Breaking Down Obamacare, Or: Everything You Wanted to Know About the ACA but the Inept News Media was too Incompetent to Tell You

As per usual, partisan differences leave citizens caught in the middle.

Last week, the House passed a bill to repeal Obamacare. The Congressional Budget Office was unable to evaluate the bill so it is unclear how many people will be negatively impacted if the bill in its current form passes the Senate and is signed into law.

Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Protection_and_Affordable_Care_Act#

While Obamacare has problems. repealing it, absent any comparable replacement, would be a disaster. This is because Obamacare remedies some major flaws in the health care system. And although our health care crisis did not cause the economic collapse of 2008, it has been a major factor in recovering from what was the deepest recession since the Great Depression. Continue reading for the full breakdown...

I. Funding

Tax Increase On the Wealthy

In my opinion, the biggest flaw of Obamacare is that the subsidies that allow poor and middle class Americans to afford health insurance is partly funded by taxes paid by wealthy people (through taxes on Cadillac health care plans, which is currently delayed, and other taxes as well as cost savings). This means that the law will always be a target for repeal because wealthy people, like the rest of us, generally want their taxes to be as low as possible. [A brief history: the wealthy people of today succeeded in part due to the opportunities afforded our generations by the generations of wealthy
people before us. We all for the most part succeeded because of their generosity, vision and patriotism. We were able to build a country that had the best school system in the world. We had the best infrastructure in the world. Healthcare, manufacturing, agriculture; we were Number One at just about everything. But the wealthy people of today don't want to pay the kinds of taxes that can sustain what we once had and what we once were. Their taxes have been radically reduced over the past few decades, leaving the middle class with the burden of making up the gap while losing services due to lack of funding.]

The political influence of today's wealthy people in our politics is so substantial that Republican politicians have spent over $50 million of our tax dollars holding votes on bills to repeal the ACA. The repeal bills never had any hope of being signed into law, so you and I and everyone we know paid $50 million for Republican politicians to declare to their wealthy campaign donors that they were strongly against Obamacare. It was simply a way of ensuring that they would be showered with campaign cash in upcoming elections. When it comes to health care, Republicans have refused to lead, follow or even get out of the way.

II. Performance

State-by-State Variances
Obamacare's performance differed widely by state. States like Kentucky and California that embraced the law, expanded Medicare and set up state-wide insurance exchanges saw a large decrease in the rates of uninsured citizens and a reduction in the rate of rise of insurance premiums. Other states have experienced less success. Nationwide, Obamacare helped to slow the rate of increase to insurance premiums. People who got their health insurance from their employers, rather than through Obamacare, seemed to enjoy a slight reduction in actual health care costs.

Source: http://www.consumerreports.org/personal-bankruptcy/
how-the-aca-drove-down-personal-bankruptcy/

Personal Bankruptcies
One of Obamacare's largest positive impacts was effectuating an astonishing 50 percent decrease in personal bankruptcies. While Obamacare is not likely to be the only reason for the reduction in bankruptcies, experts believe that it is likely to have been the largest driver of that trend. When people got access to affordable health care, they were able to get needed medical treatment and pay their other essential bills. Unfortunately, I don't know how to evaluate the broader economic impact of preventing nearly 800,000 bankruptcies in the country but it would almost certainly mean a reduction in dependency on government services like food stamps and welfare. It would also mean avoiding a negative impact on productivity and our GDP. It certainly seems like fewer bankruptcies would mean a stronger economy overall.

III. Republican Attacks

Repeal Votes
While Republicans have attempted to say that Obamacare is collapsing under its own weight, the truth is that they have made every imaginable attempt to undermine the law. Had Republicans not wasted $50 million voting on bills that aimed to repeal it, that money could have been used to help solve deficiencies with the law or to fund more subsidies for those who cannot afford their insurance premiums.

Advising to Pay Penalties
When the law first passed, Republican politicians and pundits recommended that their constituents and followers pay the fine and get nothing rather than buy insurance through the ACA and actually have health insurance. This was not because they thought it would be the better choice for the individual. It instead was another tactic to undermine the law. They knew that the more people that signed up, the more likely it would succeed. There is something very disgusting about wealthy people who have great health care trying to achieve their political ends by telling people to forego health care coverage.

De-funded Risk Corridors

The fatal blow to Obamacare may have been delivered by Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), when he snuck an amendment into an unrelated bill that de-funded the risk corridors. There is some debate about this issue so I will break it down as I understand it: the risk corridors were set up to make sure that insurance companies didn't lose money by offering coverage to poor and sick people. In the past, those people simply would not be able to secure insurance coverage for themselves so the risk corridors were a way of bringing insurance companies into the program and to allow the poorest and sickest among us to finally get health care.

Democrats said that the risk corridors were going to be self-funded. Meaning that if Highmark made $5 million of net profit in the exchange selling policies to people in California and Humana lost $1 million selling policies to people in New Jersey, Highmark would share some of their profits with Humana so that Humana would not lose money by participating in the exchange. The amendment required that the risk corridors be self-funded, as the Democrats said they would be. This means that the government could not step in with money from other programs to pay the insurance companies if there was not enough money in the risk corridors to compensate all of the losses. In the first few years of the law's existence, it is extremely difficult for insurance companies to know how much to charge customers for premiums because there was no way of knowing how many sick people and how many healthier people would be signing up. Requiring that the risk corridors be self-funded meant that if the insurance companies were incorrect about their cost estimates, they would lose money in the exchange and they may not get compensated. [FYI: all of these insurance companies are incredibly profitable overall, but the challenge of figuring out how to make a profit by offering insurance to poor people is obviously difficult.]

