Real interviews with Canadians.
Bill Maher Tells It Like It Is
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Friday, July 3, 2009
A Public Plan Saves The Public Money
Here's some ammo for your talking points on health care reform!!
The Results Are In: A Public Health Plan Saves Big Money
By Bill Scher, Campaign for America's Future. Posted July 3, 2009.
The arguments by obstructionists are dead -- the math shows health care costs will drop while achieving near universal coverage.
When the CBO scored an early draft of the health care form bill from the Senate HELP committee as costing $1 trillion over 10 years but only covering one-third of the uninsured, obstructionists pounced and proclaimed the public plan option dead.
But the CBO had not assessed the cost of the public plan option, nor a mandate on most employers to either provide insurance or contribute to the public plan.
Now they have. And as serious reform advocates long claimed, including those two key provisions drops the 10-year cost of reform by nearly $400 billion, while achieving near universal coverage.
Will the self-proclaimed deficit hawks now embrace the public plan option since it would save money? Or will they come up with fresh excuses, such as fear-mongering that the public plan would decimate the private insurance industry?
Let's add one more piece of information to the mix: the underreported report from the Urban Institute, "Is the Public Plan Option a Necessary Part of Health Reform?"
What did the Urban Institute find?
First, a public plan won't kill competition, because competition is currently non-existent:
...health insurance markets today, by and large, are simply not competitive. And as such, these markets are not providing the benefits one would expect from competition, including efficient operations and consequent control over health care costs. We believe that the concentration in the insurance and hospital industries that has taken place over the past several years has been a significant contributor to this problem. The role of the government plan is to counter the adverse impacts of market concentration and, in doing so, slow the growth in health care costs.
Second, Urban predicts private companies would respond to the new competition in a fashion that would allow them to maintain a significant share of the market, taking issue with an earlier report from the Lewin Group that assumed a whopping 119 million would leave private plans.
The Lewin report ... did not assume that there would be a response on the part of private payers. Private insurers would clearly respond to the presence of a public plan competitor by negotiating more aggressively with providers. Providers in turn would most likely find it in their interest to negotiate lower rates with insurers; otherwise, they would risk the exit of private plans and have only the public plan with which to contract. As private plans bring down their costs, the difference in their premiums from those of the public plan would shrink as well, possibly attracting more enrollees ... [While] any enrollment prediction will require significant assumptions about individual behavior ... We predict that roughly 70 percent of the low-income exchange enrollees (those under 200 percent of the federal poverty level) would choose the public plan, with the likelihood of choosing the public plan falling as income increases ... about 47 million would enroll in coverage through the public plan ... Private plans would continue to serve about 161 million Americans.
If the public plan option saves money, enhances competition and far from prompts the collapse of private insurance (which is the only scenario where public plan option polls badly), then the detractors have literally no leg to stand on.
The Results Are In: A Public Health Plan Saves Big Money
By Bill Scher, Campaign for America's Future. Posted July 3, 2009.
The arguments by obstructionists are dead -- the math shows health care costs will drop while achieving near universal coverage.
When the CBO scored an early draft of the health care form bill from the Senate HELP committee as costing $1 trillion over 10 years but only covering one-third of the uninsured, obstructionists pounced and proclaimed the public plan option dead.
But the CBO had not assessed the cost of the public plan option, nor a mandate on most employers to either provide insurance or contribute to the public plan.
Now they have. And as serious reform advocates long claimed, including those two key provisions drops the 10-year cost of reform by nearly $400 billion, while achieving near universal coverage.
Will the self-proclaimed deficit hawks now embrace the public plan option since it would save money? Or will they come up with fresh excuses, such as fear-mongering that the public plan would decimate the private insurance industry?
Let's add one more piece of information to the mix: the underreported report from the Urban Institute, "Is the Public Plan Option a Necessary Part of Health Reform?"
What did the Urban Institute find?
First, a public plan won't kill competition, because competition is currently non-existent:
...health insurance markets today, by and large, are simply not competitive. And as such, these markets are not providing the benefits one would expect from competition, including efficient operations and consequent control over health care costs. We believe that the concentration in the insurance and hospital industries that has taken place over the past several years has been a significant contributor to this problem. The role of the government plan is to counter the adverse impacts of market concentration and, in doing so, slow the growth in health care costs.
Second, Urban predicts private companies would respond to the new competition in a fashion that would allow them to maintain a significant share of the market, taking issue with an earlier report from the Lewin Group that assumed a whopping 119 million would leave private plans.
The Lewin report ... did not assume that there would be a response on the part of private payers. Private insurers would clearly respond to the presence of a public plan competitor by negotiating more aggressively with providers. Providers in turn would most likely find it in their interest to negotiate lower rates with insurers; otherwise, they would risk the exit of private plans and have only the public plan with which to contract. As private plans bring down their costs, the difference in their premiums from those of the public plan would shrink as well, possibly attracting more enrollees ... [While] any enrollment prediction will require significant assumptions about individual behavior ... We predict that roughly 70 percent of the low-income exchange enrollees (those under 200 percent of the federal poverty level) would choose the public plan, with the likelihood of choosing the public plan falling as income increases ... about 47 million would enroll in coverage through the public plan ... Private plans would continue to serve about 161 million Americans.
If the public plan option saves money, enhances competition and far from prompts the collapse of private insurance (which is the only scenario where public plan option polls badly), then the detractors have literally no leg to stand on.
Compare and Contrast: A Woman With Pneumonia Goes to The Local Clinic | Crooks and Liars
Compare this story to what happens in my doctor's office. When I walk in, there are signs posted prominently, announcing that if you don't have insurance, you are required to pay $50.00 before you see the doctor, and pay the rest at the end of the visit. Present your insurance card when you sign in.
How can we keep doing this to ourselves and our fellow Americans? Make no mistake, this IS a pro-life issue, much more than the anti-choice movement's war against abortion. They want to protect unborn life up until the time of birth. Then they'll try to prevent food stamps and welfare all the while they're screaming that the mother should be home taking care of her kids, then they don't want these same children or their parents to be able to go to the doctor without going bankrupt.
Compare and Contrast: A Woman With Pneumonia Goes to The Local Clinic Crooks and Liars
Compare and Contrast: A Woman With Pneumonia Goes to The Local ClinicBy Susie Madrak Wednesday Jul 01, 2009 6:00pm
From Coalition of the Obvious, via Avedon, this useful "compare and contrast" on national health care systems. It especially means something to me because a few years back, after my unemployment ran out and I was working an hourly job, I developed pneumonia and couldn't afford to pay for a chest x-ray. I'm glad I'm still alive to tell the tale:
During my time in Venezuela, I developed a cough that went on for three weeks and progressively worsened. Finally, after I had become incredibly congested and developed a fever, I decided to attend a Barrio Adentro clinic. The closest one available was a Barrio Adentro II Centro de Diagonostico Integral (CDI) and I headed in without my medical records or calling to make an appointment. Immediately, I was ushered into a small room where Carmen, a friendly Cuban doctor, began questioning me about my symptoms. She listened to my lungs and walked me over to another examination room where, again without waiting, I had x-rays taken.
Afterwards, the technician walked me to a chair and apologized profusely that I had to wait for the x-rays to be developed, promising that it would take no more than five minutes. Sure enough, five minutes later he returned with both x-rays developed. Carmen studied the x-rays and informed me that I had pneumonia, showing me the telltale shadows. She sent me away with my x-rays, three medications to treat my pneumonia, congestion, and fever, and made me promise to come back if my conditioned failed to improve or worsened within three days.
I walked out of the clinic with a diagnosis and treatment within twenty-five minutes of entering, without paying a dime. There was no wait, no paperwork, and no questions about my ability to pay, my nationality, or whether, as a foreigner, I was entitled to free comprehensive health care. There was no monetary value connected with my physical well-being; the care I received was not contingent upon my ability to pay. I was treated with dignity, respect, and compassion, my illness was cured and I was able to continue with my journey in Venezuela.
