Republican Health Care

A Plan To D.I.E. For

Republicans have criticized the Obama administration’s effort to reform health care as expensive increases to spending already out of control.

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said on the GOP web site that “The Democrats’ government-run plan won’t reduce health care costs, it won’t allow Americans to keep their insurance or doctors, and it won’t promote competition.”

Democrats reply that the Republicans offer no plan, quoting the late Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley’s one-size fits all policy critique “What trees do they plant?”

From a registered Republican, here is a proposal that would reduce health care costs, offer a stimulus to the economy and give room for private initiative to bloom. In legislative form it would be called the Death Incentive Enablement Act of 2009.

Recognizing that end-of-life and serious illness care is a very significant part of overall health spending by both government and private insurers, the D.I.E. act offers the tried-and-true American idea of incentive payments.

Incentives clearly worked for Goldman-Sachs and AIG. Why not healthcare? Here’s how:

Suppose you are diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. Today, you can light one up and contemplate a future that will see you and Medicare spend around $160,000 for the last six months of your life. You’ll check out in pain and leave your family in debt.

Under the D.I.E. plan, it could be different. It could be ennobling, quick, and besides, everyone involved would make a buck.

If you got a terminal lung cancer diagnosis, the D.I.E. plan would present you with options since you have six months to live at a cost of more than $26,000 a month. This plan in the Republican free-enterprise tradition would split the savings with your heirs if you check out early – half-and-half, fair and square.

So if you got your diagnosis on Monday and died on Tuesday, the government would pay your estate $80,000 and the taxpayers and private insurance companies would mournfully pocket the other $80,000 they might otherwise have spent. Republican thinking at its finest – everyone who continues to count wins.

Now the D.I.E. act would recognize that not everyone is decisive enough to die the day after a terminal diagnosis, so there would be a sliding scale of payment. The longer your goodbye, the smaller the take for your heirs and the smaller the savings for the government.

Under the D.I.E. act, Republican-run health care would appeal to your sense of family and patriotism, but since Republicans champion the individual, if you choose to be a sniveling burden to family and society, Republicans will support that sorry right of selfishness. Just look to their record on abortion rights to see their support of individual choice.

Even with the best of initial wording, the administrative details of the D.I.E. act would require additional legislation. There is, for example, the actual check-out mechanism once an individual has made the appropriate choice.

Details need to be addressed, but a plan based on Republican abhorrence to government doing what private citizens should do could be worked out with the National Rifle Association, a firm supporter of individualism and Second Amendment rights. In exchange for a federal, national law permitting concealed weapons, for example, NRA members could serve as Private D.I.E. specialists, providing end-of-life services on a individual basis. That would expand the economy by creating new private-sector jobs and prove once again the tremendous power of free enterprise and an armed society.

Besides making a solid contribution in controlling health care costs, the D.I.E act would have a positive impact on the coming Social Security shortfall and employment, reducing a potential retirement burden and creating job openings at the same time.

While Democrats blather about universal health care supported by taxing the rich, remember this solid Republican alternative and make your voice heard. Shout above the roar of the crowd “Republicans have a health-care plan to die for!”

Then please remember that a good Republican leads by example.

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Weekend Tids and Bits

PRAISE THE LORD AND PASS THE AMMUNITION – seems to be a good opening number for a service at the New Bethel Church in Louisville, KY. The pastor, Ken Pagano, is inviting his parishioners to bring their guns to church, according to a New York Times story you can read at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/26/us/26guns.html?hp. If you bring your weapon openly to church, make sure it’s unloaded, because deputies will be checking, the story says. If it’s concealed, no problem.

In most states, it’s legal to openly carry a gun – you get in trouble when the weapon is concealed. The nuances vary by state and if you’re thinking of strapping on a holster, visit http://opencarry.org first.

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SOME GUYS GET ALL THE BREAKS – If an elected official has a chance to pick the day for going public with an adulterous affair, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford’s luck sets an example. Sanford’s love life had roughly 24 hours in the main media spotlight and was already being edged by Farah Fawcett’s death when Michael Jackson’s demise moved Sanford’s trouble to the “In other news…” sections.

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LAST WEEK WE DISCUSSED. . .

