The Story Behind Bush's Medicare Veto

President Bush vetoed a Medicare bill today that postponed a cut in doctor's salaries while initiating cuts in certain Medicare reimbursements to insurers. His stated reason was that it would reduce plan options for seniors.

What he didn't say was that private insurers receive nearly 15% more than Medicare pays for the same services. While Bush claims that competition is the key to keeping health costs low, under his administration, we are paying private companies a 15% premium to cover the extra layer of admin costs that result from their participation.

If competition is supposed to lower heath care costs, why is the private sector receiving a premium?

Discover Card's Worries About New Laws

One of my favorite blogs is footnoted.org which examines public financial documents such as annual reports, 10Qs and other SEC filings to uncover what many companies hate to disclose but have to. They often hide these embarrassing disclosures in footnotes hoping that they won't be read; hence the name.

Here's what the site uncovered about Discover Card which had to acknowledged the following risk factor to its business:

"The company’s second quarter 10-Q, filed yesterday, includes a new risk factor inspired by the Fed’s proposal to tighten its rules on “unfair or deceptive acts or practices” and “truth in lending.” The disclosure says that “if the amendments are adopted as proposed, the amendments would have a material adverse effect on our results of operations.”

As I read it, the credit card company is admitting that in its efforts to find new charges and reasons to extort fees from its users, it has probably crossed the line and will suffer under the Fed's efforts to clean up these abuses.

Help the EFF Defend Your Privacy Rights

I recieved this letter from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an organization which works hard to defend the our rights to privacy and to limit large media companies' efforts to expand copyright law beyond its original intent. They deserve our support.

Next time Barak's team asks for money, I'm sending my donation to the EFF.

"Dear Friend of Freedom,

In a move that I can only describe as cowardice, Congress
just passed legislation meant to immunize telephone
companies for their illegal, disloyal, and irresponsible
behavior. EFF has been fighting against telecom immunity,
and we need your help to bring the fight to the next level:

http://secure.eff.org/wiretapping

Two and a half years ago, EFF sued AT&T on behalf of its
customers, seeking to hold the telecom giant responsible
for its craven complicity in the White House's illegal
warrantless wiretapping program.

Since then, the phone companies and their allies in
Washington have spent tens of millions of dollars lobbying
Congress to grant them retroactive immunity. They ran
ridiculous fear-mongering attack ads against any politician
who dared to oppose them. President Bush threatened to veto
any bill that allowed EFF's lawsuit to continue.

Yesterday, Congress completely capitulated to the
President's threats and voted to let the telecoms off the
hook. If the telecoms are not held accountable, the
administration will remain unchecked in its warrantless
wiretapping of innocent Americans. This must stop!

We need your help to take the fight to the next level.
We're going to challenge Congress's unconstitutional grant
of immunity in our case against AT&T. We're going to fight
for a congressional repeal of immunity in the next
Congress. And we're going to file a new lawsuit against the
government, challenging its warrantless surveillance
practices, past, present and future.

Now, more than ever, we need your support!

http://secure.eff.org/wiretapping

The fight for civil liberties would never have come this
far without your help. We can't give up now. Help EFF
today!

Sincerely,
....Shari Steele
Executive Director
Electronic Frontier Foundation

ACLU Steps Up While Obama Ducks

Given the current make up of the Supreme Court, it may be a long shot, but at least the ACLU has the nerve to sue the Federal Government over its attempt to eviscerate Constitutional protections by allowing unfettered, unsupervised electronic snooping by whenever the President feels like saying "national security".

I'm no longer sure what Obama stands for if not this principle. As I've said before, this law's passage is a major blow to the concept of civil liberties.

Above the Law: Is Rove Hoping Bush will Pardon Him?

As Karl Rove thumbs his nose at a Congressional subpoena to testify about his role in influencing Department of Justice prosecutions without claiming executive privilege, the possibility arises that Rove's game plan is to push things far enough so Bush can pardon him.

One also has to wonder what help the Department of Justice will provide Congress in this test of wills.

Principle vs. Personality

Sen. Obama's vote for the new FISA legislation which provides immunity for telecommunications companies who conspired in secret with the Bush administration to break the law and invade Americans' privacy is deeply disappointing. His assessment that the bill was flawed but necessary is worrisome because it opens the possibility that as President, he would find it attractive to pierce our Constitutional protections without fear of consequence.

