What Republicans Stand For

Plenty to write about these days...my next letter for local papers, with reference to Fairfield County, CT candidates for state and federal office:

It’s clear from their actions that Republicans have elevated
obstructionism over doing what’s right for the country. As the
midterm election nears, I ask Independents and others on the fence to
be sure they understand the motivations of candidates from the two
parties. I think you’ll find that Jim Himes, Dick Blumenthal and
Democratic candidates for state office have positive ideas for
rebuilding our economy and improving economic security. In contrast,
Republicans are motivated by obstruction and protecting the wealthy at
the expense of the middle class. Just listen to what they’re
saying.

John Boehner, Republican House minority leader, is so unconcerned with
the plight of ordinary Americans that he called financial reform
legislation “killing an ant with a nuclear weapon.” In Boehner’s
world, millions of lost jobs, and trillions in lost savings is
inconsequential. All but three House Republicans voted against
financial reform, decrying it as a threat to free markets. The same
free markets that needed Bush’s $700 billion taxpayer-financed
bailout.

Senator Jim DeMint, Republican from South Carolina, would rather lose
a senate seat than see a moderate elected who would cross party lines.
Congressional candidate Dan Debicella wants to repeal healthcare
reform, with no cogent plan on how to cover 50 million Americans who
lack health insurance. Representative Joe Barton, ranking Republican
on the House energy committee, was “ashamed” that the Obama
administration secured $20 billion from BP to cover the unprecedented
economic and environmental damage the company inflicted on the Gulf,
calling it a “shakedown.” This is the person who would take over
leadership on energy policy if Democrats lose control of the House.

Senate Republicans stood in the way of an additional $34 billion in
unemployment benefits, claiming the government can’t afford additional
deficit spending. The same Republicans who are willing to spend $700
billion to extend Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthiest 2% of Americans.
Over in Alaska, Republicans are trying to “roll back the federal
government” while they take in federal stimulus money at nearly three
times the per capita rate as other states.

This is what Republicans are about. Hopefully it’s not what the
voters of Fairfield County want.

In Response to Greenwich's Former Mayor re "Liberal Politicians"

The former mayor of Greenwich, CT (where I live), wrote a letter to the editor in our local paper lambasting "liberal politicians" for everything they've done.

My response:

To the editor (Greenwich Post):

In his letter on September 9th, former Selectman Peter Crumbine assailed “liberal politicians” in Washington and Hartford for trillion-dollar deficits, sky-high unemployment and health care reform. The problem with Mr. Crumbine—and the Republican establishment—is that they love to play fast and loose with the facts.

They conveniently ignore that President Bush added nearly $5 trillion to the federal debt, reversing budget surpluses left to us by Clinton economic policies. The unemployment rate started its steady march upward well before President Obama took office. While it has continued to climb, the trend in job losses reversed itself after the Obama stimulus package was passed, supporting the perspective that the stimulus is achieving its goal of restoring the economy to health. If Republicans are so masterful at managing the economy, how is it that under Clinton, four times as many jobs were created as during the following Bush years?

Republicans appear to be pleased with the current state of health care, since they did everything in their power to block any attempt at reform. Apparently 45 million non-elderly uninsured (four out of five of whom are in working households), a steady decline in employer-based coverage and premiums growing four times faster over the past decade than wage increases are facts that don’t matter.

Mr. Crumbine encourages us to send “free market business executives with proven records of success” to Washington and Hartford. The same successful business executives, no doubt, that brought the global economy to its knees with their “fiscally conservative” risk taking and whose banks had to be bailed out by Bush with a $700 billion rescue package.

I suggest the next time a Republican asserts facts about how bad Democrats are for the economy, take the time to do some fact checking. You’ll be surprised at what you find.

It’s more than disheartening to believe that one vote in the Senate could make the difference between beginning to address the health care crisis in this country or accepting the status quo. Which is why I believe it is particularly important to stand up to Republican obstructionism on the issue, and encourage Democrats to push forward.

I’m off to watch President Obama take on the Republicans for six hours. How delicious!

Any way one looks at it, the evidence demonstrates that Republicans are fundamentally opposed to health care reform that would enable all Americans to actually enjoy “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”, rights enshrined in our Declaration of Independence. Republicans would have us believe that they are for cutting costs, extending coverage, reducing the deficit, improving health care and working collaboratively with Democrats, but the facts paint a different picture.