This past year, a family friend was not so lucky. At the age of 56, she was going back to school and was uninsured. She came down with what she thought was a severe case of the flu, and as her condition worsened she decided not to see a doctor because of the cost. She died at home in bed, losing her life to a system that did not respect her basic human right to survive.
Her death is not an isolated incident. Over 18,000 United States residents die every year because of their lack of prohibitively expensive health insurance. The United States has the distinct honor of being the “only wealthy industrialized nation that does not ensure that all citizens have coverage”.Instead, we have commodified the public health and well being of those live in the US, leaving them on their own to obtain insurance. Those whose jobs do not provide insurance, can’t get enough hours to qualify for health care coverage through their workplace, are unemployed, or have “previously existing conditions” that exclude them from coverage are forced to choose between the potentially fatal decision of refusing medical care and accumulating medical bills that trap them in an inescapable cycle of debt. And sometimes, that decision is made for them. Doctors often ask that dreaded question; “do you have insurance?” before scheduling critical tests, procedures, or treatments. When the answer is no, treatments that were deemed necessary before are suddenly canceled as the ability to pay becomes more important than the patient’s health.
It is estimated that there are over fifty million United States residents currently living without health insurance, a number that will skyrocket as unemployment rates increase and people lose their work-based health care coverage in this time of international financial crisis.
Already this year, 7.5 million people have lost work-related coverage. Budget cuts for the state of Washington this year will remove over forty thousand people from Washington Basic Health, a subsidized program which already has a waiting list of seventeen thousand people. As I returned to the US from Venezuela, I was faced with the realization that as a society, the United States places a monetary value on life. That we make life and death judgments based on an individual’s ability to pay. And that someone with the same condition I had recently recovered from had died because, according to our system, her life wasn’t insured.
How can we keep doing this to ourselves and our fellow Americans? Make no mistake, this IS a pro-life issue, much more than the anti-choice movement's war against abortion. They want to protect unborn life up until the time of birth. Then they'll try to prevent food stamps and welfare all the while they're screaming that the mother should be home taking care of her kids, then they don't want these same children or their parents to be able to go to the doctor without going bankrupt.
Compare and Contrast: A Woman With Pneumonia Goes to The Local Clinic Crooks and Liars
Compare and Contrast: A Woman With Pneumonia Goes to The Local ClinicBy Susie Madrak Wednesday Jul 01, 2009 6:00pm
From Coalition of the Obvious, via Avedon, this useful "compare and contrast" on national health care systems. It especially means something to me because a few years back, after my unemployment ran out and I was working an hourly job, I developed pneumonia and couldn't afford to pay for a chest x-ray. I'm glad I'm still alive to tell the tale:
During my time in Venezuela, I developed a cough that went on for three weeks and progressively worsened. Finally, after I had become incredibly congested and developed a fever, I decided to attend a Barrio Adentro clinic. The closest one available was a Barrio Adentro II Centro de Diagonostico Integral (CDI) and I headed in without my medical records or calling to make an appointment. Immediately, I was ushered into a small room where Carmen, a friendly Cuban doctor, began questioning me about my symptoms. She listened to my lungs and walked me over to another examination room where, again without waiting, I had x-rays taken.
Afterwards, the technician walked me to a chair and apologized profusely that I had to wait for the x-rays to be developed, promising that it would take no more than five minutes. Sure enough, five minutes later he returned with both x-rays developed. Carmen studied the x-rays and informed me that I had pneumonia, showing me the telltale shadows. She sent me away with my x-rays, three medications to treat my pneumonia, congestion, and fever, and made me promise to come back if my conditioned failed to improve or worsened within three days.
I walked out of the clinic with a diagnosis and treatment within twenty-five minutes of entering, without paying a dime. There was no wait, no paperwork, and no questions about my ability to pay, my nationality, or whether, as a foreigner, I was entitled to free comprehensive health care. There was no monetary value connected with my physical well-being; the care I received was not contingent upon my ability to pay. I was treated with dignity, respect, and compassion, my illness was cured and I was able to continue with my journey in Venezuela.
This past year, a family friend was not so lucky. At the age of 56, she was going back to school and was uninsured. She came down with what she thought was a severe case of the flu, and as her condition worsened she decided not to see a doctor because of the cost. She died at home in bed, losing her life to a system that did not respect her basic human right to survive.
Her death is not an isolated incident. Over 18,000 United States residents die every year because of their lack of prohibitively expensive health insurance. The United States has the distinct honor of being the “only wealthy industrialized nation that does not ensure that all citizens have coverage”.Instead, we have commodified the public health and well being of those live in the US, leaving them on their own to obtain insurance. Those whose jobs do not provide insurance, can’t get enough hours to qualify for health care coverage through their workplace, are unemployed, or have “previously existing conditions” that exclude them from coverage are forced to choose between the potentially fatal decision of refusing medical care and accumulating medical bills that trap them in an inescapable cycle of debt. And sometimes, that decision is made for them. Doctors often ask that dreaded question; “do you have insurance?” before scheduling critical tests, procedures, or treatments. When the answer is no, treatments that were deemed necessary before are suddenly canceled as the ability to pay becomes more important than the patient’s health.
It is estimated that there are over fifty million United States residents currently living without health insurance, a number that will skyrocket as unemployment rates increase and people lose their work-based health care coverage in this time of international financial crisis.
Already this year, 7.5 million people have lost work-related coverage. Budget cuts for the state of Washington this year will remove over forty thousand people from Washington Basic Health, a subsidized program which already has a waiting list of seventeen thousand people. As I returned to the US from Venezuela, I was faced with the realization that as a society, the United States places a monetary value on life. That we make life and death judgments based on an individual’s ability to pay. And that someone with the same condition I had recently recovered from had died because, according to our system, her life wasn’t insured.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Kingsport Native Sees The Light On Health Care-Testifies Before Congress
It's always good to hear about a fellow Kingsport native who sees beyond their own cushy situation and has real empathy toward those of us who don't have the gold-plated health care coverage that a few have. It took an article in the Kingsport Times-News about the RAM health care clinic that was slated in Wise, Va. for him to see the reality of health care in the US as experienced by most of us. He went to Wise and came away a different man. In part, here is his story as reported by Vince Staten...
"You see, Wendell Potter, Kingsport native and retired insurance company executive, testified before Congress last Wednesday as an insurance industry critic – a “whistleblower,” CBS News called him - telling the Senate Commerce Committee that “Insurers make promises they have no intention of keeping, they flout regulations designed to protect consumers, and they make it nearly impossible to understand -- or even to obtain -- information we need.
”You might have heard more about Wendell’s testimony and his newfound take on the industry that employed him for two decades except for one problem. “I was scheduled to be on MSNBC Thursday and then I got a call from the producer who said, ‘We can’t do it after all. Michael Jackson just died and we are going wall to wall with that.
”Wendell’s change of heart on his former employers is a direct result of an article he read in the Kingsport Times News.
“I was home visiting my parents, who still live in Bloomingdale. John Edwards was campaigning in the area and there was a Times News story about him stopping in Wise for a free health clinic. I was really curious about it so I borrowed my dad’s ‘92 Oldsmobile and on Saturday I drove over to Wise. It was foggy and raining when I got there. A lot of those folks had been camping overnight to get in the gates and get care. The parking lot was jam-packed. I went inside and that was the most stunning part. There were long lines of people waiting in the rain to get care provided by volunteer doctors in animal stalls in the fairgrounds.”
Wendell says he was overwhelmed with emotion. “I thought, ‘Where am I? How could this possibly be the United States?’ It was such a revelation.
”Wendell had always had good jobs, well paying jobs with good insurance. “I realized I had been insulated from the way the world is. Decisions are made by corporate executives much like me, unaware of the lives of so many people in this country who don’t have health insurance or means to get routine care.
