Observations 11.21

I have to be very careful what I say here because I don't want to take anything away from what I said a few days ago. Florida Congressman Trey Radel is a hypocrite, of that there is no doubt, I stand by everything I wrote. While watching a video of Radel's press conference I found myself feeling compassion for a man who seems to have, or had, little of the same for people in his own condition. Sometimes in life events hit a little too close to home, for him and for myself. I don't need to get into my story, suffice to say I know how it feels. If you need to know that's what tags are for, you can find it, it's all in here somewhere.

My problems with Radel begin with his vote to require food stamp recipients be drug tested. To what end? Would he deny or revoke someone's food stamps if they tested positive for a substance? Maybe if they didn't seek some sort of Congressional mandated treatment because we know Radel thinks government should stay out of people lives. But wait, food stamp recipients are obviously poor, probably have no health insurance, and Radel is against the Affordable Care Act. Who is going to pay for tests or treatment? It's a stunningly crafted catch 22 for the poor.

Trey Radel stood in front of the cameras, the slightest hint of tears in his eyes, and asked for redemption and forgiveness. As he exited his press conference a reporter either began to ask a question or simply made a statement by saying " you voted to drug test people who have food stamps." The words hung in the air as Radel walked out and never looked back.

He asked for the very things he isn't willing to give the poor and I have a problem with that.

notes - Radel began rehabilitation in Florida Thursday afternoon, he has never raised the idea of resigning, and plans to take a leave of absence from Congress until just the end of  the year. He faces a maximum 160 days in jail for misdemeanor cocaine possession.

Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, also from Florida, told the Washington Post, "I don’t presume what is best for him. Other members have gotten in trouble. There but for the grace of God go all of us, perfect only God. I’m careful not to cast stones, because I live in a glass house as all of us do." Obviously this too doesn't include the poor.

Observations from the Coffee Shop 11.15

The system is broken, so totally broken that at times I have been shying away from politics. That's not completely true because I can only shy away for a short time before I'm right back in it but it says something that even I just want to run away sometimes. When you watch any main stream news everything has to be reported in apocalyptic tones while on the panel shows they endlessly debate the same thing, usually the wrong thing. Obamacare is just the current example.

The talking heads endlessly debated a broken website when in fact there was no debate, it didn't work very well. Anybody who has ever worked on the web knows that a large website never works well at first, remember Twitter's ever present fail whale? Now the debate has moved to people who have gotten cancellation notices from their insurers, also no debate here because they did. What nobody mentions is that in many cases the notices come from greedy insurance companies looking to make a fast profit and blame Obamacare because, you know, everything is Obamacare's fault. The people totally lost in the debate are the tens of millions who have no health insurance at all.

Politicians and talking heads making hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars a year have the best insurance policies their or their employers money can buy. They don't have to worry about not going for care because they don't have insurance. They don't have to worry about not going to a doctor because they spend so much for their insurance they don't have the money for a co-pay. They don't have to worry about anything at all.

One thing to remember when discussing healthcare is that Republicans have no plan of their own other than the good old way. They don't want to fix Obamacare, they don't want to adjust it, they don't want to use it as a starting point, they want it gone. The good old way is to have the most expensive system in the world, spend more per capita than any other nation on Earth, and as a reward for all that spending have the 39^th longest life expectancy. That puts the U.S. behind every European country, Canada, Japan, and South Korea. All those countries with the hated socialized medicine. Also ahead of the U.S. are Hong Kong, Israel, Chile and Cuba.

I think whenever there is a debate or discussion about healthcare at least one person involved in the discussion should be somebody with no health insurance at all. That way maybe, just maybe, we could have an honest discussion about this mess.

note - This wasn't meant to be an Obamacare vent, it just ended up that way. I was going to write about the broken system because I just read a good article on why the system is the way it is, because that was the Republican plan all along. I'll get to that later.

update - Just a small update and not of the good kind because my life expectancy number was off a bit. The number I used was a five year average. Yesterday afternoon I saw a tweet from Mother Jones' David Corn that included a link to the CIA's World Fact Book. The CIA estimates that in 2013 the U.S. will finish 51^st in life expectancy, worse than the number I had used and putting among others Jordan, Greece, and the European Union (as a whole ahead) of us. I think a well done is called for.

Observations 9.20

And so it's time for Democrats, progressives, and liberals to sit back and watch as the Republican Party destroys itself. The only problem with this is the Republican Party may also destroy the world economy in the process, it may be worth it.

This short statement on the Republican budget, released by The White House yesterday, is worth reading. Maybe if the Republicans bothered to read it they could save themselves before they takeoff on what even the The Wall Street Journal called a kamikaze mission. I doubt they will bother. Italics are my own.

September 19, 2013
STATEMENT OF ADMINISTRATION POLICY
H.J. Res. 59 – Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2014
(Rep. Rogers, R-KY)

The Administration strongly opposes House passage of H.J. Res. 59, making continuing appropriations for fiscal year 2014 and for other purposes, because it advances a narrow ideological agenda that threatens our economy and the interests of the middle class. The Resolution would defund the Affordable Care Act, denying millions of hard-working middle class families the security of affordable health coverage.

If the President were presented with H.J. Res. 59, he would veto the bill.

The Administration is willing to support a short-term continuing resolution to allow critical Government functions to operate without interruption and looks forward to working with the Congress on appropriations legislation for the remainder of the fiscal year that preserves critical national priorities, protects national security, and makes investments to spur economic growth and job creation for years to come.