Elephants aren’t particularly afraid of mice, but the Republican Party has gone so conservative that someone yelling “Change!” at a GOP event will start the Pachyderm Party thundering and trumpeting towards the doors at http://larryblaskosaid.blogspot.com/2009/06/elephants-and-mice-republicans-and.html

Something is happening in Iran, but exactly what is information hard to come by. Harder still is information about why we should care much one way or the other at http://larryblaskosaid.blogspot.com/2009/06/iran-turmoil-yeah.html

We need to do something about the environment, if only to shut up the environmentalists whose concern is so all encompassing, they were worried about cow burps at http://larryblaskosaid.blogspot.com/2009/06/radical-reformers-target-cow-burps.html. No confirmation yet on the rumor that some environmentalists have developed such a concern about discharging bodily waste that they hold it as long as possible. Confirmation, of course, would confirm that they are indeed full of it.

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford gave in to temptation, but so did the media outfits who quoted extensively from e-mails between the lovers at http://larryblaskosaid.blogspot.com/2009/06/giving-in-to-temptation-south-carolina.html

Michael Jackson’s death sparked a media frenzy of major size and minor importance at http://larryblaskosaid.blogspot.com/2009/06/michael-jackson-and-things-of.html

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Elephants and Mice,

Republicans and Change

Elephants aren’t afraid of mice – it’s a myth.

But Republicans are afraid of change – it’s a fact.

That’s the only explanation for the strident and premature Republican attacks on health care reform triggered by a Congressional Budget Office reaction to a draft not yet completely written.

The CBO said the plan it saw would cost $1 trillion over ten years and still leave about two-thirds of those without medical coverage on their own. That set the Republicans into a group moon-howl, with South Carolina’s Sen. Lindsey Graham widely quoted as saying the CBO figures were a “death blow to a government-run health care plan."

Republicans are clearly opposed to government-run anything, unless it’s something essential like torturing suspects, or spending $680 billion and more than 4,300 American lives to swap one group of corrupt Iraqi thugs for another.

Of course, we do have a government-run health plan already. It’s called Medicare, and it’s tax-supported help for those 65 and over. Medicare has been successful in keeping most retirees from having to choose between health care and bankruptcy. President Lyndon Johnson signed it into law in 1965.

Where were the Republicans on Medicare in the years prior to 1965?

Republicans were opposed, of course. It was change, and they had barely recovered from the change trauma of Social Security, which they had also opposed. Besides, Medicare would cover all alike, rich and poor, and that made it socialized medicine.

Even hinting at socialized medicine guaranteed opposition from the American Medical Association, then as now a group concerned mostly with those medical standards relating to forms of payment. But the AMA had the Republican party by the ears (or perhaps other body parts).

And private health insurance companies had little interest in upsetting a business plan that allowed them to collect premiums from the healthy until they became old and ill, at which point premiums would rise beyond reach or policies would not be renewed. They helped tighten the AMA’s grip.

All the Democrats gripped was Congress, with the 1964 elections giving them a 68-32 majority in the Senate and a 295-140 majority in the House.

And so Medicare became law on a House vote of 307-116 and a Senate tally of 70-17. Half of the House Republicans saw the light – or more probably, the next election in two years – and voted for the bill More than half of Republicans in the Senate opposed Medicare, six-year terms making votes in line with purchased principles easier.

The health care politics now are pretty much as they were in the early sixties. Republicans are opposed, screaming in horror at the costs, socialized medicine and all the other monsters living under their beds. The AMA remains concerned about the doctor/patient relation$hip, and the private insurers don’t want to compete with a government plan that might give the customers an even break.

I’ll predict a health reform victory before the end of the year, but offer this bit of comfort to the Republicans mortally afraid of change. Republicans opposed Social Security and got creamed in 1936. They opposed the reform that became Medicare and got creamed in 1964. And if they continue to oppose health care reform mindlessly, they’ll get creamed in 2010.

Which should make them feel good, because there’s no change involved.

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Recession Must Be Ending—

Springtime for But-Birds

One of the surest signs that the Great Recession might be ending is the resurgence of the But-Birds.

And no, while there are great similarities, not the ones who would need to spell it with an extra letter T.

Like the feathered dudes who chirp the coming Spring, these birds all have their distinctive calls:

n “I’m not against health care for everyone, but I’m against socialized medicine.

n “Sure, the wealthy ought to pay a bigger share of taxes, but you can hardly call my income bracket wealthy.”

n “Of course I believe in equal opportunity, but I’m against reverse discrimination.

n “You can speak any language you want, but English ought to be the official language of government.

And just as the guys with feathers either migrate in the winter or keep under cover, But-Birds wait until the recession starts to thaw before they emerge. The last group, the But-Birds who want all governing done only in English are a related species to the ones who “supports immigration, but not illegal immigration.” You can usually find them together, and their call is starting to be heard again. Still, one But-Bird at a time. . .