”That’s when he decided he had to do something. First came his testimony before Congress. Then, “I talked to Stan Brock who runs this organization that runs the clinics. They are going to do another one at the end of July. I’m going to issue an invitation to the President and members of the Congressional committee and corporate executives to come down and see what happens.”
And the amazing part is that the President and these other muckety-mucks just might heed the call of Kingsport native Wendell Potter. They may have to. "
Mr. Potter's full testimony is posted at Vince Staten's blog
"You see, Wendell Potter, Kingsport native and retired insurance company executive, testified before Congress last Wednesday as an insurance industry critic – a “whistleblower,” CBS News called him - telling the Senate Commerce Committee that “Insurers make promises they have no intention of keeping, they flout regulations designed to protect consumers, and they make it nearly impossible to understand -- or even to obtain -- information we need.
”You might have heard more about Wendell’s testimony and his newfound take on the industry that employed him for two decades except for one problem. “I was scheduled to be on MSNBC Thursday and then I got a call from the producer who said, ‘We can’t do it after all. Michael Jackson just died and we are going wall to wall with that.
”Wendell’s change of heart on his former employers is a direct result of an article he read in the Kingsport Times News.
“I was home visiting my parents, who still live in Bloomingdale. John Edwards was campaigning in the area and there was a Times News story about him stopping in Wise for a free health clinic. I was really curious about it so I borrowed my dad’s ‘92 Oldsmobile and on Saturday I drove over to Wise. It was foggy and raining when I got there. A lot of those folks had been camping overnight to get in the gates and get care. The parking lot was jam-packed. I went inside and that was the most stunning part. There were long lines of people waiting in the rain to get care provided by volunteer doctors in animal stalls in the fairgrounds.”
Wendell says he was overwhelmed with emotion. “I thought, ‘Where am I? How could this possibly be the United States?’ It was such a revelation.
”Wendell had always had good jobs, well paying jobs with good insurance. “I realized I had been insulated from the way the world is. Decisions are made by corporate executives much like me, unaware of the lives of so many people in this country who don’t have health insurance or means to get routine care.
”That’s when he decided he had to do something. First came his testimony before Congress. Then, “I talked to Stan Brock who runs this organization that runs the clinics. They are going to do another one at the end of July. I’m going to issue an invitation to the President and members of the Congressional committee and corporate executives to come down and see what happens.”
And the amazing part is that the President and these other muckety-mucks just might heed the call of Kingsport native Wendell Potter. They may have to. "
Mr. Potter's full testimony is posted at Vince Staten's blog
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
THE HEALTH CARE STATUS QUO:
THE HEALTH CARE STATUS QUO:
http://www.healthreform.gov/reports/statehealthreform/tennessee.html
THE HEALTH CARE STATUS QUO:
Why Tennessee Needs Health Reform
Congress and the President are working to enact health care reform legislation that protects what works about health care and fixes what is broken. Tennesseans know that inaction is not an option. Sky-rocketing health care costs are hurting families, forcing businesses to cut or drop health benefits, and straining state budgets. Millions are paying more for less. Families and businesses in Tennessee deserve better.
TENNESSEANS CAN’T AFFORD THE STATUS QUO
Roughly 3.3 million people in Tennessee get health insurance on the job1, where family premiums average $11,565, about the annual earning of a full-time minimum wage job.2
Since 2000 alone, average family premiums have increased by 77 percent in Tennessee.3
Household budgets are strained by high costs: 22 percent of middle-income Tennessee families spend more than 10 percent of their income on health care.4
High costs block access to care: 16 percent of people in Tennessee report not visiting a doctor due to high costs.5
Tennessee businesses and families shoulder a hidden health tax of roughly $900 per year on premiums as a direct result of subsidizing the costs of the uninsured.6
AFFORDABLE HEALTH COVERAGE IS INCREASINGLY OUT OF REACH IN TENNESSEE
14 percent of people in Tennessee are uninsured, and 68 percent of them are in families with at least one full-time worker.7
The percent of Tennesseans with employer coverage is declining: from 62 to 54 percent between 2000 and 2007.8
Much of the decline is among workers in small businesses. While small businesses make up 67 percent of Tennessee businesses,9 only 37 percent of them offered health coverage benefits in 2006 -- down 4 percent since 2000.10
Choice of health insurance is limited in Tennessee. Blue Cross Blue Shield TN alone constitutes 50 percent of the health insurance market share in Tennessee, with the top two insurance providers accounting for 62 percent.11
Choice is even more limited for people with pre-existing conditions. In Tennessee, premiums can vary based on demographic factors and health status, and coverage can even be denied completely.
TENNESSEANS NEED HIGHER QUALITY, GREATER VALUE, AND MORE PREVENTATIVE CARE
The overall quality of care in Tennessee is rated as “Weak.”12
Preventative measures that could keep Tennesseans healthier and out of the hospital are deficient, leading to problems across the age spectrum:
21 percent of children in Tennessee are obese.13
22 percent of women over the age of 50 in Tennessee have not received a mammogram in the past two years.
41 percent of men over the age of 50 in Tennessee have never had a colorectal cancer screening.
70 percent of adults over the age of 65 in Tennessee have received a flu vaccine in the past year.14
The need for reform in Tennessee and across the country is clear. Tennessee families simply can’t afford the status quo and deserve better. President Obama is committed to working with Congress to pass health reform this year that reduces costs for families, businesses and government; protects people’s choice of doctors, hospitals and health plans; and assures affordable, quality health care for all Americans.
1 U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey. HIA-4 Health Insurance Coverage Status and Type of Coverage by State--All Persons: 1999 to 2007, 2007.2 Center for Financing, Access and Cost Trends, AHRQ, Medical Expenditure Panel Survey - Insurance Component, 2006, Table X.D.Projected 2009 premiums based on Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, "National Health Expenditure Data," available at http://www.cms.hhs.gov/nationalhealthexpenddata/.3 Center for Financing, Access and Cost Trends, AHRQ, Medical Expenditure Panel Survey - Insurance Component, 2000, Table II.D.1.Center for Financing, Access and Cost Trends, AHRQ, Medical Expenditure Panel Survey - Insurance Component, 2006, Table X.D.Projected 2009 premiums based on Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, "National Health Expenditure Data," available at http://www.cms.hhs.gov/nationalhealthexpenddata/.4 Center for Financing, Access and Cost Trends, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, 2006.5 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System Survey Data. Atlanta, Georgia: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2007.6 Furnas, B., Harbage, P. (2009). "The Cost Shift from the Uninsured." Center for American Progress.7 U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey. Annual Social and Economic Supplements, March 2007 and 2008.8 U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey. HIA-4 Health Insurance Coverage Status and Type of Coverage by State--All Persons: 1999 to 2007, 2007.9 Center for Financing, Access and Cost Trends, AHRQ, Medical Expenditure Panel Survey - Insurance Component, 2006, Table II.A.1a.10 Center for Financing, Access and Cost Trends, AHRQ, Medical Expenditure Panel Survey - Insurance Component, 2001, 2006, Table II.A.2.11 Health Care for America Now. (2009). "Premiums Soaring in Consolidated Health Insurance Market." Health Care for America Now.12 Agency for Health Care Research and Quality. 2007 State Snapshots. Available http://statesnapshots.ahrq.gov/snaps07/index.jsp.13 Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative. 2007 National Survey of Children's Health, Data Resource Center for Child and Adolescent Health.14 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System Survey Data. Atlanta, Georgia: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2007.
http://www.healthreform.gov/reports/statehealthreform/tennessee.html
THE HEALTH CARE STATUS QUO:
Why Tennessee Needs Health Reform
Congress and the President are working to enact health care reform legislation that protects what works about health care and fixes what is broken. Tennesseans know that inaction is not an option. Sky-rocketing health care costs are hurting families, forcing businesses to cut or drop health benefits, and straining state budgets. Millions are paying more for less. Families and businesses in Tennessee deserve better.