Ramming it Down
Republicans said that Democrats had rammed the ACA down American's throats. This was a way of reinforcing a negative opinion of the law with citizens but it was never really true. Democrats held over 30 bipartisan hearings and allowed dozens of amendments to the law, in a process that took fourteen months. In the end, it passed with no Republican votes but the Republicans' fingerprints were all over it. Democrats started with the compromise position of using two conservative principles as the foundation of the law: the individual mandate and the private insurance exchange. Republicans railed against the individual mandate, even though it was their own invention. [Once, while reading Vultures Picnic by Greg Palast, I encountered a passage that said that the Koch brothers came up with cap-and-trade as a way of using free market constructs to get corporations to pay for the environmental damage that their businesses cause. I had to set the book down to contemplate why the Kochs would propose this solution, then fight it so vociferously years later. It suddenly occurred to me that it was a stall tactic. A successful one. Democrats worked to figure out ways to implement this system and how to make it work and when they are finally ready to pass legislation, the conservatives reverse their position, proclaiming that such a law would be un-American and would destroy the economy. Republicans have successfully stalled any further regulation of pollution for more than fifteen years. The same stall tactic seems to have been used to oppose the ACA.]

IV. Democratic Failures and Incompetence

Bad Optics

Who was health care reform intended to help?

Many of Obamacare's problems are undoubtedly the result of corruption and incompetence of Democrats and of Obama. The health insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies and hospital associations were invited to have input on the drafting of the bill which smacked of corruption and therefore tainted people's opinion of the law.

Poor Messaging
Democrats did a poor job of selling Obamacare to the nation. They allowed Republicans to get out in front of them and brand the legislation and set the framing for it. Republicans called it a government takeover of health care which isn't really true. They system never departed from the concept of citizens paying private insurance companies to manage health care provided by private health care providers. Government involvement only comes into play when a person cannot afford to pay their private health insurance premiums. The government gives subsidies in such cases. While some people embraced Obamacare, many opposed it, either because they didn't want government involvement in health care or because they felt that the law should have done more to provide health care to people and to cover more people.

The Invisible Three-Pronged Approach

In the book Confidence Men, Ron Suskind wrote that Obamacare was a way of tackling three major problems with a single action. We would put some of the eight million people that had lost their jobs in the economic collapse back to work in the health care delivery industry and create new demand therein by providing access to health care for many of the 50 million people who were without it. At the same time we could reform the health care system so that it was more efficient, more accountable to patients and would not leave people without access to needed services. It was a way of killing three birds with a single stone but Democrats are too incompetent to convey that message. Instead, they were always on the defense as they tried to shoot down ludicrous notions such as the law having "death panels". The soundness of the three-pronged strategy may have been convincing for many voters but they were unlikely to know anything about it if they didn't read Suskind's book. In the hundreds of articles about Obamacare that I've read over the years and in the many interviews with politicians I've seen, only in Confidence Men did I learn anything about this three-pronged approach.

Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Protection_and_Affordable_Care_Act#

Job Creation
So how well did the job creation aspect of Obamacare work? In an analysis, it was determined that more than one million of the new jobs created after passing of the law were in the health care industry. And Obamacare created compliance and advisory jobs in other industries as well. It would have been very difficult to reduce the unemployment rate by 5.6 points without some very large initiative such as health care reform. I certainly never heard any other plan from a politician that could have come close to being the jobs engine that Obamacare became. (The one other plan was Obama's Green Energy initiative but that was stalled in Congress. Trump's infrastructure plan may also result in a substantial employment increase but there has been little action on it and few details about the plan.)

Disastrous Rollout
The rollout of Obamacare was a disaster due to the web site for patients to sign up constantly crashing and being unable to handle the traffic. Many people tried for hours and could not complete their registrations. This was an unexpected and embarrassing failure because Obama got elected in large part to his campaign's embrace of technology and use of social media. Technology was skillfully wielded to get an advantage during the campaign but when it came to actually doing the people's business, the administration seemed incompetent.

Keeping Your Doctor and Insurance Plan

As we watched the debate over health care unfold, Obama did something unexpected and befuddling. With constituents across the country angry over the health care bill and misinformed by Republican lies about death panels and that undocumented residents would be able to access benefits from the program, Obama emerged to reassure everyone that if they liked their health care plan, they could keep it. And if they liked their doctor, they could keep their doctor. The statement was a bit like promising someone that you will never die. A grandfather clause in the law stipulates that people can keep their health care plan if they want to (even if it doesn't comply with the basic requirements of coverage in Obamacare). But there is nothing in the law that requires an insurance company to continue to offer a plan that a customer wants to keep. Nor is there anything in the law that prevents doctors from leaving an insurance network, retiring or dying.

My guess is that Obama wanted to convey the true fact that there is nothing in Obamacare that takes away anybody's insurance plan or prevents them from seeing the doctor they like. I also believe that Obama was intentionally misleading with his statements and that he understood that people would believe that they could not lose their doctor or insurance plan under any circumstances. I think that Obama sunk to this low and ill-advised position because he was exasperated by all of the lies that were being told by Republican politicians and conservative pundits about the law.

Obamacare gave small business employers the ability to get out of the practice of providing health care for their employees. Many small businesses relieved themselves of the burden but the change up in payers meant that many of these people would lose the coverage they had and would be forced into another plan. Their preferred doctor may not be in the network of the new insurance company so many lost access to their preferred doctor as well.

