by folkbum
President Obama encouraging schoolchildren to value education and set high goals for themselves: BAD!
Subjecting schoolchildren to daily coercive prayers and Christian indoctrination: GOOD!
Friday, September 04, 2009
Thursday, September 03, 2009
How to Win Friends and Influence People to Counter Heath Care Reform
By Keith R. Schmitz
For those of us who might have suspected that the opponents of health insurance reform were boorish numbskulls, this video of a wheel-chair bound woman at a Frank Pallone (D-NJ) town hall being hooted down by loutish know-nothings is if nothing, disgusting. According to her statement, she "two incurable auto-immune diseases."
We'll ma'am, why don't you just do us all a favor, not subject us to your little problem and just go away.
This woman and her family are clearly behind the economic eightball. There is no way she is going to "work it off" when it comes to her medical debts, thanks to this wonderfully designed system (note the cynicism).
This footage demonstrates why many Blue Dogs according to the Politico are going back to Congress dissolved not to be cowed by these bullies.
For those of you who go for this sort of thing, better pray this does not get wide distribution or your private insurance-backing goose will be cooked.
For those of us who might have suspected that the opponents of health insurance reform were boorish numbskulls, this video of a wheel-chair bound woman at a Frank Pallone (D-NJ) town hall being hooted down by loutish know-nothings is if nothing, disgusting. According to her statement, she "two incurable auto-immune diseases."
We'll ma'am, why don't you just do us all a favor, not subject us to your little problem and just go away.
This woman and her family are clearly behind the economic eightball. There is no way she is going to "work it off" when it comes to her medical debts, thanks to this wonderfully designed system (note the cynicism).
This footage demonstrates why many Blue Dogs according to the Politico are going back to Congress dissolved not to be cowed by these bullies.
For those of you who go for this sort of thing, better pray this does not get wide distribution or your private insurance-backing goose will be cooked.
Seantor Kohl Backs Public Option
By Keith R. Schmitz
Always the pillar of caution, not entirely a bad thing, Senator Herb Kohl made it official in an interview with Mike Gousha yesterday that he backs the public option.
Another brick in the wall towards health insurance reform. Without it we are giving away $60 billion to companies who hacve richly proven they don't deserve it.
Always the pillar of caution, not entirely a bad thing, Senator Herb Kohl made it official in an interview with Mike Gousha yesterday that he backs the public option.
Another brick in the wall towards health insurance reform. Without it we are giving away $60 billion to companies who hacve richly proven they don't deserve it.
No principles and no shame
by folkbum
A significant part of Republican opposition to health insurance reform bills like HR 3200 is that they rely on savings from eliminating inefficiencies and waste in Medicare to provide some of the needed funding.
The Republican response to this is that it means rationing and early death for seniors: Democrats are going to cut Medicare, they say--"inefficiency" and "waste" being fictional or negligible, apparently--thereby making some procedures off-limits and leaving our elders to die in the streets.
Just to be clear: This is the same Republican Party whose platform in 2008, adopted just over a year ago a few miles up the road in St. Paul, reads, "we should [. . .] eliminate waste and inefficiency" right there under the heading "Medicare." (What, did the waste and inefficiency just disappear?)
This is the same Republican Party whose current chair told Tim Russert that Medicare was "absolutely, absolutely" on the table for cuts when he ran for Senate just two years ago.
And this is the same Republican Party that shut down the federal government in 1995 in part because Democrats would not agree to (wait for it) cut Medicare spending.
No principles. No shame.
A significant part of Republican opposition to health insurance reform bills like HR 3200 is that they rely on savings from eliminating inefficiencies and waste in Medicare to provide some of the needed funding.
The Republican response to this is that it means rationing and early death for seniors: Democrats are going to cut Medicare, they say--"inefficiency" and "waste" being fictional or negligible, apparently--thereby making some procedures off-limits and leaving our elders to die in the streets.
Just to be clear: This is the same Republican Party whose platform in 2008, adopted just over a year ago a few miles up the road in St. Paul, reads, "we should [. . .] eliminate waste and inefficiency" right there under the heading "Medicare." (What, did the waste and inefficiency just disappear?)
This is the same Republican Party whose current chair told Tim Russert that Medicare was "absolutely, absolutely" on the table for cuts when he ran for Senate just two years ago.
And this is the same Republican Party that shut down the federal government in 1995 in part because Democrats would not agree to (wait for it) cut Medicare spending.
No principles. No shame.
