Health Care Woes

You may have heard a few things this year about the future of health care. Congress has heard a lot as well, particularly from the insurance lobby. Already this year, the insurance lobby has given over four million dollars to congressional leaders. The insurance lobby has given over one and a half million dollars to Senator Max Baucus D-Montana, the senate finance committee chairman, who's health care bill garnered the most publicity over this past summer. Of course when Baucus's bill left the finance committee it had no public option. At this point we should remind everyone that the current members of the Senate finance committee combind have recieved over forty seven million dollars from the insurance lobby this decade alone. So, is it any surprise that the public option is being quietly discarded? From the start, a single payer system which had humble beginnings in House Resolution 3200, was shut out, and H.R. 3200 killed before it ever got started. Now the public option is struggling to hold on. It makes sense however, because the insurance lobby has an unlimited arsenal it seems of commercials, press releases and drafted public statements for Democrats and Republicans that craft the language of both sides of the debate. In fact one of the chief memebers of Max Baucus' staff is Liz Fowler who could be seen huddled behind him on CSPAN during the finance committee's mark ups on it's version of the health care bill. Liz Fowler is a former VP of public policy at Wellpoint Insurance, which happens to be the nation's largest insurance company. As an uninsured American with a pre-existing condition this kind of activity is enough to make you twice as sick. That's why I have written my legislators as well as Max Baucus to inform him that the masses are not as in the dark as he might hope or think. I encourage anyone who reads this and cares about our future to do the same.

Economic Warfare

Much has been said over the past year about economics. Bailouts, credit default swaps, toxic assests, systemic risk, and so on, however few folks in the press, or public office want to address the roots of our economic woes. In 1993, after years of nurturing by the Reagan and Bush 1's administrations, NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) was signed into effect by then President Clinton. This doctrine was packaged by the media and the white house at the time as an expansion of "democracy" to Latin America, and an affirmation of "free-market" economic policies in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union. A step toward polarizing and eventually a capitulation of Cuba was expected, as was the halting of mass immigration from mexico, both to no avail. What went wrong with the glorious ideals of the 1990's? First, "free-trade agreements" are more accurately described as "free financer insurance". Since Nixon dismantled the Bretton Woods economic order, the liberalization of finance has seen skyrocketing flows of speculative capital. This provides an unstable economic base backed by "bubbles", such as the dot com bubble or the housing bubble. As we've seen, bubbles burst in a big way. This also provides a secure safty net for investors, allowing them to move their capital freely in and out of towns and cities, while communities deal with the consequences. Second, the idea of "spreading democracy" took hold in mainstream journalism, in association with NAFTA and the idea of global free trade. Media jobs typically don't get outsourced, like say the manufactorer's assembly plant job, or the auto worker, or human resources workers. So the media were on board, along with the business community with all the public relations firepower they could throw at it, when the Clinton administration and their cohorts in congress rammed NAFTA down the whole continent's throat. NAFTA has provisions that allow corporations to sue federal governments over propety loss and "damages" for instance, land being taken from development for preservation or the banning of a substance that a company uses in manufactoring. Now sixteen years later, the effects NAFTA have had are coming home to roost. Shipping jobs abroad along with investment woes will have us looking to 2010 with over 10% unemployement. Even by 1999 most analysts claimed NAFTA had "no effects". By 2007 and the Democratic primary, opponents including President Obama hammered Hillary Clinton over NAFTA, and how it has failed and needs to be reformed. Of course that talk has vanished, but not free trade agreements. Reports this year indicate Obama wants the U.S. to participate in a East Asian/Pacific Rim free trade agreement, so we can continue to send jobs to the Phillippens or Malaysia while Americans lose more and more of their savings buying the products back. I'm not sure of it's current status but Bush 2's team had a free trade agreement planned for the Middle East, that included an independent Palestine. Of course the goal here was to lock Palestinian's into a low wage manufactoring economy, as outlined by the World Bank and enforced by Israeli military via the wall the World Bank is funding with militarized checkpoints. So the overwhelming failure that is NAFTA is obviously working out well for some. I suppose the politicans, and their corporate sponsors have much fire power and capital, but everyday more and more common people are learning what they are doing, and why they're doing it. Eventually, folks catch on the way they caught on to Bush, and the way they're catching on to Obama. It's time for us to contact our representatives and senators and tell them to use their vote to pursue our interests, or we'll use our vote, to disrupt their pursuit of re-election.