Last month, Senator James M. Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, introduced English-only legislation, saying according to his web site:

“Our nation was settled by a group of people with a common vision, and as our population has grown, so has our cultural diversity. . .This diversity is part of what makes our nation great. However, we must be able to communicate with one another so that we can appreciate our differences. By establishing that there is no entitlement to receive documents or services in languages other than English, we set the precedent that English is common to us all in the public forum of government.”

The effort is called the National Language Act of 2009. If you look at the statement above and realize that “however” is the way someone speaking their Sunday-Go-To-Meeting Language says “but,” you’ll see the But-Bird’s native behavior in its habitat.

Which is to say the behavior that preys on the anti-immigrant, mostly anti-Hispanic fears of a But-Bird’s constituency. This is the 111^th Congress, meaning our democracy has survived 110 previous ones, and Senator Inhofe’s web site explains he was up to similar stuff in Nos. 109 and 110.

English-only proponents, as Senator Inhofe says in that statement, seek to improve communication by denying a large group of folk the easiest way to communicate. And they ignore that the “common vision” that brought almost all groups to the United States was to get far away from societies hell-bent on enforcing a common vision. You know – one monarch, one faith, one tongue, one culture; Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuhrer; Workers of All Countries Unite; Serve The People. And all the others too tiresome to repeat or live under.

They also ignore that the children of Spanish-speaking immigrants inevitably learn English and that their children will usually speak only English – as did the Polish. Italian, Greek, Russian. Ukrainian, German, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese and many others before them. And they ignore that making it easier for the largest immigrant group to put down roots in our society by offering them help in their own language at key points actually speeds the assimilation process.

Still, the ritual tweets of the But-Birds, even this one, mean that a pre-dawn is breaking the recession darkness.

We just have to be careful of the gifts these birds have a habit of dropping on the rest of us.

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Core Republican Peasants

 

Sociologists who worried that the United States would never establish a permanent peasant class should look in gratitude to Core Republicans – they’re volunteering.

 

Most folk think being a peasant means wearing a special costume and following ancient life customs. Just look at a gathering of Core Republicans.

 

Suit and tie or jeans and workshirt are the two main male costume groups, and it doesn’t matter which group you’re in as much as it matters that everyone in your group dresses exactly like you do. No exceptions allowed.

 

Core Republican women have a broader (wink! nudge! get it?) choice of costume  but within that spectrum the rule is as ironclad as among the men. No exceptions allowed.

 

Core Republicans balance that wild diversity of dress with an even stricter set of life customs. In common with peasants throughout history, the focus of  customs is to guard against Change.

 

“My father did it this way and his father and his father before him, and I will do the same,” is a mantra that can be applied equally to sowing the fields with manure and reaping the crop at the polls. Just look at the Core Republican harvest in 2006 and 2008. Look for them to do it again in 2010 and 2012, since consistency is to be cherished, whether or not it works.

 

For Core Republicans, the past is never prologue – the past is always present, and it’s that suspicious-looking Future you’ve got to guard against, lest Change get the upper hand.

 

Under stress from the constant attacks of Change, Core Republicans like to chant their traditional mantra:

 

Marriage is between a man and a woman, and it always will be.

 

The invisible hand of the market is what protects us, and it always will be.

 

A traditional family is the only way to raise children, and it always will be.

 

Equal opportunity is just reverse discrimination, and it always will be.

 

Unregulated capitalism is the best economic model, and it always will be.

 

The stimulus package is wrong, and it always will be.

 

Universal, government-backed health care is wrong, and it always will be.

 

Multi-nation diplomacy instead of unilateral aggression is wrong, and it always will be.

 

The mantra goes on forever, but each verse always ends the same way.  For Core Republicans, that’s the core value: Always The Same.

 

That the rest of us in large numbers ignore the mantra only validates it. Just ask the most prominent Core Republicans, including Rush Limbaugh, whose website offers this pearl:” "When you interact with average, ordinary, everyday liberals or Democrats, it's hard not to think, 'My God, the country is finished.'"

 

Apparently taking that to heart, Core Republicans avoid interacting with ordinary, everyday liberals or Democrats, especially when it comes to building workable majorities in Congress. Of course, when you interact, you sometimes have to compromise.

 

And we know what Core Republicans think about compromise, so let’s say it together: “Compromise is bad, and it always will be.

 

So Core Republicans are clearly enthusiastic about becoming the permanent American peasant class.

 

Now if we could only teach them quaint folk dances. . .

 

 

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