Tiny Revolution.

Someone making $1,000,000 per year wouldn't pay $54,000 more in taxes under this bill. They'd pay $9,000.

That's because the 5.4% surcharge would only apply to someone's income over $1,000,000. Your tax bill wouldn't suddenly go up by $54,000 if one year you made $1,000,000 instead of $999,999.

Albom writes at a third grade reading level and isn't a tax accountant (he has a degree in journalism from Columbia University plus an MBA from Columbia's Graduate School of Business), but that doesn't justify passing along false information as the truth. Or could it be, as A Tiny Revolution points out, that it's just acceptable practice in his line of work.

"There really is no field but right-wing punditry where you can make these kind of catastrophic errors and keep your job. You can't graduate from Columbia Medical School and become a surgeon if you believe human beings have six spleens, and you can't stay an anesthesiologist if you give someone six times too much Sevoflurane. But as long as your horrifying incompetence serves a right-wing agenda, there will always be a cozy home for you in journalism."

It's too bad Mitch didn't take to heart Morrie's words:

"So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they're busy doing things they think are important. This is because they're chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning."


(Cross-posted at Blogging for MI.)

Great lessons of life from Obama's grandparents

As you've probably heard, Barack Obama is canceling nearly all of his campaign events Thursday and Friday to visit his gravely ill grandmother in Hawaii. Madelyn Dunham is the "white grandmother" Obama referred to in his speech on race and the woman he lovingly recognized when he accepted the Democratic presidential nomination in Denver.

She's the one who taught me about hard work. She's the one who put off buying a new car or a new dress for herself so that I could have a better life. She poured everything she had into me.

There's no doubt that Madelyn and Stanley Dunham loved Barack and sacrificed for him, but they also deserve to be recognized for their courage. Ta-Nehisi Coates touched on that quality in a moving meditation at The Atlantic. Here's an excerpt:

Likewise, I was looking at this picture of Obama's grandparents and thinking how much he looks like his grandfather. And suddenly, for whatever reason, I was struck by the fact that they had made the decision to love their daughter, no matter what, and love their grandson, no matter what. I'd bet money that they never even thought of themselves as courageous, that they didn't give much thought to the broader struggles in the the world at the time. They were just doing what right, honorable people do. But the fact is that, in the 60s, you could be disowned for falling in love with a black woman or black man. There is a reason why we have a long history of publicly biracial black people, but not so much of publicly biracial white people.

We often give a pass to racists by noting that they were "of their times." Fair enough, and I know Hawaii was a different beast, but still, today, let us speak of people who were ahead of their times, who were outside of their times. Let us remember that Barack Obama learned the great lessons of life from courageous white people. Let us speak of those who do what normal, right people should always do when faced with a child--commit an act love. Here's to doing the right thing.

We can all learn something from Madelyn and Stanley Dunham's example.

(Check out the picture of Obama's grandparents. His resemblance to his grandfather is remarkable.)

(Cross-posted at Blogging for MI.)

Republicans vote against their mothers

Add motherhood to the list of things Republicans hate:

On Wednesday afternoon, the House had just voted, 412 to 0, to pass H. Res. 1113, "Celebrating the role of mothers in the United States and supporting the goals and ideals of Mother's Day," when Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), rose in protest.

"Mr. Speaker, I move to reconsider the vote," he announced.

Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), who has two young daughters, moved to table Tiahrt's request, setting up a revote. This time, 178 Republicans cast their votes against mothers.

A majority of the House GOP has now voted against motherhood. Nice. I've often said Republicans would throw their own mothers under a bus, now I have proof.

McCain is Downright McNasty

The Republicans have spent decades proclaiming their moral superiority and they crow that they're the only ones who can be trusted to uphold the sanctity of marriage, yet they're enamored with John McCain, a person who swears, throws temper tantrums and calls his wife despicable names in front of others. Did I mention he's a philanderer?

Is this the kind of person we want representing our country?

The Real McCain by Cliff Schecter, which will arrive in bookstores next month, reports an angry exchange between McCain and his wife that happened in full view of aides and reporters during a 1992 campaign stop. An advance copy of the book was obtained by RAW STORY.

Three reporters from Arizona, on the condition of anonymity, also let me in on another incident involving McCain's intemperateness. In his 1992 Senate bid, McCain was joined on the campaign trail by his wife, Cindy, as well as campaign aide Doug Cole and consultant Wes Gullett. At one point, Cindy playfully twirled McCain's hair and said, "You're getting a little thin up there." McCain's face reddened, and he responded, "At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you c---t." [my editing] McCain's excuse was that it had been a long day. If elected president of the United States, McCain would have many long days.