Despite months of good-faith negotiation to accommodate Republican demands, only one Republican out of more than 250 actually supported the health care reform legislation passed by the House and Senate. This is despite the fact that Democrats significantly compromised on key priorities: a public option to make insurance affordable and introduce competition into the market, truly universal coverage (millions are still left uninsured in the current proposals) and protection of women’s right to choose.

Republicans are not committed to universal health care and protection from the catastrophic impact of serious illness on working families, leaving the United States alone among developed nations in not protecting its citizens. The latest Republican proposal would cover just three million uninsured, only 10% of what the Democrat’s legislation covers. By their own admission, Republicans question why universal coverage is a priority. Sage Eastman, a spokesman for Republicans on the House and Ways Committee asked, “Why is coverage the dominant theme?” For those who believe that Republicans are on the side of the middle class, consider the facts. Millions of the uninsured that Republican proposals won’t cover are working families and their children; universal coverage is not just about providing insurance to those in poverty.

By their words and actions, Republicans are demonstrating that their primary motivation is obstruction, not solving the health care crisis. They rail about “government takeovers” of health care and burgeoning government expenditures, but stand in the way of Medicare reforms to cut government spending without cutting benefits. John McCain attempted to block nearly $500 billion in planned Medicare savings and costly Medicare Advantage plans that receive unwarranted government subsidies. The Bush-enacted prescription drug benefit prohibits the government from negotiating for lower drug prices. Republicans are fine with government spending when it enriches pharmaceutical companies, but against it when it helps working Americans.

Republicans conveniently ignore the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office analysis that projects that the Democratic Senate plan would reduce the deficit by $132 billion over the next decade, and $1 trillion over the decade following. By contrast, the latest Republican measure, according to CBO estimates, will lower the deficit in the first decade by just $68 billion, while covering only one-tenth as many uninsured.

Republicans are scaring Americans into believing that health care reform will raise their premiums. In fact, the CBO concluded that the legislation won’t have much of an impact on premiums up or down.

If Republicans continue to stand in the way of health care reform, Democrats need to take matters into their own hands and use parliamentary maneuvers to let the majority will be expressed.

Even Some Republicans aren't as Reactionary as Lieberman

It's been a sad day for health care reform, what with Lieberman vowing to filibuster any Senate health care reform legislation that includes a public option...

Honorable Senator Lieberman: It is truly a sad day for CT and the United States overall to hear you pledge to defeat health care reform if it includes a public option. I can't fathom what misguided values are leading you to take such a counterproductive approach to dealing with one of the most important public policy issues of our generation. Without a public option, meaningful health care reform is impossible, because the RIGHT to have medical insurance means nothing if it isn't affordable. And given that the insurance industry either can't or won't make medical insurance affordable for millions of Americans means those without access to employer-provided insurance (like you, for one) need a guarantee that they'll be able to find affordable options. From what I have seen and learned, the only way to make that happen is through a public option. It's time for you to stand up and represent your constituents, not protect the insurance lobby. I will be watching your position closely.

Is This the Democratic Party I Belong To?

I was shocked to read about the last minute cave-in to the anti-choice lobby to secure passage in the House of health-care reform. Putting Stupack-Pitts together with the word "reform" has ushered in a new level of spinelessness for the Democratic leadership.

My quick note to Speaker Pelosi:

Dear Speaker Pelosi,

I am greatly disappointed with the health care reform bill you brought to the floor for passage, because of the complete sell-out of the abortion rights of lower income women. It is truly a sad day for the Democratic party—particularly when it enjoys a historically overwhelming legislative majority—that it to so cravenly gave in to the anti-choice lobby and tossed away years of hard-won victories to protect the health and privacy rights of American women.

I truly cannot understand why you allowed this last minute amendment to be offered without raising huge red flags. The efforts to play down the significance of the Stupak-Pitts amendment are disingenuous at best, offensive at worst. To suggest that women, especially those who can least afford it, should have to buy a rider to obtain medical insurance to cover their constitutionally protected right to reproductive freedom is nothing short of obscene.

I urge you to do everything in your power, and what you should have already done, to reverse this dangerous and ill-conceived precedent.

Sincerely,

JP

Are Republicans Opposed to Everything Positive?

It's hard to know where to begin when it comes to confronting Republican obstructionism to health care reform. Here's my attempt:

There can be little doubt that we are facing a severe health care crisis. And contrary to what some critics of health care reform would have us believe, the crisis is not just about the 45 million non-elderly who do not have health insurance (4 out of 5 of whom are in working households). The high costs and poor quality of health care affect all of us, and represent a very real threat to our health and economic security.