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
Spotted Cow Brewer Spot On
By Keith R. Schmitz
Here is a heart-filled statement on universal health care from the New Glarus Brewing Company's web site:
Here is a heart-filled statement on universal health care from the New Glarus Brewing Company's web site:
Deb (the owner) is a supporter of Universal Healthcare because she knows what it’s like to be poor. And not the kind of poor that you might have to buy a Gateway computer instead of the new imac, or the kind of poor in which you have to choose to buy Gap instead of Louis Vuitton, or even the kind of poor that you might just have to wait for these items to go on sale before buying them… I mean the kind of poor that makes you choose between eating and getting medicine for an ear-infection.It's all about choices, and though my brand is Pilsner Urquell, next time when I am out I am going think about a Spotted Cow. Someone with this kind of empathy has the heart to turn out a good product, because in business, that's what it is really all about.
The kind of poor that only allows you to buy second-hand clothes on sale. And it’s not because she doesn't work hard. She is one of the hardest working women I know, which is probably the reason that she was the first woman to start and run a brewery in the US. The reason that she supports universal health care is because she believes, and knows, that despite how hard you work, a lot of what you have access to (be it health care, food, education, and the like) depends a lot on who you were born to.
Either your parents have enough money to feed you every day or they send you to work after school at 16 to help pay the bills. Either your parents have enough money to pay for your health care, or they don’t eat (or eat mac & cheese) for a few months to cover the cost of your antibiotics from the bug you picked up at school. Many don't know what this is like, and have had a great many opportunities shown to them. That is one of the greatest gifts that a person can get.
However, for those out there who aren’t as fortunate, universal healthcare could mean the difference between eating and not, being sick or not, and dying or not. And no one wants to see their taxes go up. But (I would hope) no one wants to see a sick kid not get help because his parents can’t afford it either. I don’t speak for Deb, but I do speak to her love of people, regardless of stature, education, or inheritance. The reason she supports this is to help people.
New Glarus Brewing Co. already gives their employees healthcare coverage, because we realize how important it is. We believe that it is the responsibility of companies to provide care for the employees who may very well spend their entire lives helping to make that business successful, and paying for healthcare is a very small price to pay in the grand scheme of things.
Propoganda
By Keith R. Schmitz
More commie lies...
Right wing gentlemen, start your sputtering.
Sure this may fall back, or it could give rise to more of the stimulus we should have used in the first place.
More commie lies...
Many forecasters say stimulus spending is adding two to three percentage points to economic growth in the second and third quarters, when measured at an annual rate. The impact in the second quarter, calculated by analyzing how the extra funds flowing into the economy boost consumption, investment and spending, helped slow the rate of decline and will lay the groundwork for positive growth in the third quarter -- something that seemed almost implausible just a few months ago. Some economists say the 1% contraction in the second quarter would have been far worse, possibly as much as 3.2%, if not for the stimulus.From The Wall Street Journal.
Right wing gentlemen, start your sputtering.
Sure this may fall back, or it could give rise to more of the stimulus we should have used in the first place.
Green Jobs Czar Van Jones refuses to apologize for calling Republicans a-holes
by folkbum
Van Jones told Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, "I expressed myself rather forcefully, felt better after I had done it." He went on, "I think that a lot of my colleagues felt that what I had said badly needed to be said, that it was long overdue."
(Not really.)
Van Jones told Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, "I expressed myself rather forcefully, felt better after I had done it." He went on, "I think that a lot of my colleagues felt that what I had said badly needed to be said, that it was long overdue."
(Not really.)
Shorter Paul Ryan
by folkbum
Saying "Obama's Death Panels are going to kill my baby and Steven Hawking" is not nearly as bad as accurately claiming that HR3200 doesn't force anyone to change their doctor.
("Shorter" concept created by Daniel Davies, perfected by Elton Beard, and awesometized by Sadly, No!.)
Saying "Obama's Death Panels are going to kill my baby and Steven Hawking" is not nearly as bad as accurately claiming that HR3200 doesn't force anyone to change their doctor.
("Shorter" concept created by Daniel Davies, perfected by Elton Beard, and awesometized by Sadly, No!.)
I think Dohnal would call these "the invincibles"
by folkbum
Among the most persistent myths about the uninsured in America is that there are millions who don't want to be insured--the young, the healthy, the foolhardy who think nothing bad is going to happen to them and who balk at the idea of an individual mandate in the bills currently being floated around Congress. This crisis of the uninsured is not real, the detractors say, because "the invincibles" don't want insurance anyway! Problem solved!
Or not: A new study by the AFL-CIO of young workers (under 35, so I qualify for a few more days) asked about health insurance, among other things: "31 percent of young workers report being uninsured, up from 24 percent 10 years ago, and 79 percent of the uninsured say they don’t have coverage because they can’t afford it or their employer does not offer it." This is not indicative of a large class of "invincibles" boldly and stupidly shrugging off health insurance as if it were some artifact of age, like grey hair or high-waisted pants. No, this is fully a quarter of all workers under 35 who want but can't get health insurance because they're priced out of the market.
And, you know, it doesn't help when members of Congress literally laugh at young workers like that and tell them just to grow up. Way to go, Republicans! Alienate another generation, why don't you.