The man who was known as "McNasty" in high school has erupted in foul-languaged tirades at political foes and congressional colleagues more-or-less throughout his career, and his quickness to anger has been an issue on the presidential campaign trail as evidence of his fury has surfaced.

Schecter isn't the first person to note McCain's character failings. The NY Times wrote this in 2000:

For a candidate running on character and biography, it is also an awkward time to remember: Mr. McCain abandoned his wife, who had reared their three children while he was in Vietnamese prisons, and he then began his political career with the resources of his new wife's family.[...]

The story began when Vietnam released Mr. McCain and other prisoners of war in March 1973. He stepped off a military transport plane on crutches, an instant war hero, and quickly had a painful shock.

His wife, Carol, a tall, slim woman who had once been a model, had nearly died in a car wreck in 1969. H. Ross Perot, the businessman and advocate of prisoners of war, had paid for her medical care, but the injuries left her four inches shorter and on crutches, and she had gained a good deal of weight.

As John McCain puzzled over his career, he also found himself sorting out his marriage.

McCain also did a little soul searching back in 1979 and lamented that he would never make admiral like his father and grandfather. The Times said "he had always dreamed of doing something great, of imprinting his name on the history books, but at age 42 he found himself with a stuttering military career and no base from which to go into politics."

That all changed in April 1979 when he met Cindy Hensely at a cocktail party in Honolulu. He spent the whole party talking to her, went out to dinner and from there he pursued her. McCain didn't divorce his first wife till the following February, which left him free to promptly marry Cindy, heiress to Hensley & Co., one of the largest Anheuser-Busch beer distributors in the nation. It was her father's business and political contacts that helped McCain gain a foothold into Arizona politics, along with Cindy's wealth from her expired trust funds.

Nice guy, eh? He dumps his disabled wife and marries a wealthy woman in order to advance his ambitions, and then he treats her like dirt in public. I cringe to even think about what he might do to her behind closed doors.

The kind of marriage the McCain's have is their business, but the way he treats people, his violent temper and the inappropriate words he uses in public are things that should concern us. We need a cool head in the White House, not a hot head who speaks before thinking, and we definitely need someone who will bring respect back to the office. That person is not John McCain.

Jesus: The illegal immigrant

I read something Libby posted at the Impolitic yesterday that I can't get out of my head: What if Jesus is an illegal immigrant?

Mainstream Christianity pretty much teaches that Jesus will return in "glory" from a cloud or the sky with trumpets and singing, but Libby asks, "What if He shows up announced?" Or what if He comes back as a hated minority, as Jesus Manuel Cordova?

PHOENIX - A 9-year-old boy looking for help after his mother crashed their van in the southern Arizona desert was rescued by a man entering the U.S. illegally, who stayed with him until help arrived the next day, an official said. [...]

The van vaulted into a canyon and landed 300 feet from the road, he said. The woman, from Rimrock, north of Phoenix, survived the impact but was pinned inside, [Sheriff] Estrada said.

Her son, unhurt but disoriented, crawled out to get help and was found about two hours later by Jesus Manuel Cordova, 26, of Magdalena de Kino in the northern Mexican state of Sonora. Unable to pull the mother out, he comforted the boy while they waited for help.

The woman died a short time later.

"He stayed with him, told him that everything was going to be all right," Estrada said.

As temperatures dropped, he gave him a jacket, built a bonfire and stayed with him until about 8 a.m. Friday, when hunters passed by and called authorities, Estrada said. The boy was flown to University Medical Center in Tucson as a precaution but appeared unhurt. [...]

"For a 9-year-old it has to be completely traumatic, being out there alone with his mother dead," Estrada said. "Fortunately for the kid, (Cordova) was there. That was his angel."

Angel indeed. The boy's father died just two months ago and now he loses his mother. I can't begin to imagine the pain and fear he felt alone in the desert, and then along came Cordova to comfort him and stay with him until help arrived. I call that divine intervention.

I'll let Libby speak for me from this point on:

Think about that. Jesus was entering the US illegally and had to know he would be arrested. He could have just kept walking. Or he could have built a fire and walked away. He could have fled at any time to avoid facing the authorities but he stayed to comfort and protect a child until help came. Which is more than we can say for the hunters who were presumably legal residents.

For his humanitarian efforts, he's now in jail awaiting deportation. What a sad commentary on the politics of hate that has so poisoned America, that we would penalize another human being for such a selfless act of kindness. Surely in this case, an exception to the rules could and should be made.

Amen. We could use more role models like Cordova in this country. He put the needs of that small boy ahead of his own. Imagine that.

Insurance Industry 1, Sick Children 0

From Bush's press conference yesterday:

"And I believe strongly in private medicine.

