Health Care Bill Will Hurt Too Many Struggling Americans: Progressive Must Say No

The health care bill is a disaster. Not passing in its current form would be better for most of the American people than not. Not because the American public lost a public option bill that 70% of people wanted. The public option was a terrible idea. The Senate Health Care Bill and to a smaller extent the House Bill will create a tax on working people while at the same time because it won't have cost controls blow up the national budget. Its a disastrous bill that wouldn't be fixed for years and not after it caused needless harm. First lets get this lie out of the way - the Health Care Bill does not "cover" 30 million uninsured, it forces them to buy insurance whether they can afford it or not. So if you don't have insurance now and you earn over $14,440 you will have to find a way on say $15,000 to pay for health care. Health care could cost up to $5,000 for an individual, square that math? That's without premiums, which can be any amount essentially, and the lowest cost plans have no regulation on how little they provide. Premiums for people with chronic disease which working class people have disproportionately can be 3 times the rate for non-chronic premiums. 80% of Black men like me have high blood pressure, which means i would have to pay 3 times as much as someone who doesn't. Poor people have to make less than $14,440 to get covered by medicaid, an extension but hardly the coverage Americans need. Our paychecks being forced to get coverage, then go to premiums that will go up and up (150% from current levels at start), and they can charge us up to $7,000 per year in extra fees for care. That this gets introduced as "affordable" health care for Americans shows how out of touch DC politicians and news media's corporate talking heads are. That is probably why The Cleveland Clinic, head - the clinic that President Barack Obama says is the model for the US - explained that the health care legislation is crap (he uses nicer words): Cleveland Clinic CEO Dr. Delos “Toby” Cosgrove says the bill that passed the U.S. House and proposals in the Senate won’t do enough to control health care costs. In a speech Tuesday at a Cleveland law firm, Cosgrove also said the measures won’t do much to make America healthier. The tax on the working poor in mandated coverage isn't the only tax on Americans in this bill. Remember when candidate Obama said no new taxes on 95% of Americans. Well as Bob Herbet great column in NY Times explains this too is a lie its a little long but its important so pleas read: The bill that passed the Senate with such fanfare on Christmas Eve would impose a confiscatory 40 percent excise tax on so-called Cadillac health plans, which are popularly viewed as over-the-top plans held only by the very wealthy. In fact, it’s a tax that in a few years will hammer millions of middle-class policyholders, forcing them to scale back their access to medical care. The tax would kick in on plans exceeding $23,000 annually for family coverage and $8,500 for individuals, starting in 2013. In the first year it would affect relatively few people in the middle class. But because of the steadily rising costs of health care in the U.S., more and more plans would reach the taxation threshold each year. Within three years of its implementation, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the tax would apply to nearly 20 percent of all workers with employer-provided health coverage in the country, affecting some 31 million people. Within six years, according to Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation, the tax would reach a fifth of all households earning between $50,000 and $75,000 annually. Those families can hardly be considered very wealthy. Proponents say the tax will raise nearly $150 billion over 10 years, but there’s a catch. It’s not expected to raise this money directly. The dirty little secret behind this onerous tax is that no one expects very many people to pay it. The idea is that rather than fork over 40 percent in taxes on the amount by which policies exceed the threshold, employers (and individuals who purchase health insurance on their own) will have little choice but to ratchet down the quality of their health plans. ...Proponents say this is a terrific way to hold down health care costs. If policyholders have to pay more out of their own pockets, they will be more careful — that is to say, more reluctant — to access health services. Think about that, they want to keep down cost by making it so expensive for you to access it, you will think twice. So your bills will go up, it won't be affordable and they way the bills keep down cost is not to limit drug companies and for profit hospitals earnings but to have YOU go to the Doctor less. As if the problem now is so many Americans using the system without concern for cost. The problem is the cost to begin with and the care we get for the price. On the other hand, people with very serious illnesses will be saddled with much higher out-of-pocket costs. And a reluctance to seek treatment for something that might seem relatively minor at first could well have terrible (and terribly expensive) consequences in the long run. If even the plan’s proponents do not expect policyholders to pay the tax, how will it raise $150 billion in a decade? Great question. We all remember learning in school about the suspension of disbelief. This part of the Senate’s health benefits taxation scheme requires a monumental suspension of disbelief. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, less than 18 percent of the revenue will come from the tax itself. The rest of the $150 billion, more than 82 percent of it, will come from the income taxes paid by workers who have been given pay raises by employers who will have voluntarily handed over the money they saved by offering their employees less valuable health insurance plans. In case you think they might actually fork over that money to employees I have this little graph which should put an end to that lie. As Newsweek explains: Even under the most generous assessment of the plan even what costs American's an unbearable 19% of income on average will go up to 25% of your income on your health care. To make matters worse the American taxpayer has to pay for all the other costs in the system. Besides encouraging you to not use the doctor and a few actually really good but far too short cost saving measures, cost will explode. Further from Newsweek: Jeffrey Flier, dean of Harvard Medical School, gave the various health bills a "failing grade" and said they wouldn't "control the growth of costs or raise the quality of care." This bill is a ticking time bomb that because it was so compromised to the insurance and drug corporations will enrich them and make us all bankrupt. There are some good things in the bill like stopping discrimination by health insurance companies and limiting cost is a good start. In fact Bernie Sanders also added $10 billion for health centers around the country. Via Crooks and Liars: ...allow states waivers so they can move forward with their own "health insurance concepts, including single-payer." Such language is now in the Senate bill and Sanders is still working with Senator Ron Wyden to strengthen it. That is exactly how Canada developed its healthcare system, with a successful program incubated in Saskatchewan. This provision is actually stronger in the Senate bill--it didn't make it into the House version. But all of these can be passed piecemeal via reconciliation. Obama won't get his signing ceremony in the Rose Garden and it is an ugly process, but its how medicare was passed as well. We have a path to victory that gets a real health care reform bill. Daily Kos front pager made this point clearly: Over the last year, we've posted 148 stories on the Daily Kos front page discussing reconciliation, the legislative process through which the Senate can pass legislation by a simple majority. The Daily Kos community has posted another 1,407 diaries discussing the topic, most of them supportive of using reconciliation. ...Even though there is ample precedent for using reconciliation to pass top legislative priorities -- George W. Bush passed his tax cuts through reconciliation -- Democratic leadership in the Senate and the White House pretty much took reconciliation off the table during the health care debate, arguing that we just didn't understand the legislative process. Reconciliation, they said, wasn't the most effective way to pass legislation. In their eyes, the standard Senate rulebook was the smarter approach, and as a result we got saddled with the 60-vote supermajority requirement. Democrats should not pass a bill that enriches corporations and taxes middle and working class people. For that we SHOULD lose.

