Health care, some more.

There seems to be a lot of talk about insurance coverage portability. This talk comes from the same folks who are adamantly against any kind of single-payer coverage, let alone the so-called public option. I have to say, the idea of portability WITHOUT a single-payer plan is just smoke. If you work for a company that provides you with coverage from Humana, and you leave that job to work for a company that uses Humana, then should be able to reasonably expect to get some kind of portability. You don’t have it now. If the company you work for has 2000 employees and the company you move to only has 50, you will pay more for the same coverage, even though it is from the same company. They have some kind of convoluted explanation for why this is, but you have to live in a fantasy world to begin to believe it. If you, however, move to a company that uses Aetna for coverage, you cannot expect to be able to carry your same coverage with you. The two different insurance providers are not going to offer the same plans or the same prices. The only possible way we can remove the ties between our insurance coverage and our jobs is to go with a single-payer plan, like most of the rest of the industrialized world has.
Consider, also, that the only real way to provide health care fairly, as a right, is to do away with the for-profit health insurance companies. I know, that would put a lot of people out of business. But, I don't remember anyone crying when Texas Instruments invented the calculator and put numerous abacus companies out of business. How do we pay for it? I'm glad you asked. My family pays just over 5 thousand dollars a year to my health insurance provider. It then pays out dividends to its shareholders, 18 million dollars a year to its CEO, and who knows how much more to the rest of its executives. Far far more than any government worker makes, you can be sure. Then, to ensure that their bottom line is nice and healthy, they deny me services like the (apparently) recreational colonoscopy my doctor wanted me to have.
If we take that 5 grand a year and instead pay it to the federal health care plan, we can probably push a lot of that 5k back into my bank account. There are no government employees pulling down an 18 mil a year salary. Nor are there any making anywhere near what probably the top 20 execs at just my insurance company make.
If my insurance provider can make the kind of profit required to justify the salary of its top executives by charging me 5000 a year, then I have to assume that the government can provide me with coverage for far less. Of course, it would also require that they hire honest people to administer. Maybe I am living a fantasy, too.
Some will say that this reeks of socialism. Yes, it does. So do public schools and hospitals, police forces, fire departments, military, and any number of other benefits we have that most of us pay for and all of us use.

Tell your kids to drop out

In 1988, Ronald Reagan, a white Republican president, addressed the students of America in a televised speech. He spoke about how tax cuts increase revenue, gun control, and a few other partisan subjects. I, for one, do not remember anyone having an aneurysm over that speech. Now, 21 years later, Barack Obama, a black Democrat president, wants to give a speech on the importance of staying in school, getting good grades, and taking responsibility for one’s own education. People are apoplectic, claiming a fear that he will deliver a speech laden with partisan politics. Folks are promising to keep their kids out of school that day. Excuse me? Are these people stupid? The White House and the US Department of Education have both averred that this speech will be over nothing but the importance of getting a good education. There will be no political agenda attached, unless you can consider keeping kids in school an agenda. The president of the United States of America wants to tell your child how important it is for him or her to be a good student and you don’t want your child to participate? There is no way anyone is going to convince me that this isn’t, at best, partisan in the extreme, or, at worst, racist. I do not claim to know the motives of parents on this issue, but I do claim to know that they are idiots. Keeping your child out of school for this occasion not only sends them a message that it is perfectly all right to disrespect the office of the President, but also that it is all right to skip school because you do not agree with the content of the day’s activities. I wish this had been an option when I was in school; I can’t think of many days I would have attended. Reagan preached the necessity of cutting taxes for the richest amongst us, apparently believing that rich folks will voluntarily pass on those riches that we, the peons, pay extra for them to keep. This didn’t raise an eyebrow. Apparently the right has no problem with a president delivering a speech, even if it is partisan, to schoolchildren, as long as he is a Republican.