Among the most persistent myths about the uninsured in America is that there are millions who don't want to be insured--the young, the healthy, the foolhardy who think nothing bad is going to happen to them and who balk at the idea of an individual mandate in the bills currently being floated around Congress. This crisis of the uninsured is not real, the detractors say, because "the invincibles" don't want insurance anyway! Problem solved!
Or not: A new study by the AFL-CIO of young workers (under 35, so I qualify for a few more days) asked about health insurance, among other things: "31 percent of young workers report being uninsured, up from 24 percent 10 years ago, and 79 percent of the uninsured say they don’t have coverage because they can’t afford it or their employer does not offer it." This is not indicative of a large class of "invincibles" boldly and stupidly shrugging off health insurance as if it were some artifact of age, like grey hair or high-waisted pants. No, this is fully a quarter of all workers under 35 who want but can't get health insurance because they're priced out of the market.
And, you know, it doesn't help when members of Congress literally laugh at young workers like that and tell them just to grow up. Way to go, Republicans! Alienate another generation, why don't you.
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
Text of Michael Bonds's open letter re: Mayoral Takeover
by folkbum
Via the Educators Network for Social Justice, all the bold and underlining in the original, from President of the Milwaukee Board of School Directors Michael Bonds:
Also worth noting: Larry Miller, a freshman on the Board, has a blog against the takeover.
Via the Educators Network for Social Justice, all the bold and underlining in the original, from President of the Milwaukee Board of School Directors Michael Bonds:
September 1, 2009For those who don't remember, Bonds was not the "union" candidate in his election, so you can't sell your reflexive anti-union crap on this one. This is also his field: He's an associate professor of Educational Policy and Community Studies at UWM, with a history that includes working as a fiscal analyst for the city of Milwaukee, so it's not like he doesn't know what he's talking about.
Dear Governor Doyle, State Superintendent Evers, Mayor Barrett, Common Council President Hines
On August 31, 2009, Mayor Tom Barrett and Common COuncil President Willie Hines held a press conference in which they cited the problems that Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) is dealing with (financial, governance, and racial achievement gaps) as a justification for a mayoral takeover of the district.
As an individual, I ask, do we really want to turn MPS over to mayoral control, given the City's current fiscal problems, governance issues, racial disparities in Milwaukee, its recent history of corruption, its lack of expertise in education and its lack of an educational reform plan? Listed below is the City's record on the same issues.
Mayor Barrett (2004-present) & Common Council President Hines' (1996-present) Record on those issues:
(1) City of Milwaukee's Financial Crisis & Mismanagement:
- Cost overruns on a no-bid computer contract (increase from $25,000 to $600,000).
- $78 million budget deficit for 2010. It will result in service cuts and lay-offs.
- City property taxes have risen 10% in the last 5 years.
- Approximately, $800 million backlog in in capital improvement projects (street repairs, sewer replacement and repairs, light repairs, etc.).
- The City continues to burden its residents with a variety of new and increased fees such as wheel tax (new vehicle registration fee of $20), snow removal fee, sewer fees, increased water rates, garbage removal, etc. This does not even include increases in city licenses, city permits, parking fees and fines, and fees for other services which the public needs from the City. SOme city fees have increased by 100% since 2003.
- The City has had close to a combined $100 million in cost overruns in recent years associated with the City Hall renovation project ($30 million-$40 million), construction of the new police communication center, annual police overtime budget, and so forth.
- Increased diversion of millions of federal Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) dollars annually from neighborhoods to balance the city budget. CDBG funds are designed for low-income and minority communities to deal with issues associated with poverty, deteriorated housing, and blight.
(2) Racial Gap in the City of Milwaukee: Where does the City of Milwaukee Rank?
Nationally, Milwaukee ranks at the top of or near the top in the following racial gaps:
(a) highest black unemployment rates in the nation, (b) most racially segregated housing patterns, (c) leads the nation in the incarceration of African Americans, (d) leads the nation in housing and business loan rejections for African Americans, (e) the Black infant mortality rates exceed that of some third-world countries, (f) major racial gap in pot hole repairs (g) some of the highest black poverty rates, and (h) highest racial gap in income.
Numerous national studies have shown Milwaukee to be the worst place in America for African Americans to live.
(3) Need for Change in the City Governance & Municipal Service Delivery Issues:
The current leadership in city government has shown its inability to: (a) develop the vacant Park East Freeway land downtown; (b) deal withe the loss of thousands of city jobs and loss of companies; (c) deal with city poverty (Milwaukee is the 7th poorest city in America); (d) solve a several-decades-long stalemate on federal transportation funds in a timely manner, (e) deal effectively with issues of violent crime and unsafe neighborhoods; (f) control regular flooding of thousands of city residents; homes each year; (g) control the number and cost of parking tickets issued to city residents, (h) control damage to hundreds of city residents' vehicles that hit city street pot holes due to delays in repairing them; (i) control the Common Council's history of liquor license problems, (j) reduce the delays in garbage collection, and (k) reduce the number of alderpersons convicted and sentenced for corruption in the last 10 years.