The Individual Mandate
The individual mandate is undoubtedly the most despised part of the Affordable Care Act. It requires that all citizens have health care coverage or pay a penalty. The penalties started at just $90 but increased over time. It is a slap in the face to every person who cannot afford health care coverage. Thousands of people ended up having to pay fines of a few hundred dollars simply because there were no affordable health care insurance options available for them. Especially in states where the Affordable Care Act was not supported by politicians, few insurance providers bought in to the program and therefore there were few options and little competition for health care plans.

V. My Personal Experiences

Doctors and Insurance Companies Denying Coverage
I supported Obamacare because when I was 22 years old, I was denied an MRI exam by my HMO doctors because they knew that they could get bonuses and other financial incentives to deny me care and save the insurance company money. This is an absurd situation that no American should be subjected to but there were millions of us that were. Many of them died from their inability to get the health care benefits covered by the insurance plans that they paid for.

If Republicans had come up with legislation that prevented this from happening to more people, I would have supported that legislation. But Republicans did not care about the millions of patients harmed by the practice. Insurance companies are the constituents of the Republican Party and they weren't complaining about the situation so Republicans had no interest in addressing the problem.

When Republicans had the opportunity to "repeal and replace" Obamacare--as they campaigned on doing in the 2016 election--they had nothing with which to replace Obamacare. After seven years of attacking and trying to destroy the law, they had not taken a single step to draft legislation to address any of the serious health care failures that Obamacare corrects.

~R. Charan Pagan
information systems technologist, musician, writer, filmmaker
Los Angeles, CA 90017
http://www.reclaimingourbirthright.blogspot.com/

The Danger of Drumpf

On Monday, December 19, the Electoral College will convene to vote for our next president. Although it would be a dramatic, unprecedented and frightening action, I support the Electoral College selecting someone other than Trump as president.

I believe that the United States is strong enough to survive a Trump presidency. I also do not have fears that the US will turn into Nazi Germany under a Trump administration. But there are several rational reasons why Trump will likely cause severe damage to the US and to the world:

1. The Iran Nuclear Deal. Trump has stated that he would tear up the Iran deal if elected president. Without the deal, there is nothing to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, short of the US attacking them militarily. Trump said that he would re-impose sanctions on Iran but sanctions did not prevent Iran from moving their nuclear program forward in the past. Iran was simply willing to give up the program in order to end the sanctions. Sanctions, like war, would mostly affect the citizens of Iran--many of whom are kind, peace-loving people who have no ill will toward the United States. Many Iranians know more about our country and our politics than our own citizens do. Those people will suffer most under sanctions or in war with the leadership of the Iranian government hardly be affected. I think that it would be naive to think that there are not people in our government that want to go to war with Iran. It would mean billions more for war profiteers.
2. The environment. Trump has expressed support for the Keystone XL pipeline and he is
   personally invested in the project, as well as the Dakota Access Pipeline. Both of these

   

   Oil Pipeline Spill in the Town of Mayflower, AR

   pipelines threaten the drinking water for millions of people, at a time when there are already millions of people who do not have access to clean drinking water. There is lead contamination in the water in Flint, MI; coal ash contaminates the drinking water for residents in states surrounding the Appalachian Mountains; coal cleaning chemicals have contaminated drinking water in South Carolina and Kentucky; and other oil pipelines have contaminated drinking water all over the country where, "since 1986 pipeline accidents have killed more than 500 people, injured over 4,000 and cost nearly seven billion dollars in property damages." Does Trump not understand that such catastrophes really hit working people hard when they have to buy bottled water for all of their needs? Perhaps he simply does not care.
3. Homeland Security. For all of Trump's tough talk about defeating ISIS and Islamic extremism around the world, he has not been attending daily briefings by intelligence advisers. Trump famously said that he knew more about ISIS than the generals. He may actually believe that and many of his supporters may also believe it. I am skeptical. With Trump having no diplomatic experience and no foreign policy experience, there has probably never been a president-elect that needs daily intelligence briefings more.
4. The Vultures. Paul "the Vulture" Singer made his first killing when he bought Owens-Corning.

   

   Asbestosis, anyone?
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestosis

   The company was going down due to lawsuits filed against it from hundreds of thousands of people whom it had made sick with asbestosis. Singer was able to buy the company cheap. Then he slowed down the legal cases so that the victims would accept a paltry settlement or die with no compensation at all. Paul Singer made millions off the deaths of those people, then turned his sights to foreign countries. He began buying up the debt of impoverished countries. Tens of billions of dollars of debt had been forgiven to allow the countries to provide drinking water and medicine to their citizens. But now Singer is demanding full payment. Paul Singer's greed for billions is going to kill millions of people all over the world. President Obama and the US State Department had blocked Singer's actions with a court injunction. It is unlikely that Trump would try to block Singer or any of the other vultures from feeding off the corpses of poor countries. After all, Trump made his first killing by hiring illegal Polish construction workers to demolish his building, before building Trump Tower. The workers were not given safety equipment and likely also died of asbestosis.

I could go on and on about Trump but I think those few bullet points are quite enough to consider an Electoral College intervention as a possible remedy. I would love to have a wild, non-politician, unorthodox president to blow the whole political system up. I would just want that person to be rational, intelligent and competent with a good sense of fairness. I don't see any of that in Trump.

If you agree, contact the electors before December 19th and let them know your thoughts.

~R. Charan Pagan
information systems technologist, musician, writer, filmmaker
Los Angeles, CA 90017
http://www.reclaimingourbirthright.blogspot.com/

My Pussy or My Democracy

Trump, the Republicans' Trojan Horse

I don't have a pussy but, if I did have one, I think I would prefer someone grabbing it without my permission than to have someone actively working to undermine our democracy. I think that is a big part of what we saw with the Trump victory this week, when white women and even some minorities voted for Donald Trump in surprisingly large numbers. I cannot vote for someone that is actively working to undermine democracy. That was the main reason that I could not vote for Hillary Clinton.