TENNESSEANS CAN’T AFFORD THE STATUS QUO
Roughly 3.3 million people in Tennessee get health insurance on the job1, where family premiums average $11,565, about the annual earning of a full-time minimum wage job.2
Since 2000 alone, average family premiums have increased by 77 percent in Tennessee.3
Household budgets are strained by high costs: 22 percent of middle-income Tennessee families spend more than 10 percent of their income on health care.4
High costs block access to care: 16 percent of people in Tennessee report not visiting a doctor due to high costs.5
Tennessee businesses and families shoulder a hidden health tax of roughly $900 per year on premiums as a direct result of subsidizing the costs of the uninsured.6
AFFORDABLE HEALTH COVERAGE IS INCREASINGLY OUT OF REACH IN TENNESSEE
14 percent of people in Tennessee are uninsured, and 68 percent of them are in families with at least one full-time worker.7
The percent of Tennesseans with employer coverage is declining: from 62 to 54 percent between 2000 and 2007.8
Much of the decline is among workers in small businesses. While small businesses make up 67 percent of Tennessee businesses,9 only 37 percent of them offered health coverage benefits in 2006 -- down 4 percent since 2000.10
Choice of health insurance is limited in Tennessee. Blue Cross Blue Shield TN alone constitutes 50 percent of the health insurance market share in Tennessee, with the top two insurance providers accounting for 62 percent.11
Choice is even more limited for people with pre-existing conditions. In Tennessee, premiums can vary based on demographic factors and health status, and coverage can even be denied completely.
TENNESSEANS NEED HIGHER QUALITY, GREATER VALUE, AND MORE PREVENTATIVE CARE
The overall quality of care in Tennessee is rated as “Weak.”12
Preventative measures that could keep Tennesseans healthier and out of the hospital are deficient, leading to problems across the age spectrum:
21 percent of children in Tennessee are obese.13
22 percent of women over the age of 50 in Tennessee have not received a mammogram in the past two years.
41 percent of men over the age of 50 in Tennessee have never had a colorectal cancer screening.
70 percent of adults over the age of 65 in Tennessee have received a flu vaccine in the past year.14
The need for reform in Tennessee and across the country is clear. Tennessee families simply can’t afford the status quo and deserve better. President Obama is committed to working with Congress to pass health reform this year that reduces costs for families, businesses and government; protects people’s choice of doctors, hospitals and health plans; and assures affordable, quality health care for all Americans.
1 U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey. HIA-4 Health Insurance Coverage Status and Type of Coverage by State--All Persons: 1999 to 2007, 2007.2 Center for Financing, Access and Cost Trends, AHRQ, Medical Expenditure Panel Survey - Insurance Component, 2006, Table X.D.Projected 2009 premiums based on Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, "National Health Expenditure Data," available at http://www.cms.hhs.gov/nationalhealthexpenddata/.3 Center for Financing, Access and Cost Trends, AHRQ, Medical Expenditure Panel Survey - Insurance Component, 2000, Table II.D.1.Center for Financing, Access and Cost Trends, AHRQ, Medical Expenditure Panel Survey - Insurance Component, 2006, Table X.D.Projected 2009 premiums based on Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, "National Health Expenditure Data," available at http://www.cms.hhs.gov/nationalhealthexpenddata/.4 Center for Financing, Access and Cost Trends, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, 2006.5 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System Survey Data. Atlanta, Georgia: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2007.6 Furnas, B., Harbage, P. (2009). "The Cost Shift from the Uninsured." Center for American Progress.7 U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey. Annual Social and Economic Supplements, March 2007 and 2008.8 U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey. HIA-4 Health Insurance Coverage Status and Type of Coverage by State--All Persons: 1999 to 2007, 2007.9 Center for Financing, Access and Cost Trends, AHRQ, Medical Expenditure Panel Survey - Insurance Component, 2006, Table II.A.1a.10 Center for Financing, Access and Cost Trends, AHRQ, Medical Expenditure Panel Survey - Insurance Component, 2001, 2006, Table II.A.2.11 Health Care for America Now. (2009). "Premiums Soaring in Consolidated Health Insurance Market." Health Care for America Now.12 Agency for Health Care Research and Quality. 2007 State Snapshots. Available http://statesnapshots.ahrq.gov/snaps07/index.jsp.13 Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative. 2007 National Survey of Children's Health, Data Resource Center for Child and Adolescent Health.14 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System Survey Data. Atlanta, Georgia: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2007.
FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right: Special Interest Money Means Longer Odds for Public Option
Great article on which legislators are getting PAC money, how much they're getting, and how it affects their votes. Go Nate Silverman!!
FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right: Special Interest Money Means Longer Odds for Public Option
PAC Contributions. Based on data downloaded from OpenSecrets.org, a.k.a. the Center for Responsive Politics. Contributions were tallied from two industry codes: F3200 (Accident & Health Insurance) and H3700 (HMO's). Data covers the 2004, 2006 and 2008 and 2010 campaign cycles. The fundraising data is adjusted based on the number of cycles that the senator has participated in as a Congressman (including time spent in the House of Representatives) or as a candidate, where 2010 is treated as 1/8th of a cycle since one quarterly report has so far been filed from the two-year period. So, for example, a senator that ran for and won office in 2006 is treated as participating in 2 1/8th out of a possible 3 1/8th cycles: 2006 as a candidate, and then 2008 and the fractional cycle in 2010 as a senator.
Top recipients of PAC money from these industries since 2004 are as follows:
Senator Cycles PAC $
Baucus (D-MT) 3.125 $141,250
McConnell (R-KY) 3.125 $110,750
Nelson (D-NE) 3.125 $106,123
Kyl (R-AZ) 3.125 $106,000
Gregg (R-NH) 3.125 $103,500
Grassley (R-IA) 3.125 $95,000
Lincoln (D-AR) 3.125 $91,000
Enzi (R-WY) 3.125 $87,000
Chambliss (R-GA) 3.125 $86,750
Ensign (R-NV) 3.125 $85,750
=====
AVERAGE SENATOR $37,267
MUCH more at the link above!
FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right: Special Interest Money Means Longer Odds for Public Option
PAC Contributions. Based on data downloaded from OpenSecrets.org, a.k.a. the Center for Responsive Politics. Contributions were tallied from two industry codes: F3200 (Accident & Health Insurance) and H3700 (HMO's). Data covers the 2004, 2006 and 2008 and 2010 campaign cycles. The fundraising data is adjusted based on the number of cycles that the senator has participated in as a Congressman (including time spent in the House of Representatives) or as a candidate, where 2010 is treated as 1/8th of a cycle since one quarterly report has so far been filed from the two-year period. So, for example, a senator that ran for and won office in 2006 is treated as participating in 2 1/8th out of a possible 3 1/8th cycles: 2006 as a candidate, and then 2008 and the fractional cycle in 2010 as a senator.
Top recipients of PAC money from these industries since 2004 are as follows:
Senator Cycles PAC $
Baucus (D-MT) 3.125 $141,250
McConnell (R-KY) 3.125 $110,750
Nelson (D-NE) 3.125 $106,123
Kyl (R-AZ) 3.125 $106,000
Gregg (R-NH) 3.125 $103,500
Grassley (R-IA) 3.125 $95,000
Lincoln (D-AR) 3.125 $91,000
Enzi (R-WY) 3.125 $87,000
Chambliss (R-GA) 3.125 $86,750
Ensign (R-NV) 3.125 $85,750
=====
AVERAGE SENATOR $37,267
MUCH more at the link above!