Dallas Cowboys The Worst of America - You Should Hate Them

There are so many good reasons to hate the Dallas Cowboys, especially since Jerry Jones proclaimed his own team "America's team." I can say one thing, the Dallas Cowboys do stand for all the worst of America, as if Jerry Jones slapping five with fugitive war criminal George W. Bush isn't clear enough, I have plenty of other reasons for you to hate them. 1. Redistribution of Wealth from Middle Class to Jerry Jones The Cowboy's new stadium cost $1.3 Billion, $300 million of which came directly from cash starved local Government. so Mega-Billionaire Jerry Jones got direct payment from middle class and poor tax payers who are already struggling in this economic client. What did they get for that price tag? Well a pretty stadium to look at and some of their neighbors forced out of their homes. The rest of the money for the stadium came from the bond market so your pension funds probably paid for it. This right around 2 cities struggling with poverty and in need of funding for services. 2. He Pushed out Hurricane Rita Victims To Build It As if that were not bad enough, he pushed out Hurricane Rita victims struggling to rebuild to get the land for his stadium. Eyes on Texas covered this for the community: ...destroying 104 homes of an estimated 312 residents, forcing the evacuation of an estimated 871 residents from several destroyed apartment complexes, obliterating 32 businesses, everything from restaurants to tire stores to banks to motels. ...America's Team, that being the Dallas Cowboys of the National Football League. Yes, a sports palace, a private for profit business is being built on a graveyard of personal destruction... He took these American citizen's land for his stadium because he didn't get enough money from Irving, TX the site of the old stadium, where they wanted him to rebuild the new stadium. In perfect Jerry Jones over compensations style he built a sprawling complex that took hundreds of residents' homes to do it. Even the local paper covered it, of course not in the print edition, no reason to piss off the new local billionaire. You can see some of the pictures of homes destroyed the second time around after Jerry Jones court mandated bulldozers knocked them down. Some people didn't want to leave so the city used Eminent Domain to take these people's perfectly nice homes. Eminent Domain which is supposed to use sparingly on blighted areas for economic development or taking property for the common good, not for private ownership at an additional cost to those same citizens who lost their homes at a price of $300 million. 3. $50,000 tickets It costs $50,000 to get tickets for the whole year. This is in regular lower level not some box seats. Not to mention the $60 to park a mile a way. I guess the America of America's team is only the super rich one. The rest of us Americans don't count. 4. Cage Dancers I am not sure what more I have to say about America's Team except that Jerry Jones has "The new Cowboys stadium actually features 'cage dancers'" A football team has cage dancers in their stadium. 5. America's First Post-Feminist Institutionalized Male Supremacy "When the 1972-73 NFL season kicked off that fall, it was a major turning point in Cheerleader history" while the rest of the country was learning to embrace the radical idea that women are equal, Jerry Jones set out to put women in their place; as the eye candy for a poorly endowed elderly Scrooge. Women it turns out are only for ornamental and in his case to work for him must have fake ornaments. The Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders are literally bad for women in America, add that to the poor, the victims of hurricanes, and the working and middle class and you get a picture of why the Dallas Cowboys literally represent the worse of America.