As Americans, we hold democracy sacred. And while it is always tampered with and manipulated in every election, I believe that the revelations of the Clinton campaign's meddling in the elections and conspiring with the news media to elevate Trump and other "extremists" during the Republican Party primaries cemented the public's view of Hillary as being untrustworthy. But not just untrustworthy. She was caught attempting to undermine democracy with this and numerous other tactics. To every American, that should be sacrilege.

The media was largely asleep on the job when it came to the Trump campaign conspiring with the FBI to harm Clinton's campaign. But Trump being an "outsider" to politics would likely have gotten a pass on that, even if it were widely reported. There is something especially distasteful about a politician being placed in a position of power and then violating that sacred trust.

So we slayed the three-headed dragon that is neo-Liberalism, media collusion with political operatives and the Clinton cabal. And in doing so, we've unleashed a six-headed dragon upon the world. With no record of accomplishment or any indication of competence, Trump is a Trojan horse for the Republican Party. Trump's platform and plan for his first 100 days includes items that the Republicans have been trying to get passed for decades but have been unsuccessful. Most notably are proposals to build the Keystone XL pipeline, to further cut taxes on the wealthy and to repeal Obamacare.

Republican presidential candidates have not been able to win the popular vote since the 1980s. Let that sink in for a moment. At least two of the Republicans' three 'wins' since the '80s were the result of election tampering. A strategy for wealthy donors to superfund Republican candidates for state legislatures after the 2010 census resulted in more Republicans getting elected and therefore charged with re-drawing Congressional district maps. The maps were heavily gerrymandered to benefit Republicans in future Congressional House elections. In the past few elections, Republicans have won more seats in the House although the Democrats won more votes.

Constantly rebuked at the polls, the Republican Party scored big by having Trump run in their party and to win the nomination. Now, the Trump supporters that trust everything he says--even though he's been proven to be a compulsive liar--are eager to support the policies that they rejected repeatedly when proposed by Republican "insiders".

There are a some very good parts of Trump's platform too. Unfortunately, they would require Trump to convince members of Congress to slit their own throats, such as the plans to impose term limits on members of Congress, to close the revolving door between Congress and lobbying firms and to strengthen ethics rules for the legislature. Some of these things could get done through state conventions but I do not credit Trump with the intelligence to know that. Even if he figures it out, I don't see him spending the political capital on these efforts. If I am wrong and Trump actually accomplishes these things, it could potentially make his presidency a net positive change for the country, no matter how badly he may screw up everything else. I say this because, to my knowledge, these issues have never been part of a major party 's platform.

There are many reasons that I'm so skeptical of Trump's sincerity on these issues. They would be major benefits to the American people yet Trump has hardly spoken about them in any of the debates or on the campaign trail. That is strange for a candidate that considers himself a populist. You may also recall that Trump complained many times that the Republican primary was rigged against him when the Republican establishment tried every parliamentary tactic imaginable to bump Trump from the lead and knock him out of contention for the nomination. Trump had a legitimate complaint but, once he won the nomination, he declared that he no longer cared that the primary system is rigged. For those perceptive enough to hear that dog whistle, it was a clear statement to reassure the Republican and Democratic establishment that if he became president, he would not try to fix the election system that benefits the Republican/Democratic duopoly and steals democratic power from citizens. This does not sit well with me since I do still care about our elections not being fair, accurate and transparent. Trump knowing how undemocratic our election system is and not caring enough to try to fix it is a good clue as to where his loyalties actually lie.

So where are we headed in the next four years? It's really anybody's guess. Trump's positions turn 180 degrees at any moment so he may do the opposite of what he campaigned on. I think the most likely outcome is that the Republican Party wish list will get passed immediately and the policies that are actually populist will languish and be forgotten about. In a few years, Trump will give his last State of the Union Address and list his accomplishments as president: Tax cuts for the rich! Pipelines to benefit the rich! Deregulation to benefit Wall Street and polluters! Hopefully, fixing the VA will make that list but I'm not going to hold my breath on that.

~R. Charan Pagan
information systems technologist, musician, writer, filmmaker
Los Angeles, CA 90017
http://www.reclaimingourbirthright.blogspot.com/

Examining Donald Trump's Harebrained Schemes

Donald J. Trump (our next president?)

Donald Trump became the Republican nominee at their convention in Cleveland, OH this week. The convention had its controversies, scandals and surprises.

Unsurprisingly, Trump again proposed to build a wall on the border of Mexico and to deport all of the country's undocumented workers. And he again pledged to be tough on terrorism. These are two of Trump's most notable positions and two that can use very close examination...

I. BORDER WALL AND IMMIGRATION POLICY

Trump's idea to build a wall on the border of Mexico is a position tailor made for the ignorant. Although we do need to be able to control our border and know who is entering our country, there are many reasons why blaming illegal immigrants for our country's problems and proposing to build a wall and deport them is insane.

I'll list some of those reasons in a moment but the most bewildering aspect of proposing to build a giant wall on the border of Mexico is that it is an attempt to use a Stone Age solution to solve a modern problem. I'm surprised that nobody in the media has picked up on this. To me, it is akin to John F. Kennedy declaring that "we are going to the moon... by constructing a giant ladder!"

Trump may not know it but we are living in the Digital Age. A network of sensors, satellites and aerial drones would be far more effective at preventing unauthorized entry into our country than a wall. Such a  system could be implemented in much less time than it would take to build a wall. But Donald Trump lacks the vision to imagine things beyond the comprehension of a Neanderthal.

So why is Trump's policy on illegal immigration ignorant and ill-advised?