Now, I think the federal government ought to help those who are poor. And it's one of the reasons why I worked on Medicare reform was to make sure that we fulfill our promise to the elderly.

But I don't like plans that move people from — encourage people to move from private medicine to the public, and that's what's happening under this bill."

Bush got what he wanted:

Republicans Speak: No Healthcare For Children

Even though this latest CBS News poll found an overwhelming majority of Americans supported the legislation:

WOULD YOU FAVOR OR OPPOSE EXPANDING S-CHIP?

Favor - 81%
Oppose - 15%

WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO PAY MORE TAXES TO EXPAND S-CHIP? (Among those who favor expanding S-CHIP)

Yes -74%
No - 17%

These men voted no on SCHIP here in Michigan: Camp, Hoekstra, Knollenberg, McCotter, Rogers and Walberg. They have tax-payer funded public insurance - and so do their children. Remember that when you vote in 2008.

A truly perverse and incoherent form of class warfare

Right-wingers are still busy sliming 12-year-old Graeme Frost and his family because they received benefits from - and spoke out in favor of - the SCHIP program. E.J. Dionne does a particularly good job of illuminating the right's hypocrisy, which he calls a "a truly perverse and incoherent form of class warfare."

From TruthDig:

[The Frost's reward for speaking out] was to be trashed on right-wing blogs and talk radio as if they were multimillionaires ripping off the system.

And of what were the Frosts guilty? Well, they own their own home, which they bought for $55,000 in 1990 and is now worth about $260,000; they invested in a commercial property, valued at $160,000; Halsey Frost, a self-employed woodworker, once owned a small business that was dissolved in 1999; and Graeme attends a private school on scholarship. I rely here on facts reported this week in The Baltimore Sun and The New York Times, both of which set straight the more outlandish claims made by the Frosts’ attackers.

So rather than just condemn the right-wingers as meanies, let’s take their claims seriously. Doing so makes clear that they are engaged in a truly perverse and incoherent form of class warfare.

The left is accused of all manner of sins related to covetousness and envy whenever it raises questions about who benefits from President Bush’s tax cuts and mentions the yachts such folks might buy or the mansions they might own. But here is a family with modest possessions doing everything conservatives tell people they should do, and the right trashes them for getting help to buy health insurance for their children. [...]

Most conservatives favor government-supported vouchers that would help Graeme attend his private school, but here they turn around and criticize him for ... attending a private school. Federal money for private schools but not for health insurance? What’s the logic here?

Conservatives endlessly praise risk-taking by entrepreneurs and would give big tax cuts to those who are most successful. But if a small-business person is struggling, he shouldn’t even think about applying for SCHIP.

Conservatives who want to repeal the estate tax on large fortunes have cited stories—most of them never check out—about farmers having to sell their farms to pay inheritance taxes. But the implication of these attacks on the Frosts is that they are expected to sell their investment property to pay for health care. Why?

Oh, yes, and conservatives tell us how much they love homeownership, and then assail the Frosts for having the nerve to own a home. I suppose they should have to sell that, too.

The real issue here is whether uninsured families with earnings similar to the Frosts’ need government help to buy health coverage. With the average family policy in employer-provided plans now costing more than $12,000 annually—the price is usually higher for families trying to buy it on their own—the answer is plainly yes. All the conservative attacks on a boy from Baltimore who dared to speak out will not make this issue go away.

Dionne is right. The issue won't go away because the problem affects so many Americans, not just children. That's what has the conservatives and their insurance friends so rattled that they're willing to smear a little boy. They're putting dollars and cents ahead of people, and they call themselves the "values" party.

(If you're interested, check out my post at BFM: Would Jesus have vetoed the SCHIP bill?

Budget wishes and realities

I read this letter-to-the-editor in the Freep and immediately thought "be careful what you wish for."

Our best hope now in this budget mess is for government to shut down in the state. We don't fear it; we welcome it -- the longer the better. The services we receive are easy to live without. In fact, I can't think of a thing they do for me or a thing I'd miss. Government shutdowns don't hurt any of us who pay the bill, only those on the public dole.

Jon Etnyre, Sterling Heights

So what is Jon referring to? Michigan legislators have till the end of the month to come up with a new budget or the state faces a shutdown. Republicans want $1 billion in budget cuts along with a state income tax hike from 3.9 percent to 4.4 percent. Gov. Granholm said the state can't sustain such high cuts without hurting people and has proposed $300 million in cuts. Democrats are also proposing a hike in the state income tax to 4.6 percent.

How did our state get to this point? Jack Lessenberry explains:

The present crisis has been a long time coming. The politicians have starved state government and set up the current crisis by slowly choking off public money through a series of tax cuts.