A Disappointing Presidency So Far: Obama It's Time to Fight For What Is Right

Admittedly I had my reservations about Barack Obama. I have the nasty tendency to demand more of my politicians than good speeches. But on policy positions candidate Obama had the best ideas matched with a real world understanding of how those policies effect Americans. For example the issue of mandates in health care, candidate Obama understood that simply mandating coverage isn't going to make health care accessible for Americans. What Americans need is affordability without cost controls mandates are an undue burden on working poor and middle class. Candidate Obama understood this. Its not just that he turned his back on those policy positions, politicians do that when governing. What is so irritating to progressives like myself who have had to endure 30 years of being right about the results of the negative effects of the policies that were enacted; is the lack of fight for successful policies by a President who seemed to know better. Marianne Williamson on Huffpost nailed the problem: It's hard to own the disappointment I feel over our moderate corporate Democratic President. The whole Obama phenomenon brings up memories from my distant past: the good-looking guy who talks real good, whose line you don't buy immediately but whose charm is so dazzling that he gradually convinces you that this time it will be different. Yeah. Right. Really different. What the current administration is giving us is minimal change. And not because the President hasn't had the time to do better; if he had truly wanted to make fundamental change, he would have gone in there fast and done his own version of shock and awe in the first hundred days.... I see so many people now -- many of them men, interestingly enough -- tangled up in an almost school-girlish, co-dependent, apologetic relationship with this President. As though "poor baby" should be tacked onto the end of every description of his failures. ...If Obama doesn't retrieve his spine and retrieve it soon, then his Presidency will go down in the history books as one of the biggest disappointments in American history. It's one thing to turn your back on ending the use of torture, mandates to get more uninsured covered, a need for real home owner protections and real wall street regulations. Its another to do so while pretending to be oblivious that walking back on those promises mean to our stature in the world, the higher cost of health care on those who can least afford it, the failure of needed mortgage relief on the depleted middle class and the setting the stage for further wall street crimes against this country. We have a President Obama who knows better, made that clear throughout the campaign season and does nothing to stop it. The places where he has compromised is more frustrating then where he actually broke a promise. These are all promises Candidate Obama made that he is breaking by compromising them away (via Politifact): No family making less than $250,000 will see "any form of tax increase." - They got a tax increase. Require more disclosure and a waiting period for earmarks - Wanting to speed along is just doing business as usual. Go "line by line" over earmarks to make sure money being spent wisely - hasn't done YET, will he, we know the answer to that... Create the American Opportunity Tax Credit to offset college costs - much less then promised and even farther less to make a real difference, is $2,000 going to make College all of a sudden affordable? Crack down on employers who hire undocumented immigrants - Still hasn't done, he has gone after immigrants. We can see from the bill in that came out of congress this just didn't happen: Give Al Gore a key role on global warming No signing statements to nullify instructions from Congress - did a signing statement on something he disagreed with, despite this promise. Strengthen antitrust laws to prevent overcharging for malpractice insurance - he agreed to study it... why not DO IT? Candidate Obama understood importance. Significantly increase funding for the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) - minimal increase. Repeal law that limits the sharing of gun-tracing data - compromised it to a point of not working. Neal Gabler in The Boston Globe said it best: It didn’t take long for the disillusion to set in, especially among those on the left who had been Obama’s most ardent admirers... But there is one big thing that the administration lacks: passion. It is hard to remember a presidency that was as passionless as this one is - a presidency that puts down no markers, draws no lines in the sand, makes no stand. That, even more than the compromises themselves, may be what really riles Obama’s old supporters. It is that he doesn’t seem tortured by the compromise. Simply put, Obama seems to be missing the passion gene. Other presidents compromised without incurring wrath. Think of Kennedy. But Obama acts as if he were a Solomon who always chooses to cut the baby in half. He was adamant about a public option in any health