1.   Many illegal immigrants came to the United States because they were recruited by US companies, looking to hire cheap laborers. Cracking down on these companies would be the way to end the problem of Mexican workers crossing the border.

2.   Illegal border crossings is currently at net zero.

3.   NAFTA is partly responsible for the economic conditions in Mexico that have driven workers to the US. Our corrupt leaders colluded with the corrupt leaders of Mexico and the workers in both countries got the shaft. It does not make sense to blame the victims on the opposite side of the border instead of the politicians that passed the trade deal.

4.   Undocumented immigrants commit less crime than native born citizens. Even the oft vilified shooting of a woman in San Francisco by an illegal immigrant was most likely the result of an accidental firearm discharge and ricochet, for which Francisco Lopez Sanchez may not have even been responsible.

5.   Undocumented immigrants are likely to have a net positive effect on our economy.

6.   Without cheap immigrant labor picking fruits and vegetables and processing meat, many Americans would not be able to afford groceries. A nation-wide food shortage may also result, as when individual states have attempted to crack down on undocumented workers, millions of dollars of crops rotted in the fields with no-one to pick them.

7.   Only about half of illegal immigrants are Mexicans. Most of our country's illegal aliens did not sneak across our borders. They arrived by plane with a work, student or tourist visa. Then they over-stay their visas.

8.   A wall on the border of Mexico is highly unfeasible. The 1,200 mile border has about 500 miles of terrain so rugged that it would be inaccessible to work crews and equipment. Trump would be long out of office before construction of the wall could ever be completed.

9.   In an experiment, the previously-proposed border wall could be climbed over in less than 12 minutes. It took less than half that time to cut though it. And the wall could be tunneled under in about three minutes.

10. Undocumented workers do the worst jobs in the country for peanuts. Most US citizens would not do the jobs that immigrants do or they would demand much more money, which would make the products un-affordable for most people.

II. TORTURE

Trump criticizes George W. Bush for going into Iraq (although he didn't voice his objections until we were already there for a year). Trump has also stated that he would bring back waterboarding and other methods of torture. Personally, I would want a leader that is intelligent enough to connect the dots between the ill-advised invasion of Iraq and the torture that produced some of the flawed intelligence that got us into that war.

Trump's support for torture is another appeal to the ignorant because there is no evidence that torture produces useful information that cannot be obtained without it. Most experts proclaim that torture does not produce useful intelligence but other methods of extracting information do. CIA Director John Brennan admitted that torture tactics did not lead to the killing of Osama bin laden. The Useful information that was gathered leading to the killing of bin Laden was obtained before Hassan Ghul was waterboarded.

Trump is apparently willing to trade our security and our reputation for the self-aggrandizing purpose of appearing to be a "tough" leader. Why so many people are not as concerned about their leader being effective is anybody's guess.

In World War II, Nazis were proactive about finding methods of torturing and killing people that wouldn't emotionally scar their soldiers and operatives. What does it say about the United States that so many of our citizens and politicians clamor for more torture when it has been proven ineffective and it harms the people who torture others?

Here are a few questions that I feel any person should get a reasonable answer to before they consider voting for Donald Trump:

1.   What happens to radical Islamic recruitment after Trump tortures Muslims and murders the families of terrorists?

2.   What happens to journalism, whistleblowing and oversight of government after Trump puts Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning in front of a firing squad and makes the media subservient to politicians?

3.   What happens to the millions of refugees from Alaska, Bangladesh and elsewhere who need to flee their homelands due to rising sea levels? Where are those people going to go and, can we deny them asylum in the United States considering that we are responsible for much of the environmental damage that is causing sea levels to rise? Trump has declared that he thinks climate change is a hoax, yet he wants to build a wall to protect one of his golf resorts from rising sea levels.

Donald Trump may be entertaining to watch and listen to at times but many of his ideas are poorly conceived and dangerous. Not to mention unconstitutional, offensive and ignorant.

Next week the Democrats are expected to nominate Hillary Clinton as their presidential candidate, arguably a worse choice to have in the White House. The 2016 general election is going to be strange, ugly and will likely culminate with the election of one of the worst presidents in modern times.

Perhaps it will result in the beneficial consequence of citizens closely examining our political system and electoral process that allowed two of the worst and least-liked contenders to vie for the highest office in the land. Perhaps one consequence of electing a President Clinton or Trump will be that people will become motivated to change our political process to prevent such catastrophes in the future. One can hope.

~R. Charan Pagan
information systems technologist, musician, writer, filmmaker
Los Angeles, CA 90017
http://www.reclaimingourbirthright.blogspot.com/

No Spoiler Alert

BERNIE by Ted Rall (page 172)

Bernie Sanders joining the Democratic Party is a brilliant move at this time. It has been made impossible for a third party to compete in the political system that is rigged by the Democratic-Republican duopoly. But more importantly,third parties have always been considered to be spoilers. They can siphon votes from a lesser-of-two-evils candidate and leave us with the worst candidate winning the election.

With one of our country's most popular and well-liked independent politicians joining a major party, Bernie Sanders is going to re-shape the Democratic Party in very good ways. It will be more responsive to the needs and concerns of the people in ways the party now is not. If Bernie doesn't win the presidency, he and the movement that is growing behind him will continue to re-shape the debate in ways that favor the middle class and Americans that are struggling.

I don't consider myself a Democrat or Republican. I consider myself an "independent voter" and I support "independent" candidates because they often look at politics from a different perspective than the two main parties. It's not so much about a different ideology. But I am not suggesting that an Independent Party should attempt to rival the two main parties. I understand that doing so would likely be futile and counter-productive. Now that Bernie Sanders has joined the Democratic Party, he will transform it into a party that more resembles what it should be.