(4) Mayor Barrett's & Willie Hines' Education Experience & Academic Reform Plan:
- Both stood on the sideline for years while the MPS declined financially and academically. It is only with the "potential" of receiving federal dollars that they are now interested in MPS!!!
- On Monday August 31, 2009, the Mayor and Willie Hines did not have an education reform plan. Instead, the Mayor stated that it has to be developed!!! Do we want to turn MPS over to people who do not have a plan?
- The City does not have the expertise or infrastructure to run MPS.
Are MPS's problems a reflection of the broader issues facing the City of Milwaukee?
Sincerely,
Michael Bonds
CC: Milwaukee Board of School Directors, Superintendent Andrekopoulos, State Legislators, Common Council
Also worth noting: Larry Miller, a freshman on the Board, has a blog against the takeover.
Please don't. Not any more.
by folkbum
I've been going back and forth on how much or what to say about the proposed mayoral takeover of the Milwaukee Public Schools--I'm agin' it--or even whether to bother, as if my opinion counts for squat anymore.
A lot of what I wanted to say, Jennifer Morales did in her op-ed Sunday; her second half--about all the things that Mayor Tom "Fightin' Tom" Barrett could if he really wanted to help the children of Milwaukee--is almost word-for-word what I would have written if I had gotten around to it. You should really read it all.
There was one point when I'd started drafting and collected a bunch of tabs full of reasons why a mayoral takeover is a bad idea and won't work (historically it doesn't help, at least not without massive sustained increases in per-student spending as in New York, and even mentioning it is driving a wedge between Barrett and the best possible allies he could want, Michael Bonds and the AAEC) and my browser crashed so, hey, decision made.
But then I read this yesterday:
This careening about in search of the New Hotness that gets Grant Funding is horrible, horrible policy. Case in point: You know North Division High School? It spent the better part of the last decade as the vanguard in MPS's small high school multiplex redesign program*, primarily because the Gates Foundation and other groups were doling out the fundage for small schools. North was generally awful before the change, and remained generally awful no matter what small program was wedged into the multiplex. It is now in the process of being rebiggified as a single school instead of a multiplex.
Marshall High School, which got the same treatment, saw failed small school after failed small school parade through and is now just going to be turned over to Morse Middle School to house a 6-12 program there. Washington's multiplex has been more stable, but the small schools have never lived up to the success that a Gates grant seemed to promise, scoring below district averages in nearly every measure.**
When the multiplex money dried up, First Things First was the next New Hotness that had Grant Funding, and the first to go in the pursuit of those funds were Bradley Tech and Pulaski. Tech you undoubtedly have an opinion of, but it's also clear that Pulaski's not living up to the promise, either, with no changes in retention rates, suspensions rates, truancy rates, or reading and math scores. My previous school, Milwaukee Madison, was forced to give up its International Baccalaureate program in favor of First Things First, driving away talented students and staff (most of whom, your humble correspondent not included, found their way to Reagan); its metrics are also in the tank.
All of these top-down decisions have crushed staff morale over the past few years, sent many a good teacher to early retirement or the suburbs, and thoroughly upheaved programs that in many cases have not recovered. The modest district-wide gains in test scores at the high school level hold little to no connection to these changes and the schools in question all continue to fail on their No Child Left Behind benchmarks, all while students, staff, and principals fight their way through conflicting visions of reform and enthusiasm-killing, soul-crushing program-churn.
And that's just what the pursuit of the elusive Grant Funding has done to the high schools, the circle in which I operate; the drive to create K-8 charters is choking the traditional middle schools, for example; I'm sure there's more if I had the time to dig just a little bit.
To be clear: I do not want to sound like I blame teachers for the failings of the schools listed above. Every one of these schools has hard-working, dedicated, talented teachers and staff who are doing the best they can under damned difficult circumstances. It's just that the pursuit of reform for the sake of $$$$$$$$$ adds layers of more Sisyphean challenge. It is Bad Policy.
And now comes Arne Duncan***, strutting past shaking his Race to the Top**** funds like a three-dollar whore, and the drool starts puddling around the feet of people who sure ought to be smarter than that. If the recent history of education in Milwaukee has shown anything--from the Bradley Foundation's funding of a middling voucher program that doesn't live up to the hype to the way the current superintendent slavishly trolled for Gates money--it's that chasing down a dollar is horrible pedagogy and worthless to the bottom line--helping kids learn.
Don't you think it's time to give it a rest?
*I did a whole series on small high schools back in 2005; it sounds prescient, now.
**All notes about school performance based on the 2007-2008 report cards. Go here, click on the names of the schools you want to see, and scroll down to access pdfs of the report cards.
