What we need--- instead--- is 800 public health care centers spread out across the United States where people can universally access, for free, all their health care needs from pre-natal care, to general health care to eye, dental and mental care right through to burial.
Instead of moving in this progressive direction, President Barack Obama and the United States Congress are moving in a most reactionary direction towards establishing military bases in outer space as they seek to insure the profits of both the merchants of death and destruction and the profit-driven health care industries... talk about skewed priorities and your wacky ideas devoid of common sense.
In addition to these 800 U.S. military bases on foreign soil, Barack Obama and the United States Congress continue funding--- with our tax-dollars--- the Israeli killing machine to the tune of tens of billions of dollars.
A network of 800 public health care centers spread out across the United States would create over four-million good-paying, decent jobs--- talk about your "economic stimulus" package!
We would be planting the seeds of socialism while helping to eradicate poverty as we keep people healthy and get them well when sick.
Think about this kind of solution in relation to what Barack Obama, the U.S. Congress and the Wall Street bankers and coupon clippers are offering the American people, and the peoples of the world... just what is the reason for bailing out the banks and AIG and maintaining more than 800 expensive U.S. military bases of foreign soil?
The Mt. Carmel Clinic in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada offers us a glimpse at what militarization and wars continue to rob us of.
The problems created by Wall Street will not be solved as long as the military-financial-industrial complex is allowed to squander human and natural resources on militarism and wars... we might just as well be dumping these resources out into the ocean... at least no one would die in wars.
These merchants of death and destruction must be stopped if humanity is to survive in a livable world.
The time has come to talk about the working class Marxist politics and economics of livelihood... capitalism has failed humanity miserably and left us a real mess.
Something for working people to think about and discuss around the dinner table... the capitalist sooth-Sayers certainly are not going to broach such solutions to the problems of working people as they hide behind the skirt of Rosy Scenario as this global capitalist economic depression intensifies.
Alan Maki
Monday, March 23, 2009
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Why we need a comprehensive all inclusive People's Bailout
From school children going hungry to people without access to health care all complicated by a capitalist economic system on the "skids to oblivion," we need a National "People's Bailout" in keeping with the "Minnesota People's Bailout" to begin solving the problems of the working class.
This article appeared today...
As we travel down this short, bumpy road to perdition, the needs of working people are only an after-thought, when thought about at all, by Barack Obama and the Democrats...
Republicans have never had concern for anyone except the National Association of Manufacturers and the Chamber of Commerce...
Obama and the Democrats are now directly looking after the needs of Wall Street bankers and coupon clippers in a way these business organizations never could.
Here is one of thousands of such articles appearing about health care:
Obama's Billions for Health Care leave unemployed workers sick in the cold---
"Uncertainty over new health safety net for jobless"
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090301/ap_on_go_pr_wh/stimulus_health_insurance
Associated Press Writer Erica Werner,
Sun Mar 1, 2009
WASHINGTON – The Obama administration rushed to include a health care safety net for laid-off workers in the recently signed stimulus bill, but has not told employers exactly how to make it work.
As a result, tens of thousands of jobless people could wait months before getting help paying for health insurance that their employers previously had covered.
"Too many people are still trying to figure this out," said Heath Weems, director of human resources policy at the National Association of Manufacturers. "There is a lot of confusion."
At issue is the program called COBRA, the acronym for the law that allows workers to keep their company's health insurance plan for 18 months after they leave their job, if they pay the premiums.
The policies are so expensive that only a minority of eligible workers sign up, often those with medical conditions that demand attention. Costs for a family of four can top $1,000 per month.
A $25 billion provision in the stimulus bill aimed to cut COBRA's price tag, reducing its cost by 65 percent for workers laid off as far back as Sept. 1.
The bill gives eligible workers 60 days to apply. Then they get the reduced-cost premium for nine months.
But it's not going to happen right away.
Employers are waiting for instructions from the Labor Department and the Internal Revenue Service on how to put the program into place. Both agencies posted some information online Thursday.
Until employers get the guidance they need and notify potentially eligible ex-employees, most workers will not apply for the new benefit. Many probably will not know it exists.
Left waiting are people such as Cassandra J. Kelsey, 55. The District of Columbia resident lost her job with Verizon in January. She says she can barely pay her rent and is eating less to save money to cover the $550 a month premium to keep her health coverage under COBRA.
Kelsey walks with a cane and lists a litany of ailments, including degenerative arthritis and hypertension. For her, going without health insurance is unthinkable.
Outside a D.C. career center on a recent morning, Kelsey clutched copies of her COBRA invoice, clippings from a local newspaper about the stimulus bill and a form letter she received from the White House after writing to Obama about her troubles.