BERNIE by Ted Rall (page 176)

The Republican Party needs to do the same with theirs. I've not read a better blue-print for how the government should be run and how our politics should operate than in the book Reclaiming Conservatism by Mickey Edwards, the book to which the name of this blog is a tribute. Why isn't the Republican Party taking themselves in that direction?

Instead, their choices for politicians are ridiculous characters that are equally shady and corrupt as the Democrats. The Republican Party could be a great party by following the correct blue-print. But corruption keeps Republican Politicians from adhering to a more sensible game plan, such as the one that Mickey Edwards lays out in his book. The Democratic Party is currently engaged in this struggle, because of Bernie Sanders.

If we can't figure out how to end corruption, then we cannot ever re-shape the parties. It takes a change in perspective, rather than ideology.

People's ideologies generally do not change. I don't debate issues with people because I think I am going to convince a conservative to vote Democrat or for a liberal to vote Republican. I aim to point out where both parties are failing us and how best to change our political perspective so that our interests are better served. The majority of Americans need to step up, do what politicians cannot and guide this country in the direction that it should be going. This is the remedy that the Bernie Sanders campaign is offering.

BERNIE by Ted Rall (page 174)

We've seen the result of what happens when we leave politicians to making up the rules. Billionaire bankers get bailed out when they behave so recklessly that they crash the world economy, then they pay themselves multi-million dollar bonuses with our tax dollars. More than 125,000 people are prevented from voting in Brooklyn, NY and 27% of the voting population (independent voters) are barred from voting due to onerous rules. In Phoenix, AZ, officials close polling locations in poor and middle class neighborhoods, resulting in absurdly long lines and a very excessive burden for tens of thousands of voters. Every member of Congress has an annual operating budget for their office of up to $4.7 million--am I the only one that finds that excessive?--and why is it that when there are financial troubles, the people that caused them (politicians) are not asked to make any cutbacks?

Let's change our political perspective so that those kinds of issues are prioritized. If we follow the agenda of the Democratic and Republican Parties, such issues will never be addressed. Those legal loopholes and election deficiencies are in place for a reason: to serve the interests of the politicians that created them.

The correct change in perspective that is needed right now, is one that focuses on ending corruption. Policy changes are always going to be perceived as affecting someone's liberty. But nobody's liberties are infringed upon when we attack corruption, when we fight for election integrity, for equal justice for all citizens and for serious fiscal conservatism that looks at all wasteful spending as unacceptable, or when we hold politicians accountable. They are the priorities of a well-managed country.

If we can shift the direction of the two parties, we can have two parties that work for our interests instead of theirs. But it will take a change in our political perspective, not in our ideology.

~R. Charan Pagan
information systems technologist, musician, writer, filmmaker
Los Angeles, CA 90017
http://www.reclaimingourbirthright.blogspot.com/

What Happened to Three Strikes?

The banking giant, HSBC has been in the news a lot. They've had to pay fines in the billions over the past few years. And it's upsetting me a bit that this corporate "person" has committed some very serious crimes and for some reason is not subject to the three strikes rule. Don't we still have a three strikes rule? If so, then HSBC should be given a life sentence, by the letter of the law.

Now, I know that an attorney could easily talk his way around that argument in our court system. But I mean to simply state--and there is no way to really overstate--the absurdity of what goes on in our country. Some of the most devastating, horrific and even treasonous crimes have been committed by this corporate "person". But that "person" is still free to exist and carry on as if no crime had been committed because they gave the government a cut of the profits. If you are a flesh and blood person, you are likely to see a much harsher and more permanent application of the law.

What has HSBC done that is so bad?

The Devastating: In a recent case, HSBC was fined for illegally foreclosing on 112,000 people's homes. In some of these cases, these practices not only illegally took houses away from decent people and caused them grievous financial harm, but it also helped to further depress the housing market. When the proper title to homes are in question, title insurance companies are reluctant to insure them, making houses risky and nearly impossible to sell.

[Photo has been pixelated due to the graphic image]
Sign English translation: ATT: EL CHAPO
DO NOT FORGET THAT I AM YOUR FATHER

The Horrific: HSBC laundered drug money for Mexican drug cartels. So, when you hear of all of the people in Mexico who are found brutally murdered, know that HSBC has played a vital role in helping the murderers conduct business.

The Traitorous: HSBC conducted illegal business with Iran that was forbidden due to economic sanctions on the authoritarian country. Think about this for a moment... when the United States and our ally nations were trying to negotiate a deal with Iran to prevent them from being able to build a nuclear weapon, HSBC was undermining the strength of our bargaining position so that they could make a buck! This is not just an offense against the US government, but it is an offense against all of the people of the world!!!

Iranian nuclear facilities

Republican politicians criticized President Obama, saying that the deal with Iran was "weak". President Obama said that the US got the best deal that we could get. But no politician of either party will point the finger at HSBC and say that they were responsible for undermining our position in the negotiations. With HSBC violating the sanctions against Iran, Iran was under less pressure than they would have been. They certainly would have been willing to give up more for relief if HSBC wasn't already providing some relief from the sanctions, illegally.

When corporations commit horrible crimes, the executives who made the decisions to act illegally need to face criminal charges! Otherwise, the criminal and extremely destructive behavior will continue. When the mortgage crisis was reaching its pinnacle, it was discovered that politicians who were supposed to be keeping an eye on the banks to make sure their operations were above board, were asleep on the job... and getting below market rates on their on personal mortgages from the banks. Those politicians--who acted criminally and failed to perform their job duties--never faced any consequences either.