It also highlights the difference between voting for personalities and principles. Senator Clinton, whose antics left me cold during the end of her over long campaign voted against the bill. Senator Obama, whose charm converted me during the campaign, voted for it. Awkward Hillary got it right, and smooth Obama got it wrong.

How Dirty, Long Will the Campaign Be?

With John McCain already claiming that he can't control how other Republicans support his campaign, even the Republican National Committee, and having already received emails misrepresenting papers written by Michele Obama during her freshman year at Princeton, it looks like the upcoming campaign contain the same dirty tricks as the 2004 campaign. Of course, Moveon.Org, is readying it's arsenal to respond in kind.

All this make we wish we could vote in July and get all this over with. Surely a month is long enough for a debate for voters to learn the policy differences between McCain and Obama. We already know who they are from the prelims. What's left beyond many numbing months of media campaigns, misleading ads, out of context sound bites, and the same old talking heads on TV?

Makes me wonder why it's the Europeans who have better health care, better mass transit, bans of plastic bags, and shorter election campaigns. Why can't we?

Global Warming: A Pinata for Anti-Environmentalists

Science is an evolving exploration of the universe. Although there is a emerging consensus in the scientific community about global warming and mankind's ability to meaningfully affect the earth's climate, it's still a legitimate debate. Unfortunately every uncertainty about man's role in climate change is being used by some to discredit environmental concerns as a whole.

One of the most visible examples is John Coleman, former weatherman and CEO of the Weather Channel who wants to sue Al Gore for fraud for his success raising awareness over global warming. As Mr. Coleman puts it:

"Global warming frenzy is, indeed, threatening our civilization...

If Al Gore and his global warming scare dictates the future policy of our governments, the current economic downturn could indeed become a recession, drift into a depression and our modern civilization could fall into an abyss. And it would largely be a direct result of the global warming frenzy"

Somehow Mr. Coleman has missed out on rising demand for resources in developing countries, speculation, mounting US debt and a myriad of factors that have caused fuel prices to rise. Even worse is overlooking at all the other undeniable effects of pollution that threaten our environment in even our most pristine areas.

The Real Health Care Crisis

No candidate has the answer.

After listening to various vague outlines for improving health care in America offered by the three Presidential hopefuls, it's clear that this problem will remain with us for a long, long time. All of the plans more or less accept the underlying system with its waste and redundancies and promise improvements which either won't work (McCain) or which expand coverage without addressing the increased expenses (Hillary and Barak).

In a way it's a clear victory for the health care and pharma lobbies. The tens of millions of dollars they have poured into electing obedient legislators and Presidents has been excellent value. Harvard Business School estimates that there are $200 Billion in redundant, unnecessary marketing and administrative expenses in our current system which could be eliminated by going to a single payer system. Barak seems to recognize that such a system would be better than what he is proposing, but he candidly admitted that it was simply not politically feasible. Hillary offers a warmed over version of Mitt's failed Massachusetts plan while McCain offers Bushian platitudes about competition.

Until we address the fundamental issues that our health care system faces, we will continue to pay too much of too little for too few.

When Will It Be Over?

With the North Carolina and Indiana primaries behind us and with the pundits calling it all over, I join those who hope that the pundits are correct. Mathematically Obama has won, and Hillary has lost.

Actually all the Clintons have lost. My sense is that since January overall regard for the Clintons within their own party has plummeted. I for one no longer find it reassuring that Bill would be in the White House as Hillary's secret adviser. His gaffs on the campaign trail have seriously eroded his reputation for sound judgment. I guess Chelsea's ok, but Hillary has morphed into someone who will say or do anything to win the Presidency. Her actions seem only slightly bounded by a sense of what she can get away with, not by some deeply held concept of integrity.

It's time for a change. It's time for Senator Obama to be our next President.

Pres08_WTA
2008 US Presidential Election Winner Takes All Market



This graph is also available in flash format with the datapoints annotated, or in a simple jpg format.

