Conservative Strategy #1

Lie. Most of the time the press will print whatever you say as if it were true and without checking facts. Your enemies (anyone who disagrees with you on any point small or large) will have their energies diverted into running around gathering up the evidence that you lied. In the meantime, you can make up more lies.

Inside/Outside

   

  I just bought this painting. It’s called “Still Life with City Scape No. 2.” The artist is Aaron Morgan Brown, formerly of Wichita, Kansas. This is a fairly typical painting by him in that he likes to combine highly incongruous elements, such as placing an electric mixer next to a statue of Cupid (?) and an orange both beneath a Tiffany lamp. What I really like about this painting though is the way that he suggests the interpenetration of realms we normally keep separate. Most obvious is the way that the room has no wall and it appears that a car is about to  drive out of it while another car is about to come in. Little less obvious is painting of the bird, a wild creature captured and immobilized on a canvas framed in gilt and hung on an invisible wall. I am interested also in the fact that the objects “in” the room—the elements of the still life—have been painted in a very precise manner, with clear-cut sharp outlines, while the street scene has been rendered in a much softer somewhat more impressionistic style. This pleases me. It makes the inner seem so much more real than the outer at the same that it undercuts the distinction between them. Perhaps this painting is an allegory of consciousness itself.  

Truth or Consequences?

Four of Ireland's Roman Catholic Bishops have now resigned in the wake of evidence that they permitted decades of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse to be perpetuated against thousands of children. "A fifth bishop [ . . . ], Martin Drennan of Galway, has said that he did not endanger children and will not resign, a position initially taken by the four bishops who have now stepped down."

The two most recent former Bishops of Ireland, Eamonn Walsh and Ray Field, issued a joint statement on Christmas Eve, saying that "they hoped their resignations 'may help to bring the peace and reconciliation of Jesus Christ to the victims' of child sexual abuse.

“'We again apologize to them,' the bishops said. 'Our thoughts and prayers are with those who have so bravely spoken out and those who continue to suffer in silence.'”

Somehow, I don't believe them. Maybe if they walked the length and breadth of Ireland wearing sackcloth and ashes, proclaiming their guilt at every church and begging forgiveness of every person, I might begin to believe that they have truly repented and aren't just putting on some dog and pony show.

And I'm not encouraged by the Arch-bishop's account of their motives, that "the church for too long had placed its self-interest above the rights of its parishioners, particularly innocent children." I mean, come on. What church has any interest greater than the well-being of its members? As long as the Church identifies AS its priests and AGAINST its members, men will continue to use the priesthood as a means to power and self-gratification.

Read the article for yourself here.

Letter to Obama

Here's the letter I just President Obama:

Dear President Obama,

I am very distressed to read on the Huffington Post that you are a) refusing to step up and support your party's efforts in Congress to include in the health care reform bill a robust public option that would let the states opt out and b) throwing your support behind the alternate plan, supported by Senator Snowe and the insurance industry, of a public option with a "trigger." This is unacceptable. Let me be very clear, Sir, and repeat myself: this is unacceptable.

I voted for you because you promised change, but letting the Republican Party continue to set the terms of debate on every imaginable issue including health care., and letting corporations set the terms and conditions of Federal oversight--whether it's the banking industry or the insurance industry--simply accelerates our national demise. I have watched and waited for you to step up and start enacting real change. I have defended you against friends and acquaintances who have said that your continual capitulations to the wealthy and the powerful have undermined any effectiveness you might have had.

And now I say to you: stop it. Stop pandering, stop capitulating. I say to you, step up, now, for a robust public option. It's the only hope we have of creating a health care system that takes care of people first and profits last. And believe me, Sir, if you think that this kind of capitulation will protect the Democratic Party or your own re-election efforts, you are seriously wrong, because I and every liberal and every progressive in this country will throw our weight behind whatever third party candidate offers him or herself as the candidate of change.

Your fellow citizen, Christina Hauck.

How I Got My Numbers

In my last post, I suggested that health care reform as it stands now offers us a choice between paying 12.5% or 4.5% of our income for health insurance. The larger figure assumes that the Baucus bill or some close variant of it passes and every American whose employer does not offer medical insurance is required to pay it on the open market. The smaller figure assumes that somehow Congress finds the will to create a single-payer system similar to Medicare.

I have to admit that I haven't actually seen the case put this way before. Here's how I arrived at those two numbers:

The Baucus bill widely assumes that most Americans now buying health insurance on the open market are paying about 12.5% of their income and that it is reasonable to expect them to continue to do so. It offers some kind of Federal tax subsidy for people who can't afford that: I'm not very clear on the details.

According to Representative Anthony Weiner of New York, Medicare currently spends 4% of the money it collects on overhead and administrative costs. Private insurance companies, on the other hand, spend about 30%. So I figure that if we can collect 4.5% of everyone's salary or wage and if we require a matching contribution from employers then we'd have a pool equal to 9% of the nation's payroll and we should be able to insure everyone.

Actually, I don't know how much money that would generate or if it would be enough to actually insure everyone. But my figures seem reasonable.

A Simple Choice

When it comes to health care reform, doing nothing is not an option. And it looks like everyone is going to have to buy some kind of medical insurance. The only question is, how much are we going to have to pay?

The choices seem pretty stark:

Would you rather pay 12.5% of your income for health insurance or 4.5%?

If you'd rather pay 12.5%, then you must be for the Baucus plan. The good news about this plan is that it won't increase the federal deficit for the first ten years of its implementation and will actually decrease the deficit for the next ten years. The bad news is that 12.5% only covers the cost of insurance; it doesn't include your deductibles or co-pays. Have a bad year? You might end up paying 25% of your salary. But don't worry: your federal taxes won't go up.

If you'd rather pay 4.5% (and who wouldn't) then you are probably all for single-payer health care. The bad news? You'd have to pay more in taxes. The good news? Even a child could figure that one out.

Letter to my Congressmen

Here's the letter I sent to my congressmen last weekend (not just Brownback, but Pat Roberts and Jerry Moran, as well). They're pretty conservative guys.

The Honorable Sam Brownback
303 Hart Senate Office Building
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senator Brownback:

I recently read the following story in the Wichita Eagle:

Mike Levand, a 56-year-old independent contractor in medical sales, has been uninsured since January, when he moved to Wichita from Lenexa. Blue Cross/Blue Shield had covered him while he lived in northeast Kansas, but made him requalify after the move.

Because he had added weight and needed medication for health issues since he originally signed with the company, his premiums more than tripled, from $300 to $1,100 a month, Levand said.

There is no good reason for this man to have to re-qualify for insurance and then to be subject to this kind of price increase. Obviously, we cannot trust Blue Cross/Blue Shield to treat the people of Kansas with any kind of integrity or decency.

The time has come to stop the partisan bickering and find a way to make sure this doesn’t continue to happen everyday here in Kansas and across our nation. I urge you to put aside ideology and fully support a public option supported by premiums paid by subscribers. Without it, we are all at the mercy of an industry that has proven that it does not care about anything except maximizing profit no matter how badly it hurts individuals, families, communities and states.


Sincerely,

Christina Hauck


P.S. You can read the full article at http://www.kansas.com/news/story/959531.html. And if you need any further persuading, I urge you to read about the work being performed here in the Unites State by Remote Area Medical, which formerly only brought medical care to third world countries but which is now offering services in the U.S. I’m so ashamed that we can’t seem to care enough to solve this problem. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111676259