Stay with me for a minute while I explain how that happened: For many years, Michigan's income tax was 4.6 percent. That was cut to 4.4 percent in 1994, when Proposal A increased the sales tax to finance education.

That was fine and dandy. We wouldn't be in the mess we are in if they had just left it at that. But the Legislature then gradually cut the income tax rate from 4.4 percent to 3.9 percent — without replacing that money.

What that meant was that every year the state came up short. Those who wanted the tax cuts said, "Fine, that means we should cut spending." In fact, the Legislature did, gradually eliminating programs, some of which (sorry, liberals) probably deserved to be eliminated.

But those savings weren't enough to make up for the loss of money, and inflation and other factors (such as the growing prison population) meant the state needed more and more money for legitimate needs.

Things also have gotten worse as the dwindling auto companies threw people out of work, further reducing tax revenues coming in.

What did our lawmakers do about that? Ducked responsibility, that's what. They raided whatever savings and "rainy day funds" the state had. They shoved the problem over into future years. Last May, in a move that should have gotten the legislators all impeached or shot for dereliction of duty, they sold off money the state was due to get in future years for an outrageous fraction of its worth.

According to the national settlement against the tobacco companies, every state gets a pot load of money every year to compensate for medical expenses incurred by the millions of people tobacco kills. Michigan's irresponsible lawmakers traded $900 million in future payments for $400 million right then.

That was, again, to avoid dealing with this year's budget problem. They also shoved a lot of the deficit into next year's budget. Now, the party's over.

There are no more funds to loot — not enough, anyway, to come up with the money needed. Now, the cupboard is just about bare, and the state starts out with a deficit of $1.8 billion. Not million, billion.

Granholm has already reconciled more than $4 billion in budget deficits and state government is at its smallest size since 1973, but Republicans - and Jon - want more cuts that will increase class size in our schools, take police off the streets, take away health care from thousands, and possibly shut down the state. It's easy to say "shut it down," but are Republicans and people like Jon really prepared to live with the consequences? This letter-to-the-editor writer isn't:

I was fascinated by the Sept. 14 letter "Go ahead, shut the state down" (from a letter writer in Sterling Heights), which said shutting state government down would hurt "only those on the public dole."

One out of every three state employees works for Corrections, so I guess we can release all those prisoners; may I suggest Sterling Heights as a nice place to send them? Then there are the remaining state mental hospitals staffed by state employees; we can send those patients to Sterling Heights as well.

I guess the writer eats only at home, so he will not miss the state employees who survey restaurants to make sure they are compliant with public health requirements. And he must never go to the hospital or know anyone in a nursing home, so he will not miss the state employees who survey them for compliance with state licensure and Medicare and Medicaid rules.

The writer must never leave Sterling Heights to visit any of the state parks or forests, so he won't miss the state employees who work there. And he doesn't travel the roads that the Department of Transportation work on, so there is no need for those people. He must never visit the casinos, so he won't miss the state employees who need to be working for those to run.

Hopefully he is not a doctor, nurse or in any other type of job that needs a state license, because the people who process those licenses -- and those who investigate reasons why some doctors, nurses and other professions need to lose those licenses -- will all be gone.

He probably has never been unemployed, so he would not need the state workers who handle unemployment. And, of course, he would never need the state troopers for any reason, nor the Secretary of State's office.

Andrea L. VanDenBergh, Belleville

I side with Andrea on this, and she didn't even touch on the sick, poor or children, all targets of Republican cuts. And what about all the people who will lose their jobs because of the cuts? Our state needs more jobs and more revenue, so how does it help our economy to put people out of work? Those people pay taxes on their income and spend it in their communities.

Lessenberry sums it up best:

Taxes are the price we pay for a decent life. Restoring the state income tax rate to 4.6 percent would cost someone who makes $50,000 about five bucks a week. You blow more than that on vending machines. Failing to raise taxes might double college tuition, lower the quality of our schools at the same time, risk the public heath and raise license fees through the roof.

The cupboard is almost bare, and regardless of what the Republicans or people like Jon say, a majority of Michigan's voters support a tax increase combined with reasonable cuts. "Reasonable" is not throwing people under the bus for a few dollars.

Poll: Voters Say Reauthorize, Expand SCHIP

A new poll by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation shows that Americans overwhelmingly support the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), which provides states with federal funds to design health insurance programs for vulnerable children.

Nearly nine in 10 voters (86%) say they support reauthorizing SCHIP, and a clear majority (63%) say they support expanding SCHIP's budget by an additional $35 billion over five years.

Poll results show:

An overwhelming majority of voters support reauthorizing SCHIP for another five years (86% support).