***Here's a report (.pdf) suggesting that former Chicago Public Schools CEO Duncan was no miracle worker, and that mayoral control in Chicago has been ineffective.
****See also retired school administrator Mike Schutz on Race to the Top.
I've been going back and forth on how much or what to say about the proposed mayoral takeover of the Milwaukee Public Schools--I'm agin' it--or even whether to bother, as if my opinion counts for squat anymore.
A lot of what I wanted to say, Jennifer Morales did in her op-ed Sunday; her second half--about all the things that Mayor Tom "Fightin' Tom" Barrett could if he really wanted to help the children of Milwaukee--is almost word-for-word what I would have written if I had gotten around to it. You should really read it all.
There was one point when I'd started drafting and collected a bunch of tabs full of reasons why a mayoral takeover is a bad idea and won't work (historically it doesn't help, at least not without massive sustained increases in per-student spending as in New York, and even mentioning it is driving a wedge between Barrett and the best possible allies he could want, Michael Bonds and the AAEC) and my browser crashed so, hey, decision made.
But then I read this yesterday:
Barrett and Doyle indicated they will push on to make mayoral control happen, despite opposition from local groups and Doyle's decision to not seek re-election.Got that? This is about chasing money, running down a short-term prize without giving a damn about the long-term consequences of the decision. This is something about which MPS teachers can speak with experience.
The two biggest issues at stake, Doyle said, include securing a new superintendent for Milwaukee Public Schools, which should be chosen by the mayor and answer to the mayor to create a "clear line of accountability," and submitting a competitive state application for a piece of the $4.5 billion in Race to the Top federal school stimulus funding before the end of this year.
This careening about in search of the New Hotness that gets Grant Funding is horrible, horrible policy. Case in point: You know North Division High School? It spent the better part of the last decade as the vanguard in MPS's small high school multiplex redesign program*, primarily because the Gates Foundation and other groups were doling out the fundage for small schools. North was generally awful before the change, and remained generally awful no matter what small program was wedged into the multiplex. It is now in the process of being rebiggified as a single school instead of a multiplex.
Marshall High School, which got the same treatment, saw failed small school after failed small school parade through and is now just going to be turned over to Morse Middle School to house a 6-12 program there. Washington's multiplex has been more stable, but the small schools have never lived up to the success that a Gates grant seemed to promise, scoring below district averages in nearly every measure.**
When the multiplex money dried up, First Things First was the next New Hotness that had Grant Funding, and the first to go in the pursuit of those funds were Bradley Tech and Pulaski. Tech you undoubtedly have an opinion of, but it's also clear that Pulaski's not living up to the promise, either, with no changes in retention rates, suspensions rates, truancy rates, or reading and math scores. My previous school, Milwaukee Madison, was forced to give up its International Baccalaureate program in favor of First Things First, driving away talented students and staff (most of whom, your humble correspondent not included, found their way to Reagan); its metrics are also in the tank.
All of these top-down decisions have crushed staff morale over the past few years, sent many a good teacher to early retirement or the suburbs, and thoroughly upheaved programs that in many cases have not recovered. The modest district-wide gains in test scores at the high school level hold little to no connection to these changes and the schools in question all continue to fail on their No Child Left Behind benchmarks, all while students, staff, and principals fight their way through conflicting visions of reform and enthusiasm-killing, soul-crushing program-churn.
And that's just what the pursuit of the elusive Grant Funding has done to the high schools, the circle in which I operate; the drive to create K-8 charters is choking the traditional middle schools, for example; I'm sure there's more if I had the time to dig just a little bit.
To be clear: I do not want to sound like I blame teachers for the failings of the schools listed above. Every one of these schools has hard-working, dedicated, talented teachers and staff who are doing the best they can under damned difficult circumstances. It's just that the pursuit of reform for the sake of $$$$$$$$$ adds layers of more Sisyphean challenge. It is Bad Policy.
And now comes Arne Duncan***, strutting past shaking his Race to the Top**** funds like a three-dollar whore, and the drool starts puddling around the feet of people who sure ought to be smarter than that. If the recent history of education in Milwaukee has shown anything--from the Bradley Foundation's funding of a middling voucher program that doesn't live up to the hype to the way the current superintendent slavishly trolled for Gates money--it's that chasing down a dollar is horrible pedagogy and worthless to the bottom line--helping kids learn.
Don't you think it's time to give it a rest?
*I did a whole series on small high schools back in 2005; it sounds prescient, now.
**All notes about school performance based on the 2007-2008 report cards. Go here, click on the names of the schools you want to see, and scroll down to access pdfs of the report cards.
***Here's a report (.pdf) suggesting that former Chicago Public Schools CEO Duncan was no miracle worker, and that mayoral control in Chicago has been ineffective.