Kelsey knew about the reduced premium and said it would bring her COBRA costs below $200 a month. But when she called her benefits department, she was distressed to learn that she would not be able to get the reduced cost immediately, probably not until May.
"I can't take advantage of it now which I think is totally unfair," Kelsey said. "I don't know how I'm going to make it."
The stimulus bill contemplated that workers might not get the reduced premium immediately, and contains a provision that would allow them to be reimbursed later on.
That would be little help to Kelsey and others who need the benefit now.
An IRS spokesman said the agency is moving as fast as it can. A Labor Department spokeswoman responded to questions with an e-mail linking to a short agency fact sheet.
One question that employers are struggling with is how to go back and find employees who were laid off as far back as September.
Also, the legislation says only workers who were "involuntarily terminated" are eligible, but never defines that term. Does it include only people who are laid off? Or those who take buyouts offered by their employers?
No one knows how many people will actually seek a share of the stimulus money to pay their COBRA premiums. Congressional experts estimated 7 million, but that may be too high.
Advocates fear that even cut-rate COBRA could prove too little, too late for some jobless Americans.
"For many people it will remain unaffordable," said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA.
This article appeared today...
As we travel down this short, bumpy road to perdition, the needs of working people are only an after-thought, when thought about at all, by Barack Obama and the Democrats...
Republicans have never had concern for anyone except the National Association of Manufacturers and the Chamber of Commerce...
Obama and the Democrats are now directly looking after the needs of Wall Street bankers and coupon clippers in a way these business organizations never could.
Here is one of thousands of such articles appearing about health care:
Obama's Billions for Health Care leave unemployed workers sick in the cold---
"Uncertainty over new health safety net for jobless"
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090301/ap_on_go_pr_wh/stimulus_health_insurance
Associated Press Writer Erica Werner,
Sun Mar 1, 2009
WASHINGTON – The Obama administration rushed to include a health care safety net for laid-off workers in the recently signed stimulus bill, but has not told employers exactly how to make it work.
As a result, tens of thousands of jobless people could wait months before getting help paying for health insurance that their employers previously had covered.
"Too many people are still trying to figure this out," said Heath Weems, director of human resources policy at the National Association of Manufacturers. "There is a lot of confusion."
At issue is the program called COBRA, the acronym for the law that allows workers to keep their company's health insurance plan for 18 months after they leave their job, if they pay the premiums.
The policies are so expensive that only a minority of eligible workers sign up, often those with medical conditions that demand attention. Costs for a family of four can top $1,000 per month.
A $25 billion provision in the stimulus bill aimed to cut COBRA's price tag, reducing its cost by 65 percent for workers laid off as far back as Sept. 1.
The bill gives eligible workers 60 days to apply. Then they get the reduced-cost premium for nine months.
But it's not going to happen right away.
Employers are waiting for instructions from the Labor Department and the Internal Revenue Service on how to put the program into place. Both agencies posted some information online Thursday.
Until employers get the guidance they need and notify potentially eligible ex-employees, most workers will not apply for the new benefit. Many probably will not know it exists.
Left waiting are people such as Cassandra J. Kelsey, 55. The District of Columbia resident lost her job with Verizon in January. She says she can barely pay her rent and is eating less to save money to cover the $550 a month premium to keep her health coverage under COBRA.
Kelsey walks with a cane and lists a litany of ailments, including degenerative arthritis and hypertension. For her, going without health insurance is unthinkable.
Outside a D.C. career center on a recent morning, Kelsey clutched copies of her COBRA invoice, clippings from a local newspaper about the stimulus bill and a form letter she received from the White House after writing to Obama about her troubles.
Kelsey knew about the reduced premium and said it would bring her COBRA costs below $200 a month. But when she called her benefits department, she was distressed to learn that she would not be able to get the reduced cost immediately, probably not until May.
"I can't take advantage of it now which I think is totally unfair," Kelsey said. "I don't know how I'm going to make it."
The stimulus bill contemplated that workers might not get the reduced premium immediately, and contains a provision that would allow them to be reimbursed later on.
That would be little help to Kelsey and others who need the benefit now.
An IRS spokesman said the agency is moving as fast as it can. A Labor Department spokeswoman responded to questions with an e-mail linking to a short agency fact sheet.
One question that employers are struggling with is how to go back and find employees who were laid off as far back as September.
Also, the legislation says only workers who were "involuntarily terminated" are eligible, but never defines that term. Does it include only people who are laid off? Or those who take buyouts offered by their employers?
No one knows how many people will actually seek a share of the stimulus money to pay their COBRA premiums. Congressional experts estimated 7 million, but that may be too high.
Advocates fear that even cut-rate COBRA could prove too little, too late for some jobless Americans.
"For many people it will remain unaffordable," said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA.
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