Voters support reauthorization regardless of political party, with 77 percent of Republicans, 86 percent of Independents and 93 percent of Democrats supporting reauthorization.

More than three out of four voters support reauthorization, even when told that the Congressional Budget Office says it will cost $39 billion over five years to maintain the program in its current state (77% support).

Even when these costs are explained, support for reauthorization remains strong across voters from different political parties (Republicans -- 64% support; Independents -- 78% support; Democrats -- 86% support).

Nearly two out of three voters say they support expanding SCHIP to cover an additional 4 million uninsured children at an additional cost of $35 billion over five years (63% support).

This expansion of SCHIP is even supported by a majority of self-identified 'conservatives.' (Conservatives -- 53% support; Moderates -- 67% support; Liberals -- 73% support)

Nearly two out of three voters say they disagree with President Bush's decision to veto legislation passed by Congress to expand SCHIP (64% disagree).

Unlike Bush and most Republicans, a majority of Americans have their priorities straight. The health of our children is priceless.

Can I get my social security converted into pesos?

I'm a grandmother now, so I need to start thinking about my - gulp - old age. Will my money last as long as I do? What happens if I get sick and need to go to a nursing home? If you're like me, then you've probably worried about these things too, but don't despair, we might make it to the end before our nest egg does after all. USA Today has the scoop:

Seniors head south to Mexican nursing homes

After Jean Douglas turned 70, she realized she couldn't take care of herself anymore. Her knees were giving out, and winters in Bandon, Ore., were getting harder to bear alone.

[...] After searching the Internet for other options, she joined a small but steadily growing number of Americans who are moving across the border to nursing homes in Mexico, where the sun is bright and the living is cheap.

For $1,300 a month — a quarter of what an average nursing home costs in Oregon — Douglas gets a studio apartment, three meals a day, laundry and cleaning service, and 24-hour care from an attentive staff, many of whom speak English. She wakes up every morning next to a glimmering mountain lake, and the average annual high temperature is a toasty 79 degrees.

According to USA Today, retirement homes are relatively new in Mexico and there's little government regulation, but the U.S. Embassy doesn't report any complaints against Mexican nursing homes. That doesn't mean residents haven't complained though. One woman reported her home was staffed by "gossips and thieves" and another claimed "It was filthy, and the food was very bad. It was all made in the microwave."

Those are legitimate complaints, but they're also similar to ones lodged against nursing homes here in the U.S. My mother is in a nursing home and she often complains about people stealing from her, but 90% of the time the missing item ends up being found in her wastebasket or pocket. Gossip is one of her complaints too, yet she's guilty of the same behavior. I think some old people just like to complain. That's not the case for this gentleman:

Residents such as Richard Slater say they are happy in Mexico. Slater came to Lake Chapala four years ago and now lives in his own cottage at the Casa de Ancianos, surrounded by purple bougainvillea and pomegranate trees.

He has plenty of room for his two dogs and has a little patio that he shares with three other American residents. He gets 24-hour nursing care and three meals a day, cooked in a homey kitchen and served in a sun-washed dining room. His cottage has a living room, bedroom, kitchenette, bathroom and a walk-in closet.

For this Slater pays $550 a month, less than one-tenth of the going rate back home in Las Vegas. For another $140 a year, he gets full medical coverage from the Mexican government, including all his medicine and insulin for diabetes.

Hmmm...the health care issue could be a problem. I haven't really heard much about the quality of health care in Mexico. Slater relies on the Mexican SSI, which runs clinics and hospitals nationwide and allows foreigners to enroll in its program even if they never worked in Mexico or paid taxes to support the system, because Medicare, Medicaid, the Department of Veterans Affairs and most U.S. insurance companies will not cover care or medicine as long as patients are outside the United States. Slater has firsthand experience with their medical care though. He recently had gallbladder surgery and reports he paid nothing.

Any doubts Americans may have about retiring to Mexico haven't gone unnoticed by developers and officials, who see an opportunity to fill a need and make a lot of money.

Developers of "independent living" facilities for seniors are also beginning to look to Mexico. A Spanish-U.S. venture is building Sensara Vallarta, a 250-unit condominium complex aimed at Americans 50 and older in the Pacific Coast resort of Puerto Vallarta. And in the northern city of Monterrey, El Legado is marketing itself as a "home resort" for seniors.

Academics and government officials are beginning to take notice. In March, the University of Texas at Austin held a forum for developers, hospital officials, insurance companies and policymakers to discuss health care for retirees in Mexico.