Employer-sponsored health insurance premiums have grown four times faster than wage increases over the past nine years. The availability of employer-based health insurance coverage is shrinking, down 8% since 2000. According to a study by The Commonwealth Fund, the quality of U.S. health care ranked next to last compared to the U.K., Germany, Australia, New Zealand and Canada—despite the fact that the U.S. spends nearly twice the amount of its economic output on health care as other developed nations. As many as 98,000 Americans die each year as a result of preventable medical errors, a per capita rate 40% worse than the U.K. and Canada, countries with government run health care systems. The situation is so bad that Medicare refuses to pay for procedures performed on the wrong patient or part of the body.

According to the Congressional Budget Office the “rising costs of health care and health insurance pose a serious threat to the future fiscal condition of the United States.” It goes on to say that without policy changes, “a substantial and growing number of nonelderly people…are likely to be without health insurance.”

The solutions to these problems will be difficult; a healthy debate about alternate approaches is warranted. However, Republican critics of health care reform aren’t showing any interest in having a substantive debate. Rather, just resorting to their usual tactics of spreading disinformation and instilling fear as they block Democratic attempts to help millions of ordinary Americans deal with the real and immediate health care problems they face. These problems are affecting millions of us. A Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that nearly one-quarter of respondents said they had experienced a serious problem covering health expenses.

Republicans are scaring Americans into believing that the proposed public insurance option is a wicked scheme intended to destroy America. As Karl Rove put it, “If Democrats enact a public-option health-insurance program, America is on the way to becoming a European-style welfare state.” Contrary to what Republicans would have us believe, the public option is not socialized medicine. Socialized medicine is where the government runs health care facilities and employs health care providers. But as the AARP confirms, the public option proposed by President Obama is a backstop “to give consumers the best value for their money and force greater competition among insurance plans for our business.” It “isn't about a government takeover.”

The facts haven’t stopped critics like the Conservatives for Patients’ Rights from spreading falsehoods about the public option, saying “this government-run plan could crush all your other choices…resulting in 119 million off their current insurance coverage.” In fact, the 119 million figure comes from the Lewin Group (affiliated with insurer United Healthcare) which concluded that, offered a Medicare-like public option, many people and businesses would voluntarily drop their private insurance in favor of the lower cost option. Choice, of course, is not something Republicans like to offer Americans.

The latest misinformation being spread—by Sarah Palin among others—is that proposed legislation would limit end-of-life care and encourage euthanasia, charges that the AARP labels “flat-out lies.” Once again, the truth is closer to the opposite. The provision provides Medicare coverage for optional consultations to receive advice on life-sustaining treatment and hospice care.

Since Republicans believe that the private insurance market is such a great solution for Americans’ health care needs, perhaps they can explain why it is that insurance premiums are growing so much faster than inflation and why the private market can’t make insurance accessible or affordable to 15% of Americans. Or why countries that have single payer, government sponsored programs, such as Canada and the U.K., have lower health care costs and better quality healthcare than the U.S. Or why the price of prescription drugs is substantially higher in the U.S than elsewhere.

Sadly, Republicans believe that it’s more to protect the private sector (which after all is doing such a bang up job) than ensuring the health and well-being of Americans.

GOP Hypocrisy on Student Loans

Isn't it interesting how all the Republican arguments about protecting the taxpayer fade away when it comes to delivering largess to corporations. It seems that giving subsidies is only irresponsible when it helps citizens. In this case the topic is student loans...

The hypocrisy of the Republican Party knows no bounds. Near daily, Republican leaders rail against a public option for health insurance, saying it represents an unfair intrusion into the private sector, and an unwise use of taxpayers' money.

Yet when it comes to eliminating corporate welfare paid for by taxpayers, they yell "foul." Subsidizing the private sector is acceptable, competing with it is not. Such is the case with the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, which eliminates government payments to banks to encourage student loan lending. As it turns out, it would be a much smaller drain on the federal budget for the government to lend directly to students, rather than subsidizing banks to do the same lending. Less expensive to the tune of nearly $90 billion over the next 10 years, as forecast by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

But 17 of the 19 Republican members of the House Education and Labor Committee opposed the bill because it replaces private capital in the student lending market. Here is a clear-cut case where Congress can advance an important social goal -- encouraging higher education -- and save taxpayers billions of dollars. It's a win-win by any measure. This one, simple reform could pay for almost one-tenth of President Obama's proposed health care reform.

It's time to call the Republican leadership to account. If they are so opposed to government spending, why are they in favor of giving nearly $90 billion of taxpayer money to the private sector without getting anything in return?