****See also retired school administrator Mike Schutz on Race to the Top.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Direct from the Belly of the Beast
By Keith R. Schmitz
Tomorrow on the Ideas Network:
10:00 AM Kathleen Dunn - 09/01E
After making headlines from his interview with Bill Moyers, Wendell Potter joins Kathleen Dunn, after ten, to discuss health care reform and the insurance industry. Guest: Wendell Potter, Senior Fellow on Health Care, Center for Media and Democracy. www.prwatch.org. Potter worked for CIGNA, a major health insurance corporation for fifteen years holding a variety of positions, serving most recently as head of corporate communications and as the company's chief corporate spokesman.
(Update by folkbum: More info here, including the ability to listen to the archived show after it airs.)
Tomorrow on the Ideas Network:
10:00 AM Kathleen Dunn - 09/01E
After making headlines from his interview with Bill Moyers, Wendell Potter joins Kathleen Dunn, after ten, to discuss health care reform and the insurance industry. Guest: Wendell Potter, Senior Fellow on Health Care, Center for Media and Democracy. www.prwatch.org. Potter worked for CIGNA, a major health insurance corporation for fifteen years holding a variety of positions, serving most recently as head of corporate communications and as the company's chief corporate spokesman.
(Update by folkbum: More info here, including the ability to listen to the archived show after it airs.)
Help Us Save Transit, the Parks and EMS - Sign Our Petition
From Milwaukee County First, of which I am the Chair:
For many years, riders of the Milwaukee County Transit System has seen its routes get cut and the fares go up, as less and less money is available for it. Once a standard for the nation, it has been in steady decline. This year, it has been recommended by the current administration, contrary to all advice, to again slash routes by up to 40% and raise fares by charging a quarter for each transfer. This will have a devastating effect on the local economy, not just of Milwaukee County, but for the entire southeast region of Wisconsin.
Likewise, the Milwaukee County Parks System has seen cuts for each of the past 27 years. This year will be no different, except that it appears that the parks will suffer the most severe cuts yet. Some of the options being considered by the current administration is closing ALL of the outdoor swimming pools, closing both community centers, and cutting maintenance at the senior centers.
Also being threatened is the money that Milwaukee County puts towards the Emergency Medical System. Without this money being in the budget, there will be people in areas of Milwaukee County that will not receive paramedic services for medical emergencies.
Because of these growing concerns, the County Board repeatedly tried to get a referendum to the voters to see if they would approve of a sales tax increase to save these systems and give the voters relief on their property taxes. But each time, County Executive Scott Walker blocked the people from having the right to express themselves.
Finally, in November 2008, the Board was able to put the referendum on the ballot. The people spoke, and the referendum was approved. Unfortunately, despite the hard work of community-minded groups like Quality of Life Alliance and others, the proposed sales tax was distorted during the budget process, and ultimately vetoed by Governor Jim Doyle.
Without this dedicated funding source, the situation in Milwaukee County will quickly become untenable. That is why Milwaukee County First is asking you to join your voice to ours, and to the many others who also put Milwaukee County first, and are calling on Governor Doyle and the State Legislature to pass this sales tax, and to allow us to help ourselves before it is too late.
Please sign our petition:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/Milwaukee-County-First
and let those in Madison know that we will not quietly stand by and allow Milwaukee County to fall apart before our very eyes. It will only take a few seconds to sign the petition, and we will do the rest.
After you have signed the petition, please pass the word to your family, your friends, your neighbors and your coworkers, and ask them to sign the petition as well. Again the link to the petition is:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/Milwaukee-County-First
If we do this separately, we will be just whistling into the wind. Together, we will create a voice that those in Madison will have to hear.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Unexpected support for the Public Option from commenter Dan
by folkbum
While researching the last post about Ted Kanavas, refreshing my memory of what Healthy Wisconsin was and wasn't, I found this quote from the Las Vegas Badger, better known around here by Dan, the name he comments under.
Now, Dan seems to be singing a different tune lately--see here, for example. Which is interesting given that he was so willing to see a public insurance plan not that long ago.
While researching the last post about Ted Kanavas, refreshing my memory of what Healthy Wisconsin was and wasn't, I found this quote from the Las Vegas Badger, better known around here by Dan, the name he comments under.
[W]hy not let the government go into the free market by offering health insurance. Get a [little] competition. If people believe the government can provide better service, then they'll [buy], if people think the private sector does a better job, then they will go with the private sector. The main thing I object to is forcing people to switch to government health insurance.Now, that was attached to this two-year-old post, and not something Dan has written lately in all the discussion of the public option as it appears in HR3200 and other reform bills circulating in Congress. However, Dan in that old comment nails exactly what the public option is--added competition for private insurance companies, and not something anyone will be required to sign up for.
Now, Dan seems to be singing a different tune lately--see here, for example. Which is interesting given that he was so willing to see a public insurance plan not that long ago.