Considering that corporate crime is extremely costly, destructive and nefarious, would citizens be wise not to make it a primary focus of their efforts? But how can We the People ensure that corporate criminals are held accountable when their cronies in government want to let corporate criminals shirk any accountability? A Citizens' Congress could impose ethics rules on federal politicians that are so strict, that no politician would dare to violate them. And if a politician did violate the stricter ethics rules, they would immediately be removed from office, per a Citizens' Congress established Zero Tolerance policy on corruption.

If you haven't heard of the Citizens' Congress, it's because it doesn't yet exist. But hopefully this article has made a good argument for why we should have a Citizens' Congress. A Citizens Congress could feasibly be formed and operational with just a few months of effort. The continued decline of our country and increased depravity and criminality in government and in business are clear indications that We the People need to engage in politics in different ways in order to effectuate the change we desire but that politicians have consistently failed to deliver on. We need innovative approaches so that our efforts in reforming government can be successful. A Citizens' Congress is one innovative idea that can deliver on major reforms. The old model of supporting and donating to political parties and politicians  has proven to be ineffective.

~R. Charan Pagan
information systems technologist, musician, writer, filmmaker
Los Angeles, CA 90017
http://www.reclaimingourbirthright.blogspot.com/

The truth About the "Takers"

Who is the real burden on society?

According to the right wing, the country is broke because there are too many "takers" in society. According to the right wing, these "takers" will vote for whichever candidate offers the most "free candy"--by which they mean welfare, food stamps, unemployment insurance, etc. When in these conversations, I first concede that entitlement spending is out of control and is unsustainable. I also usually find it necessary to point out that the low income people in our country are not the only people after "free candy". For every hundred low wage workers who gets $120 a month in food stamps, there's a big corporation that gets billions of dollars in tax breaks, subsidies and other "free candy" from the government every year. Even politicians, are helping themselves to free taxpayer money.

Mitt Romney was one of the worst candidates that the Republican Party could have picked as their presidential nominee in the 2012 election because his company, Bain Capital, often made money by being one of the biggest takers in the country. They would see a company that employed hundreds of people, giving them capital to spend in the community, which created an environment where other businesses could thrive, and where a healthy community could exist. Bain bought some of those companies and took out huge loans on the companies' credit so that they could pay themselves hundreds of millions of dollars in "management fees". Often times the companies could not pay back the enormous loans and the companies went out of business, the workers were laid off and the entire community took a big hit. Even though the Bain people made out quite well, I'm sure some of the workers lost homes and had to resort to unemployment insurance, food stamps and other forms of government assistance to get by. So, who were the takers in this scenario? It seems to me that he laid-off workers had something taken from them and Bain did the taking.

What's worse is that we, the taxpayers, had to pay for Bain's greed/poor management by providing assistance to the workers that were laid off. As for Bain, they got sweetheart tax rates on their profits because--due to successful lobbying efforts--the government has apparently been convinced that their business model is somehow good for the country. It is the new American business model: collect the profits while leaving the taxpayers responsible for losses and the costs of collateral damages.

Of course, Bain is just one private equity (aka "vulture capital") operation. There are others. And there are banks that illegally foreclosed on peoples' homes, banks that invested peoples' life savings and retirement funds in schemes the banks knew were worthless. All so they could make enormous profits and pass on the bill for the damages to the taxpayers. Now, they call anyone who needs assistance as a result of their schemes a "taker" while they enjoy the title of "job creator". And they are appalled when anyone suggests that they pay back some of their ill-gotten gains by way of higher taxes.

I assume that it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to figure out a way to fairly raise taxes on just the institutions that acted unethically. But I know that every thinking American would agree that carried interest profits should be taxed at the same rate as workers' wages. There is no stimulative effect to the economy from these special tax breaks and it rewards private equity firms for destroying jobs.

So, do you wonder why the pundits on TV who claim to have our best interests in mind don't scream about this issue and urge you daily to call your representatives to eliminate this subsidy for job loss? Could it be that they are paid millions of dollars to create controversy rather than find solutions to problems? Should we stop getting our information and talking points from them and assess for ourselves what issues deserve our immediate, focused attention? Only if we want to improve our country and economy, I suppose.

~R. Charan Pagan
information systems technologist, musician, writer, filmmaker
Los Angeles, CA 90017
http://www.reclaimingourbirthright.blogspot.com/

Some Health Care Issues Examined and Observed In Greater Poltical Context

Who Are the Winners? Who Are the Losers?

Some people claim that eliminating "frivolous" medical malpractice law suits would drastically reduce health care costs. But tort reform is not the game-changer it is claimed to be because the numbers are derived from the assumption that ALL litigation is frivolous and therefore all judgments would be capped at $200,000--or some other arbitrary figure--regardless of the severity of the injury. If you had an operation and the hospital, through their negligence, paralyzed you or removed your healthy kidney instead of your failing one, would $200,000 be adequate compensation? It is not a solution that should be considered. What would give doctors relief from overly burdensome medical malpractice insurance costs would be to force them to pay more in relation to their incidents of negligence. Right now, doctors that never have a claim, pay roughly the same as those that are often negligent and have many claims against them.

The ability to buy and sell insurance across state lines would likely be a good measure for keeping health insurance costs down but it won’t ensure coverage for children who are dying of _________ (fill in the blank) today. The emphasis should be placed on health care first and profits and political ideology second. All of the people controlling the system and the debate would prefer not to have it that way.