care bill, but if there wasn’t one, no big deal. He was devoted to closing the prison at Guantanamo, but if there is a ruckus about it, no big deal in keeping it open a while longer. He was firm that America had to take a more realistic approach to the efficacy of its military power, but if General McChrystal wants more troops in Afghanistan, no big deal. It is no wonder that Obama’s old supporters don’t see this as change you can believe in. It is change you can believe will always be compromised. It is not that President Obama, faced with his own political realities, failed to translate the passion of his election into a tidal wave that could carry his policies forward. It is that he never seemed to try because he never wanted to stir that passion. We knew he wasn’t a firebrand. He wasn’t going to be a Ted Kennedy, providing a voice for the voiceless or power for the powerless. He seemed uncomfortable in that role. But what few seemed to foresee is just how diffident he would be, how unmoved he seems to be, at least publicly, by the plight of the jobless, those who are struggling to afford health care, or the soldiers who must fight our battles. You wonder what, if anything, can really get his dander up, which is not a good thing to wonder. I don't know what happened to the Candidate Obama who matched pragmatism with an understanding of American's real lives, maybe it was the new Blackberry he was forced to get from the Secret Service. But he is blind as his policies don't just fall short of promises but continue what he promised to stop, the assault on working and middle class Americans. It's that he sees us working Americans as compromisable that is so upsetting about his Presidency so far.

Twilight Teaching Young Women to be Submissive Domestic Violence Victims

Twilight is disgusting. I don't mean that in the way that I found Titanic to be a boring drawn out "porn" for the young women we socialize to consume such dribble. I mean that Twilight is literally dangerous to our young women and I wonder what it says about the forces of regression that it gets a pass even in today's society. It is not just that they are teaching women to be subservient to men, they are literally glorifying domestic violence. According to the National Domestic Violence, Bella in just the latest installment of the Twilight series suffers from 15 signs of Domestic Violence. In a country where 1 in 3 women will experience assault from a partner you have to ask how this can be allowed on our screens. To make it worse the culmination of the abusive relationship is Bella's death. Not by choice (to become a vampire) but forced into it by Edward. What does it say about Evangelical Christian culture that these are the values they are pushing onto their daughters and sons? via Oh No They Didn't live Journal Blog - great work: According to the National Domestic Violence hotline, these are some signs that you may be in an emotionally or physically abusive relationship. Does your partner: * Look at you or act in ways that scare you? Check. * Control what you do, who you see or talk to or where you go? "Stay away from the werewolves. I love you." * Make all of the decisions? Check. * Act like the abuse is no big deal, it's your fault, or even deny doing it? "If I wasn't so attracted to you, I wouldn't have to break up with you." * Threaten to commit suicide? "I just can't live without you. In fact, I'll run to Italy and try suicide by vampire if anything happens to you." * Threaten to kill you? On their first date. These are some more signs of an abusive relationship. Has your partner... * Tried to isolate you from family or friends. Bella doesn't have time for anyone else! * Damaged property when angry (thrown objects, punched walls, kicked doors, etc.). Check. * Pushed, slapped, bitten, kicked or choked you. Does tossing her through a glass table count? * Abandoned you in a dangerous or unfamiliar place. "We're breaking up. And I'm leaving you in the forest." * Scared you by driving recklessly. Check. * Forced you to leave your home. She had to run away with him to flee from the other vampires in the first movie, and she had to drop everything and run to Italy in the second. * Prevented you from calling police or seeking medical attention. Check. Even in the hospital, nothing is a big deal. * Views women as objects and believes in rigid gender roles. Well, they are Mormon... (I know, I know, cheap shot.) * Accuses you of cheating or is often jealous of your outside relationships. Check, wolf-boy. Now I'm pissed. According to the NDVH, "If you answered ‘yes' to even one of these questions, you may be in an abusive relationship." This list is fifteen. For all the talk of sex and violence on TV here are books and now movies that literally tell young women to be submissive to men, that their sexuality is wrong unless subservient to a brooding emotionally unattainable boy, and that true love is a relationship of domestic violence and eventually dying for that "passion." Of all the messages we are sending young women, this has to be the most dangerous.