Kanavas's Revisionist History
by folkbum
Well, it's not just revisionist history; it's also a repeat of a lot of the same lies and scare tactics that we're hearing from the GOP generally, including Wisconsin's Rep. Paul Ryan.
State Sen. Kanavas (R-Brookfield) has a blog, and on that blog he has a post--a post about health care reform efforts past and present. And Kanavas gets almost every detail in his post wrong. He starts this way:
Kanavas continues to err when he says that no one knew anything about the plan. Healthy Wisconsin was modeled on something called the Wisconsin Health Plan, which had been circulated for two years prior, scored by the Legislative Fiscal Bureau, and studied by the Lewin Group (not to mention that it was also supported by then-State Rep. Curt Gielow, a Republican). Republicans like Kanavas offered a lot of misinformation about the plan then, certainly, to make it seem more confusing than it was, but it was not an unknown.
Healthy Wisconsin, for those of you who don't remember it, was a plan that took the burden of health insurance out of the hands of employers. It was paid for by a tax on businesses and individuals that was pretty significantly less than the average cost at the time. People would have a variety of plans run by private insurance companies to choose from (paying additional premiums for anything more than the standard plan) and the whole thing was managed by the state. If that sounds familiar to you, you might know this as the way the state currently offers insurance to its own employees. (At the time, I found it deliciously ironic that the same people who complained daily about the Cadillac benefits given to government employees were those most ferociously opposed to a plan that gave everyone access to those same benefits.) This is nothing like what is currently being considered in Congress, despite Kanavas's attempts to claim that it is so.
The rest of Kanavas's post consists of variations on these same things: "socialized health plan," "government-run model," "government should be involved in your health care decisions," "the socialist dream," and so on (plus repeated problems using the possessive apostrophe). He does also include the well-debunked notion that a plan like Healthy Wisconsin would draw freaks and freeloaders here for free health care--Christian Schneider's legacy lives on.
So, large or small, state senator or Congressman, the Wisconsin GOP is perfectly willing, it seems, to shell out the lies, distortions, and scare tactics in the name of stopping health policy reform. It's sad, really, that Wisconsin, as the birthplace of the party of Lincoln, should be home to so many who do such a disservice to the memory of Honest Abe.
Well, it's not just revisionist history; it's also a repeat of a lot of the same lies and scare tactics that we're hearing from the GOP generally, including Wisconsin's Rep. Paul Ryan.
State Sen. Kanavas (R-Brookfield) has a blog, and on that blog he has a post--a post about health care reform efforts past and present. And Kanavas gets almost every detail in his post wrong. He starts this way:
We are all very familiar with the health care debate raging in our nation’s capitol and in town hall meetings across the country. The issue of whether or not the federal government should grab control of our current system and create its own socialized brand of medicine has been making national headlines for months.If today is not your first day here at my blog, then you already know what's wrong here. There is no effort underway in Washington to "grab control" of the current health care delivery or insurance industry. The ubiquitous HR3200 has no such provisions, nor does anything coming out of the Senate. The White House's principals for reform are nothing like that, either. Current proposals are far from "socialized medicine"; if we rated HR3200 on a scale from 1-10 where 1 is what we have now and 10 is the UK, where they really do have socialized medicine, HR3200 would score a solid 1, still.
But, I wonder how many people remember what happened right here in Wisconsin just two years ago. [. . .] Democrats in the Wisconsin legislature were running around the state holding public hearings touting an Obama-like government-run health care plan. For the most part, no one really knew anything about it. You may vaguely remember they had a plan, but folks are sure to be soft on the details and likely know little of the plan’s potential impact on our economy or the size of state government.The first sentence of that excerpt from Kanavas contains no factual errors, but the rest is just awful. For one, none of the current proposals for health insurance reform are from President Obama; to suggest that anything is "Obama-like" is kind of weird. (As is calling reform plans written by and introduce in Congress "Obamacare." "Hillarycare" was not a misnomer--her commission wrote the plan sent to Congress--but Obama is the author of nothing.) Further, the plan passed by the state Senate in 2007 was not "government-run health care," as nothing in that plan, called Healthy Wisconsin, was about the state providing the care, running the hospitals and clinics, or employing the doctors and nurses.
Kanavas continues to err when he says that no one knew anything about the plan. Healthy Wisconsin was modeled on something called the Wisconsin Health Plan, which had been circulated for two years prior, scored by the Legislative Fiscal Bureau, and studied by the Lewin Group (not to mention that it was also supported by then-State Rep. Curt Gielow, a Republican). Republicans like Kanavas offered a lot of misinformation about the plan then, certainly, to make it seem more confusing than it was, but it was not an unknown.