"With the right facilities in place, Mexico could give (American retirees) a better quality of life at a better price than they could find in the United States," says Flavio Olivieri, a member of Tijuana's Economic Development Council, which is seeking funding from Mexico's federal government to build more retirement homes. "We think this could be a very good business as these baby boomers reach retirement age," he says.

Mexico could give American retirees a better quality of life at a better price than they could find in the United States? That's disturbing to even read those words. I think we should be taking care of one another here at home. If a person makes the choice to move to Mexico because they like the climate, culture or country, that's their choice. However, if a person moves to Mexico because they can't afford to maintain their same quality of life here, that's just wrong and we should be ashamed.

It's great to know Mexico is an option for retirees, and we all like to have options, but our golden years should not be at the whim of dollars and cents - or pesos.

America's growing wealth gap

What kind of society do Americans want to create in this century? That question was posed by Amber Arellano in the Detroit News where she discussed the growing inequality between the haves and the have nots. If you know anything about the Detroit News, then you know they're usually a mouthpiece for Republicans, so I was prepared to read that those Americans falling behind are simply lazy, unmotivated people. I was pleasantly surprised. Arellano defends workers and argues that "Globalization is creating extreme winners and losers, much as industrialization did at the turn of the last century," and that we need to figure out how to make globalization work for everyone.

She also points out it's not just globalization that we should blame for the growing inequality.

In the U.S., education is also driving this dynamic. Americans with some college education have realized the strongest growth in wealth with an average net worth increase of 31 percent.

High school graduates' wealth modestly increased; dropouts' wealth actually declined.

That supports a recent survey that found the most likely person to leave Michigan today is a 40-something man with no college education -- the group most displaced by globalization.

So, what's the answer? How do we make globalization work for everyone?

Many Republicans and Democrats avoid talking about growing inequality. If they do, they argue the solution is for more folks to go to college. This crowd likes to blame Americans themselves.

On the other end of the spectrum, leaders such as John Edwards argue that creating more college-goers cannot be the only solution. If all or most Americans get a college education, they say, then the value of a college degree will decrease -- making all college grads' salaries fall.

Passionate Michiganians often echo Edwards' feelings.

The truth is, both crowds are right. The U.S. needs more college graduates to compete globally.

At the same time, we need policies that will reward the hard work of America's non-rich and boost their wealth, regardless of college degree.

We don't want to live in a country where only people with master's degrees can live a decent, middle-class life with strong K-12 schools, college and access to good health care.

Our policies need to consider the additional causes of our widening wealth gap, including tax breaks for the mega-wealthy; the lack of strong U.S. employment strategies; and the decline of unions, which were essential to building 20th-century America's middle class.

The question, really, comes down to this: What kind of society do Americans want to create in this century?

The avoiders will continue to try to weakly dispute whether inequality is growing.

But intelligent leaders and citizens will take on the issue. And the best will figure out how to make globalization work for more people.

Amen. We're not all college material, and quite frankly, we need janitors, plumbers, waiters, home health care aides, etc. Somewhere along the line, we've become snobs in this country. I was raised to respect a person regardless of what they did for a living and I passed that lesson along to my children. Some of them are college graduates and some of them aren't, but they all work hard for a living and deserve a decent middle-class lifestyle, as do all Americans.

Rewarding people for their hard work. That's the kind of society I want America to create in this century, and if leaders step forward with solutions to make that possible, they'll get my vote, and more than likely the votes of millions of other hardworking Americans too.

It's time to redefine compassion

I have to give credit where credit's due. The person responsible for "compassionate conservatism" was a marketing genius. He/she managed to paint Republicans as people who really care about the needs and concerns of average Americans. The public knows otherwise now and sees the hypocrisy behind the words, but I wonder if the person responsible for that term ever felt any remorse?

Moving along, Mother Jones has a rather lengthy list of the ways all that compassion dings the poor and middle class. You can read the whole thing for yourself, but here's a sample.

1 in 4 U.S. jobs pay less than a poverty-level income.

During the 1980s, 13% of Americans age 40 to 50 spent at least one year below the poverty line; by the 1990s, 36% did.

Bush’s tax cuts (extended until 2010) save those earning between $20,000 and $30,000 an average of $10 a year, while those earning $1 million are saved $42,700.

Bush has proposed cutting housing programs for low-income people with disabilities by 50%.

83% of those earning $75,000 or more work for companies that offer insurance, versus 24% of those who earn less than $25,000.

2 in 5 elderly live on less than $18,000 a year, including Social Security benefits.

Since 1983, college tuition has risen 115%. The maximum Pell Grant for low- and moderate-income college students has risen only 19%.

Credit card late fees are 194% higher than in 1994.

And the item I found absolutely horrifying was this one:

Last fall, Minnesota firefighters let an elderly man’s mobile home burn down because he hadn’t paid a $25 “fire fee.”