New Years Resolutions

A lot has changed for me since last year. And yet when I went back to revisit last year's resolutions I realize there is still not enough changed. It has been a whirlwind year personally. Somethings have moved forward too many have fallen back. So for the new decade I recommit: 1. To find that genuine nice soul and to recommit to being truly compassionate 2. To make Hashem a regular part of my life and day 3. To be a guide for patience 4. To finish that book and the other one I started - seriously this time 5. To get back to making Blackjew.net a great site There is a lot to do... wish me luck And good luck to all of your resolutions.

Job Hunt Black Americans even with College Degrees Suffer Racism in Hiring - STILL

The New York Times has a fabulous and very depressing article about problems Black men are facing in these economic times. Mainly that despite the election of a Black man President, we still face racism in every day society. The problem is this racism doesn't come with the easily identifiable burning crosses and hoods of yesteryear's this one is disguised behind preferences for "right fits" and other ambiguous standards that businesses, nonprofits and governments use in hiring. Its a more insidious racism Black Americans face today one where we are rejected for being ourselves who have the misfortune of having that include a Black American experience. Not even a college degree can shield us from the realities of a fundamentally white supremacist society. (I say white supremacist because racist clearly doesn't register so lets call it what it is, the belief that only a certain culture and style is right) But there is ample evidence that racial inequities remain when it comes to employment. Black joblessness has long far outstripped that of whites. And strikingly, the disparity for the first 10 months of this year, as the recession has dragged on, has been even more pronounced for those with college degrees, compared with those without. Education, it seems, does not level the playing field — in fact, it appears to have made it more uneven. College-educated black men, especially, have struggled relative to their white counterparts in this downturn, according to figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The unemployment rate for black male college graduates 25 and older in 2009 has been nearly twice that of white male college graduates — 8.4 percent compared with 4.4 percent. Various academic studies have confirmed that black job seekers have a harder time than whites. A study published several years ago in The American Economic Review titled “Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal?” found that applicants with black-sounding names received 50 percent fewer callbacks than those with white-sounding names. A more recent study, published this year in The Journal of Labor Economics found white, Asian and Hispanic managers tended to hire more whites and fewer blacks than black managers did. The discrimination is rarely overt, according to interviews with more than two dozen college-educated black job seekers around the country, many of them out of work for months. Instead, those interviewed told subtler stories, referring to surprised looks and offhand comments, interviews that fell apart almost as soon as they began, and the sudden loss of interest from companies after meetings. No question that we still have a lot of work to create the society of equality. I know its an experience most Black men can tell about - its a similar story I could tell.