Friday, June 26, 2009
Senate Report: Insurers Charged 'Billions' to Consumers They Were Supposed to Pay | Crooks and Liars
Senate Report: Insurers Charged 'Billions' to Consumers They Were Supposed to Pay Crooks and Liars
Senate Report: Insurers Charged 'Billions' to Consumers They Were Supposed to Pay
Posted: 25 Jun 2009 03:00 PM PDT
It's really important to understand that insurers are not to be trusted, especially now that we know they've been defrauding us all along. Former CIGNA communications chief Wendell Potter (watch the complete video here) testified before the Commerce Committee yesterday and summed it up: Don't trust the insurance companies.
Health insurers have forced consumers to pay billions of dollars in medical bills that the insurers themselves should have paid, according to a report released today by the staff of the Senate Commerce Committee.
The report was part of a multi-pronged assault on the credibility of private insurers by Commerce Committee Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.). It came at a time when Rockefeller, President Obama and others are seeking to offer a public alternative to private health plans as part of broad health reform legislation. Health insurers are doing everything they can to block the public option.
At a committee hearing today, three health care specialists testified that insurers go to great lengths to avoid responsibility for sick people, use deliberately incomprehensible documents to mislead consumers about their benefits, and sell "junk" policies that fail to cover needed care. Rockefeller said he was exploring "why consumers get such a raw deal from their insurance companies."
The star witness at the hearing was a former public relations executive for major health insurers whose testimony boiled down to this: Don't trust the insurers.
"The industry and its backers are using fear tactics, as they did in 1994, to tar a transparent and accountable -- publicly accountable -- health care option," said Wendell Potter, who until early last year was vice president for corporate communications at the big insurer CIGNA.
Potter said he worries "that the industry's charm offensive, which is the most visible part of duplicitous and well-financed PR and lobbying campaigns, may well shape reform in a way that benefits Wall Street far more than average Americans."
Insurers make paperwork confusing because "they realize that people will just simply give up and not pursue it" if they think they have been shortchanged, Potter said.
Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.) questioned the government's ability make matters clearer, saying federal regulation of mortgage disclosures have made the documents borrowers encounter in real estate transactions "hopelessly complicated."
Asked to address the hearing testimony, Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for the industry group America's Health Insurance Plans, said insurers have proposed "overhauling the market rules and enacting new consumer protections so nobody is left out, simplifying health care choices for individuals and small businesses, and reforming the delivery system to improve the quality and affordability of health care coverage."
The report released today alleged that insurers have systematically underpaid for so-called out-of-network care. The issue had been brought to light previously in litigation, committee hearings, and other investigations, including a probe by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. But as politicians and interests groups clash over the current effort to overhaul the nation's health care system, it took on new relevance.
Cuomo described it last year as "a scheme by health insurers to defraud consumers by manipulating reimbursement rates."
Many Americans pay higher premiums for the freedom to go outside an insurer's network of doctors and hospitals. When they do, insurers typically pay a percentage of what they call the "usual and customary" rates for the services. How insurers determine the usual rates had long been opaque to consumers and difficult if not impossible for them to challenge.
As it turns out, insurers typically used numbers from Ingenix Inc., which was a wholly owned subsidiary of the big insurer UnitedHealth Group. Ingenix had an incentive to produce benchmarks that low-balled usual and customary rates and shifted costs from insurers to their customers, the report said.
Ingenix got all of its data from the same insurers that bought its benchmark information, the report said. Insurers that contributed data to Ingenix often "scrubbed" their data to remove high charges, and Ingenix further manipulated the numbers, removing valid high charges from its calculations, the report said.
Cuomo found that insurers under-reimbursed New York consumers by up to 28 percent, the report said. A dozen insurers have reached settlements agreeing to change their practices; UnitedHealth agreed to the largest payment, $50 million, which will help a nonprofit organization set up a new database to replace Ingenix.
In March testimony to Rockefeller's committee, UnitedHealth chief executive Stephen J. Hemsley said UnitedHealth stands by "the integrity of the Ingenix data."
Ingenix performed an important function, Hemsley said, because paying whatever doctors charge "is simply not economically tenable."
Senate Report: Insurers Charged 'Billions' to Consumers They Were Supposed to Pay
Posted: 25 Jun 2009 03:00 PM PDT
It's really important to understand that insurers are not to be trusted, especially now that we know they've been defrauding us all along. Former CIGNA communications chief Wendell Potter (watch the complete video here) testified before the Commerce Committee yesterday and summed it up: Don't trust the insurance companies.
Health insurers have forced consumers to pay billions of dollars in medical bills that the insurers themselves should have paid, according to a report released today by the staff of the Senate Commerce Committee.
The report was part of a multi-pronged assault on the credibility of private insurers by Commerce Committee Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.). It came at a time when Rockefeller, President Obama and others are seeking to offer a public alternative to private health plans as part of broad health reform legislation. Health insurers are doing everything they can to block the public option.
At a committee hearing today, three health care specialists testified that insurers go to great lengths to avoid responsibility for sick people, use deliberately incomprehensible documents to mislead consumers about their benefits, and sell "junk" policies that fail to cover needed care. Rockefeller said he was exploring "why consumers get such a raw deal from their insurance companies."
The star witness at the hearing was a former public relations executive for major health insurers whose testimony boiled down to this: Don't trust the insurers.
"The industry and its backers are using fear tactics, as they did in 1994, to tar a transparent and accountable -- publicly accountable -- health care option," said Wendell Potter, who until early last year was vice president for corporate communications at the big insurer CIGNA.
Potter said he worries "that the industry's charm offensive, which is the most visible part of duplicitous and well-financed PR and lobbying campaigns, may well shape reform in a way that benefits Wall Street far more than average Americans."
Insurers make paperwork confusing because "they realize that people will just simply give up and not pursue it" if they think they have been shortchanged, Potter said.
Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.) questioned the government's ability make matters clearer, saying federal regulation of mortgage disclosures have made the documents borrowers encounter in real estate transactions "hopelessly complicated."
Asked to address the hearing testimony, Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for the industry group America's Health Insurance Plans, said insurers have proposed "overhauling the market rules and enacting new consumer protections so nobody is left out, simplifying health care choices for individuals and small businesses, and reforming the delivery system to improve the quality and affordability of health care coverage."
The report released today alleged that insurers have systematically underpaid for so-called out-of-network care. The issue had been brought to light previously in litigation, committee hearings, and other investigations, including a probe by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. But as politicians and interests groups clash over the current effort to overhaul the nation's health care system, it took on new relevance.
Cuomo described it last year as "a scheme by health insurers to defraud consumers by manipulating reimbursement rates."
Many Americans pay higher premiums for the freedom to go outside an insurer's network of doctors and hospitals. When they do, insurers typically pay a percentage of what they call the "usual and customary" rates for the services. How insurers determine the usual rates had long been opaque to consumers and difficult if not impossible for them to challenge.
As it turns out, insurers typically used numbers from Ingenix Inc., which was a wholly owned subsidiary of the big insurer UnitedHealth Group. Ingenix had an incentive to produce benchmarks that low-balled usual and customary rates and shifted costs from insurers to their customers, the report said.
Ingenix got all of its data from the same insurers that bought its benchmark information, the report said. Insurers that contributed data to Ingenix often "scrubbed" their data to remove high charges, and Ingenix further manipulated the numbers, removing valid high charges from its calculations, the report said.
Cuomo found that insurers under-reimbursed New York consumers by up to 28 percent, the report said. A dozen insurers have reached settlements agreeing to change their practices; UnitedHealth agreed to the largest payment, $50 million, which will help a nonprofit organization set up a new database to replace Ingenix.
In March testimony to Rockefeller's committee, UnitedHealth chief executive Stephen J. Hemsley said UnitedHealth stands by "the integrity of the Ingenix data."
Ingenix performed an important function, Hemsley said, because paying whatever doctors charge "is simply not economically tenable."