Why is that allowed to happen in a country as rich as ours? Is that how a "compassionate" country treats their elderly?

Reading through that list again, I find myself shaking my head and asking is that how a "compassionate" country treats their poor, their uninsured, their students, and the people who work hard to provide for their families?

It's time for the Democrats to step up and redefine "compassion." The Republicans have corrupted and twisted the term to exclude the majority of us. They don't even respect our troops serving our country, as witnessed by their unwillingness to give them more time at home with their families between tours of duty. In fact, they don't even respect our troops after they serve. The Bush administration said it will resist restoring full educational benefits for returning veterans.

Some compassion, eh? You have to be a corporate crony if you expect to get any compassion from the Bush bunch.

Priorities

Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. was hospitalized Monday after suffering a seizure. He underwent a thorough neurological evaluation and is expected to make a full recovery. Roberts' medical workup probably included “a good M.R.I., CAT scan and EEG.” How fortunate that Roberts has federal health insurance to cover his hospitalization, tests and ongoing care.

We should all be so lucky. The U.S. is the richest country in the world, so there's no reason we shouldn't all have health care, living wages, secure retirements, etc. It all boils down to "Priorities" according to WorkingLife TV's inaugural film, a documentary filmed during the first few days of John Edwards' Road to One America poverty tour.

Is another Republican about to be embroiled in scandal?

Down With Tyranny is asking if House Republican leader, Representative John Boehner, is the next GOP pervert to get caught up in the DC prostitution scandal?

Via DCCC, the Wall Street Journal editorialized last year that "Boehner stands for more of the same." Do you think they were talking about values?

Republicans flip-flop on expanding health care for children

Democrats in Washington want to expand health coverage for low-income kids, but President Bush says he'll veto any such legislation because he fears it might lead the nation "down the path to government-run health care for every American." It appears Senate Republicans who were originally in favor of the expansion have now flipped-flopped and sided with the president.

“Dragging people out of private health insurance to put them into a government-run program is ‘Hillary care’ come back,” Mr. Boehner said, referring to the Clinton administration plan for universal coverage.

What a typical remark from the "do as I say, not as I do" crowd, and San Francisco Gate columnist David Lazarus picked up on it.

Taxpayers pick up Bush's bill

Like that [government-run health care for every American] would be a bad thing.

What's particularly galling about Bush's position is that it's coming from a man who just underwent a colonoscopy performed at the taxpayer-funded, state-of-the-art medical facility at Camp David by an elite team of doctors from the taxpayer-funded National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.

If anyone understands the benefits of government-run health care, it's the president.[...]

That's a fine how-do-you-do for a guy who had five growths removed from his colon on Saturday largely at the government's expense and had them promptly examined by government experts at the government-run National Naval Medical Center.

According to Lazarus, President Bush's government-run health care provides much more than preventative screening procedures like colonoscopies:

In a paper found on the Web site of the Defense Department's Armed Forces Institute of Pathology ( www.afip.org ), former White House physician George Fuller outlines the mission of the taxpayer-funded White House Medical Unit.

He writes that a primary purpose of the group is to provide "confidential, immediate and private access to preventive, routine and urgent care for the principals." This, Fuller adds, "is a 24-hour, seven-days-a-week commitment with no exceptions."

The quality of health care is so exacting, he observes, "that the president cannot even ride an elevator in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building without a physician escort."

According to Fuller, the president enjoys the benefits of medical and dental clinics in the White House, as well as "a fully equipped and supplied outpatient clinic" at Camp David, where Bush's colon was explored.

He says the White House Medical Unit also "keeps a unique and extensive library of medical facilities throughout the world" to provide for the president's health care needs during overseas travel.

Hmm...they keep medical facilities throughout the world for the president's benefit? Now that's what I call universal coverage. America's children should be so lucky.

My wish for future generations

As a parent and grandparent, I'm like most people in that I'd like future generations to have a bigger piece of the American Dream than I did. What I'm seeing isn't too encouraging. Consider this statistic from the EPI:

Employer-provided health coverage declining for college grads in entry-level jobs

A college degree is no guarantee of receiving health insurance on the job. Over the recent recession and recovery, college graduates in entry-level jobs (defined as employed college graduates between 23 and 27 years old) have become increasingly less likely to receive employer-provided health insurance coverage.1 The Chart below illustrates the recent trends in employer-provided health insurance for this group. Their incidence of employment-based insurance has fallen roughly nine percentage points from 1999-2000 to 2004-05, from 69.6% to 60.5%.