Endorsing Alan Khazei: "Pick the candidate that would make Teddy PROUD"

I join the growing number of progressives, the Boston Globe, Kennedy family members, Newsweek, esteemed Larry Lessig, Boston Community Activist Mel King and now Wesley Clark in my support for Alan Khazei. Boston Globe Endorsement "With high hopes, the Globe endorses Alan Khazei, the prime mover behind national-service policies, as Massachusetts’ best chance to produce another great senator." In Khazei we have a thoughtful true progressive whose life is dedicated to civic participation. He took John F. Kennedy's idea of a peace corp for America and made it into a reality. Senators from Massachusetts have a luxury; they will never have to take a tough vote. For that reason we need them to be more then a good vote. Like Kennedy, we need a Senator who can provide a vision for this country. Khazei is the best chance for that. Its not just that he is the only candidate to take the time to write full position papers, he has holistic approaches that reflect a real world understanding of addressing our countries needs. Ask yourself honestly, do Coakley and Capuano provide vision for progressives as Kennedy did? They are mediocre politicians first and progressive second. "Pick the candidate that would make Teddy PROUD" - Larry Lessig's quick presentation on your choice sums it up best. Wesley Clark said it about Afghanistan but this is true of all of his positions: Rather than make the easy appeal of simply bringing our troops home, Alan has done the hard work of detailing how to do so while insuring Afghanistan does not once again become a haven for terrorists. And, at the same time, Alan presents a comprehensive strategy for defeating the terrorists globally. Alan, more than anyone else running for Senate in Massachusetts, presented a detailed approach and compelling, new ideas for accomplishing our goals. Blue Mass Group on why I support Alan: In general, Khazei's position papers are the most detailed of all the candidates. Another candidate saw fit to pooh-pooh position papers since, in his view, "nobody in Washington is waiting for the senator from Massachusetts to be elected to bring their plan," but that's a little too high-handed for us. We want to know that our next Senator has something to bring to the table. We don't expect that all the plans will make it into the statute books next year, but we'd like to know that there's a place to start, and that he or she will think creatively about the big challenges facing our state and our country. Khazei has clearly done that. And my home paper the Worcester Telegram & Gazette. But Mr. Khazei appears to offer something a bit different. He has a deeply genuine and expansive vision of public service that he calls “Big Citizenship,” and speaks of creating an “opportunity society.” He is a student of history who has traveled widely, has dealt with power brokers on both sides of the political aisle, and is a man who has retained the youthful energy that led him to co-found City Year. I was at one time really excited about the prospect of having a female Senator from Massachusetts, it is far past its time. Until I heard Martha Coakley speak it was a bunch of empty platitudes and nothingness that was so terrible I questioned if she was serious. I encourage everyone to go to her site and check out her page on "details." During the Debate she twittered a link to her "plan" for the economy. In it there is not ONE specific bill or position just more emptiness. Not one real idea on how to resurrect our economy. Nothing about a position on jobs bill, nothing on what to do now that we have a foreclosure crisis. I had so many people retweeting and agreeing how embarrassing the page was I would not be surprised if it was taking down. My favorite is that she lists her prosecution of corruption by going after Menino's employee who deleted one email. The other was prosecuting ONE firm involved in the big dig - not any of the large corporations who support her campaign - but the one family owned local business whose parts were not used as THEY THEMSELVES warned the contractors. To any Coakley supporter my question is, WHY DO YOU WANT A BEN NELSON part deux? Massachusetts can do better. I then thought about Capuano, but everyone who knows him warns of his temperament, and his lack of leadership is just disappointing. If becoming senator he will vote the right way, but in Massachusetts that is the easy part, will you be a leader. He has had plenty of time and seniority to distinguish himself and yet all I know about him is that he gets angry. For me the President Bill Clinton's endorsement is the strongest example of the type of triangulating corporate Senator Martha Coakley will be. She is directly in line with the DLC corporate President that he was. I don't blame President Clinton in the early 90's for not providing real left leadership, but I also do not romanticize his presidency as so many are want to do. As an Obama supporter and now Khazei supporter I can't think of a stronger endorsement for the pragmatic progressivism they embrace then former President Bill Clinton opposing them. I am going along with Sen. Kennedy's thoughts and backing the candidate who most closely follows the candidate he backed, not Clinton's candidate. I am endorsing the candidate that would make Teddy proud.