Category: Political

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Political

The surest indicator

he surest indicator of how things have changed since the election is that Bush came to Missouri today, but the lead story in St. Louis Today (The St. Louis Post-Dispatch online site) ended up being about the winning Powerball ticket being sold in Missouri.

Bush’s visit was relegated to the back pages; along with an interview with the brother of the man who was arrested for kidnapping the two kids who have been in the news too much; a corpse discovered in the ditch in Centerville; a delay in the Highway 40 construction project; and a pit bull mauling in the bootheel.

Personally, I was interested in the Highway 40 construction project delays.

According to the story:

Bush met at St. Luke’s Health System’s Lee’s Summit hospital with a group of small business owners and employees to discuss how his plan would effect them.

Dan Jones, an engineer for a St. Louis-based computer company, said he’s uninsured because he couldn’t afford the premiums, which he said increased to $400 a month.

“That $4,800 (a year’s worth of premiums) is a lot of money,” he said. “That’s money that could go toward a car or a house.”

Bush said the plan would save Jones more than the cost for an insurance plan.

“Here’s a classic case, a young guy in the market place priced out of the individual market,” he said. “The plan helps him.”

Is there a new math involved here? Can someone explain to me how a tax deduction on the first $7500.00 of a single person’s income tax would save more than $4,800.00 a year?

Categories
Healthcare Political

Benefiting the insurance companies, not the people

Bush is making a visit to Missouri on Thursday to push his health care plan. How appropriate, considering that our Republican governor has cut the number of children and other people covered under Medicaid and Medicare. Over 100,000 400,000 were dropped, and I’ll tell you one thing: they won’t be covered under Bush’s plan, either.

Here’s the deal: I as a single person would not be taxed on my first $7500.00 in income, in order to pay for health insurance. What does health insurance run? About $200-400.00 a month for a single person without pre-existing condition. Monstrously more if there is an existing condition–if you can even get coverage.

Now, if I make let’s say 25,000 a year–that’s a tax savings of about $750.00 or so. This will buy me, on average, 2-3 months of so-so coverage under most of the HMOs in this state. All at the cost of those lucky people who have decent health care coverage for their families having to pay more in taxes, just so that I get enough tax saving to not have enough money to pay for my own health care coverage.

Now, if it were enough to actually allow most working people without insurance to get such, they’ll be joining these HMOs and other medical plans, adding to the profits these companies make. However, the quality of care will continue to degrade, as more and more of these organizations are denying even basic care in an attempt to further increase profits.

The health organizations will like it because they don’t have to cover quite as many ‘bums’ and ‘deadbeats’ and, you know, the people who most of the Republicans would prefer to just die, and eliminate the problem.

It is universal health care or nothing. No more Bushian ‘drug plans’ that helped few. No more compromises, and absolving this country of its social duties in ensuring that everyone has basic health care. No more embarrassing ourselves in the eyes of the rest of the world, as the people who put up with this shit from our politicians, and who don’t have the brains to demand better.

The cost to pay for all this really isn’t the problem. What is, is the health care organizations that are overcharging for services that are being underutilized because someone somewhere wants to make a buck off the backs of Americans. There is a Health Machine that doesn’t want universal health care. It’s not because people are worried about you and me, or jobs, or because of increased taxes, and it’s not because of what the country can and cannot afford. It all comes down to profits and quarterly reports and executive bonuses.

The Health Machine: that’s who Bush’s plan is for and to be frank, he’s not welcome in this state. Let him takes his sorry ass elsewhere.

Categories
Political

Just the headlines

Only getting titles in an RSS feed can lead to moments of confusion and disappointment. I read the following headline in today’s St. Louis Today feed:

Former President Bush gets hip replacement.

My immediate thought was: you mean he quit? Then I remembered, oh, his Dad.

I tell you, it was a crushing disappointment.

Categories
Diversity Political

Great Day

I would be remiss to not point out that today was the day our country finally wised up and put a woman in as Speaker of the House. That is two steps away from the Presidency. Now if only we could get Cheney to take Bush hunting.

I liked much of the 100 hour plan, for its energy if nothing else. I would have liked to see more on Iraq, and more pushback against the Patriot Act and Homeland security, as well as more on the environment. Still, it’s the most optimistic I’ve felt about the Congress in a long time.

I guess Ed will need the night time Tylenol tonight.

Categories
Political

A candidate I do support

After reviewing his various legal actions on behalf of the people of the state, and comparing same with his competitor, one candidate I am behind is Jay Nixon for governor of Missouri.

Black River News writes on an ad paid for by Ed Stewart in the local Ironton newspaper:

These same groups [ed. Sierra Club, Audubon Society, and the Missouri Coalition for the Environment], working with Jay Nixon, want to see this area turned into a huge wilderness resort. These same groups would like to see schools and towns disappear from the map. They would like to see farms and homes disappear off the map. For at least a couple of decades these same groups working with Jay Nixon have kept any new mines from appearing on the map in Southeast Missouri.

Can I vote for Jay twice?

Contrary to myth, environmentalists support smaller communities; in fact, the more active of the environmentalists live primarily in smaller communities. We work to ensure that community natural resources aren’t raped by big interests; work to develop a thriving visitor and tourism economy, support cottage industries and small businesses, as well as helping to find ways to utilize the resources responsibly.

I grew up in a lumber community where scraps from the timber processing were burned without filter, making the sky almost unbreathable in the summer. I watched as automation eliminated 98% of the jobs, while leaving behind the ragged remnants of a broken community; the company providing token funding so that the schools were barely kept in subsistence (thus ensuring that the people didn’t fight back no matter how abusive the timber interests were).

Rather than wanting to see schools close down, environmentalists want to see that the community’s schools are adequately funded. We want all schools in the state to be adequately funded, if for no other reason than most educated people see the wisdom of taking care of the environment.

As for small farms, there’s not an environmentalist around who won’t help small farmers learn all the many techniques they can use to grow their crops, raise their livestock, and not pollute streams; or their own kids, when it comes to that. It’s the big corporate farms that don’t care about the land.

Environmentalists work to see that every community thrives because the land, air, and water are clean, and the wildlife abundant and healthy–not to mention the trees not all cut down, the land not paved over and sick or dying from exploitation. Environmentalists believe, more than anything, in quality of life, and we live up to that belief: not just mouth words about ‘family values’, while working to ensure that the next generation inherits only despair.

Big business, on the other hand, well what does it do for communities? I’ll tell you one thing: it decides in the economic interests of the company, not to mention the next quarter’s stockholder reports, not to do the work necessary to maintain a dam so that a billion gallons of water doesn’t come rushing down a hill–almost destroying one of this state’s greatest natural treasures. Knock on wood, no one was killed, eh?

You know why I stay in Missouri? To make sure people like Ed never get a good night’s sleep again.