Healthy Wisconsin, for those of you who don't remember it, was a plan that took the burden of health insurance out of the hands of employers. It was paid for by a tax on businesses and individuals that was pretty significantly less than the average cost at the time. People would have a variety of plans run by private insurance companies to choose from (paying additional premiums for anything more than the standard plan) and the whole thing was managed by the state. If that sounds familiar to you, you might know this as the way the state currently offers insurance to its own employees. (At the time, I found it deliciously ironic that the same people who complained daily about the Cadillac benefits given to government employees were those most ferociously opposed to a plan that gave everyone access to those same benefits.) This is nothing like what is currently being considered in Congress, despite Kanavas's attempts to claim that it is so.
Their plan would have implemented a tax on Wisconsin business to pay for a government-run health care model. Much like the plan being tossed around in Washington, the Senate Democrats would place your health care decisions in the hands of bureaucrats. Luckily for us, Republicans, who controlled the State Assembly at the time, were able to purge the plan from the budget.Three more sentences from Kanavas, three more falsehoods. First, a lie of omission: As I noted above, the plan was financed not merely by a tax on business, but also a tax on individuals, and premiums charged to individuals opting in to more expensive plans (plus some significant copays and deductibles). Also omitted is what I noted above--the tax was far lower than the average cost of providing health care was. For most businesses, that would have been a cost savings. In addition, there were likely to be property tax savings, as well, as local governments moved onto the cheaper plan. Second, neither Healthy Wisconsin nor the proposals in Congress puts any decision in the hands of bureaucrats in any government agency; Healthy Wisconsin, like the current state benefits plan, offers employees a range of different plans with different levels of care run through traditional insurance companies, not the state equivalent of a death panel. Third, it was not Assembly Republicans who "purged" Healthy Wisconsin from the budget; Senate Democrats traded it away for Republican support for BadgerCare Plus and other health initiatives.
The rest of Kanavas's post consists of variations on these same things: "socialized health plan," "government-run model," "government should be involved in your health care decisions," "the socialist dream," and so on (plus repeated problems using the possessive apostrophe). He does also include the well-debunked notion that a plan like Healthy Wisconsin would draw freaks and freeloaders here for free health care--Christian Schneider's legacy lives on.
So, large or small, state senator or Congressman, the Wisconsin GOP is perfectly willing, it seems, to shell out the lies, distortions, and scare tactics in the name of stopping health policy reform. It's sad, really, that Wisconsin, as the birthplace of the party of Lincoln, should be home to so many who do such a disservice to the memory of Honest Abe.
Health Care Tab Dump
by folkbum
I've been holding on to some things for a while now. Most of them I don't even remember where I found them. Here you go:
I've been holding on to some things for a while now. Most of them I don't even remember where I found them. Here you go:
- "If the government ran a healthcare plan that offered major discounts, worked through existing providers, minimized the paperwork burden on consumers and paid every legitimate claim, would that be considered a failure? I guess it would depend on our expectations, which seem to be higher on government than on a private sector that routinely delays payments to consumers—without any controversy whatsoever."
(Also see "Cash for Clunkers is a double economic stimulus that pays for itself in oil savings so CO2 savings are free.") - "Because I am American, and those endless days and nights were spent in a maternity hospital in London, the week that followed has been very much on my mind as I listen to the recent attacks on the British National Health Service. It is a system that I found to be very different from the one currently being described as "evil" and "Orwellian" by politicians and commentators eager to use it as an example of the dark side of public medicine."
- "Some insurance company leaders continue to profess concern about the unpredictable course of President Obama's massive healthcare initiative, and they vigorously oppose elements of his agenda. But Laszewski said the industry's reaction to early negotiations boiled down to a single word: 'Hallelujah!'"
(See also: "So it should have been transparently obvious from the outset that the only response our glorious and wizened Senate could come up with, when facing a failed healthcare system that has been steadily bankrupting the country, its businesses and its citizens for decades, would be to invent a solution in which the companies most responsible for the problem would be given cash hand over fist.") - "That she sees basic healthcare as a blessing, not as a right, speaks volumes about attitudes among the mass of the working poor."
- "In many ways, foreign health-care models are not really "foreign" to America, because our crazy-quilt health-care system uses elements of all of them. For Native Americans or veterans, we're Britain: The government provides health care, funding it through general taxes, and patients get no bills. For people who get insurance through their jobs, we're Germany: Premiums are split between workers and employers, and private insurance plans pay private doctors and hospitals. For people over 65, we're Canada: Everyone pays premiums for an insurance plan run by the government, and the public plan pays private doctors and hospitals according to a set fee schedule. And for the tens of millions without insurance coverage, we're Burundi or Burma: In the world's poor nations, sick people pay out of pocket for medical care; those who can't pay stay sick or die."
Friday Tunage
by folkbum
Tracy Grammer playing one of my favorite Dave Carter tunes. Chris Smither does a nice version of it, too. Note the feet.
Tracy Grammer playing one of my favorite Dave Carter tunes. Chris Smither does a nice version of it, too. Note the feet.
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