How Insurance Companies Hurt Policyholders - ABC News
How Insurance Companies Hurt Policyholders - ABC News
Health Insurance Insider: 'They Dump the Sick'
Retired Health Insurance Executive Blows the Whistle on His Former Industry
By ALICE GOMSTYN ABC News Business UnitJune 24, 2009
Frustrated Americans have long complained that their insurance companies valued the all-mighty buck over their health care. Today, a retired insurance executive confirmed their suspicions, arguing that the industry that once employed him regularly rips off its policyholders.
Retired health insurance executive Wendell Potter told Congress today that insurance companies routinely rip off customers.(ABC News Photo Illustration)
"[T]hey confuse their customers and dump the sick, all so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors," former Cigna senior executive Wendell Potter said during a hearing on health insurance today before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
Potter, who has more than 20 years of experience working in public relations for insurance companies Cigna and Humana, said companies routinely drop seriously ill policyholders so they can meet "Wall Street's relentless profit expectations."
"They look carefully to see if a sick policyholder may have omitted a minor illness, a pre-existing condition, when applying for coverage, and then they use that as justification to cancel the policy, even if the enrollee has never missed a premium payment," Potter said. "…(D)umping a small number of enrollees can have a big effect on the bottom line."
Small businesses, in particular, he said, have had trouble maintaining their employee health insurance coverage, he said.
"All it takes is one illness or accident among employees at a small business to prompt an insurance company to hike the next year's premiums so high that the employer has to cut benefits, shop for another carrier, or stop offering coverage altogether," he said.
Potter also faulted insurance companies for being misleading both in advertising their policies to new customers and in communicating with existing policyholders.
More and more people, he said, are falling victim to "deceptive marketing practices" that encourage them to buy "what essentially is fake insurance," policies with high costs but surprisingly limited benefits.
Insurance companies continue to mislead consumers through "explanation of benefits" documents that note what payments the insurance company made and what's left for consumers to pay out of pocket, Potter said.
The documents, he said, are "notoriously incomprehensible."
"Insurers know that policyholders are so baffled by those notices they usually just ignore them or throw them away. And that's exactly the point," he said. "If they were more understandable, more consumers might realize that they are being ripped off."
More at the link above.
Health Insurance Insider: 'They Dump the Sick'
Retired Health Insurance Executive Blows the Whistle on His Former Industry
By ALICE GOMSTYN ABC News Business UnitJune 24, 2009
Frustrated Americans have long complained that their insurance companies valued the all-mighty buck over their health care. Today, a retired insurance executive confirmed their suspicions, arguing that the industry that once employed him regularly rips off its policyholders.
Retired health insurance executive Wendell Potter told Congress today that insurance companies routinely rip off customers.(ABC News Photo Illustration)
"[T]hey confuse their customers and dump the sick, all so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors," former Cigna senior executive Wendell Potter said during a hearing on health insurance today before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
Potter, who has more than 20 years of experience working in public relations for insurance companies Cigna and Humana, said companies routinely drop seriously ill policyholders so they can meet "Wall Street's relentless profit expectations."
"They look carefully to see if a sick policyholder may have omitted a minor illness, a pre-existing condition, when applying for coverage, and then they use that as justification to cancel the policy, even if the enrollee has never missed a premium payment," Potter said. "…(D)umping a small number of enrollees can have a big effect on the bottom line."
Small businesses, in particular, he said, have had trouble maintaining their employee health insurance coverage, he said.
"All it takes is one illness or accident among employees at a small business to prompt an insurance company to hike the next year's premiums so high that the employer has to cut benefits, shop for another carrier, or stop offering coverage altogether," he said.
Potter also faulted insurance companies for being misleading both in advertising their policies to new customers and in communicating with existing policyholders.
More and more people, he said, are falling victim to "deceptive marketing practices" that encourage them to buy "what essentially is fake insurance," policies with high costs but surprisingly limited benefits.
Insurance companies continue to mislead consumers through "explanation of benefits" documents that note what payments the insurance company made and what's left for consumers to pay out of pocket, Potter said.
The documents, he said, are "notoriously incomprehensible."
"Insurers know that policyholders are so baffled by those notices they usually just ignore them or throw them away. And that's exactly the point," he said. "If they were more understandable, more consumers might realize that they are being ripped off."
More at the link above.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Jeff Biggers
Author, The United States of Appalachia
Posted: June 23, 2009 01:14 PM
BIO Become a Fan
Get Email Alerts Bloggers' Index
Updated:VIDEO: Nonviolent Goldman Prize Winner Attacked by Massey Supporter: 94-Year-Old Hechler, Hannah, Hansen Arrested at Coal River
digg Huffpost - stumble reddit del.ico.us
huffington_post:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-biggers/live-at-coal-river-daryl_b_219628.html
Note: This blog will be updated during the day, with dispatches, video and photos being filed with Stephanie Pistello from the nonviolent march against mountaintop removal in the Coal River Valley, West Virginia.)
"When I get to the other side, I shall tell God Almighty about West Virginia!" -- Mother Jones
"The abuse of the land always goes hand in hand with the abuse of the people." -- Don West
UPDATE: "The Sword of Damocles hangs over Marsh Fork Elementary School."
"I started out an as activist, but founded it necessary to be a hell raiser. We are going to need hellraisers to stop this devastating practice."--Ken Hechler
Video of former US Representative Ken Hechler (D-WV), who introduced the first bill to end mountaintop removal and stripmining in 1971. As a hero to coal miners, Hechler led the campaign for better mining workplace safety and black lung laws and compensation. The 94-year-old Hechler was arrested at the Coal River action, along with coalfield residents and parents, 88-year-old West Virginia activist Winnie Fox, Daryl Hannah, and James Hansen, and Goldman Prize Award winner Judy Bonds, RAN director Michael Brune and many others.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Monday, June 22, 2009
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Thank you Senator Burchett
This letter was just posted at and I thought more people needed to know who stands for the people of Tennessee to have open and honest elections.
Comment by Dixie Damm 41 minutes ago
Regarding the Voter Confidence Act [and its antonym HB 0614]…this is a wonderful letter – long but wonderful- written by Bernie Ellis. Mr. Ellis can be thanked at tracevu@bellsouth.net (TN Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations). I sent part of this letter to my very Republican senator, Randy McNally, and said how sad that I could not compliment his decision, as I did in a letter to Senator Tim Burchett.
Hope you feel the pride I did as I read Bernie's words below....dixie from Loudon Co.
(Senator Burchett -- I am submitting this tribute to the Knoxville papers. I do hope they print it.----
-Every Tennessee school child learns early on that our state has been blessed with heros throughout its history. Davy Crockett at the Alamo, Alvin York in the trenches of World War I Europe – we continue to revere the honorable people who sprang from our hills and hollows with the in-borne courage to do the next right thing when they were called on to do so. There are three other heros – two long-gone now and one who is still very much alive – who helped expand our franchise and, in the process, helped save our democracy. The two deceased heros were Harry Burn and Ben West. The third hero, the one who still walks among us, is Senator Tim Burchett of Knoxville.
Harry Burn was a first-term Republican state representative from McMinn county, the youngest Tennessee state legislator serving in 1920 when women's suffrage hung in the balance in our state. Back then, only one state was needed to ratify the Nineteenth amendment to the US Constitution, an amendment that would give women the right to vote. Like many legislators at the time, Representative Burn was under extreme pressure from sexist politicians back home to oppose the amendment, to keep women "in their place". Some even believed that Rep. Burn was a safe bet to vote against suffrage, since he wore a red rose on his lapel, a color then (and now) that represented exclusion and disenfranchisement. But as the pivotal vote approached, the opponents of inclusion did not know that Representative Burn carried in his coat pocket a letter from his widowed mother urging him to vote for ratification. When his name was called, Harry Burn voted "yes", the single deciding vote that ratified – for our entire nation – the Nineteenth Amendment.