Hillary Kicks Butt on Health Care

I'm not sure what I think of Hillary, but I'm sure pleased to see someone take on the ignorant views about what 'socialized' medicine is and how well our current system works or doesn't. Great performance in a short clip.

Why Health Care is Sick and Fading

The sympthoms are clear enough. A smaller percentage of the population has real health care coverage and the cost of that coverage rises dramatically every year. Yet diagnosing the underlying causes is political suicide given the huge power of the vested interests which control the debate: big pharma, hospitals and HMOs, and insurance companies.

Healthcare's biggest single problem is the huge portion of total health care costs – about 31 percent, ....– that are consumed by the insurance and billing bureaucracy without ever providing direct patient care. Costs for marketing, broker sales commissions, actuarial costs, gatekeepers, high executive salaries, increasing shareholder profits, even the high costs of their lobbying and campaign contributions are passed on to the patient (and in most cases employers, who have been taking their jobs offshore to avoid the costs).

Even our effective system of delivery for the aged, Medicare, is currently under attack by the Bush administration which is using government subsidies to pretend that its Medicare Advantage program is a better deal. It is for insurance companies, but not for the tax payer,

Medicare is stunningly successful and popular. Why would anyone want to desert it? Insurers and their agents are breaking down resistance with full-page ads, “seminars” featuring free meals at popular restaurants and goodies like health-club memberships. Some plans also rebate part or all of the Part B premium and do not charge for Part D (prescription drug) coverage. ......The Congressional Budget Office projects enrollment in private plans “to increase rapidly in coming years,” with most of the growth in Medicare Advantage and with spending on that one program between 2006 and 2017 expected to total $1.5 trillion.

The concept that introducing yet another layer of unnecessary administration to the healthcare system makes it more competitive and efficient simply defies common sense.

Can American leadership be restored?

Leadership to this administration seems to mean the willingness to exercise power and to stay on a course regardless of its consequences. Amb. Chas. W. Freeman, Jr., president of the Middle East Policy Council, argues that this form of leadership is ultimately useless because fewer and fewer will follow.

"The world now fears our savagery but has lost confidence in our fair-mindedness, judgment, and competence. What are the consequences of this and how can we overcome them?

....So, for example, Venezuela, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and key Africans are courting China; Europe is flirting with Asia; and all are seeking the affections of the oil and gas producers of the Middle East as well as of Russia and India. In most countries, politicians now see public spats with the United States as the easiest way to rally their people and enhance their prestige. The result is the progressive displacement of our previously indispensable influence and leadership in more and more areas of the world."

Say it ain't so Joe.

Joseph Biden "acknowledges that his candidacy is a long shot. He says he just wants a chance to say what he thinks."
Biden, the national spokesman for Delaware-based credit card banks and prime mover behind the tough new bankruptcy laws, thinks representing the interests of the nation's largest banks is wonderful. He has also lost any chance to be taken as a serious presidential candidate.

Is Our Economy "Strong"?

There seems to be two basic approaches to measuring economic strength in the US: the Dow Jones Industrial Average for those with investments and employment conditions for those living off their wages.

For those who can live off their investments and with the Dow at an all time high, recent times are high times, and the credit is largely attributed to the Bush tax cuts. So much so that Mitt Romney is currently touring the TV talk shows threatening Americans with the specter of a Democratic president pushing through a huge tax increase in 2010 that kills economic growth. This same argument was recently made by New York hedge fund managers who have threatened to take their money to the Cayman Islands if they have to pay taxes on the same basis as most Americans. Clearly the economy is being good to these groups, but does that make it "strong"?

For more and more wage earners the answer would be 'no", because they haven't been treated well. Many of the same forces driving the Dow higher are also reducing the number of well paying jobs, increasing the ranks of the poor, and shrinking the middle class. Health care continues to less and less affordable, and the financial risks of a major illness are on the rise. Productivity has risen, but real wages have not.

So which measures should we use to determine how we are doing? Let's look at the long term trends and see where they take us. Currently the economy allocates an increasing share of our wealth to an ever smaller percentage of the population while the vast majority of share a shrinking part of the economy's pie. Over the long run this is a recipe for producing the next Brazil or perhaps India: countries with a fabulously wealthy ruling class and most of the population living near or in poverty. A better direction would be one that returns to a situation more like post WWII America when the American dream was alive and well. People worked hard, shared to varying degrees in the results, but generally we all rose together. Education and housing were affordable, health care was available, and retirement was something to be looked forward to.