Among those lucky enough to have employer-provided insurance, how many pay a hefty monthly premium toward the cost? Jobs for the college-educated used to include health insurance that was totally paid for by the employer. Not anymore.

Maybe the stock market will provide a good life for future generations. After all, the market just surged past 14,000. That's not too realistic according to DetNews columnist Brian O'Connor:

Dow: Big number, big disconnect

As a reflection of the biggest and best public companies in the nation, a healthy Dow means a healthy stock market, and a healthy stock market means a healthy economy.

If by "healthy" you mean "all but completely disconnected from the reality of U.S. citizens." [...]

Sure, many (OK, some) of us participate in the broader economy thanks to mutual funds in our retirement plans, and it's nice to see those go up with the Dow. That way, if we hang on until retirement we'll have money for milk, gas and mortgages.

For right now, though, we're seeing very little of the growth from "the economy" showing up in our personal economies.

Money isn't everything though. It can't buy piece of mind or health, and it can't buy security. Those are all intangibles that make up what I believe to be part of the American Dream. The rest of America appears to see it that way too according to Democratic pollster Celinda Lake.

"There have been times in our history when the American dream was rooted in opportunity, and there have been times in our history where the dream was rooted in security. This is a time, and has been for a couple for years now, where the dream is rooted in security."

There's not a lot of security in a fast-paced global economy where workers get ahead by chasing opportunities (not obediently following office rules), by constantly reinventing their careers (not relying on seniority), by self-investing their savings (not counting on company pensions).

Face it, the global economy is here to stay, but that doesn't mean the American Dream is no longer relevant. Looking into the future, my dream includes health care for all, social security for our elderly, children who never have to go to bed hungry, and jobs that pay a living wage.

There's no good reason we can't leave future generations some security and peace of mind.

Uninsured Americans Raise Medicare Costs

Here's another reason universal health insurance makes sense:

Uninsured Americans Raise Medicare Expenditures

Americans who weren't insured before they reached age 65 and gained access to Medicare cost the program a lot more than those who did have health insurance, a new study finds.

Data on more than 5,000 older people from a national study found that the previously uninsured needed 13 percent more doctors visits, experienced 20 percent more hospitalizations and had 51 percent higher total medical expenditures after their care began to be covered by the government program.

"Providing health insurance coverage for these adults [before age 65] could not only improve their health but also partially offset the costs of expanding coverage," said Dr. J. Michael McWilliams, a research associate in the Harvard Medical School department of health care policy and lead author of a report in the July 12 New England Journal of Medicine.

The study didn't estimate possible savings, but the chronic conditions that resulted in higher expenditures for the uninsured included high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease and stroke; conditions that require monitoring and prophylactic treatment to prevent them from worsening, which in turn translates into healthier people with improved quality of life.

IMHO, the money saved is secondary to good health care for all Americans. You can't put a price tag on something like that.

Democrats' health care plan would help red states most

Sorry I haven't updated you on the Democrats plans to fix health care, but we've been busy moving mom into the nursing home this week. My husband and I live more than an hour away from her and the rest of my family, so we spend quite a bit of time on the freeway traveling back and forth. I'm happy to report that the transition went smoother than we anticipated and mom seems to be adjusting well in her new environment. We're immensely relieved, as you might imagine.

Anyway, as soon as I get a decent block of time, I'll put together my information and post it. In the meantime, I wanted to share this article from Mother Jones that illustrates perfectly how people continue to vote against their own self-interests when they vote for Republicans.

Democrats' Plans for Universal Health Care Helps Red States Most

Let's say a Democrat wins the 2008 election and institutes universal health care. Who benefits the most? Republicans.

That's right -- a new study shows that the red states (mostly in the South) consistently rate at the bottom of the country in terms of health care for residents. The Commonwealth Fund report ranked states according to 32 indicators of health care access, quality, outcomes, and hospital use. Consider the political leanings of the top ten and the bottom ten.

States 1-10: Hawaii, Iowa, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, South Dakota.

States 50-41: Oklahoma, Mississippi, Texas, Arkansas, Nevada, Louisiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, Florida, Georgia.

This shouldn't be a surprise. States led by Republicans are more likely to have laissez faire attitudes towards health care and be less sympathetic to the plights of those who cannot afford it. It doesn't help that these states are often the most hostile towards workers' rights, thus driving down wages, and often have the highest number of single mothers, due to the nation's highest rates of divorce and out-of-wedlock births. Get all the details and schadenfreude at PERRspectives Blog.

Click the PERRspectives link to read more, but the bottom line in their post says it all:

By almost any measure of societal breakdown that so-called Republican "values voters" decry, it is Red State America where moral failure is greatest.

And part of that moral failure includes 44 million uninsured women, men and children.