Ben West was the Mayor of Nashville in 1960, when Black college students began a series of lunch-counter sit-ins in segregated department stores that were just among the many pillars of the Jim Crow South. For months, those students had been arrested and hauled off to jail. As a result, the Black community had boycotted Nashville stores and Whites had also stayed away, crippling the downtown Nashville economy. Tensions had risen to the point where the home and church of Reverend Alexander Looby, a civil rights leader, had been bombed, sending him to the hospital. Responding to that violence, thousands of Nashvillians marched to City Hall where Mayor West met them. One young Fisk student, Diane Nash, spoke quietly that day to Mayor West and pleaded with him to use the prestige of his office to end racial segregation. Mayor West's response was simple and direct: "Yes, young lady, I will do that." Years later, Ben West said that, at that moment, he had said the only thing that any moral person could say – that he had answered as a God-fearing man, and not as a politician. The next day, the Nashville Banner's headline said it all "INTEGRATE COUNTERS – MAYOR". Within a month, all Nashville lunch-counters were integrated and, with that positive role-model in the heart of the South, Jim Crow's racist days were numbered.
That brings us to Senator Tim Burchett, a Knoxville Republican and the bravest and most patriotic man I know in our fair state today. For the past three years, Tennessee voters have been working hard to correct a serious error in how we conduct our elections here. In 2006, Tennessee wasted over $30 million in federal funds to purchase touch-screen voting machines (also called Direct Record Electronic machines, or DREs), voting machines that are slow, expensive and – worst of all – incapable of being audited or recounted. These machines have been implicated in a plethora of election fraud incidents across our country, and state after state has made the decision to ban these machines in favor of paper ballots. Tennessee was one of those states when we passed the TN Voter Confidence Act last year on a 92-3 vote in our House and a 32-0 vote in our Senate to replace those non-verifiable machines with paper ballots by the 2010 elections.
But when the Republican Party unexpectedly took control of our state legislature in 2008, one of the first things their leaders announced was that they intended to weaken, delay or repeal the Voter Confidence Act. For the past five months, a small band of Tennessee voters has traveled daily to our legislature and has witnessed a highly partisan and divided legislature, with most Democrats in favor of implementing the Voter Confidence Act as intended and most Republicans in favor of our continuing to vote on insecure and untrustworthy DREs. Since Republicans now control our General Assembly (for the first time since Reconstruction), we knew that the prospects for protecting our franchise were in peril.
Yesterday evening, as our Senate debated long and hard about a bill to delay implementation of the Voter Confidence Act until 2012 and to gut the law's election audit provisions, it was clear that the vote would be close and split along party lines. When the final vote was cast, the tally was 16-14 to delay democracy by postponing the implementation of the Voter Confidence Act until 2012. At first, we were crest-fallen, thinking that we had lost. But then one of us remembered that it takes 17 votes in the Senate for a law to pass, and with only 16 votes, the measure had failed. When we looked up at the vote board, we could see that all Democrats had voted to keep the Voter Confidence Act on-track for 2010 (except one, who had abstained) and all Republicans had voted to delay and weaken democracy. All of them, that is, except one. Senator Tim Burchett, a man who has been steadfast and vocal in his support for free, fair and verifiable elections for the past three years; and whose singular vote last night in opposition to the rest of his party allowed democracy to prevail in our state.
Thank you, Senator Burchett. Your intelligence, courage and sense of honor and fairness are what this country was built on, and what we must have in order for this nation to survive. Like Atticus Finch in "To Kill A Mockingbird", your singular bravery has helped keep us free. And like the Black citizens who filled the courtroom gallery in that long-ago movie, I will, from this day forward, stand up when you enter a room. Because I will know that I am in the presence of a modern-day patriot, the latest in a long line of American heros who sprang from the hills of our Tennessee when they were needed to help keep our nation strong and safe -- and free. Yesterday, you saved our democracy.
Bernie Ellis, OrganizerGathering To Save Our Democracy
Comment by Dixie Damm 41 minutes ago
Regarding the Voter Confidence Act [and its antonym HB 0614]…this is a wonderful letter – long but wonderful- written by Bernie Ellis. Mr. Ellis can be thanked at tracevu@bellsouth.net (TN Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations). I sent part of this letter to my very Republican senator, Randy McNally, and said how sad that I could not compliment his decision, as I did in a letter to Senator Tim Burchett.
Hope you feel the pride I did as I read Bernie's words below....dixie from Loudon Co.
(Senator Burchett -- I am submitting this tribute to the Knoxville papers. I do hope they print it.----
-Every Tennessee school child learns early on that our state has been blessed with heros throughout its history. Davy Crockett at the Alamo, Alvin York in the trenches of World War I Europe – we continue to revere the honorable people who sprang from our hills and hollows with the in-borne courage to do the next right thing when they were called on to do so. There are three other heros – two long-gone now and one who is still very much alive – who helped expand our franchise and, in the process, helped save our democracy. The two deceased heros were Harry Burn and Ben West. The third hero, the one who still walks among us, is Senator Tim Burchett of Knoxville.
Harry Burn was a first-term Republican state representative from McMinn county, the youngest Tennessee state legislator serving in 1920 when women's suffrage hung in the balance in our state. Back then, only one state was needed to ratify the Nineteenth amendment to the US Constitution, an amendment that would give women the right to vote. Like many legislators at the time, Representative Burn was under extreme pressure from sexist politicians back home to oppose the amendment, to keep women "in their place". Some even believed that Rep. Burn was a safe bet to vote against suffrage, since he wore a red rose on his lapel, a color then (and now) that represented exclusion and disenfranchisement. But as the pivotal vote approached, the opponents of inclusion did not know that Representative Burn carried in his coat pocket a letter from his widowed mother urging him to vote for ratification. When his name was called, Harry Burn voted "yes", the single deciding vote that ratified – for our entire nation – the Nineteenth Amendment.
Ben West was the Mayor of Nashville in 1960, when Black college students began a series of lunch-counter sit-ins in segregated department stores that were just among the many pillars of the Jim Crow South. For months, those students had been arrested and hauled off to jail. As a result, the Black community had boycotted Nashville stores and Whites had also stayed away, crippling the downtown Nashville economy. Tensions had risen to the point where the home and church of Reverend Alexander Looby, a civil rights leader, had been bombed, sending him to the hospital. Responding to that violence, thousands of Nashvillians marched to City Hall where Mayor West met them. One young Fisk student, Diane Nash, spoke quietly that day to Mayor West and pleaded with him to use the prestige of his office to end racial segregation. Mayor West's response was simple and direct: "Yes, young lady, I will do that." Years later, Ben West said that, at that moment, he had said the only thing that any moral person could say – that he had answered as a God-fearing man, and not as a politician. The next day, the Nashville Banner's headline said it all "INTEGRATE COUNTERS – MAYOR". Within a month, all Nashville lunch-counters were integrated and, with that positive role-model in the heart of the South, Jim Crow's racist days were numbered.
That brings us to Senator Tim Burchett, a Knoxville Republican and the bravest and most patriotic man I know in our fair state today. For the past three years, Tennessee voters have been working hard to correct a serious error in how we conduct our elections here. In 2006, Tennessee wasted over $30 million in federal funds to purchase touch-screen voting machines (also called Direct Record Electronic machines, or DREs), voting machines that are slow, expensive and – worst of all – incapable of being audited or recounted. These machines have been implicated in a plethora of election fraud incidents across our country, and state after state has made the decision to ban these machines in favor of paper ballots. Tennessee was one of those states when we passed the TN Voter Confidence Act last year on a 92-3 vote in our House and a 32-0 vote in our Senate to replace those non-verifiable machines with paper ballots by the 2010 elections.