Countries like China, Singapore, Taiwan, and India which strive to emulate our success are working hard to develop and sustain their middle classes, increase the education of their work forces, and improve working conditions. They see the US of the 50's as a model for achieving a strong economy. It's ironic that in the US, we seem to have abandoned our own model of success and are aspiring to become what these countries are hoping to escape.

Judge resigns seat on spy court

In a stinging rebuke to the Bush administration's covert domestic wiretap program, a federal judge who has been one of the judiciary's most intrusive and feisty critics of the Guantánamo Bay detention center quit a secret court that oversees U.S. intelligence wiretaps.


....''Apparently Judge Robertson did not want to aid and abet criminal NSA electronic surveillance,'' said a statement from the New York Center for Constitutional Rights, which has for four years alleged that the administration is overstepping its war powers -- in both its Guantánamo court and enemy combatant practices.

Bush Misses the Point on Spying...Again

"The Bush administration formally defended its domestic spying program in a letter to Congress late Thursday saying the nation's security outweighs privacy concerns of individuals who are monitored.

In a letter to the chairs of the House and Senate intelligence committees, the Justice Department said
President Bush authorized electronic surveillance without first obtaining a warrant in an effort to thwart terrorist acts against the United States."

This threadbare argument distorts the facts. Within the law, the Administration can tap phones for 72 hours while they seek a warrant from the secret FISA courts. These courts have NEVER denied a warrant. So what is the problem that led the Administration to refuse to even apply for warrants as required by the law? There are no delays under the current system, and the issuing of warrants has never been mentioned as a problem.

If the administration was worried that the warrants wouldn't be granted, then it suggests that there was precious little evidence that these wire taps were really directed at Al Qaida as the administration claims. Or was it simply that this Administration is addicted to operating outside the law?

Army aims to coax back former troops

Reuters reports that the U.S. Army, fresh off missing its latest annual recruiting goal, has launched an unprecedented effort to coax former troops to sign up again for active-duty military service. But it's not a sign of desperation.

The Army this month began contacting 78,000 people who previously served in the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps to pitch them on the idea of leaving behind their civilian lives and returning for another stint in uniform, said Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, an Army spokesman at the Pentagon.

Unlike in the past, they now can return to the Army without giving up their previous rank or undergo the rigors of basic training, said Hilferty, who described it as the first program of its kind for the Army.

The Army fell about 7,000 short of its goal of sending 80,000 recruits into basic training in fiscal 2005, which ended September 30. Officials attributed the shortfall to the Iraq war and other factors. The fiscal 2006 recruiting goal again is set at 80,000.

Hilferty said the new program, which targets people who left the military within the past five years and particularly those who were in branches other than the Army, is not a sign of recruiting desperation."

Key Bush Intelligence Briefing Kept From Hill Panel

Bush knew that Saddam wasn't tied in with Al Qaida, from the very beginning. No suprise to those who have followed this closely. Cheney's claiming otherwise only continues his misconstruction of reality.

"Ten days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush was told in a highly classified briefing that the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to the attacks and that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda, according to government records and current and former officials with firsthand knowledge of the matter.

The information was provided to Bush on September 21, 2001 during the "President's Daily Brief," a 30- to 45-minute early-morning national security briefing. Information for PDBs has routinely been derived from electronic intercepts, human agents, and reports from foreign intelligence services, as well as more mundane sources such as news reports and public statements by foreign leaders.

One of the more intriguing things that Bush was told during the briefing was that the few credible reports of contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda involved attempts by Saddam Hussein to monitor the terrorist group. Saddam viewed Al Qaeda as well as other theocratic radical Islamist organizations as a potential threat to his secular regime. At one point, analysts believed, Saddam considered infiltrating the ranks of Al Qaeda with Iraqi nationals or even Iraqi intelligence operatives to learn more about its inner workings, according to records and sources.

The September 21, 2001, briefing was prepared at the request of the president, who was eager in the days following the terrorist attacks to learn all that he could about any possible connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda. "