But this whole health care issue is a struggle between Republicans, who want to protect the profits of their big campaign donors (insurance companies) and Obama who wants to protect his presidential “legacy” and signature law. Why do we bother fighting to win one of those inconsequential outcomes? We could have far more honest and constructive discussions about health care and all of the partisan sticking points if we first addressed eliminating corruption and creating a fair and honest election system. The reason the misinformation is abound is because politicians want us to vote against our interests and for theirs. So you won’t ever be asked to focus on the corruption and election schemes that both parties engage in. Focusing on those issues doesn’t really help either party and all the politicians are doing just fine with the system as it is. It is only we citizens that suffer. That is the new American Way.

~R. Charan Pagan
information systems technologist, musician, writer, filmmaker
Los Angeles, CA 90017
http://www.reclaimingourbirthright.blogspot.com/

A Winning Strategy for Defeating Obamacare

Is there a problem with this picture?

Defeating/repealing Obamacare is not going to be easy. It is certainly not going to be as easy as pressuring your representatives in Congress to repeal the law. The futile act of doing so costs an estimated $1.4 million every time the Republicans bring it up for a vote in the House, meaning that Republican politicians in Congress have already wasted more than $54 million of your tax dollars. Does this sound like the actions of a fiscally conservative party? Most thinking voters would prefer an approach that would be (a) less costly (repealing Obamacare would actually add more than $109 billion to the national deficit, according to the Congressional Budget Office) and (b) actually be effective. The following is a strategy that would accomplish both of those goals...

Step 1: Stop trying to convince citizens that Obamacare is going to be a disaster. Our system before Obamacare was a disaster so everyone should save their breath instead of warning of the woes of implementing the Affordable Care Act and put their efforts into Step 2 (see below). Anyone--such as I--would prefer to try an alternative to the health care system we had before the ACA if they--such as I--were confronted with a situation of being denied care because it would be more profitable for the insurance companies and doctors if they pretend that you did not have a problem or that the problem could not be treated. Being in that situation has personally cost me over $20,000 in medical expenses; at least several thousand dollars of wasted insurance premiums, co-payments and related expenses; and an inestimable amount of money in lost productivity and failed potential. A price cannot be placed on the anger and frustration of being denied health care so that others could profit while you struggle financially as well as medically. Imagine yourself in that situation. Would it be acceptable to you?

Republican politicians like to paint support for Obamacare as a desire to get something for nothing. This characterization may satisfy some, but many of us recognize it a as an opportunity to ensure getting what you pay for from an industry that would prefer to stiff their customers after taking their money.

The other reason some citizens will never accept the arguments that Obamacare will be a disaster and lead to the financial ruin of the country and/or ruin our health care system is because the people who are making those claims also claimed that George W. Bush's Medicare Part D program would cost $400 billion over ten years, under-estimating the actual cost* by more than half. (By the way, Medicare Part D is responsible for much of the national debt which Obama is currently being blamed for. Yeah, I dislike Obama as President but I am just trying to be honest here. I don't dislike him so much that I would be dishonest in an attempt to discredit the man or his job performance. There are enough honest arguments about him to do that sufficiently.)

The same people that drastically underestimated Medicare Part D also underestimated the cost and efficacy of the Iraq War and other predictions that seriously call their credibility into question.

[For anyone that hasn't figured it out: like any other political issue, there are two sets of liars, one on each side. Each will say whatever will help achieve their political objective and we are left to sort out all of the BS. We cannot have an honest debate about health care, or any other issue, until we eliminate corruption from government. Then the politicians will have no reason to be dishonest and shady. Since we haven't figured that out and we haven't made eliminating corruption our top priority, we deal with the consequences.]

Step 2: Demand a better law than Obamacare. Many people find going back to the US healthcare system before Obamacare untenable. The reason is that--as I stated before--the system was broken and left many people vulnerable and/or victimized. Even prominent Republcians such as Clint Murphy now support Obamacare. Why? Because he has cancer and has never been able to get health insurance coverage due to that pre-existing condition. Obamacare changed that and now he has affordable health care.

Could Obamacare still be a disaster? Of course it could. Although, I know nothing in the law that leads me to believe that that will be the case. But someone with cancer who can finally get affordable health care to treat it will likely prefer to take the small risk of some negative outcome in exchange for the very likely positive outcome that they would stand to receive, personally. And, I feel that any compassionate person would support that.

The only viable avenue for repealing Obamacare is to replace it with a plan that addresses the same concerns in a smarter way. I imagine that few people are married  to Obamacare and they would embrace any health care reform that would address all of the issues that Obamacare does. If Republicans came up with an alternative plan that was smarter and could be implemented more easily, I suspect that many Obamacare supporters would embrace it. I would. Unfortunately, Republicans do not want that. I suspect that they are far more concerned that Obamacare may be successful than they are that it might be a disaster. For them, Obamacare being successful would be a disaster for their party. That is what the fight is really about. As with all issues, politicians seek political victory, not a solution to a social problem. It is another distinction that we are unfortunately not often intelligent enough to recognize.

Afterward: All of the facts, figures and information above create a solid case for demanding an alternative plan before accepting the repeal of Obamacare. Is it all lies and BS from the "liberal media"? Perhaps. although not likely, considering I got the information from various sources which have been corroborated by many other sources that I have found to be incredibly accurate and trustworthy over the years. If it is all lies and BS, then where are the real numbers? Do you have them? Please share them if you do. Otherwise, to say that this is all lies and BS makes you political operative. It is lazy, unfounded activism and it is 'phoning it in'.

*The Forbes article linked to admittedly contains some spin but the dollar figures in it and facts concerning the legislation are completely accurate, according to my recollection.

~R. Charan Pagan
information systems technologist, musician, writer, filmmaker
Los Angeles, CA 90017
http://www.reclaimingourbirthright.blogspot.com/