But when the Republican Party unexpectedly took control of our state legislature in 2008, one of the first things their leaders announced was that they intended to weaken, delay or repeal the Voter Confidence Act. For the past five months, a small band of Tennessee voters has traveled daily to our legislature and has witnessed a highly partisan and divided legislature, with most Democrats in favor of implementing the Voter Confidence Act as intended and most Republicans in favor of our continuing to vote on insecure and untrustworthy DREs. Since Republicans now control our General Assembly (for the first time since Reconstruction), we knew that the prospects for protecting our franchise were in peril.
Yesterday evening, as our Senate debated long and hard about a bill to delay implementation of the Voter Confidence Act until 2012 and to gut the law's election audit provisions, it was clear that the vote would be close and split along party lines. When the final vote was cast, the tally was 16-14 to delay democracy by postponing the implementation of the Voter Confidence Act until 2012. At first, we were crest-fallen, thinking that we had lost. But then one of us remembered that it takes 17 votes in the Senate for a law to pass, and with only 16 votes, the measure had failed. When we looked up at the vote board, we could see that all Democrats had voted to keep the Voter Confidence Act on-track for 2010 (except one, who had abstained) and all Republicans had voted to delay and weaken democracy. All of them, that is, except one. Senator Tim Burchett, a man who has been steadfast and vocal in his support for free, fair and verifiable elections for the past three years; and whose singular vote last night in opposition to the rest of his party allowed democracy to prevail in our state.
Thank you, Senator Burchett. Your intelligence, courage and sense of honor and fairness are what this country was built on, and what we must have in order for this nation to survive. Like Atticus Finch in "To Kill A Mockingbird", your singular bravery has helped keep us free. And like the Black citizens who filled the courtroom gallery in that long-ago movie, I will, from this day forward, stand up when you enter a room. Because I will know that I am in the presence of a modern-day patriot, the latest in a long line of American heros who sprang from the hills of our Tennessee when they were needed to help keep our nation strong and safe -- and free. Yesterday, you saved our democracy.
Bernie Ellis, OrganizerGathering To Save Our Democracy
Saturday, June 20, 2009
The Big "Leftist Voter Fraud" Lie Exposed | Politics | AlterNet
Remember the GOP screaming about ACORN and voter fraud? Remember how that was their battle cry and they never bothered to even tell the truth about it? Well, well.....
The Big "Leftist Voter Fraud" Lie Exposed Politics AlterNet
The Big "Leftist Voter Fraud" Lie Exposed
Posted by Jill Hussein C., Brilliant at Breakfast at 7:00 AM on June 19, 2009.
Acorn, hunh?
The Big "Leftist Voter Fraud" Lie Exposed
It's worth listening to right-wingers in the media and in government, if only because when you hear them decry something, whether it's marital infidelity, gay sex, fraudulent voter registration, Obama Administration intrusion into people's lives, or anything else, they're actually talking about themselves.
Remember last fall, when ACORN was the new gay, or the new feminist, or the new Islamic terrorist, or whatever the wingnuts' boogeyman-of-the-month is? Remember the "concern" on the right about people being registered to vote who weren't eligible?
Well, well, well...take a look at what's happened in California, courtesy of Brad Friedman:
What's perhaps most interesting here is what isn't mentioned in this story, as written on the Los Angeles Times' "L.A. Now" blog. First, here's their entire blog item...
The owner of a voter-registration company pleaded guilty Tuesday to voter-registration fraud, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.
Laguna Beach resident Mark Jacoby, who collects signatures for petition drives, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and was sentenced to three years' probation and 30 days of service with the California Department of Transportation.
Jacoby, owner of Young Political Majors, registered to vote at Los Angeles addresses that were not his own. State law requires petition circulators to be qualified voters. Jacoby will also be required to show proof he is registered at his correct address.
And what they didn't bother to mention in that story?...Amongst other things, the fact that Jacoby and Young Political Majors were hired by the California Republican Party to head up their voter registration efforts in the state. Jacoby had been arrested for Voter Registration Fraud last October, smack dab during the media's orgasmic heights of last year's phony GOP ACORN "Voter Fraud" hoax, even as Fox "News" (and the other news outlets who similarly fell for the scam) were going wall-to-wall with their unsupported insinuations about voter fraud by ACORN, Democrats and Obama.
The news about the arrest of Jacoby, at the time, had occurred just as I was heading out for an appearance on Fox "News", so I was able to break the news on-air in my own "Fox 'News' Alert". (Video originally posted here, reposted at bottom of this item.)
Given the way the LA Times blog "covered" the story of Jacoby's plea --- not even mentioning the fact that this guy and his group were hired by the California state Republican Party --- I'd say it's a fair bet Fox wouldn't even have bothered to mention the original arrest at all had I not been on air and forcing them to do so myself. Much as they are unlikely to bother reporting Jacoby's plea today.
More here.
It's worth listening to right-wingers in the media and in government, if only because when you hear them decry something, whether it's marital infidelity, gay sex, fraudulent voter registration, Obama Administration intrusion into people's lives, or anything else, they're actually talking about themselves.
Tagged as: voter fraud
Jill Hussein C. blogs at Brilliant at Breakfast.
The Big "Leftist Voter Fraud" Lie Exposed Politics AlterNet
The Big "Leftist Voter Fraud" Lie Exposed
Posted by Jill Hussein C., Brilliant at Breakfast at 7:00 AM on June 19, 2009.
Acorn, hunh?
The Big "Leftist Voter Fraud" Lie Exposed
It's worth listening to right-wingers in the media and in government, if only because when you hear them decry something, whether it's marital infidelity, gay sex, fraudulent voter registration, Obama Administration intrusion into people's lives, or anything else, they're actually talking about themselves.
Remember last fall, when ACORN was the new gay, or the new feminist, or the new Islamic terrorist, or whatever the wingnuts' boogeyman-of-the-month is? Remember the "concern" on the right about people being registered to vote who weren't eligible?
Well, well, well...take a look at what's happened in California, courtesy of Brad Friedman:
What's perhaps most interesting here is what isn't mentioned in this story, as written on the Los Angeles Times' "L.A. Now" blog. First, here's their entire blog item...
The owner of a voter-registration company pleaded guilty Tuesday to voter-registration fraud, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.
Laguna Beach resident Mark Jacoby, who collects signatures for petition drives, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and was sentenced to three years' probation and 30 days of service with the California Department of Transportation.
Jacoby, owner of Young Political Majors, registered to vote at Los Angeles addresses that were not his own. State law requires petition circulators to be qualified voters. Jacoby will also be required to show proof he is registered at his correct address.
And what they didn't bother to mention in that story?...Amongst other things, the fact that Jacoby and Young Political Majors were hired by the California Republican Party to head up their voter registration efforts in the state. Jacoby had been arrested for Voter Registration Fraud last October, smack dab during the media's orgasmic heights of last year's phony GOP ACORN "Voter Fraud" hoax, even as Fox "News" (and the other news outlets who similarly fell for the scam) were going wall-to-wall with their unsupported insinuations about voter fraud by ACORN, Democrats and Obama.
The news about the arrest of Jacoby, at the time, had occurred just as I was heading out for an appearance on Fox "News", so I was able to break the news on-air in my own "Fox 'News' Alert". (Video originally posted here, reposted at bottom of this item.)
Given the way the LA Times blog "covered" the story of Jacoby's plea --- not even mentioning the fact that this guy and his group were hired by the California state Republican Party --- I'd say it's a fair bet Fox wouldn't even have bothered to mention the original arrest at all had I not been on air and forcing them to do so myself. Much as they are unlikely to bother reporting Jacoby's plea today.
More here.
It's worth listening to right-wingers in the media and in government, if only because when you hear them decry something, whether it's marital infidelity, gay sex, fraudulent voter registration, Obama Administration intrusion into people's lives, or anything else, they're actually talking about themselves.
Tagged as: voter fraud
Jill Hussein C. blogs at Brilliant at Breakfast.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
